Latest / Living Waters of Grace / Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland Sunday Services / 1 Corinthians 16 - Intentional Heart-Centered Giving
Transcript
- 0:00Is designated from a church budget that George establishes
- 0:04with the help of the leaders. And we have categories of, of
- 0:08spending for, you know, like the overhead of the church.
- 0:13You know, our rent here and utilities, you know, run us
- 0:17probably 90,000 a year that comes.
- 0:21We pay that because of what you guys were able to give.
- 0:24We have other expenses. We have, I believe it's 13
- 0:27people on payroll. No one's getting rich here and
- 0:31no one's making more than what the average person would make in
- 0:36a job out there. Some people are part time.
- 0:40We also have the expenses of, of Grace FM, which is is pretty
- 0:45high to, to run the radio station, the the building out
- 0:50front. We've been praying about
- 0:52possibly expanding. This used to be 1 big building
- 0:56with the Family Dollar when they were there.
- 0:58They're gone now and the landlord said you guys might
- 1:03want their clothes, right? Whatever goes out of business,
- 1:05I'm thinking, well, that's never going to go out of business.
- 1:07Well, guess what? They're out of business or their
- 1:09clothes, right? So there's 8000 square feet
- 1:12there and we love to be able to do that.
- 1:14So we, we talked to the landlord, had you guys praying
- 1:18about it and they want $18.00 a square foot, which is like more
- 1:22than we can afford. We, we spend about, it's about I
- 1:27think it's $5.60 a square feet, square foot for 13,000 square
- 1:33feet, which we have here. So we're not going to go and
- 1:36spend that and triple that to have that small space upfront.
- 1:40So pray that the landlord might change his mind because the
- 1:44sign's been up for a long time and no one's talking about
- 1:47renting it. So maybe they might come back to
- 1:49us and say, hey, you know, this might be good for you guys,
- 1:51we're going to give you a better deal.
- 1:53So if they would, then we could expand and, and have that space.
- 1:57And then we also have a fund of savings for future need if down
- 2:02the road something opens up. There's a church that contacted
- 2:06us a while back that may be interested in selling their
- 2:09property. And it's, it's a really nice
- 2:11facility and we would have it as our own instead of renting.
- 2:15But in order to do that, we have to have money to do that, right?
- 2:18And we wouldn't ever do anything to put the church in financial
- 2:21upheaval or pressure. You know, it's something we're
- 2:24just praying about. But we we habitually save also.
- 2:28So there there is maybe something to help us down down
- 2:32the road in the future. So giving is an act of worship.
- 2:38It's it's not they're leaving. They don't like the message.
- 2:40Our money. I'm just kidding.
- 2:47You know it, it's it's part of the worship like we sing, we
- 2:51worship, we're in the word, we worship, we take communion where
- 2:54we worship and giving is part of our worship.
- 2:58Jesus said seek first the Kingdom of God and his
- 3:03righteousness and everything else you have need of will be
- 3:06added to you. So the more you understand that
- 3:09concept and you put God first in your budget, the more and this
- 3:15isn't a prosperity message your gospel here.
- 3:17It's just the reality of if you, if you so abundantly, you'll
- 3:22reap abundantly. Cindy and I always and I didn't
- 3:26have much money when we first married.
- 3:29We always understood the principle of giving and it was
- 3:31always the number one line item in our budget.
- 3:35You know, had mortgages and cars and raising kids and all that
- 3:38kind of stuff, entertainment, vacation, those are all part of
- 3:41the budget. But we all, we, we never
- 3:44circumvented putting God first in our finances and he's, he's
- 3:48blessed us because of that. We've never been in a situation
- 3:52where we've been out of work or needed to beg for money from our
- 3:57parents or anything like that. He's just provided so
- 4:00faithfully. So it's a principle of giving.
- 4:04Jesus says layout for yourselves.
- 4:07Treasures in heaven versus treasures on earth, where
- 4:12treasures on earth moth and rust corrupt and thieves break in,
- 4:15steal away cars rest as great as it is when you get a new car,
- 4:21eventually it's not a new car anymore.
- 4:23It's dinged up, right, John? And that's how you make money
- 4:25fixing cars that are dinged up it it's funny, man, you ride
- 4:30passes graveyards of cars and you see that all those, all that
- 4:34metal in there rusted away. And how much did we spend for
- 4:38our cars at one time, right? You got to be cautious about
- 4:42that, I guess, But and then you know, people can rob you.
- 4:46I remember when we were first married, we lived in a motel
- 4:48room as efficiency in Atlantic City.
- 4:50And somehow someone got in the door with a key and I didn't
- 4:53have it locked properly. And next thing I know I wake up
- 4:56and someone's in a room. Like thank God I chased him out
- 5:01and and we had our money, our paycheck in our pockets of our
- 5:05pants instead of on the table. So he didn't get much.
- 5:07He got a camera and I think A8 track tape recorder or
- 5:11something. And that was, that was it, you
- 5:13know, but it was gone. And, you know, we didn't have a
- 5:16whole lot back then. But when you find that you, you
- 5:21have a budget and, and you got to, you got to pay your bills,
- 5:25you got to pay your taxes, you got to take care of your kids
- 5:30and your mortgage and your car payments and all the, all the
- 5:33things are important. You never want to not have the
- 5:37Lord in your, your budget because this is, this is what
- 5:40this is about. Because of them being faithful
- 5:44in how they manage the offerings.
- 5:47They didn't have to tell the people, hey, these people in
- 5:50Jerusalem need some help. So we're going to have another
- 5:53offering today. It was already there available.
- 5:56So we have that in the bank account for crisis as we have
- 6:00that in the bank account for benevolence.
- 6:02When someone in our, our Community Church here is in
- 6:06crisis, we're able to help them and, and help them get through
- 6:09some tough times temporarily. And, and that's a blessing.
- 6:13So this is the purpose of, of the giving.
- 6:16And it wasn't a duty, but it was a responsibility.
- 6:21And it wasn't like, I'll give whenever I feel like it.
- 6:23It was systematic where like every week or every month, some
- 6:28people give by month, some people give by week, whatever.
- 6:32It was like program like I, I can't tell Verizon like or my
- 6:37cell phone. Hey, you know, I'm a little
- 6:38tapped out this month. I'm not going to pay my bill.
- 6:41Guess what, I'm not going to have any cell service or my gas
- 6:44bill or my water bill or my electric bill.
- 6:47And but it's, it's interesting how I don't know we, we know
- 6:50those things are important, but we don't think about God's
- 6:53Kingdom that way. But but God doesn't need our
- 6:56money like he he can, He does what he doesn't regardless of of
- 7:00what you give or what I give, but we get a privilege of being
- 7:03part of that giving right. And and so he says in my
- 7:06father's house are many mansions.
- 7:08If it were not so, I would have told you.
- 7:10And if I told you I'd go to prepare a place for you that
- 7:13where I am, you may be also, guess what?
- 7:16There's going to be mansions in heaven.
- 7:18And whatever you invest in God's Kingdom will be somehow tied
- 7:22into the type of place you have in heaven.
- 7:25I don't know what it's going to be like.
- 7:26There's no socialism in heaven. And, and it's interesting, the
- 7:31Lord knows who's who's on his team and who's really involved
- 7:35in supporting his Kingdom and those who are sort of
- 7:38lackadaisical about it, right? And so, but we won't be thinking
- 7:42like we get to heaven, boy, why does Eichelberger have that big
- 7:45house? And I have a small one, right?
- 7:48And the Lord said, well, well, Steve was really focused on my
- 7:50Kingdom. And, you know, he, he, he was
- 7:53really, you know, studious and he gave his income.
- 7:55And I know you helped too, Clark, but you didn't help us.
- 7:58And it's not be that way, OK, we're not going to be jealous or
- 8:02wondering why, why that, but but the ability to experience the
- 8:05Kingdom in a in a deeper and richer way is going to be
- 8:08predicated on how much you were involved in in that Kingdom.
- 8:12And so that's why he says invest in treasures that aren't on
- 8:17earth, but invest in treasures in heaven.
- 8:20And so the early church met on Sundays and that was not out of
- 8:24coincidence because Jesus rose from the dead on Resurrection
- 8:28Sunday. And we just left chapter 15
- 8:31where it talked about the resurrection.
- 8:33And now we're in 16 and he's talking to them about meeting on
- 8:38the first day of the week, which is, which is Sunday.
- 8:41So Paul didn't ask for special collections.
- 8:43He assumed and, and, and planned on that church being prepared to
- 8:48help with this crisis in Jerusalem, which they were able
- 8:52to do. We have a big missionary focus
- 8:56in this church and we'll talk about that in a minute.
- 8:59The missionaries we support, why we do and all that kind of
- 9:02stuff. But giving is a personal,
- 9:05individual deal, has nothing to do with me or anybody else.
- 9:11It's between you and God. And giving helps with outreach.
- 9:16It enables us to do things that we could never do without being
- 9:20a team together and what it is we do do here.
- 9:24One of the the toughest things when you're a pastor is when
- 9:27there's a snow day and your church got to close, right.
- 9:31The church is closed. Guess what, there's no offering
- 9:34that Sunday, right? And so God catches up with it.
- 9:38But I I looked at that Sunday that it snowed.
- 9:40The church lost $7000 that week. That's a lot of money, right?
- 9:44Does it the, the catch up? Well, the Lord where he guys, he
- 9:48provides and the church has caught up.
- 9:49But we don't have to worry about, you know, the finances
- 9:53because as long as we do it the right way, God's going to bless
- 9:56the finances. But everything's based upon
- 9:59Matthew 2820 where the Great Commission says go into all the
- 10:04world and preach the gospel to every living creature.
- 10:07In order to do that and to send people out and to plant churches
- 10:11and have missionaries, it requires revenue or cash.
- 10:17God tells us that we're to give as he's prospered us In Second
- 10:21Corinthians Chapter 9 verse 7, it says we're to give
- 10:24cheerfully, not out of constraint or guilt trip.
- 10:28I love this verse. It says let each one give as he
- 10:31purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity.
- 10:35For God loves a cheerful giver. So if you're not cheerful and
- 10:40giving, don't give. Don't, don't.
- 10:42Whatever you do, do not give because it's going to burn.
- 10:46Don't think like, well, you know, I, I should help this
- 10:49church out. So I'll throw 5 or 10 bucks in
- 10:51the box on the way out. But I really don't want to do
- 10:54that because I'd rather go to Longhorn for lunch, right?
- 10:57But you know, if you're thinking that way, don't give.
- 11:00You know, God only wants you to give if you have a heart and a
- 11:03desire to give, right? It's supposed to be joyful, not
- 11:07a not a like have to, but I want to.
- 11:10I remember one of our teachers in Bible colleges, a funny
- 11:13story, he was talking about the word to give hilariously.
- 11:16And what does that mean? And I don't know if he was a
- 11:19golfer or whatever, but he said, yeah, it's like you're playing
- 11:22golf and you get a hole in one and you're so excited.
- 11:25You go to the 19th hole where people have a beer or a glass of
- 11:29wine or coke or whatever their interest in drink, and he goes
- 11:32in, he's so happy because he got that hole in one.
- 11:34He's a drinks for everyone and he doesn't care about how much
- 11:38it's going to cost. He's just so excited.
- 11:40He got the hole in one. And so this sort of an
- 11:43interesting concept that you want to have that kind of energy
- 11:47and that kind of joy and giving cheerfully and you you give
- 11:51proportionally. Like obviously everybody has
- 11:54different budgets. Some people are really tight to
- 11:57the line and they're only able to give a certain amount based
- 12:00upon their income. Some people say you give 10%.
- 12:03Well, I know people that are focused on giving 2030405060.
- 12:08There was a guy, RJ Letourneau had an engineering school in
- 12:12Texas. He was very wealthy, aerospace
- 12:15kind of guy, long before aerospace was a big deal.
- 12:18He's an engineer in flight communications and Letourneau
- 12:23Institute and he wanted to challenge God based upon what
- 12:27God bless them with. He said, Lord, I want to
- 12:29eventually live on 10% of what I get.
- 12:32God made that guy so wealthy multimillionaire that the 10%
- 12:37was nothing. He eventually was able to give
- 12:3990%. Very fascinating story.
- 12:43So people give as God purposes in their heart.
- 12:48So if I'm making say 500,000 a year, which I don't, I wish I
- 12:51did, but I don't, 50,000 is 10%. Well, someone else is making
- 12:5810,000 a year gives 1000. I'm, I'm not any better than the
- 13:03person that's given the one proportionately, but if God's
- 13:07blessing me and I have bandwidth financially that I can afford to
- 13:11give to his work and his work isn't thus Calvary Chapel.
- 13:14It's every ministry around the world that you might be
- 13:16compelled to be involved with. If I'm making 500, maybe I can
- 13:21afford to give 30,030% of my income or someone else has given
- 13:2610%, but there's no number on what God says you give as far as
- 13:30percent, 10% is a good place to start, but it how can you out
- 13:35give God? And if God says to me, Clark, I
- 13:38want 10% of what you have, I'm thinking that's a deal, Lord, I
- 13:42can keep 90%, right? That's what it was like in the
- 13:47Old Testament, 10% was a very small percentage of everything
- 13:51got in, entrusted the people with right.
- 13:54So those who earn more obviously have the ability to give more.
- 14:02So what percent is that? Well, that's something you and
- 14:04the wife or the family or individual, you, you, you get
- 14:07before the Lord and you talk about your budget and then you
- 14:10manage what it is that He's given you.
- 14:12Now in this church, George is the pastoral financial manager
- 14:17of the assets of the church along with the elders.
- 14:21And we vote on things and we pray together before we do
- 14:24anything. No one does anything
- 14:25arbitrarily. Lewis and I have no ability to
- 14:28control anything that happens here.
- 14:31It's through the body of Christ and through the leadership.
- 14:33We pray and we steward what it is that God entrusts us with.
- 14:40So the books are always open. If you're ever concerned about
- 14:43anything, you can ask George and he'll show you the categories
- 14:46and what the church has done. If you're, if you're a serious
- 14:50person who gives and you have any time the opportunity to get
- 14:53a hold of him. If you're concerned about
- 14:55anything regarding how the church handles its money, we
- 14:58have nothing to hide. Total 100% transparency.
- 15:03If you don't give, then you really have no business looking
- 15:06at the budget, right? If you give 2%, I don't know, I
- 15:11don't think you should really even be concerned about the
- 15:13budget. But if you're giving a
- 15:14significant amount of your income and you're questioning or
- 15:17you're ever concerned, you always can look at it and we
- 15:20have nothing to hide. So enough's enough, right?
- 15:30I covered enough of that, right? Does anybody not understand what
- 15:34I said? Is everybody, anybody like what
- 15:37I said? Raise your hand because anybody
- 15:40don't like what I said, raise your hand.
- 15:42OK, we'll talk outside. Get your boxing gloves on.
- 15:45OK. We're going to talk about
- 15:46missions now, right? And what what happens in the
- 15:48church regarding regarding missions.
- 15:51I'm going to move his chair here so I can see a little bit
- 15:53better. So put the first slide up.
- 15:58This is Joy in and Hope Coda. Hope grew up at Calvary Chapel.
- 16:05She was a teenager, young girl, used to sit in the back, never
- 16:07talk. We're really shy.
- 16:09Her and her husband, Christian, they're both church planners
- 16:12now. And as coming out of this
- 16:14church, this is a fruit of this ministry and we want to be
- 16:18involved in helping them with what it is that they do.
- 16:22So there are significant missionary support team.
- 16:26They're in Chile working with young girls, Bible studies,
- 16:30outreach. Chili's a predominantly dead
- 16:33country as far as Christianity, and so there's a lot of work to
- 16:36do, but they're they're planning the church there.
- 16:40She was involved in the Calvary Chapel Bible College in Peru
- 16:44and, and met her husband Julia in there.
- 16:47And and so they got married and then they had a heart to go
- 16:52plant a church in a unreached community and country.
- 16:55So that's where where they are in Chile.
- 16:58They just glow for the Lord. Very, very humble, just just a
- 17:05real blessing. And I saw her at the pastors
- 17:08conference last year. And sometimes you, you see the
- 17:10countenance of someone and she just glowed.
- 17:15She was so beautiful. I said, are you pregnant?
- 17:18You know, usually when women get pregnant, they glow, right?
- 17:21And he's. Her husband said, no, no, I
- 17:23don't think she's pregnant. Yeah.
- 17:24No, it was Jesus. She was so excited about what he
- 17:30was going to do in Chile. And so pray for them.
- 17:34That's one of our main missionaries.
- 17:36Next one is the Marquis. Marquis.
- 17:39Wonderful people. They were in Ukraine, Budapest.
- 17:43Eventually they had to flee Ukraine in the midst of the war.
- 17:47They're in Budapest now, planting other churches, but
- 17:50still going back and forth to Ukraine, helping the the people
- 17:54who are leaving Ukraine and going to different parts of the
- 17:58country like Budapest, Hungary. And that's where they live now.
- 18:04His father was a dear friend of mine.
- 18:07I met him at a pastors conference when there was only
- 18:09200 of us there. And now there's almost 2000 of
- 18:12us now Calvary and East Coast. And we developed such a close
- 18:15friendship. He, he said, Clark, would you
- 18:18come to Ukraine and help me there?
- 18:20I said, man, I just started this church a month ago.
- 18:23I said, I believe I'm supposed to stay there at the, at the
- 18:27church in Greensburg. But he had such a heart.
- 18:30And so he came out and, and shared and, and this he planted
- 18:34over 2530 churches in Ukraine, 2530 churches in Ukraine.
- 18:41And so hold on just for a second with the Marquis, his wife is
- 18:46writing a book on what it's like to be a wife of a pastor.
- 18:50All, all his sons are on fire for the Lord.
- 18:53And so so we support them as Calvary Chapel missionaries.
- 18:58Next one's the bail bonds. Anybody remember Christian on
- 19:02the left when you came or some of you folks remember him when
- 19:05you were here in the church? Christian Belmont, Just you
- 19:10remember him, don't you, Christian?
- 19:13Wonderful. Remember how shy he was, him and
- 19:15Hope and now him and his wife. He's married, got a couple
- 19:18beautiful kids. That's his mother-in-law or I
- 19:22think it's his pastor and his wife.
- 19:24They visit him. They're in Albania and so
- 19:26they've just started the church and go to the next slide.
- 19:30They, they grew up obviously at Calvary here Westmoreland.
- 19:34And so we, we support them. And next slide, that's one of
- 19:41their Bible studies. Next slide, that's their church,
- 19:45very humble, small at this point in time, but the Lord is
- 19:48beginning to, to fill it up. See where are we going next
- 19:53year? This is Pakistan.
- 19:55That's Phi Lehman. He's been a dear friend of mine
- 19:58since the church started. He's on the left.
- 20:01His dad was a pastor in Pakistan.
- 20:04His dad preached in our church and many, many years ago, very
- 20:08humble man. He took his shoes off when he
- 20:10went to the pulpit because he said that sacred holy ground,
- 20:13that was their culture. And that's a very impoverished
- 20:17area. 1% maybe Christian. Philemon had to flee the country
- 20:23for religious persecution, passing Bibles out.
- 20:26His friend was martyred. He came back home.
- 20:28His family was left there. They were safe and took him two
- 20:32or three years to get them to the US And we helped with that.
- 20:36And they live in Philadelphia now.
- 20:39But he goes back and forth to Pakistan so that we've been
- 20:42supporting them forever. Next slide more pictures of the
- 20:47kids in Pakistan that they help. Next slide this is Paul and Pat
- 20:53diet sort of distorted but he was one of the missionaries new
- 20:57tribes mission when we Cindy and I went to Bible college and he's
- 21:02like a hero to me. I was 20, some early 20s and he
- 21:05was in his mid 40s and good looking strong guy and this a
- 21:10real pioneer. He get down the riverboat, you
- 21:13know, to these unreached people groups in Venezuela and learn
- 21:16the languages. His dad was one of the first
- 21:19martyrs at New Tribes. He lost his dad when he was a
- 21:22little boy, but he grew up and his mom was one of the groups of
- 21:26people that went back to the people that killed his father to
- 21:29share the gospel and they eventually got saved.
- 21:32And because of that, there's so much new birth in the jungles of
- 21:35Venezuela. And Paul, he was captured in a
- 21:39plane. They took his plane and he, he
- 21:41was, he thought he was going to die.
- 21:42And, and his story and remarkable, he told it in the
- 21:46church here a couple times and how he was able to sneak out in
- 21:49the middle of the night. The people, the guards were
- 21:51blinded. They couldn't see him moving
- 21:53around. He was able to get into the
- 21:55plane. There was just enough gas to get
- 21:57out of the jungle and and get safe again.
- 22:00This amazing, amazing story, Paul, Paul die, they're still
- 22:05alive. He's been battling cancer.
- 22:07He was involved with flight training, training missionary
- 22:11pilots and now he works in prison ministry.
- 22:14So they just sent us a card recently.
- 22:16Next slide, This is a Dawson's working in Venezuela.
- 22:22They use the Google Maps to find like different places in in the
- 22:26jungle. They used to think that they had
- 22:28reached most of the people there and all of a sudden they see
- 22:30these openings and the openings represent where people are are
- 22:34migrating. They're nomadic people.
- 22:37And so when they move around their jungle huts, they just
- 22:40destroy them. They've taken pretty much all
- 22:43the produce or whatever was available there at the time.
- 22:46And then they moved to another place and they've been there.
- 22:49Mike's my age, his mom and dad are missionaries.
- 22:54They went there when she was pregnant with, I think Gary, his
- 22:58brother. And when they got off the plane,
- 23:01the missionaries they were replacing, they said to them,
- 23:05you guys got to be the biggest fools I've ever met.
- 23:07And the guy says, why you bring your kids down here to this baby
- 23:11and then this jungle. And then, well, the Lord did
- 23:13miracles through this couple and the mom and dad were there and
- 23:17now they're with the Lord and, and the kids have been there for
- 23:20over 50 years or 60 years now. And next slide, they were the
- 23:25first. This is a tribe here that
- 23:27they're sharing the torches with.
- 23:29We talked about last fall, little device that has a light
- 23:33on empowered by sun energy. And then it has the gospel in
- 23:39their own dialect language, which is remarkable.
- 23:43And it also has the Jesus information on Jesus movement
- 23:47movie and all that. They go around, they take
- 23:49projector and they go into these villages at night and they show
- 23:53the the Jesus movie and the passion of Christ.
- 23:56And these people never saw a movie before.
- 23:59So hundreds of them get together and they don't move.
- 24:01They just sit there. And then the tears start coming
- 24:04down their eyes because they start to realize that Jesus died
- 24:08for them. And because of that, there's
- 24:11believers all over the tribes of Venezuela, and they're so
- 24:14thankful that this horrible government event, Venezuela, has
- 24:18been toppled now so that they can have gas to get into the
- 24:21villages, because that guy that was running it before really
- 24:25made it very, very difficult for the missionaries.
- 24:28So that's the Dawsons, that's the torch there.
- 24:33And that we keep trying to help supply more of those so that
- 24:36they can have more to keep getting the gospel.
- 24:39This is next slide. This is my brother, Pastor Mark
- 24:43Abrams. He spoke at Calvary Philly here
- 24:46from Calgary, Philadelphia, initially.
- 24:48And he's in North Philly now. Big earth when we spoke in our
- 24:51church last year, Very dear, close friend of mine.
- 24:55He's a big earth, wind and fire guy.
- 24:57And anybody like earth, wind and fire in here.
- 24:59Yeah, I always get him to sing. That's the way of the world
- 25:03every time we see each other to Congress, come on, sing some
- 25:06earth, wind and fire for me. But anyway, he's got that high
- 25:09falsetto voice and he's he actually leads the worship
- 25:12there. His voice is unbelievable.
- 25:14And he he's in an impoverished area in in Philly, North
- 25:18Philadelphia. We support that ministry and
- 25:24they do all kind of outreaches. Next slide.
- 25:27They go into the community in the city and food giveaways and
- 25:31clothing giveaways in the parks in the city of Philadelphia.
- 25:35Some of the former Eagles help him with the Bible studies
- 25:38there. It's just really exciting
- 25:40ministry. This is Christian counseling
- 25:42associates. We're involved with them.
- 25:45They are a wonderful organization that has counseling
- 25:48ministry and three states local and then Arizona and some other
- 25:53places. They will provide counseling for
- 25:56anybody that's in crisis, OK. And if you don't have the money,
- 26:00most counselors will say we we're sorry, we can't help you.
- 26:03They'll charge only 15 bucks or something like that that you
- 26:06would pay for a McDonald's meal to help people.
- 26:09They don't turn anybody away and they're having a banquet coming
- 26:12up. We support them, wonderful
- 26:14people. Our brother back here and his
- 26:17wife, they're involved in serving in that ministry.
- 26:20Stand up once. We're thankful for what you guys
- 26:23do in that ministry. Thank you and what else we got
- 26:31here. Turning Point USA.
- 26:33This is an organization's faith that we are involved in to.
- 26:40It's not a political organization on our side, but it
- 26:43is a conservative organization. And the purpose of TPUSA faith
- 26:49is to get the gospel out to be salt and light in the community
- 26:54with outreaches and ministries into the county commissioners
- 26:59meetings and the school board meetings and the high schools to
- 27:03help the young people that are leading these groups and most of
- 27:07the high schools around here. Tuesday night we had or Thursday
- 27:11night we had a young man from Ligonier High School, 17 years
- 27:14old, talking about the issues of the culture and they need to get
- 27:21the gospel out. Very, very smart, sharp young
- 27:25guy at 17. If any of you young teenagers
- 27:28are looking for a guy that you want to possibly date, let me
- 27:31know and I'll hook you up with him.
- 27:33He's a good looking guy and, and he's got his act together.
- 27:36Believe me, not too many guys and they're 1718 have their act
- 27:39together. This guy is solid.
- 27:42So Fred back there. Fred, stand up for a minute.
- 27:45He's our local point guy of turning point in our church.
- 27:48She's a retired military Colonel from the Air Force, right?
- 27:53And, and so he, he understands the dynamics of what we're
- 27:57doing. Also the midterm elections that
- 27:59are coming up and the big ones in the, in the fall, these are,
- 28:03these are critical for conservative people to vote.
- 28:08And so we want to have a voting drive to get people registered
- 28:11to vote so that all Christians are voting.
- 28:15Last election, 30% of the Christians didn't vote because
- 28:18they didn't like Trump. 20% of gun, gun owners didn't vote.
- 28:23Push all that stuff away. Trump will eventually not be
- 28:26present anymore. Right now he is.
- 28:28Thank God for the sake of the safety of our borders and these
- 28:31kind of things. A lot of things he does I'm not
- 28:34real happy with either. But he's the better of the
- 28:37choice at that time, right? So you got to vote the lesser of
- 28:40two evils because you only get two people to choose from, but
- 28:44you need to vote the Bible. We're going to have Bible
- 28:46training voting classes so that people understand when they
- 28:50vote, they're voting biblical principles, not personalities.
- 28:54OK, That's very important. And if we can get the vote out,
- 28:58we won't go backwards again. So TPUSA faith is something
- 29:02we're involved in. Next thing, Grace FM, this is
- 29:07the the biggest ministry that we're involved in as far as
- 29:10missions. Let's see here the budget of, of
- 29:16our mission in the church is 20% about $75,000 of what you guys
- 29:23give goes toward missions and Grace FM is, is one of the, the,
- 29:30the biggest things because of the expense of running it,
- 29:34building it and the to build that station about $130,000.
- 29:41And the church was able to pay cash for that along with a
- 29:44partner that we have, Bob Stevens, who is involved with
- 29:49partial ownership of that station.
- 29:52Christian guy who owns a lot of radio stations.
- 29:55He has classic rock, country, easy listen and pop.
- 29:59We're in the process of getting some ads on those stations to
- 30:02point people to the sister station, which is 91.7 Grace FM.
- 30:07So pray for that to be able to reach a secular audience with
- 30:11letting people. Another Grace FM is involved in
- 30:17the community. That station reaches far and
- 30:20wide and people were able to hear the gospel.
- 30:23Some of you were here because you've heard Grace FM and you
- 30:26listen to it. And that's that's very, very
- 30:29exciting.