What Is In A Name?

While on vacation over the holidays, I had the opportunity to “sit and visit” with a few friends around Bolivar.  As we “visited” about family, friends and about First Baptist, more than one person asked questions about name changes.  So let me enlist you to help educate our church on one of the name changes that have happened over the past year.  Keep in mind, that we desire clarity as we invite our friends and neighbors to participate in our community of faith.

What happened to Sunday School and what is Core Discipleship Groups were common questions.  Sunday School has long been the key growth strategy for churches like ours.  It was a place where we gathered in small groups to study God’s word together, where we could involve people in fellowship and friendship, where we could quickly minister to each other, and was the place we could invite our friends to join us.  It was the place where we wanted everyone to belong.  It was where we looked for leadership to keep growing new small groups to make more room for our ever expanding community of faith.  A good Sunday School class was the friendly face of FBC where people had the opportunity to connect, grow, serve and share together.  Then we had need to allow groups to do the same thing during the week and we gave them a different name for the same basic mission. This muddied the water a bit to be honest.

Now we are using the name Core Discipleship Group to try to clearly communicate that this is the basic small group that we hope everyone will find a place to belong.  A group where they can study God’s Word, be involved in fellowship with friends, minister to one another and have a place to invite and involve friends in joining them on the journey of knowing and growing in Christ.  Wait that sounds like good small group Sunday School.  Yes it does for a generation.  It also sounds like good small group ministry for a younger generation.  Core Discipleship Groups is the same as good small group Sunday School and good small group ministry.  It’s the core discipling group at FBC that we want everyone to be involved in reguardless of day or time.

The Small Group Leader

With the promotion of Sunday School, we now turn our attention to the launch of several small groups in October.  We are targeting the launch of those small groups for the first week in October and plan for them to run through mid-December.

During the month of August we have been working to enlist small group leaders and to set the catalog of basic discipleship Bible study offering each week.  If you are interested in leading a small group or would like to see a small group form out of you current Sunday School class there is still time.

What is required of a small group leader?  We ask that a small group leader be willing to meet the following.

• Select the time and place for the study.
• Select the target audience for the study.
• Select the curriculum for the study with in the five approved curriculum lines.
• Attend a mandatory training session that will cover catalog set up, scheduling of resources, attendance, prayer requests, service opportunities, discipleship of new leaders to name a few things.

We want to make sure that each group has a good opportunity to be successful in the discipleship Bible study process.

In September we will be signing up for Sunday School and Small Groups.  Everything will be listed in the catalog and we will be encouraging members and attenders to get involved in basic friendship Bible study.  We want to encourage all members and attenders to be moving on the path of discipleship – connecting, growing, serving and sharing.

If you not plugged in to a Bible study or a Small Group, I hope you will begin praying about it now. Let God plants some seeds in your heart about making some new friends at FBC and studying God’s word as you grow to be more Christ-like in your life.

Larry Stehr

Young Adult Pastor

More Small Group Questions Answered

This is the continuation of a series of articles on adding Small Groups to our basic system of Bible Study (Sunday School) at First Baptist Church of Bolivar. Know that this process is developing in conjunction with the changes brought about by the Long Range Plan. Please continue to pray for both processes.

Question: It sounds like we have settled on one style of Small Groups to compliment our current Sunday School, but I know a church that does small groups using another method of small groups. Was that method considered?

That is a great question. There are seven prevailing systems for organizing small groups in a church:
1) Organic Community Groups
2) Preference of two or more group types
3) Closed Small Groups
4) Open Small Groups
5) Free Market System
6) Making Extraordinary Disciples
7) Cell Groups/Holistic Small Groups.

Many of these small group systems are being used in our church, each with strengths and weaknesses. Were you aware that even the socioeconomic make up of our church can influence which type of small group we would prefer?

We will continue to have different types of small groups operating as a part of our church. A conscious decision was made to use open small groups in conjunction with our current base Bible study (Sunday School). These two systems of small groups share some very important characteristics which make them compatible with our base system of making disciples.

Open means a person is welcomed into the group (Sunday School or Small Group). Open means a person is encouraged to bring a friend to the group and the group will accept them. Being open results in disciples of Christ.

Healthy Sunday School and Open Small Groups understand the important role of relationships and the group dynamics of connect, grow, serve and share. Both use the development of relationships as a platform for personal growth and discipleship.

Healthy Sunday School and Open Small Groups place an emphasis on Biblical exploration and discovery. Both systems share the need to continually produce leadership that can fuel the discipleship process.

The articles regarding Small Groups are available on Larry’s blog: fbclarry.wordpress.com. Comments and questions are appreciated.

More Small Group Answers

We would like to continue to answer some questions you may have regarding the direction of small groups as we move to implement the adoption of the Long Range plan.

What curriculum will be available to guide our Bible Study/Small Group discussions?

This has been a very fun question to research and process.  First, we wanted to let sound doctrine be our primary consideration. Doctrine is a codification of beliefs or a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the body of teachings in a branch of knowledge or belief system (Wikipedia – (Latin: doctrina)). It is important to teach what our church believes. Second, we want to make sure that our leadership is exposed to the teaching principles of sound doctrine.  Finally, we want to encourage our small group leaders to have every kind of confidence in teaching the faith.

Will we all use the same quarterly, study guide or DVD?

Well, yes and no.  Our end goal is to have one semester where the entire church can study together, but still allow for the groups to choose their study material for the remaining two semesters.  We know that individual interest, leadership ability, and content delivery systems all play an important role in forming a Bible study that will develop friends and promote discipleship.

There are many choices for the basic Bible Study and Discipleship group to choose from. So let me see if we can help you put a fence around the field and let you graze where you need to graze.  (Yes, I enjoyed VBS.)  Think approved publishers.  We know and trust the doctrinal stance of the following publishers – Lifeway, Threads, Serendipity House, Saddleback Resources, North point Resources and the church library are each a growing collection of small group resources.

Who will choose what is studied?

You and your leader will choose what is studied. First, the leader enlistment phase will ask leaders to choose material they feel comfortable leading. You will know the leader and topic of the small group when you sign up. We think this will be an effective system that will keep our Sunday School/Small Groups open to new members. This will provide an effective Bible Study that builds leaders and disciples believers.

What if I want to lead something that is not from an approved publisher?

Just ask. Larry Stehr and Freddie Pike have studied curriculum management and spiritual formation. They will look at the material and let you know if it is a suitable study for the small group.

Finally, if you want to follow the development of these articles and to make comments or pose more questions they are posted on Larry’s blog at FBCLarry.wordpress.com    Larry and Freddie are also more than willing to sit down with your class or group and talk about how things could work for your group.

More Answers about Sunday School and Small Groups

This is the second article in a series of articles that will led up to the launch of Small Groups in addition to our current Sunday School.  Just a reminder that the formation of Sunday School and Small Groups is taking place while the Church Leadership Council process is moving forward.  There may be some changes made as we move to our new leadership structure.

After the last article the following questions were asked in one form or another.

Does this change the structure of my Sunday School Class? Anytime a change is proposed it is human nature to focus on what we might lose.   The plan is to minimize loss and focus on the growth goal.  The goal is to produce committed disciples of Christ.  While the day, time, and place any group meets is no longer the issue there are no plans to change any current Sunday School class in the adult division.  If you are happy in your current Sunday School Class there is no need to change.  If you have dropped out or are no long connected to a class, we will be inviting you to try a small group.  Our goal is that you are excited about your Bible study at FBC and seek to share with friends how they can get connected and grow at your church.

One of the challenges the church voted to accept is to focus on making disciples.  Ask these questions about your class. Are the people you study God’s word with friendly and open? Is the discussion Biblically centered and do you feel safe to ask a spiritual question?  Do you have the opportunity to develop your gifts of service and have you been challenged to become a leader who disciples others?   Finally, does your group plan to make room for your friends and when you bring a friend will they be accepted?

How will we make sure every age group is represented in Sunday School? This is a very good question and one that received a lot of though and discussion.  First, we know that in our system the struggle will be to make sure that a Bible study opportunity exists in both Sunday School and Small Groups for all adults.  We will be asking our current adult leadership to stay and lead on Sunday morning.  This will ensure that we continue to have a place for every adult on Sunday morning at the prime hour.

We also know that some adult leaders may feel called to move to leading a small group.  If that is the case and you do feel God’s leadership in that area it is now time to disciple your replacement for Sunday Morning.  We will be challenging every leader to prayerful seek to develop one new Bible study leader each semester.  This will ensure that we have ample leadership for the growth we anticipate.  It will also allow for leadership to take a break or to accept a more challenging position and to be further discipled.

How do I get involved in the leadership of a Bible Study Group either Sunday School or Small Group? If you are interested in leading a discipleship Bible Study, we really need to hear from you during the month of July or August.  You can contact either Freddie Pike (fpike@fbcbolivar.org)  or Larry Stehr (lstehr@fbcbolivar.org) or you can call either of us at 326-2431.   Qualifications are pretty much what you heard Billy preach about this past Sunday: (1) You have been a believer for a couple of years or more. (2) You are willing to lead, train or apprentice.  (3) You want to see people grow in Christ.

Finally, if you want to follow the development of these articles and to make comments or pose more questions they are posted on Larry’s blog at FBCLarry.wordpress.com    Larry and Freddie are also more than willing to sit down with your class or group and talk about how things could work for your group.

First Look at Small Groups

This article comes with a disclaimer.  This basic first look at Small Groups is still subject to approval by the Church Leadership Council.  That process is moving forward and at the same time preliminary plans for the fall are being made as well.

Sunday School or Small Groups?

First, this is not a competition.  We know that good Sunday School and good Small Groups share many of the same fundamental principals.  The goal is to provide healthy basic Bible studies where friendships are formed, the Bible is studied, and discipleship happens.  We voted to be a church with healthy discipling small groups.  That is good Sunday School and that is good Small Groups.  We now have add choice in our foundational system of Bible Study/Discipleship.

When will the Small Group option be available?

We want to make sure that we do this correctly and properly.   We are looking at the following time table to start the first round of Sunday School/Small Groups.  Late June and July will be the leadership enlistment phase.  August will be the training/catalog phase.  September will be the enrollment/placement phase.  October will be the beginning of the first twelve week Small Group Semester and New Sunday School classes.

What is the Bible Study catalog?

Once leaders are trained and material has been chosen we will develop a catalog of Sunday School Classes and Small Groups.  Our church family will use the catalog of small groups to know who is leading a group, when and where the group meets, and what the group will be studying.  By September we hope that the process will be online as well as a printed version.

When a group needs childcare?

Since there is no budget to add a large amount of child care we are going to make use of three existing periods of available child care.  Monday nights, Wednesday mornings and Sunday nights.  If a group needs to meet at another time, then we will use the movie rule.  If you would pay for a sitter to go to the movies, Bible study is better than a movie.

What about youth and children?

Kyle will be meeting with leaders and parents to make the best decision for students.  No change is planned for children this year.

How do I get involved?

Same as always – volunteer and get trained.  Just see Freddie or Larry on where your gifts and talents are needed.

What if I have more questions?

You can wait for the next long article or take Freddie or Larry to lunch, ice cream, a coffee or just stop us in the hall and we will do our best to answer your question.

Backup Solution to Share

Server Farm

We have been working over time to come up with a solid backup solution that does not break the bank and makes sure that our data is redundant, recoverable,  multiple copies and multiple sites.

The servers left to right – our Smoothwall router/firewall, our VMware Esxi host and our primary Openfiler iscsi target.  The combination of these machines have proven a reliable and cost effective solution for our church.  More on this set up another day.

Our virtual file server has two nic’s one dedicated to general network traffic and on dedicated to iscsi traffic on a different subnet, providing quick access, low processor overhead and the ability to scale well.  Also giving us the ability to change out the virtual server very quickly if the need would arise or to move to vmotion when we are ready.

Visionman backup box

Enter our Visionman backup box, a low cost box from TigerDirect with sata drives to match our primary Openfiler iscsi target.  It is also an Openfiler box running as an iscsi target.  To build and use Openfiler as a iscsi traget you will want some great direction and the Microsoft iscsi initiator software.

Now we have an outline of the parts, which happen to be in different building of our church plant, linked by gigabyte Ethernet, it is time to make a backup and an offsite backup as well.

Running the MS iscsi initiator on our virtual file server we map the primary iscsi target as the D: drive and the backup iscsi target as the E: drive.  We use the command line program called ROBOCOPY with the following commands to mirror the primary target to the secondary target on a predetermined schedule.

>robocopy d: e: /B /SEC /MIR /R:02 /W:05 /LOG:c:Robocopylast.txt

The switches:

/B – backup mode (will copy all files if run as an administrator)
/SEC – copies security settings
/MIR – makes a mirror copy of the drive
/R – tries to read the file twice and /W – waits five seconds between reads
/LOG – make a log file of the last run

Ok, we have copy one of all the data that is store on on server now copied to another building on our campus.  Enter the third computer.  Don’t laugh…..

Half laptop

Mr. Half Laptop was recovered after a theft of several computers at our church.  Robert, just can’t seem to part with this little guy.   Mr. HL has taken a lick or two and just keeps running.  Linux is the operating system of choice right now and he even does double duty with some audio duties.  A post for another day.

But this half laptop running linux request a rsync session with another linux computer that is not in our facility.  This rsync session goes out of our building on a secure ssl connection and copies the changed contents of the backup iscis target to the remote location.

I have to give props to Russ for technical thought and Robert for mad Linux and box build skills.

Garden Hose and the Gospel…

Well, service number three has come and gone.  The Lord continues to bless our church with positive gains in Bible study attendance and good gains in worship attendance.  As a church we are knocking on a thousand in both worship centers, with The Encounter @ FBC knocking on four hundred.  I simply say may God be praised.

This week the new wrinkle was the garden hose.  Yes, not one, not two, but three garden hoses.  You see we are having a problem getting a good lan connection between the building.  So we knew that we could string a cat5 cable between the buildings and bypass the week link.  But, how do you protect a network cable across a busy gravel parking lot and a major side street of the church.  The solution, thanks to Ray Leininger was a garden hose.  Why did I know think of that.

So now each Sunday we turn off the wireless connection at the main building.  Plug the cable in a hose into the router at the Esquire and spool out about three hundred feet of hose carrying cable.  We go in a window at the church into an intern office and plug in.  Progress.  I keep telling myself that is is progress.

Well, I will gladly continue to call contractors, enlist the help of my friends to get a good bid (Roy) and continue to bury this wire or fiber which ever we can afford.  Until then, if you wish to see spooling for to gospel carrying garden hose at FBC Bolivar just come by and see me before Bible Study.

To God be the Glory….

It is Official!

Well, family and friends live practice services have come and gone.  A few minor issues, but nothing that the team could not handle.  The growing number of volunteers has made the creative process of a contemporary worship service very dynamic.

We launched Sunday, Feburary 1.  I don’t mind saying it was a crazy Sunday.  We moved back into one Sunday morning Bible Study hour.  I talked with a few people in the halls that were looking for a class or did not have an idea of what class to try.  I hope my suggestion help them find a small group Bible study home.

Oh, I also helpped with a baptism on Sunday morning.  That is always a good day in my books.

Then the start of the  dual worship at FBC.  It was a great Sunday.  Take out a couple of minor techinal issues and it was a perfect day.  We did have a great attendance in both services, with the total approaching a thousand people.  It is nice to know that we as a church can adjust to changing times.  We understand the important relationship between worship and small group Bible study.

All in all a good day to walk with the Lord and to do His thing with Him.

Oh, the technology that we are using to reach the Esquire (old movie theater) is a slingbox, our in house lan, to wireless routers for a bridge across the block, the in house lan in the Esquire, a computer to catch and spool the main worship service and Tom Sneed’s quick and nimble fingers on a combination of buttons.

The Encounter @ FBC

It does not seem possible, but we are now just a couple of weeks away from the launch of a new worship service at Firt Baptist Church.  This week we will have our first Friends and Family service to continue to work out the glitches and bumps.

The team is moving quickly towards being ready to launch on February This has been a hugh amount of work and it has come together in a very short time.  

I am very excited and worried.  I have been pray for God to calm my heart and temper my excitment.  Easier said and down.