| In this issue: Let’s Celebrate Golf Tournament Upcoming Opportunities Men’s Rally-RSVP Due Today Toy Store Volunteers Needed Toy Donations Needed- Stockings Too Young Eagles Free Fly-In Resource of the Week Chain Saws Church News |
| Let’s Celebrate Golf Tournament We are incredibly grateful for the hard work and dedication of our Golf Team in planning a successful fundraiser to benefit our 30th Annual Toy Store! Thanks to the generous support of our hole sponsors and golfers, we raised an impressive $6,832.26 this year. Your contributions make a real difference in our community – thank you for being a part of it! Upcoming Opportunities Men’s Rally RSVP Due Today  This is going to be a wonderful opportunity so please RSVP today if you wish to attend the Men’s Rally. Volunteers Needed  We still need more volunteers for Toy Store. Volunteers would help a parent shop for toys for their children. This is a great time to show the love of Christ to our community. If you are interested in volunteering please call (828) 437-0137. Toy Donations Needed- Stockings too!  Due to an incredible response for Toy Store this year, we are in need of additional toy donations. If you’d like to support this ministry, please bring your new toy donations to the CRBA office as soon as possible. This will allow us to assess how many toys will still need to be purchased to meet the needs of our community.Additionally, if you’re sewing stockings, our need for those has increased as well. We need 200 additional stockings. Thank you for your generous support of this ministry as we reach out to families in Burke County! Young Eagles Free Fly-In  Out of the Box 10 goals for your Bible study group in 2025 (by Ken Braddy Jr.) We’re just sixty days away from the beginning of a new year, and the new year gives us an opportunity to make a fresh start. Many people resolve to leave bad habits behind while embracing better ones in the new year. Among people’s most common resolutions are losing weight, staying fit and healthy, enjoying life, spending less and saving more, and spending more time with family and friends. Most of us have made one or more of these personal resolutions. Bible study groups can also act on a number of commitments that help them become healthier, more focused, and more effective in making disciples. The start of a new year is the perfect time for groups to consider a number of ideas they could pursue together. No matter which ideas a Bible study group chooses to pursue in the new year, SMART decisions must be made. This acronym can guide a group to make good resolutions for a new year of ministry. The goals pursued should be:SpecificMeasurableAttainableResults-focusedTime-sensitiveWith this in mind, here are ten ideas that would benefit any Bible study group. Comparing them to the requirements above, they all fall into the category of SMART goals. How many of these will your group adopt in 2025? #1 – Plant a new group by the start of summer. Too many groups do not reproduce themselves by planting another group. It is true that new groups tend to grow faster than established ones, and they have a more intense focus on people who are not connected to a group (or the church). On average, one new group will reach a total of ten new people, creating life and energy in a church’s group ministry. #2 – Engage in quarterly community ministry projects. One of the visible signs that a disciple is growing is their willingness to serve God and others. This comes from the research findings from the Transformational Groups research project. Four community ministry projects per year give group members the opportunity to serve God and others, and focus their ministry on people in the community. #3 – Schedule four fellowship events this year. It has been said that connection and community will outweigh content in our post-COVID world. People can find and consume all kinds of biblical content online, but they cannot receive face-to-face interaction with others in an online environment. Bible study groups make a good decision to increase the fellowship opportunities of the group members. These don’t have to be expensive, but they do need to be regular! Every time a group has a fellowship event, everyone should be invited: regular attenders, absentees, and potential group members. #4 – Enlist an apprentice leader in the first 30 days of the new year. Every group should have an apprentice leader, someone who is being intentionally trained and coached to plant another group in the future. Without apprentice leaders, churches will struggle to plant new groups. Apprentice leaders keep a group of people focused on reaching new members. Apprentice leaders also help in the fight against the idea of permanence – the idea that a group will be together forever, or at least a very long time. Apprentice leaders signal that the group will plant a new one, that some people will leave the group to start a new one with the apprentice leader, and that the cycle will continue with a new apprentice leader. #5 – Teach every group member how to share the gospel. What a great resolution for a group to make! When I led two consecutive new ongoing Bible study groups, I took time to teach my group members two important things. First, how to articulate their testimonies. They learned from me that a testimony is made up of three things: what their life before coming to Christ was like, how they came to Christ, and what life has been life since then. I had them write out their testimonies, then share them with a partner during a group session. The second thing group members need to know is a simple gospel presentation. Using Romans 6:23 only, I taught my people how to share the gospel with someone in under 5 minutes using that verse. To learn more about this, check out The Navigators one-verse evangelism site. #6 – Send out 20% of the group members to serve in church ministries. Groups should be clearing houses, not storehouses. A great new year’s goal is to make sure that group members are regularly encouraged to leave the group to serve in ministries of the church. It should be a group’s goal to send out 20% of its members to be leaders in the church’s kids’ and student ministries. Adult groups are the primary source of new leaders, so holding onto group members is not the proper goal – but holding them with a loose grip is. It should be a joyful occasion when people leave a group to use their God-given gifts to serve others. #7 – Bless the pastor and staff with random acts of kindness each month. Our pastors need to hear words of encouragement, and they need to experience tangible ways through which we say thank you for their hard work on our behalf. Groups can undertake service projects at their pastor’s homes (such as cutting the grass) that puts some time back in their pastors’ schedule. A thank-you card signed by group members, or small gifts of cash and/or gift cards will be a blessing to pastors, too. #8 – Wear nametags weekly. This one is pretty simple to do! A group can purchase the “Hello…My Name Is _______” stick-on name tags and ask every member to wear one at each Bible study. It truly makes assimilating new people easier, and it also helps group members remember one another’s names. Wearing nametags signals that a Bible study group is expecting new people each week, and sets the stage for a great experience for guests. #9 – Study from an ongoing Bible study series. Christian publishers like Lifeway Christian Resources work hard to develop products like Explore the Bible, Bible Studies for Life, and The Gospel Project. Each of these has a well-planned scope and sequence (the total number of studies and the order in which they are studied). A strong scope and sequence provides a balanced study experience over time. Ongoing studies are also designed to provide satisfying, stand-alone sessions each week; this is increasingly more important as people’s attendance patterns become more and more non-linear. Ongoing studies also provide resources for group members to study on their own, which empowers group members to self-feed between the times they participate in a Bible study. #10 – Adopt a kids’ group. A great idea for adult groups is to adopt a kids’ ministry group. The adult group can provide substitute teacher support to the adults leading the kids’ group and send group members to teach the kids’ class once a month so that the teachers in the kids’ group can spend a Sunday morning getting reconnected to a group of adults. One of the side benefits of this practice is that some of the adult group members will realize they enjoy teaching kids, and may leave their adult group to serve in the kids’ ministry. As you make personal decisions about the new year, make sure that your Bible study group does the same! Set goals early (SMART ones), keep them, and watch your group grow in a variety of new ways. Resource of the Week  Your CRBA has 3 chainsaws available for your ministry needs. To view our resources check out our website here. If you would like to reserve a chainsaw for your church, please call 828-437-0137 or email admin@crbanc.org. News from our CRBA Churches Amherst Baptist Church invites all Youth to The Commission Youth Rally on November 17 from 4:30-8:00.  Amherst would also like to invite everyone to a Free Community Meal on Nov. 13 at 5:30  |
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