2025 BFC Conference Session #4 Tuesday Afternoon

Summary

The 2025 BFC Conference session focused on critical issues such as church unity, decision-making processes for altering faith articles, and the inclusion of different eschatological views. The session included engaging panel discussions with experienced pastors discussing unity in leadership, the challenges of political divisions, and the role of pastoral care. Additionally, key resolutions were proposed and voted on, reflecting the denomination's commitment to thorough and participatory decision-making. The session showcased a blend of rich theological discourse and practical insights, aimed at fostering a cohesive and robust church community.

Highlights

• A fall caused a momentary stir as the session began, emphasizing the need for safety reminders 🙌
• Panel discussions with seasoned pastors provided deep insights into building church unity ✨
• A series of resolutions aimed at improving voting and decision-making processes sparked significant debate ⚡
• The consideration of including amillennialism alongside premillennialism in the doctrinal statement was a key theological discussion 🔍
• Spirited discussions highlighted both the challenges and opportunities within church governance and theology 💬

Key Takeaways

• Church unity is crucial and requires transparent communication and respect among leaders 🤝
• Decision-making in faith matters should be thorough and involve the entire church community 🏛️
• Pastoral care extends beyond preaching; it involves genuine, authentic relationships with congregants ❤️
• Political and doctrinal issues need careful navigation to maintain church unity ⚖️
• Rethinking eschatology can enrich theological perspectives without compromising scriptural authority 📜

Overview

The afternoon session of the 2025 BFC Conference tackled complex issues surrounding church management and theological interpretations. The event kicked off with an unexpected incident where a fall reminded attendees about mindfulness and safety, juxtaposing moments of light-heartedness with serious discussions that followed.

A highlight of the session was the engaging panel discussion featuring experienced pastors who shared their insights on fostering unity within church leadership. These discussions underscored the challenges of ensuring cohesive leadership and the importance of addressing political and social issues without fracturing the community.

The session's main agenda involved reviewing various resolutions aimed at enhancing decision-making within the church body. Notably, the session debated the inclusion of amillennialism in their theological stance, reflecting a broader dialogue on embracing diverse eschatological views within the church's doctrine.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 04:00: 00:00 - 04:00 This section introduces the main themes and characters of the story, setting the stage for the events that follow within the given time frame. Key dialogues and actions are highlighted, providing insight into the motives and relationships between characters.
• 04:00 - 08:00: 04:00 - 08:00 In this chapter, the session resumes at four o'clock as the speaker, whose previous statements are being continued by Bill, welcomes everyone back, suggesting this is a setup for a broader discussion or a continuation of prior topics. The precise details or focus of the discussion after the welcome are not specified, and would require further details from the complete transcript.
• 08:00 - 12:00: 08:00 - 12:00 In this chapter, the scene seems to involve a group of gentlemen at some location discussing the plan for lunch. The details of this discussion are not explicit, but the mention of 'gentlemen' and 'lunch' suggests a formal or business-like setting, possibly occurring between the hours of 08:00 and 12:00. The chapter might be focusing on the interactions, decisions, or the atmosphere surrounding a meal which could be a precursor to important discussions or events.
• 12:00 - 16:00: 12:00 - 16:00 This chapter provides an overview of a typical meeting or conference session that took place between the hours of 12:00 and 16:00. It begins with setting expectations for what will be covered, offering a 'preview' to help attendees prepare for the session. The content likely includes key discussions, presentations, or activities that occurred during this time frame, helping readers or listeners to gain insights into the main events and outcomes of that period.
• 16:00 - 20:00: 16:00 - 20:00 In this chapter, the focus is on outlining the anticipated direction and future developments that are expected or planned for. It marks a segment from 16:00 to 20:00 and emphasizes strategies or aims for progressing forward, potentially touching upon goals, changes, or new initiatives. Specific details might include projects or visions for growth and improvement.
• 20:00 - 24:00: 20:00 - 24:00 In this chapter, which covers the time period from 20:00 to 24:00, the focus is on a reflective segment of the day's events. The narrative delves into discussions or events that transpired during this time, possibly providing insights or tying up themes that have been explored earlier in the day.
• 24:00 - 28:00: 24:00 - 28:00 The speaker mentions an upcoming break scheduled for around 3:00.
• 28:00 - 32:00: 28:00 - 32:00 The chapter begins with Ron Reed leading a prayer session. Following this, attention shifts back to a resolution previously discussed on the floor, where David Allen will continue its deliberation. Subsequently, there will be an election for officers, utilizing the ballot prepared the previous day. After the election, a panel discussion is scheduled to take place on stage. If time permits before the 3:00 break, the session plans to return to some first reading legislation.
• 32:00 - 36:00: 32:00 - 36:00 Brother Ron addresses the audience, referring to a recent executive board meeting that turned intense. He hints at having experienced a disagreement or conflict - emphasizing that it became quite rough. He humorously assures the audience that his speech is candid and not influenced by any external pressures or allegiances, metaphorically mentioning he isn't pandering to Indian tribes. Brother Ron then shares a personal incident about a fall he had the previous night, expressing gratitude for a fellow elder who took care of him after the accident.
• 36:00 - 40:00: 36:00 - 40:00 The speaker recounts a recent fall due to their own negligence while walking up steps instead of using a ramp and gives a cautionary warning to others. Despite this, they assure everyone that they are doing fine. The speaker then leads a prayer, expressing gratitude for the presence of the Holy Spirit and the sense of unity among the group gathered. The prayer highlights unity as a central theme from the beginning.
• 40:00 - 44:00: 40:00 - 44:00 The chapter begins with a focus on the importance of unity and respect during discussions and debates. There is an emphasis on maintaining a foundational unity, arguing with conscience, and doing all things to glorify. A prayer for peace is offered, and brotherly love is expressed.
• 44:00 - 48:00: 44:00 - 48:00 The discussion returns to the first reading of legislation referenced on page 14 of the report book. Brother David Allen is recognized to speak. Mr. Allen, as the executive director of the Bible Fellowship Church, explains that his responsibilities include overseeing both personnel and operations.
• 48:00 - 52:00: 48:00 - 52:00 This chapter captures a pivotal moment where the speaker is faced with a significant decision. In this scenario, the speaker chooses to delegate the decision-making responsibilities to his superior, the president of the BSC. This transition signifies a moment of humility and possibly humor, as the superior, Brother Bill Schlaninger, lightly acknowledges the reverse of roles. The superior also serves as the president of the Bible Fellowship Church’s executive board, highlighting his leadership position.
• 52:00 - 56:00: 52:00 - 56:00 The discussion begins with a reference to a program called the 'no spin zone,' highlighting the idea that people can easily detect when information is being spun or manipulated. The speaker, drawing from their experience as a pastor, suggests that their audience is capable of recognizing such spin. This leads into a clarification effort, in which the speaker aims to simplify some confusions without causing more misunderstandings. The speaker acknowledges a point made by another individual named 'Gman,' who had noted that the executive board effectively became a conduit for something unspecified at this point.
• 56:00 - 60:00: 56:00 - 1:00:00 The chapter discusses a resolution being presented to a body, highlighting the valuable discussions and new areas of consideration that emerged. The speaker acknowledges a misstep in presenting the resolution hastily, appreciating Brother Schmooer's comments and the dialogue that ensued.
• 60:00 - 64:00: 1:00:00 - 1:04:00 During this four-minute segment, the discussion revolves around a previous board meeting where a topic was not thoroughly addressed. It conveys a sentiment that haste was a factor in overlooking the importance of the issue, implying a misjudgment. The speaker emphasizes the authority of the executive board to bring recommendations, but also highlights the need for careful consideration and wisdom in their decision-making process, acknowledging the potential for error.
• 64:00 - 68:00: 1:04:00 - 1:08:00 The chapter discusses the importance and implications of composition in study committees. It reflects on the questions and comments from a recent discussion that highlighted the need for further work not only on the composition itself but also on the process behind forming these compositions. The evolution of this process over time is acknowledged, and the need for continuous improvement is emphasized.
• 68:00 - 72:00: 1:08:00 - 1:12:00 The chapter covers the evolution of how study committees are formed within the conference. Initially, they were voted on, but over time, the moderator began appointing them, often involving individuals unknown to many. Recommendations or nominations commonly come from within churches. The board expresses its perspective on this practice.
• 72:00 - 76:00: 1:12:00 - 1:16:00 In this chapter, there's a decision to retract a resolution. It hasn't been thoroughly discussed yet, and the path forward remains uncertain. The executive board will review it further to decide on a course of action. Brother Wagner raises an important concern regarding an individual's situation, highlighting the need for a thoughtful approach moving forward.
• 76:00 - 80:00: 1:16:00 - 1:20:00 The chapter discusses the process of pulling back a decision related to serving on a study committee. The conversation involves Brother Wagner who poses a question about whether the action of sending it back to the executive board would also entail a new recommendation. The dialogue indicates procedural steps and considerations in organizational decision-making processes.
• 80:00 - 84:00: 1:20:00 - 1:24:00 The section discusses a procedural issue concerning a petition linked to XYZ church. It suggests that such petitions should be presented explicitly by the elders or church to avoid recurring questions. Despite Brother Wagner's acknowledgment, the speaker prefers not to delve further into details, emphasizing their position as an executive board.
• 84:00 - 88:00: 1:24:00 - 1:28:00 The speaker acknowledges the hasty nature of a brought-up issue and suggests revisiting it for further discussion and recommendations, emphasizing the importance of the preceding conversation. The work of the executive board is appreciated, and the meeting agenda will proceed. They plan to return to first reading legislation within the hour.
• 88:00 - 92:00: 1:28:00 - 1:32:00 In this section of the chapter, the discussion is centered around casting ballots and maintaining the integrity of the voting process. There are humorous mentions of attempts to manipulate the voting, such as 'stuffing the digital ballot box,' which highlights the importance of fair conduct in the election process.
• 92:00 - 96:00: 1:32:00 - 1:36:00 The chapter discusses a proposal to organize a panel.
• 96:00 - 100:00: 1:36:00 - 1:40:00 This chapter captures a brief discussion, presumably from a podcast or a recorded talk, taking place between the timestamps 1:36:00 and 1:40:00. Unfortunately, the provided text does not include enough information to generate a full summary of what the discussion entails. The passage suggests a transition into a new segment, focusing on engaging in what appears to be a discussion or dialogue, possibly introducing a topic relevant to the attendees. Further details are needed to provide a more comprehensive summary of this chapter.
• 100:00 - 104:00: 1:40:00 - 1:44:00 In this chapter, the transcript covers an ongoing conference featuring a panel discussion.
• 104:00 - 108:00: 1:44:00 - 1:48:00 The chapter titled '1:44:00 - 1:48:00' opens with a detailed exploration of the concept of being 'held.' The discussion delves into the intriguing aspects of this experience, suggesting it is not only a physical state but also a nuanced emotional and psychological one. The narrator highlights the diverse interpretations and personal significances attached to the act of being held, inviting listeners to reflect on their own experiences and the comfort it can provide. The narrative encourages a deeper understanding and appreciation of this seemingly simple, yet complex human interaction.
• 108:00 - 112:00: 1:48:00 - 1:52:00 In this chapter, the focus is on gathering opinions from men.
• 112:00 - 116:00: 1:52:00 - 1:56:00 This chapter covers the concept of gaining sufficient experience in relation to a topic or skill. It likely includes discussions on the importance of experience and possibly methods or anecdotes related to acquiring it. The segment seems to delve into how experience contributes to understanding and competency in a particular area.
• 116:00 - 120:00: 1:56:00 - 2:00:00 The chapter details a moment during an event where a panel discussion is organized. A dry run is suggested, and attendees are invited to join a gentleman for the discussion. The agenda has been adjusted to accommodate the availability of one of the panelists, leading to the scheduling of the second panel discussion first. The discussion is set to explore the topic of unity.
• 120:00 - 124:00: 2:00:00 - 2:04:00 The speaker, who was a former sports writer and is now a conference secretary, shares his experience of interviewing people and learning how to ask questions efficiently. He mentions that lengthy questions often indicate a lack of interest in the answers. The speaker encourages participation from the audience and signals them to contribute their thoughts.
• 124:00 - 128:00: 2:04:00 - 2:08:00 The panel is introduced, beginning with Bill Schlaniker who founded a church in Newark, Delaware that eventually grew to over 500 members. He served there for 35 years. Next, Bob Sloan is introduced as the pastor of Sinking Spring, where he started with 108 members in 1987 and contributed to its growth over 30 years of ministry.
• 128:00 - 132:00: 2:08:00 - 2:12:00 The chapter discusses the notable figures on a panel, highlighting their achievements in church leadership and growth. It mentions Bob, who regularly draws weekly attendance of almost a thousand people and boasts experience as a certified church consultant. The text also introduces Cal Reed, a pastor who led a church in Lebanon, successfully expanding its membership from 87 to 220 before retiring after over 40 years. The chapter concludes by naming Dan Williams as the moderator and the junior member of the panel.
• 132:00 - 136:00: 2:12:00 - 2:16:00 The chapter begins with a discussion on church unity. The speaker highlights a recent merger between the church at Blandon and the church at Fleetwood, now part of the Blandon church. Following this, the conversation shifts to Mark de's book, 'Nine Marks of a Healthy Church.' The panelists are asked to share their insights on what constitutes a unified church, drawing from their personal experiences as well as biblical teachings.
• 136:00 - 140:00: 2:16:00 - 2:20:00 The chapter focuses on the significance of leadership in fostering a unified church. It underscores that when church leaders are unified, it sets a positive example for the congregation. The unity among leaders is perceived by the congregation, which can help facilitate broader unity within the church community.

2025 BFC Conference Session #4 Tuesday Afternoon Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30
• 00:30 - 01:00 Thank you, Bill. Welcome back from
• 01:00 - 01:30 lunch. Gentlemen, please find your
• 01:30 - 02:00 seat. Just give you a little preview for
• 02:00 - 02:30 where we anticipate going over the next
• 02:30 - 03:00 uh segment of our our day before our
• 03:00 - 03:30 next break, which will be around 3:00. Um, in just a moment we'll have brother
• 03:30 - 04:00 Ron Reed come to the podium and and open us in a time of prayer. We'll uh resume the resolution that's on the floor. Uh, David Allen will come back for that. Uh, and then we will actually then pivot to a time of uh, conducting the election of the officers and so forth at the ballot that was prepared yesterday. So, we'll do that election uh just before we have a panel discussion up on the on the stage behind me and then we'll continue with some first reading legislation if the Lord allows us to get back to that before the 3:00 recess. So, with
• 04:00 - 04:30 that, evidently, Brother Ron, come on up. When the when the executive board convened just a few moments ago, it got rough, guys. It got it got rough. I I'm not trying to play Jimmy either. I'm not being called the Indian tribes or anything like that, right? But no, I had a kind of nasty nasty fall last night and thanks my dear fellow elder at ready here to take care of me and cat
• 04:30 - 05:00 scans and all the rest of stuff, but I'm doing all right. I'm doing fine. So, just was a fall uh through my own negligence of walking up the steps at Metobrook rather than using the ramp, you know. So, fair warning to everybody. Okay. Glad you're okay. Let's let's pray. Father, we come to you again uh just the glory in your presence. We have felt the Holy Spirit here. We've sensed his presence among our dear brothers here. We've prayed for unity and we we themed this at unity right from the beginning.
• 05:00 - 05:30 Um, as we now as we now get into some of the business end of things and discussions and even debates, we would ask that there'd be a sort of a bedrock, a foundation of that unity that we continue as we respect each other as we uh uh argue our conscience, but most of all that we do all things in a way that we please and glorify you. We praise these things in thy name. Amen. Amen. And brother Ron, we pray for your just peace. Thank you, brother. love you. So,
• 05:30 - 06:00 we are returning um perhaps uh momentarily for uh the first reading legislation that was again found on page 14 of your report book. Recognize again brother David Allen. Uh Mr. Moderator, as the executive director of the Bible Fellowship Church, uh my job is to execute not only people but operations. Um and and therefore as the executor uh
• 06:00 - 06:30 there are times when I have to make decisions that are very very important. And so my decision at this point is to turn it over to my boss who happens to be the president of the BSC. Uh brother Bill Schlaninger. That'll be the day when I'm your boss. But anyway, so be it. So, um I am in the position of president of the Bible Fellowship Church, uh president of the of the board of the executive board. And so,
• 06:30 - 07:00 um there used to be a program that was called the no spin zone. And one of the things I learned as a pastor was people can pick up spin anytime when they they can smell it a mile away. So um let me just try to clarify a few things and hopefully not muddy things more. But uh indeed our brother Gman was correct when he said that in essence the executive board became somewhat of a conduit to
• 07:00 - 07:30 bring this resolution to the body. and we appreciate all of the discussion that has been put forth and it's it's opened up some areas that we believe are essential to address that maybe we weren't even thinking about but I do want to clarify something. I appreciate brother Schmooer's comments as well, but uh I think our misstep here was that we brought it rather hastily. Again, as was
• 07:30 - 08:00 mentioned, we didn't really discuss it a lot at the board meeting when when when it came up and at that time I presume we didn't feel it was necessary, but our misstep was more bringing it hastily. I think we want to be clear that that the executive board does have authority to bring certain recommendations to the body and we certainly would not want to negate that authority but it does take discernment takes wisdom because we do understand coming from the executive board perhaps right or wrongly probably
• 08:00 - 08:30 rightly it carries some weight. So um the questions and the comments the ensuing discussion that uh that we've had here in the last 30 or 40 minutes has made clear that there does need to be some further work on the composition but as we talked over lunch not only the composition of study committees but of the process of that composition because that process has evolved over the
• 08:30 - 09:00 decades. Initially a study committee was voted on by the conference. But over the course of years that evolved into the moderator simply appointing a study committee and for most of us there are individuals perhaps we we know nothing about. It just has come as a recommendation, a name, a nominee from someone uh someone in their church or whatever. And so we as a board feel that
• 09:00 - 09:30 we're going to pull this back and we haven't discussed greatly what the move forward will be. That's what we need to do. So we're pulling this resolution off the table and the executive board will take a look. We'll talk more about it and we will decide uh presumably with some wisdom of of what the path forward may look like of how to handle these things. But it's important uh our brother Wagner brought up a good point about uh a person being in
• 09:30 - 10:00 agreement with the faith in order to serve on a study committee. So we're pulling it back and I don't know what the process I think that's all we need to do. Thank you. Thank you, Bill. Thank you. Brother Wagner, you have a comment. Uh yes. uh in the form of a question recognizing the action is that it is going back to executive board. Would that also then have a recommendation
• 10:00 - 10:30 with it to say it came from XYZ particular church but they should have put it forth as a petition from the elders or from the church so that a a question like this does not come up multiple times. Let me address that and just say I appreciate that, brother Wagner, but I would rather not we get into those details on this. We're as an executive board
• 10:30 - 11:00 acknowledging we brought this hastily. Let us pull it back and let us talk about it further and make some recommendations. That's right. With in addition just with a preceding conversation and and discussion uh well well noted and we'll we'll all take that into advisement. So uh that's the will of the executive board and we appreciate the executive board's work. All right, at this time we're going to um continue on in our agenda. We'll return to first reading legislation, God willing, uh within within the hour or
• 11:00 - 11:30 so, but we're going to cast the ballot. Uh, now some of you were trying to stuff the ballot box, the digital ballot
• 11:30 - 12:00 idea for us which is to have a panel
• 12:00 - 12:30 discussion. If you've ever attended a
• 12:30 - 13:00 conference where a panel discussion is
• 13:00 - 13:30 held, it's often fascinating just to
• 13:30 - 14:00 hear opinions from men who have
• 14:00 - 14:30 sufficient experience. So this is in a
• 14:30 - 15:00 sense going to be a dry run at that and I would invite the gentleman who will be part of the august uh panel discussion to come up and join us at this present time. Now the one thing if you looking at your agenda we're actually out of order and this is because one of the panelists is only available today. We're actually going to do the second panel discussion first, but it and it deals with the matter of of what does unity
• 15:00 - 15:30 look like within your church or within a Bible fellowship church. Now, I'm your friendly neighborhood conference secretary, but I used to be a sports writer, so interviewing people is what I did. But I learned very quickly in in covering high school sports that if it takes the reporter a minute to ask the question, he's not interested in the answer. So, I'm going to try to ask questions quickly. and brothers, I would invite you to raise your pinky or whatever just to to let me know that you're interested in participating and sharing and we're going to move on from
• 15:30 - 16:00 there. We'll see how it goes. Now, let me just introduce the panel. Immediately to my left is is Bill Schlaniker planted a church in Newark, Delaware. I'm right reading the notes. It says it almost failed but then grew to over 500 worshippers on a Sunday morning and he served 35 years there at Newark. Next to him is Bob Sloan. became the pastor of Sinking Spring when it had 108 members in 1987 and it grew over the course of his ministry of 30 years to a
• 16:00 - 16:30 weekly attendance of almost a thousand. And Bob also has the advantage of of experience as a certified church consultant. Next to him is Cal Reed became the pastor of a wellestablished church in Lebanon and it grew from a membership in to of 87 to 220. and Cal just retired in the last year or so after over 40 years at Lebanon. And finally, the junior member of this panel is our moderator, Dan Williams, who became the pastor of a wellestablished
• 16:30 - 17:00 church at Blandon, uh, but he also has the experience of of not only growing the unity of the church, but actually having a merger with the with the church at Fleetwood. So, Fleetwood is now part of the Blandon church. So, brothers, welcome to the panel, and I look forward to hearing what you have. Uh Mark de wrote a book called Nine Marks of a Healthy Church. Could you share with me some marks of a unified church? What is a unified church look like from your experience but also from a biblical perspective?
• 17:00 - 17:30 Don't be shy. Well, I would begin uh with the importance of leadership and a unified church is a church where the leadership is unifor unified. The people know and recognize that the leadership is on the same page and working together. And that unity then I believe many times will then filter down to the congregation. I think of of I
• 17:30 - 18:00 love Romans 15. I think um our our brother moderator referenced that the that so with one heart and with one voice we may glorify the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ and that one heart one voice again united uh towards a common purpose a common mission that has been clearly communicated and um I think Ephesians 4 obviously a text for biblical unity and Romans when it speaks
• 18:00 - 18:30 of the weaker weaker brother. That's an important text as well. That's great. Thank you for that, Bill. Um, want to actually ask uh and these brothers have been prepped with general questions, but I I do want to reserve the right to kind of go off script. And the question I had just based on your answer, Bill, was okay. So, it's so important to have leadership unified. Have either any of you either Bill or the rest of you had experience where leadership was not unified where the pastor and the elders
• 18:30 - 19:00 were were on opposite sides of of general philosophy of church and ministry. Go Cal. Well uh if I can piggyback on one of the other questions that is here um as to what was a difficult time for unity. Okay. Um for for us we were blessed over the years with a a tremendous amount of unity uh a good
• 19:00 - 19:30 spirit and and let me define what unity is. Uh unity isn't unanimity of mind or thinking. It isn't that everyone understands and sees a situation in exactly the same way or even agrees on the outcome as to uh what action should be taken. Uh co was a very difficult time for us uh as I think in in many churches
• 19:30 - 20:00 and the issues of culture and society uh came into the boardroom. Uh there were political issues. There uh was a difference of opinion as there was in evangelicalism as to whether you close your doors, whether you stay open, whether you wear the mask or you don't wear the masks. Uh how do you clean your church? Do you have outside services? Uh what do you do about distancing? All of those
• 20:00 - 20:30 issues we had to deal with. And we were not all in agreement as to what was the wisest course of action, right? But we were unified. Uh we made decisions and everyone supported the decisions that were made. Uh we had some give and take. We had uh some raising of voices at times even uh over
• 20:30 - 21:00 uh these matters because they were heartfelt. Uh they they were extremely practical. Uh you were going against what some family members thought or friends thought. Uh so it was a challenge. Yes. But we had people that supported what the decision was. And not only did the elders support it, but so did the
• 21:00 - 21:30 congregation. And they were all over the place. And we got emails and we got feedback and uh we had uh concerns. Uh but we lost very very few Yeah. few individuals. They continued to come. They continued to worship. We made decisions that we thought were honoring, glorifying to the Lord and uh we as a a board uh submitted to one another. So I think humility is is huge
• 21:30 - 22:00 believing that God called not only me but God had called us. Each individual, each elder was there by a sovereign God who placed them there. So we listened. We came to compromise where we could, where compromise was impossible because they were just too Yeah. either you met or didn't meet.
• 22:00 - 22:30 So um but as I say, all the elders supported it and the congregation went with what the elders decided. It's not a case where theology really undergurs your ecclesiology, your understanding of the sovereignty of God. just in the midst of this great turmoil, we know that God is we want to honor him. We know that he's in it. Brother Sloan, you were going you were going to respond, too. Was I? You are now. Wonder what I was going to say. Um, well, we had I was there a long time
• 22:30 - 23:00 and we had a a few times when we didn't have unity. There was one in particular. One of the challenges of being a pastor is you you're thinking about the church. You're praying about it. You're you're working on it all the time. It just never leaves your mind. It is who you at least for me, it was who I was. It was everything. And I was always thinking about it. So you come with an idea to an elders meeting and you've been thinking about it forever and you present this idea that you know is is like this is a slam dunk. Everybody is going to
• 23:00 - 23:30 celebrate this. Well, they haven't been thinking about it for five minutes. So you're asking a lot. And I I came to the board. I had this we we were full. We had experienced some growth and it was time to uh think about moving on. And I said, "I've got great news. I have a buyer for the building." And I expected a celebration. Um and they all looked at me and basically told me to go sit in the corner. Uh I mean, they weren't having any of it. And and it was pretty
• 23:30 - 24:00 explosive. It was basically me against the the other 12 elders. And um and I sat there while the the vice chairman of the board stepped up and he and he said, "Well, let's let's talk about this." And he went elder by elder and he said, "Now, what what's your concern about this?" And one of them said, "Well, we can't afford that." Another one said, "Well, where would we go? Where would if we sell this, where are we going to meet?" And and where would we build a building and it cost a lot of money and the people won't subscribe to it years
• 24:00 - 24:30 ago? They saddled us with debt when they voted something and then they didn't support it. And there were all these different things. And then he turned it around and he went back after having listened to all 12 elders and he he said to each one, he said, "Well, now you're concerned about the buyin from the congregation. If we had $350,000 as a commitment offering to begin with, would that satisfy you?" Well, that that satisfied him. And then he said to the next person, he said, "If
• 24:30 - 25:00 we could buy this land that's a half a mile away, it's 50 acres. If we could buy that and he immediately, the elder immediately responded and said, "Yes, but they're asking 1.2 million for it." And he said, "Well, if we could buy it for 600,000, would that satisfy you?" And he was pretty sure that wouldn't happen. So he said, "Yeah, that would satisfy him." And and then he went to the next one and said, "And if we agreed not to not to borrow money, but to raise all the money, we only build what we have cash
• 25:00 - 25:30 and pledges for. Would that satisfy you?" And there was a list of pretty much 12 items. And one by one, he went down them. They said, "Where would we meet?" And he said, "You know, if we start from scratch, it'll take three years to build a building, the permit, and everything else." He said, 'If we if we negotiate with this church that wants to buy us and they give us three years to continue to meet, would that satisfy you? And at the end of that meeting, we had unonymity among the board and I was
• 25:30 - 26:00 invited back to the table from my seat in the corner. And it was it it just really stuck with me because that was such a tremendous moment of of bringing unity to the moment uh among a board that was as fractured as as probably ever uh in the in the life of the church. And that was just it was a a piece of artwork by this this particular elder. Um it was quite remarkable by God's grace. All of those were achieved. Uh and the woman
• 26:00 - 26:30 dropped the price on the land from a million2 to 600,000 uh just without even pushing. Uh the church gave us three years to and we we moved to the new building three years and one week later. Uh and just one after the other. They all they all came to fruition. But I was just struck with this elers's wisdom to sit down and listen to each person. He never argued with anybody, but he heard the the concerns of each individual
• 26:30 - 27:00 there and he brought unity in that sense out of chaos. Yeah, that's good. What are some of the lessons that going through times of disunityity have taught you and made you a how how have those things made you a better pastor? This I believe that Romans 8:28 is true in all cir circumstances, even the hard ones. What are some of the things you've learned through struggles that you've dealt with in terms of unity and disunityity? I know that was off script. Just for
• 27:00 - 27:30 everybody. For everybody. Everybody. I thought I wanted one that Thank you, Bill. Yeah. And by the way, there are many of you who could be sitting up here sharing about your experiences with unity or lack thereof. So we're the ones here. So um we get to share. But I was blessed for and I went to Newark, Delaware in
• 27:30 - 28:00 1984. It had really been planted in 1976, but it was up and down during those times. And uh it was either make or break time. And um so I went there, there was a group of about 20 people at the time. And so my congregation and me and again when we became a particular church in 1987, I think or ' 86,
• 28:00 - 28:30 um we had our elders. one of our original elders is here serving uh today after all these years. He he stuck with us. But we grew together and that was important. That was significant. That helped. We we grew together and if we made mistakes, we made them together as it were. Um but it was it was we were just blessed with unity. And again, Dick Taylor years ago wrote a
• 28:30 - 29:00 paper on on elder boards ruling with by consensus and we embraced that in Newark. And again, it doesn't mean uniformity. It doesn't mean that I certainly and I think at our largest we had maybe 12 or 13 elders. Certainly not yes men. These men were not afraid to tell me when I was off base. And um but again we listened to everyone and I appreciate what brother Bob has said about his elder and and that process.
• 29:00 - 29:30 But uh we listened to everyone. There were numerous times when we would say you know we're not ready to make a decision on this. Let's take some time. We're going to all ini individually pray about this and we'll come back and we'll talk it again. and ultimately when we would come to the place where everybody everybody's objections were heard and in some measure answered that they could say yes to this proposal then
• 29:30 - 30:00 you men know when you when your board walks out of that boardroom we're of one heart and mind and there's no side winding of you know well I they voted for it but I didn't and that doesn't work that'll disrupt the church. Very very quickly I say that I had was blessed with unity for all my ministry until the last year. And the last year I had a
• 30:00 - 30:30 woman and her husband who took issue with the elders, the leadership on something and wouldn't let it go. We met with them probably three, four times, listening, trying to address concerns. Maybe we did it too much. But in the end, she began to circulate letters of opposition. And um so the elders, we had
• 30:30 - 31:00 to somewhat nip that in the bud fairly quickly. And this was what complicated it was. It was in a time of transition between my ministry and pastor Andrew Heeble who was just coming on on site at that time. So it was pretty close to my retirement. That couple ultimately left. But um unfortunately that last year I did experience that measure of disunityity. But even in that there was unity among
• 31:00 - 31:30 the elders and the vast majority of the congregation and I say vast majority of the congregation saw that for what it was worth and I think there in part 38 years there I had built up credibility and so that's one of the things of unity is when your congregation has confidence in its leadership and we would always talk about until your leadership gives you reason to not have confidence in them,
• 31:30 - 32:00 to question them, then support them because you don't know all the details. You don't know all of what's been deliberated behind the scenes. And again, we tried to always communicate clearly, appropriately, and not spin things because people can pick that up. So, I'm not sure what question I answered there. Probably didn't answer any because you asked what lessons I learned. I retired. I retired then. Okay,
• 32:00 - 32:30 that's a good answer. Let's close in prayer. Amen. No, you answered about nine questions. Um, I want to br Dan in. So, unity is a situation. You experienced a church merger, right? And that is a potential powder keg for disunityity. Well, it is. How did you deal with it? And how did you maintain grow unity? I'm already alive. Yeah. No, that that's great. And again, I'm I'm humbled to even uh be a part of this conversation and learning so much from you brothers. And so again,
• 32:30 - 33:00 real real quick, just over nine years ago, uh God led my family and I to Trinity. Uh Trinity had uh navigated the the the terrain of a a really difficult season. Uh some discord within the fellowship um under under our former pastor uh and then the death of our former pastor, Alan Miller. And so it was it was a very very uh tenuous season at Trinity and uh the Lord led us there and within that first year conversations
• 33:00 - 33:30 with our brothers and sisters at Faith uh BFC and Fleetwood uh already sort of resurfaced again about potentially coming together as as a unified church. And uh those were some some terrifying terrifying days, but they were also very very sweet days. We it it was very quick and so we hadn't had 35 years to build up credibility and so perhaps we made some mistakes but God has been so faithful. That's really where I'm coming at with this conversation is is as much as we espouse to be committed to unity.
• 33:30 - 34:00 God is determined. God is faithful to his church. God is faithful to his people. One of the things that has come to my mind as you brothers have been talking is that notion of patience. patience with uh our brothers and sisters when uh they just haven't arrived at where perhaps we think the right decision is and just being being long-suffering and patient with them. Um there's a verse in Amos 3:3, do two walk together unless they have agreed to meet. That's a difficult context, but it's a really really sweet
• 34:00 - 34:30 verse that really emphasizes um that unity is is often a byproduct of communication. And so we need to communicate, we need to love. Uh and the Lord has given uh again just just after nine years great joy in a fellowship uh two families coming together. Lots of lots of difficult conversations, lots of negotiation of which ministry leaders are going to lead which particular ministries. Um but we have just seen the sweet joy uh over these last few years
• 34:30 - 35:00 enabling us to do things that either of the two churches independently could not have done on their own. And so we just give God a lot of praise for that. I appreciate it, Dan, that you brought up a particular biblical text. So maybe that segue into the idea of what what passages, we've heard several of them in this conference already. Psalm 133 speaks specifically. What are some biblical texts that have really helped you to understand what unity is supposed to look like in a church? And and you they've been become your go-to passages where it comes to unity, Cal. Well, I
• 35:00 - 35:30 think of Ephesians where the the church is the bride of Christ and marriage is to illustrate what a church is. And the essence of marriage is commitment until death do you depart. And there's an old Puritan idea that
• 35:30 - 36:00 affected me many, many years ago. When I first came to the church over 40 years ago, I made a commitment to myself that I would be there as long as they wanted. I made a commitment to my wife. So that's the worst part. Now, I'm not finding fault with anybody who changes churches. There's a thousand1 reasons, you know. I I'm I'm not going there. But
• 36:00 - 36:30 what I am saying is is that there needs to be a commitment to each other. And to realize that that's not just a symbolic commitment, but that's a very real commitment that reflects our understanding of who God is and how he can heal and how he can restore. And when you have that relationship that you can pretty adamantly disagree, but walk out of a meeting and
• 36:30 - 37:00 hug and share tears over what a brother is going through. And you know how difficult that board meeting was for that brother because they have all these other issues. And here they come to a place that's to be an oasis and they met with some
• 37:00 - 37:30 heartache. Your heart breaks. So where the relationship of being, you know, the understanding the marriage relationship, it is a love relationship. And I personally count it such a pleasure to be there at your retirement night. And if you would have seen a full house of a congregation in Lebanon just showing love to their beloved pastor and his beloved wife. And that doesn't mean your every year was easy. That they loved you and you love
• 37:30 - 38:00 them. Brothers, anybody else want to answer the scriptural examples that have helped you and encouraged you toward unity in your church, in your ministries as pastors. Well, the text the text you look runnerish, man. So, go ahead. It it's really hard to um to get away from me from Philippians 2. And again, I think it's worth letting the word of God wash over us Aresh right now as we consider this theme. If there is any
• 38:00 - 38:30 encouragement in Christ, if any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind. Paul is pivoting to this point after he's already talking about those who preach Christ out of rivalry and these sorts of things. And he's he's admonishing he's loving the the the believers saying complete my joy in being of the same mind having the same love being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition
• 38:30 - 39:00 or conceit but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. let let each of you look not only to his own interest but also to the interests of others. And then of course he begins to in flesh that by describing uh the very incarnation of Jesus Christ and how he did that for us. And again in leadership in pastoral ministry sometimes we feel like we see the the answer so clearly but that's sometimes our answer and it's it advances our perspective and the the
• 39:00 - 39:30 uh admonishment that I receive from time to time is have I really given my brother or my sister in some situations who who has a concern who has a point have I really listened to them have I really understood or have I assumed where they are or have I listened uh given their perspective, a hearing, a true hearing, considering their interests ahead of my own for the glory of Christ and the good of his church. And again, it's this is uh base camp for
• 39:30 - 40:00 me in terms of church unity and church um church fellowship. Excellent. Bill, you you said something about having the respect of your people. How does a pastor build the respect of his congregation, which obviously leads to unity? Shepherd them with love. Shepherd them with love. Lavish them with love. Shepherd them in grace and truth. And Jesus said gra
• 40:00 - 40:30 Jesus was described as grace first and truth. And you know we come back preach the word. But I would say that earning that respect is and building that respect is loving them, being with them in situations of life that are hard, being authentic with them, sharing your own struggles. I'll
• 40:30 - 41:00 never forget in an application and obviously it takes appropriateness of how personal to get in the application part, but I had shared a particular struggle that I had and how I dealt with it. I'll never forget a woman came up to me and said, "Pastor Bill, thank you for showing us how you dealt with that because that's what they needed to
• 41:00 - 41:30 hear. authenticity, how we deal with it. You know, we're I had another woman who came to me came to me after a sermon. Pastor Bill, everything in your life is perfect. I said, you have no idea what goes on in my house from Sunday to Sunday because perfect is not a word that would apply. But authenticity is huge. And loving them, loving them, listening to them, shephering them. Yeah. With humility.
• 41:30 - 42:00 humility as well. Good. Cal, may I piggy back with um a verses of scripture that uh struck me was the fact that God gave Joseph favor in the eyes of the jailer. Um to pray regularly that God would give you favor in the eyes of the people. Not that you can be put on a pedestal, not so you can win a t talent contest, but
• 42:00 - 42:30 simply that will people will accept what you have to say. Yeah. That you have that privilege of ministering to them, that God would work in people's hearts, that they'll receive from you what you want to give. What advice would you give for other pastors? We're all over the place in terms of where our churches are uni unified or not. What a pastor is going through a time of real heartache, disunityity in his church. What what
• 42:30 - 43:00 practical advice would you give to such a pastor? Don't don't feel I mean you you may feel like you're alone. You are not alone. Make sure that you are reaching out. I I am so appreciative over now 21 years of of life in the BFC. The our regional connections, the our relationships transcend our regions. We know that of course, but really the brothers that we meet with on a monthly basis or sometimes for some of us more often than that, you really need to quickly
• 43:00 - 43:30 sometimes I guess it could be too quickly because you can make something but but when you really feel like you are are are struggling, please reach out. Uh there are brothers perhaps in your local church. Sometimes that can get tricky, but you have brothers and sisters, brothers especially in ministry that can give you great counsel um and just love you and listen to you and and pray with you. So that would be you know talk to the Lord, talk to brothers very quickly in that process. Is there a sense in which your people can can help you through some of those hard times? I
• 43:30 - 44:00 I remember starting early in my ministry, I had someone say, you know, you have to have a dividing wall between you and your people. You they can only get to know you so far. And I I found that very distasteful. How how how has it been for you and and your closeness with your congregation to the point where they trust you and even if they don't agree with everything you're doing, they at least respect you. Anybody want to handle that question? I I'll take some of it. I I uh I did the dividing wall pretty well. Um that's why I hired Wayne. They all went to him. He
• 44:00 - 44:30 uh he's he's a real a real people person in that regard. I think it's important on a couple of levels with that to remember the Lord builds the church. We we all know that we we recite it. I mean he was he was saying that at Cesaria Philippi. Um and if you take it at a practical level even when times are are really tough um first of all you know Paul exhorted in Philippians 4 whatsoever things are good and pure etc. Look upon these things.
• 44:30 - 45:00 Think on these things. Think about the good that Christ is giving you. Think about the changes in your church or or the moment in your church as if this is something from the Lord. He's doing something. Uh if people come recognize that they are a gift from the Lord, these people that have come, how are you going to use them? I used to say to my wife on occasion, we'd be walking the dog. I said, "We're getting ready to grow, I think." And she goes, "Why do you think that?" I said, because the Lord just gave us three really good couples that that are tremendously experienced and leaders, and he wouldn't
• 45:00 - 45:30 give us them if he wasn't going to use them in something. It's important to use those people, celebrate them, and engage them in the ministry of the church. And and I would reiterate to listen to your people before there are issues. You'll see them coming. And and then one time at one of our conferences here, we had a shepherd and he said, "It's important to identify the ones that uh that grumble and understand them." He said, uh, a good shepherd, he said, will take the most skittish sheep he has and put a bell around them. And and when that when
• 45:30 - 46:00 that sheep gets excited or upset, it means there's a there's a wolf or something on the on the perimeter. Well, you have people like that in your church. Pay attention to them. Don't blow them off. They're the early warning system. Now, some of them, well, we all have them, right? We or have had them. I'm retired. I don't have them anymore. Um, which is one of the blessings of retirement. Um, you can sit there and smile when a pastor tells me about it. I remember I remember when, but those
• 46:00 - 46:30 people are some of your most faithful people. They love the church. That's why they're upset more often than not. Listen to them. See what they would change. I often say to pastors, listen to your people. You don't have to do everything they want, but they have to know you heard them. Listen, that means so much. And it'll help you down the road because then they'll they'll be more willing to listen to you and to your understanding of it. But it's it comes back to whatsoever things are good, think on these things. Think of all the the gifts that God has given
• 46:30 - 47:00 you. No matter what state your church is in, in that moment, the Lord has provided things for you that you're probably overlooking. Yeah, that's wonderfully practical advice. Thank you for that. I'm sure it's helpful to all of us. I'm going to ask one more question, then I'm going to open it up to the floor. So, if any of you have any questions you'd like to ask these brothers, um you'll have an opportunity to moment. I just want to say one piggyback something was just said, but you talk about cultivating
• 47:00 - 47:30 unity. One of the ways to cultivate unity is that you get people involved. And again, I I mentioned Ephesians 4 and that one statement was as each one does its part. The body is built up to maturity. The sniping, the snipers, the complainers more often than not are people who are sitting on the sidelines. It's true. Watching other people do the ministry. So, as much as possible,
• 47:30 - 48:00 teaching that and equipping our people and getting them plugged in and involved and using their gifts is one of the best ways to cultivate unity as they are vested in the ministry and the mission and the purpose of what you're trying to do. Thank you, Bill. So, question for any of you brothers. What are what do you consider some of the biggest threats to unity in the church today? You want names? probably not.
• 48:00 - 48:30 Um, good. Acts when Paul met with the Ephesian elders, he said, "I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, speaking and uh sparing the flock, and from among you yourselves also." Um, We are a threat to unity. That's right.
• 48:30 - 49:00 Uh wanting to draw people after ourselves. The passage of that that you read from Philippians chapter 2. Um, we really have to guard our hearts as elders, as pastors, that we want what's best for the church, that we aren't trying to build our own kingdom, that we aren't trying to get
• 49:00 - 49:30 followers only in the sense of the apostle Paul, follow me as I follow Christ. But other than that, uh, we are making disciples of Christ, not disciples of ourselves. That's right. I want to follow up on that. I'm just reminded of the old Pogo comic strip that says, "We have met the enemy and he is us." Right. So, how do you guard your heart as a pastor? Because those temptations, none of us have egos. Right. Sure. How do we do that? Colossians 3:13 or so
• 49:30 - 50:00 says, "Forgiving one another as as the Lord Jesus Christ has forgiven you." So just having a healthy uh sanctified self perception that we're bloodbought in the process of being sanctified sinners turned saints. And so just remembering all that Christ has done and won for us and then remembering that we are now commissioned to love and and to replicate that to imitate that to other people is is very important. You
• 50:00 - 50:30 you ask about uh threats. Yes. at least two, maybe a third one comes to mind. Number one would would be compromise. I think we need to recognize there uh compromise on issues of of uh central doctrine is a threat. I I I would venture to say I would hazard say it's it's not it's not our threat right now. It it could be our threat, but compromise uh doctrinal compromise uh is is a threat. But then related to that and so that's sort of the the compromise
• 50:30 - 51:00 from without is I I still think we're grappling with issues of categorization. Uh really understanding what is primary what what what unites us what binds us and then and then what are those right areas of um of u uh magnanimous uh Christ exalting um difference one to another. Uh not everything is is on that same it's all the scripture. we we need to take it all seriously, but really understanding and discerning what what are those areas the the forms that that
• 51:00 - 51:30 Dave Allen speaks of sometime from from time to time that um we we can fellowship together, cooperate together and yet disagree on the application of in our local setting. That's so important and I still think we're we're wrestling with that question and but and it's a hard question. Um but that is a threat to our unity as well as capitulation or compromise uh caving in to heterodox to to to to bad doctrine. Al Mohler has used the terminology theological triage determining what is
• 51:30 - 52:00 primary, what's secondary, what's tertiary. I just wanted was as you're talking I was thinking what Los Morales said last night about you know when when woke people are trying to get him where did he go John any questions from the studio audience yes just speak loudly enough and we'll relate it oh or actually take a microphone thanks brothers Jeremy at Ebenezer um I about threats right um if you could give
• 52:00 - 52:30 some examples you know, we got our first and then our secondary and our tertiary issues. How does that play into the sacred cows? The the places I mean, I'm a worship pastor, so there's no sacred places there. Um, that's sarcasm, but the reality um the reality of these sacred cows, how have you navigated through these threats when people hold such sacred places, a first place or a second place to a tertiary issue or something there? How do you navigate examples of places in an
• 52:30 - 53:00 established church or a new church? Um, how how do you navigate that for for us to hear some of those examples of that process? Great question, Jeremy. Anybody want to tackle that one? Just on a practical level, uh, go slowly. Uh, don't surprise people. Worst thing you can do in any church is that to surprise your elders. You never want to surprise your elders. I mean, they they believe and rightfully so that they really ought to know what's going on. So, I a pastor
• 53:00 - 53:30 that got in trouble. He announced a mission trip. He was going to Korea. That was news to the elders. Uh they hadn't approved the time off or the expense or anything else. He he's not still with that church. It wasn't one of ours. Uh so, I'm not totally speaking out of school. But explain to people when you're when you're flirting with a sacred cow and do it gradually. Uh don't just do it suddenly. I did a service one time as as part of a dissertation for a course I was taking and u I wanted to have a holistic worship service. So uh I
• 53:30 - 54:00 was trying to involve as many of the senses as I could. Uh I I had the lurggical dance for this one service. It's a little weird I admit. Um and I had the elders bring forth incense uh as the incense wafted up along with prayers from each of the people. We had them submit a prayer request and then the elders came up as the incense uh the smoke went up the elders read the prayers and we prayed for everybody and we did the whole service. But the week
• 54:00 - 54:30 before I explained to everybody what we were going to do and I said and if if that upsets you, I'd invite you to to go to our sister church in Reading that week and we only do it one week. And and it was fine. It was a good service. It was interesting. It was exciting. We only did it once and I only lost three people who were allergic to incense. Um, but we explained it and then then there was another time when I didn't explain it and I got in trouble uh because I moved the offering and I moved the
• 54:30 - 55:00 offering to the end of the service, the very last thing. And I did it on purpose to be a response to the sermon. It was a very appropriate thing to do except I hadn't told some of the people, especially the woman who counted the money. the entire sermon she's saying to the person next to her out loud with a voice that was, you know, like this whisper that everybody hears, "He forgot the offering." And I said to her later, "Never fear. I will never forget the offering." But so that was a sort of a
• 55:00 - 55:30 lesson to me. If you shepherd the people, if you lead the people to the moment, explain it to them so that they're not shocked and not surprised and explain although you might not really love this, uh, it'll help you expand your thoughts on it. And be assured, I'm not doing away with your favorite fill in the blank. U, so I would just say it's it's more a method of walking them through it, I guess. Thank you. Great question, Jeremy. Thank
• 55:30 - 56:00 you. Anybody else have a question you'd like to ask these brothers? Go ahead, Ricky. I'm an elder, so I hope it is elder appreciation day. It is elder appreciation day. It was good. Um, so third rail, politics. Um, our nation is divided. Our people are divided. We have people on both sides of the aisle. Some
• 56:00 - 56:30 gravitate, you know, some side of the aisle is larger than the other, but how do we how do you navigate that in unity? That's a good question. If you're and with that recess, no, I'm just if you're a Star Trek fan, there's the Kobashi Maru episode, which there was a it was the classic no-win scenario, and I personally felt that that that's one of them. Go ahead. No, I I'm still trying to get my head wrapped around Bob Sloan with dancing and incense. That
• 56:30 - 57:00 that has shaken me to my core. Um, that's a good one. I had somebody come to me with a George Bush cutout that they wanted to put into the in in the sanctuary next to them in the pews. Yeah. We said, "No, that won't work." Um, this brings me to what I think another a threat to unity today is social media. And that's more of a pragmatic
• 57:00 - 57:30 thing than what maybe some of shared, but the social media. So, how do we navigate this polarization? We don't want to contribute to it by posting political comments on on social media. That's that's my thought. I would never put a bumper sticker on my car. I would never put a political sign in my yard because
• 57:30 - 58:00 I know that by doing that I'm going to now forfeit even my right to speak to many of my neighbors. And so we need to really walk with great discernment and gentleness in that area. I have strong convictions in this arena, but I will not uh put that out to my congregation. And when I preach, you know, we need to be careful that we're not a church of
• 58:00 - 58:30 one party and we we can talk about issues and that's what I did in talking about biblical issues um and what the word of God says, but not in promoting one particular candidate or party. And again, I go back to social media. Our people I I am horrified at what some things I read on Facebook from people that I know.
• 58:30 - 59:00 Yeah. And who should know better but either don't or don't care. Yeah. But does damage to the body of Christ and to the unity. If I could just follow that, Bill, I think it's so so wise. brothers, we we are called to oversee those conversations. Uh something that uh not oversee, but but to engage appropriately. Um one of the things that I just want to kind of get out is especially to to a
• 59:00 - 59:30 younger pastor, this was me. I still I'm kind of in the middle middle part of my ministry perhaps. You don't have to swing at every pitch. You know if somebody's somebody's making a suggestion, somebody wants to sometimes the right thing at that moment is not to rebuke them but to to listen to them. But if it becomes an entrenched pattern, it is it is our responsibility to to disciple them. They are being discipled. Our people are being discipled by some or some theory or some
• 59:30 - 60:00 institution. They if they profess Christ, they are to be disciples of Jesus. And the apostle Paul reminds us in Philippians 3:20, "But our citizenship is in heaven." And uh again, so I I read that text, but I also read in line with 1 Peter and what it looks like to live as upright, godly citizens, peaceful. That's that's Timothy, but also Peter there admonishing uh that that believers, we we are exiles now and we we need to live well. We need to represent Christ well. And so our our silence can be complicity sometimes. So
• 60:00 - 60:30 we need to be mindful of that. But also in our zeal, younger guys in ministry, you you in that in that itch to prove yourself. You gota you got to put everybody in their place. And you don't I think sometimes you you need to just listen, love them, develop a relationship and model well as Paul would remind Timothy u watch your life and doctrine closely. Make sure your message uh is is aligned and reinforced
• 60:30 - 61:00 by the manner of your life. And I think that's a part of disciplehip, too. It's not just getting getting it right verbally. It's it's living it well as far as as as being a disciple ourselves. Brother, is there any parting comments you'd like to make? I I don't know about you, but I greatly appreciate it. And one of the things I want to say is that um if you're a younger pastor, seek a more seasoned pastor because they have life experiences and maybe they've made some of the same mistakes you've made. But I have learned so much from men like
• 61:00 - 61:30 this and I have treasure them and I hope you do as well. So let's give them a round of applause and then we'll pick up the very good. Okay, brother moderator back to you. Back to the post. Thank you. We're going to resume our first reading legislation. So, I'll call brother Allan back to the side
• 61:30 - 62:00 car. And so again, just to remind you, we are on page 14 of the report book, first reading legislation. Brother Allan article 511-1.7 bracket three youth and young adult committee the purpose right whereas the youth and
• 62:00 - 62:30 young adult committee does not feel the current purpose statement is s is specific enough and supporting the local church ministries whereas the youth and young adults committee desires to serve the local church ministries more effectively and practically. Therefore, be it red res resolved that we adopt the following resolution which would replace the current purpose statement. So 511-1.7 bracket 3 says purpose the youth and young adult
• 62:30 - 63:00 committees exist to glorify and honor God by primarily equipping churches to effectively reach and disciple students and young adults for Christ. This includes training leaders, providing relevant insights and trends in culture, hosting disciplehip and outreach events, and promoting unity among the churches. I so move its adoption. It has been moved and seconded that uh conference adopt the resolution uh which the whereas begin on page 14,
• 63:00 - 63:30 top of page 15. Any discussion? Okay. If you anyone's speak uh wishing to speak to that resolution. Okay. Seeing no one asking to stand and speak, take out your voting device. This is a text vote. First reading legislation. Please cast your ballot
• 63:30 - 64:00 now.
• 64:00 - 64:30 Anybody need any more time? Okay, we'll delay just a moment.
• 64:30 - 65:00 Looks like they're still working over there. We're given just another moment. Are you good? Okay, Tim, do we have a result? Yes. All right. 148 to zero. Yes. 148 to zero. Good job,
• 65:00 - 65:30 guys. All right. Here we go. Brother Allan, continue please. Another controversial article. 511-1.7 bracket 6 prayer committee composition and election. Whereas the composition of the BSC prayer committee is specified in the principles of order which currently states the prayer BFC prayer committee shall be composed of four ministers and three lay persons. Lay persons must be members in good standing at a BFC church. And whereas it also states that
• 65:30 - 66:00 no member of the committee may serve more than two consecutive terms. A member may may be elected to a new term after a minimum of one year's time following two consecutive terms. And whereas the committee has found it difficult to find lay persons who are both passionate about prayer and are able and willing to serve on the committee. And whereas the current composition of the committee consists of six ministers and two lay persons. And whereas the committee is seeking to undertake two separate days of prayer both north and south and needs more members in order to facilitate the days
• 66:00 - 66:30 of prayer effectively. Therefore, be it resolved that 111 511-1.7 bracket 6 under composition and election be changed to the following sub. Number one, the prayer committee shall be composed of members in good standing of a BFC church. Two, the committee shall elect its own members subject to the ratification of the BFC executive board. Three, no member of the committee may serve more than two consecutive terms. A member may be elected to a new
• 66:30 - 67:00 term after a minimum of one year's time following two consecutive terms. Four, the members of the committee shall be elected for a term of three years. The committee five, the committee shall organize itself at the call of the chairman of the previous year at which time officer shall be elected. I so move. All right. It's been moved and supported that the resolution on page 15 be adopted. Anyone like to speak to that motion? Okay, seeing no one rise to the
• 67:00 - 67:30 floor, if you're prepared to vote, please uh use your phone and and uh let's cast a ballot. anyone else needing time.
• 67:30 - 68:00 All right. Do we have results for that, Tim? Okay. The motion passes. Yeah. One. Division for the division of the house was asked for. Yes. 157. No. One.
• 68:00 - 68:30 Okay. Can I have that? Thank you. All right. So, what was the division of the house? Sorry. 157. Yes. Okay. Very good. All
• 68:30 - 69:00 right. Brother Gman has just brought to our attention uh again under the same article with the resolve to delete the treasurer and the three duties uh which is in your um principles of order page 171. The treasurer this is just simply being deleted from We need to take a vote on that as well. The next one. Yes, it is the next one. Never quite says that. It never says it. Okay. All right, David. Just just continue please,
• 69:00 - 69:30 brother. The next resolution actually is uh a result of having an efficient and effective office staff which can handle finances very expediently and so we don't need to have a separate treasurer serve for the prayer committee. we can handle that in house and again I thank the ladies who are doing that work and doing it so well and so here's this
• 69:30 - 70:00 resolution it says whereas the BFC office has adequate personnel to effectively administrate the finances of the prayer committee and the BFC executive board prefers to have the BFC office administrate such funds of the BFC committees and whereas the duties of the prayer committee's treasurer have been absorbed by the BFC office for the past few years therefore be it resolved that the BFC prayer committee no longer be required to have a member serve in the role of treasurer and that the committee will have sufficient
• 70:00 - 70:30 communication with the BFC office in regards to the administration of funds. I so move. All right. Again, so it's been moved and supported to adopt the resolution on page 15, the second to last one on the page. Anyone wish to speak to that? All right, let's cast a vote.
• 70:30 - 71:00 Brother Schmoer, brother moderator and brother Allen. Um I'm perfectly fine with that. We are voting on it already. But um there there is an officer for the prayer committee. There's a chairman, secretary, treasurer. Should we delete
• 71:00 - 71:30 from the principles of order that there is a treasurer rather than just being that's what is being affected if this passes. Yes. Oh, okay. So, we don't want to just say delete this number from the that's what we were trying to say as it sort of should be maybe enumerated better, more clearly here, but it wasn't. But that's So, we we're voting on this and that's in fact deleting it from the book. I'm fine with that. Thanks, Tim. Thank you.
• 71:30 - 72:00 We have a result, Tim. Motion passes. Okay, the motion passes. 157 House 157 to zero. Thanks, Ron. Good brother Dave. The next one is uh concerning the study committee to review the biblical principles for living. The BPL's resolve that the BFC conference appoint a committee to examine article 104-3 civil government and prepare a
• 72:00 - 72:30 statement on the issue of Christ Church in national politics by considering the following questions. One, how does nationalism patriotism function in view of Christ's love for the world and his present coming kingdom? And two, how can leaders in Christ Church address and promote biblical conduct regarding political issues without polarizing the body of Christ? I move. Okay. It's been moved and supported that the resolution on the
• 72:30 - 73:00 bottom of page 15 be adopted. Is there any discussion? No, that's not. So, brother Wagner, would will you be endeavoring to bring uh this resolution? Later on,
• 73:00 - 73:30 so maybe we should stop there, Dave. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. So, this will this will come from the BPL study committee later. I'm done. Later. You are done, but you're kind of not done. But, Brother Bill, would you come up? I am done. You sort of I'm expired. Well, you're done then. Yes. Move over. And, Brother Sloan, I'm putting you on notice. Board of Church Health will be next.
• 73:30 - 74:00 Indeed, our esteemed executive director has reminded us that he is expired now. His three-year term has ended. And this morning, notwithstanding holding the clicker upside down, I think he's demonstrated his mental acumen uh sufficiently enough. So, I move that we ratify uh David Allen uh for another
• 74:00 - 74:30 three-year term as executive director of the Bible Fellowship Church. I so move. All right. It's been moved and supported that uh the new three-year term for David Allen be ratified. All in favor, please raise your hand, oppose the same sign, and motion passes. Praise the Lord. Okay. That looked pretty unanimous. All right. Brother Sloan with the board of church health report pages 62 and 63
• 74:30 - 75:00 in the report book. Brothers, I would move the acceptance of the report. It's been moved and seconded to receive the report of uh the board of church health. All in favor say I. Oppose. Nay. Motion passes. Following the model of everybody else, I won't read it to you. It's not that long a report. Uh, and um, it's been a a season of change. I would remind everybody I'm the interim church health director. Uh, I only took it with
• 75:00 - 75:30 the understanding they would actually look for somebody. I'm not sure that they fully kept up with their end of the bargain. Um however the idea of the church health committee started uh in the early years of the strategic planning committee and the idea was as we adopted the vision of being an expanding group of churches that it would help if we'd plug the leak in the dyke and stop losing churches. So
• 75:30 - 76:00 that was the idea to come alongside churches that were struggling and uh be able to uh offer some help. Now we have passed legislation in the past that uh gives church health the right to come in and help which is slightly different than being invited. It's it's preferable that we're invited in. Um, and the problem comes about is when we show up having not been invited, uh, there's an instant sort of push back about what are
• 76:00 - 76:30 you doing here? I mean, if I show up on Sunday morning, that's often the first question I get. Why are you here? Um, it's it's a wonderful uh, welcome. Uh and uh the idea is in in in uh what we've passed, if a church doesn't meet the standards of a particular church, articles of faith 184, if it doesn't have at least 20 members, if it doesn't have at least two lay elders, and if it and or any of the above, if it cannot financially support its work, then we
• 76:30 - 77:00 have the opportunity to come and to meet with the elders. Now, we could always ask for that meeting, but this is sort of the open door. Usually by the time a church gets to that point, it's almost too late. Now what we offer isn't a heavy hand. What we offer is help. We're sort of a clearing house for the help of the Bible Fellowship Church. Whether it's help from people or it's financial or it's it's different sources of specific help. That's our purpose is to
• 77:00 - 77:30 come alongside and to help. Um it's uh we go over the the statistics all the time and it's not a matter of how large a church is. Large church can be in trouble uh if it's in decline for a number of years. We're looking more at trends to be a flag to indicate maybe we need to come alongside and see if there's something we can do. Um we identified a number of churches that were struggling along the last few years
• 77:30 - 78:00 and are working with a number of them. some of our successes. York was a success going through a crisis a number of years ago and that's a a tremendous work these days and praise the Lord for that. Um we've had a few others. We have a Harleyville has stepped up and is doing in essentially a restart with Welsh Road. Now Welsh Road have previously Maple Glenn. Uh that's been a a very exciting thing before that. Prior to that, Walnport did the same uh under Whiteall. So um those are the types of
• 78:00 - 78:30 thing that's the goal to see a resurgence of the church and to offer these helps. Now one of the things that u is sometimes helpful and I I probably could have mentioned it in the panel. One of the things we did at Sinking Spring that proved helpful is early on we brought in an outside consultant. Uh, I was trying to convince the church to hire an assistant pastor uh when we were a couple hundred people and uh they weren't really buying my argument. And I brought in a a consultant that I I got
• 78:30 - 79:00 on the cheap because he was visiting his mother and I didn't have to pay for transportation. And he came in and did some things and uh recommended that when a church gets to he gave us some basic numbers basically saying you can reach 2 to 4% of the population within 25 minutes uh atund you divide your congregation or the number of people you're responsible for by 150 and round up and that's the number of pastors you can probably afford. Um, and it gave a few other specifics, but it was enough
• 79:00 - 79:30 to give us some insight. Uh, a few hundred people later, I brought in a pastor friend of mine who pastored a church of 3,000, and he met with the elders, and specifically, he knew what it was like to have a larger church, larger than we were. We just didn't know what changes to make, and we were getting in our own way. And then sometime after that, we brought in Tom Rener and uh had him do a full-blown assessment of the church, and that was that was very helpful. Although the problem with Tom Rener is he's also very
• 79:30 - 80:00 expensive. Um well, we offer those kinds of helps to churches. I was trained by Rainer's group. It's expired. My training is expired. You're supposed to renew it every two years and pay the money. I didn't do all that. U so I'm not official anymore. Uh but there are some specific things that Church Health offers and some other consultants that we offer to help. Sometimes it's just helpful to have somebody come along who
• 80:00 - 80:30 can give you a fresh glimpse of what you're doing. Are you actually producing in in a manner of speaking what you think you are when you preach? When you have your worship service, are the people being led into the presence of God? Are they learning? Are they being discipled? And there are some practical ways to at least get a sense of whether that's happening or not. You don't have to follow the advice, but it's just sort of uh free advice in a sense. I used to
• 80:30 - 81:00 sometimes on a bring in a mystery guest, go to Dunkin Donuts and pay the the gal behind the counter 100 bucks to come to church. Now, that's outreach. And uh I said, "Here's the condition. and you have to come to church and Sunday school and everything else and then sit down and have a cup of coffee when we're done and answer my questions. Tell me what you saw. Tell me what it was like. And that kind of input is extremely helpful. Sometimes they come back and say, "I couldn't find the restroom." Or, "I had
• 81:00 - 81:30 no idea what you were talking about." Or, "The people were terribly unfriendly." And you thought all along you were very friendly. There's lots of different things, but it can be helpful to do that at occasion. You can just do that on your own and ask them questions about what the experience was like just to see if it's what you had hoped and prayed and planned that it would be. So that's part of what we try to come alongside and do. We work with the church to try to stabilize finances if we can and do some of those things. So
• 81:30 - 82:00 we're here to help. We're not here to threaten. Uh we're currently working with Philadelphia, Welsh Road, West Norton, uh Carmel, New York, Kutztown. Um and um we work a little bit uh very very very loosely with new churches. So we just sort of keep an eye on them and and probably have someone check in once a year or so with the likes of Gettysburg and Forks and Harmony. Um, and the idea is if you want it beyond
• 82:00 - 82:30 the normal help, we're we're available to do general assessments, specific help, whether it's financial or specific skills or in a few cases have surrogate or interim elders. And then finally, if if the situation warrants it to uh to try to work within the region to facilitate a merger or co-op. Regions was our first place to to to look for collective help. The problem with regions is they're
• 82:30 - 83:00 not laid out equally. A few regions are very strong and have lots of churches and a few regions have like maybe two or three churches and some of them are pretty pretty far apart. So, we have given consideration to redoing the regions, but if you look at at a map of all like a pin map of the Bible Fellowship churches, it's pretty hard to do much just because of how spread out they are. But that that might be something that comes down the road.
• 83:00 - 83:30 Bucks in particular where I sort of hang out because I'm in Maple Glenn these days, Welsh Road, uh has an awful lot of good churches and it would be nice if uh we could spread the wealth a little bit and they're not the only ones. Certainly, uh Lehigh Valley is similar. So that's that's what we're up to. Um, we could certainly use some help if the Lord has given you a passion to help out uh churches in the in the general area and especially if you're retired and have the time to to maybe come alongside
• 83:30 - 84:00 and and visit and and uh just observe and and share within a non-confrontational way. Uh we're simply there to help. So give us a call if we can help in any way. Uh pastors, if you just want to have a conversation, always happy to have that as long as you buy the coffee. Thank you, Bob, so much. I I would just add a point of personal privilege, I suppose, uh, as moderator, but I'm also the secretary of the board of church health and particularly those of you that might be that are elders of our
• 84:00 - 84:30 churches. Um, the the board's constitution or composition. Uh, we have, I think it's five members in addition to Dave and and uh and Bob that serve on the board as well. We we would very much appreciate further conversation particularly from elders that might have opportunity to meet uh to attend meetings and then get engaged in that work. So take that into consideration. It would be a great service to our broader denomination. We are just a couple of minutes away from afternoon recess. I'm going to uh ask Dennis Cahill to come and uh do a show
• 84:30 - 85:00 and tell and then Adam, would you follow Dennis? And then would you also just pray uh before we before we uh recess brother Cahill. Thank you brother moderator. So brothers, I was a powerless, joyless, struggling pastor. And then one day, the Holy Spirit opened my eyes to the beauty and the glory and the majesty of our God, to the depth of my sin and pride and inadequacy, and then to the joyful wonder of the gospel
• 85:00 - 85:30 of Jesus Christ. And um so I wrote a book, it's called Journey Toward Joy, Life as it ought to be. And so, um, I've got a few copies here if anybody is interested. Uh, if it'll be of help to you, normally it's $15 on Amazon, $10 today, or whatever you want to give me. Okay. Thank you, brother. Praise the Lord for his grace in your life. Brother Crane. All right. Hello.
• 85:30 - 86:00 I'll just say I'm very humbled to even be able to stand up here, especially after these five gentlemen uh sit up there and talk so much wisdom to the room uh about what I want to share and just offer to to this room here. Um I'm sure many of you can attest uh when you first got into the ministry how naive we were uh the difficulties, the situations that we were going to face. uh but we wanted to serve our Lord King Jesus with all of our heart and that's why we got
• 86:00 - 86:30 called into the ministry almost 20 years ago to the day uh I started experiencing my own very first time burnout in my life not understanding what it was and how to face it I just kept plugging through talked to an elder he wasn't aware of what to do and at that time 20 years ago the Lord started putting a place on my heart of going where do pastors turn to when they're going through burnout where they're going through significant hardship, uh just many different things. Um and so that
• 86:30 - 87:00 was 20 years ago. I've been in the ministry for almost 25 years because ministry is deeply rewarding. It carries unique and sometimes a crushing weight uh that not everybody truly understands unless you've been a pastor, unless you've sat in the room of an elder board caring for the souls of others. Constantly we're doing sermon prep, preaching, teaching, leading, counseling, walking with other people through life difficulties. And yet the question that I continue to wonder is who's shephering the shepherd? Uh praise
• 87:00 - 87:30 God, we have a denomination. We have a Ralph Soaper, we have a climb Gardner. Uh I have felt called in my life to actually step out of full-time ministry to step into this ministry, this organization called Shephering Care. uh shephering care is to remind us as shepherds that we have to be cared for by the good shepherd first before we care for our flocks. I don't know about you in my years of ministry sometimes I just forget about the gospel. Uh and
• 87:30 - 88:00 that has had dramatic effects on my own heart and has sometimes made me completely ineffective as to how I have cared for others. So, this ministry, gospel- centered care or sorry, uh shephering care exists to provide gospel- centered rest and renewal for the weary pastor. Pastoring is supposed to be wearing because we're caring for souls and that goes beyond our abilities and it has to be done through the power of the gospel. Uh and so, uh this is more than just a counseling ministry. Uh
• 88:00 - 88:30 and because the I realize that pastoral burnout is very real. uh 80% of pastors are actually quitting the ministry in the first 10 years of their ministry. And the impact of that upon themselves, upon their wives, upon the the local church, it sometimes can be very devastating. And then we have to hire somebody to help us find another pastor. And we don't know who sometimes we're getting. We want pastors to thrive in
• 88:30 - 89:00 their local churches. And I want pastors to thrive in the local churches. It takes about eight years of building trust. That's what we talked about earlier with these gentlemen who've been at 30, 40 years of trust, of caring for a flock for where you can share the wisdom of God has been doing in your life and lead a flock through transitions. There's nothing better, friends, than marrying somebody, seeing them have kids, and then seeing them those kids come to faith in Jesus Christ, baptizing them. That's the life
• 89:00 - 89:30 of a pastor that who gets to experience that besides us. And yet when we fail, how much of the impact that we have upon those souls is dramatic as well. Uh and so I can I'm speaking to the choir. Um I know you know the need for this and honestly I pray that you don't need me. Um but I think at some point along the line you probably need a service like this. I've been searching around in the northeast of the United States. I'm very finding very few of
• 89:30 - 90:00 these. Uh and so here I am just offering myself to this men in this room, not just to the pastors, but also to the elders as well as I see you guys as part of the ministry and then also to your wives and to the families and would love to come alongside even elder boards going, "Hey, here's some practical ways of how to care for your pastor." Yeah. Uh because that's who shepherds the shepherd. Yeah. Uh and so uh love to talk with you. There's some I created a website. That's as far as I've gotten
• 90:00 - 90:30 for my advertisement so far. I'm not like these other well-established organizations around here and stuff. But Adam, before I know I asked you to pray, I feel prompted to pray for you. Yeah. As you launch out on this uh new transition in your own life. And so we're going to do that uh in just a moment. Actually, let me do that first, but we're not adjourning yet or recessing yet because we're going to hear the report of the elections uh and then we will recess after that. So, let's pray together. Father, thank you for laying and not only laying a a passion and a burden
• 90:30 - 91:00 upon Adam uh and his wife's life to serve you, but to prepare him to be effective uh in a in a new season of his own life. This this is um a new adventure that I'm sure he is excited for, but there's also some trepidation, some fear perhaps in his own heart. We pray, O Lord, that you would continue to affirm this direction for him uh with great counsel from the Cedar Crest elders and other others, even signs of your favor and goodness and faithfulness
• 91:00 - 91:30 to Adam by way of um supporters coming on board. We know Lord as he has shared some of the statistics that it is uh ministry is difficult. It's messy. It's grueling. It it is costly. Uh but the gospel is worth it. your your people are worth it and all the energy as Paul would say that we exert in the ministry of the church is Christ's power at alive and working in us. So just affirm our brother uh this this is a very significant transition for him for the
• 91:30 - 92:00 Cedar Crest uh team. We we just set them apart. Thank you in advance for the affirmation encouragement for the lifeline that Adam will be for any one of us in the days, months, and years to come. Lord, would you bless them and use them and we'll give you the glory for it in Christ's name. Amen. Thank you, brother, for sharing. Report of the elections. We are actually going to go into overtime for not one but two elections because two of the elections were tied 80 a piece. So, we're an OT. Oh, that is
• 92:00 - 92:30 conference judiciatory for ministers Robert A. Sloan Jr. and James D. MacArthur and vice moderator Steven J. Deluko and William G. Schloniker. The following were elected to boards and committees. Ministerial credentials committee ministers Keith A. Strunk Keith M. Long, three years a piece. Ministerial Candidate Committee elect two ministers. Andrew W. Barnes, three years. Wesley H. Bunting, three years. Ministerial Relations Committee, elect one for three years. Ronald W. Reed.
• 92:30 - 93:00 Conference judicatory elders elect one. Donald McKini, three years. Officers of 143rd BF EFC conference moderator elect one man for one year Randall Lake Grossman. All right. Again, this page 23 if you're trying to keep score at home about the uh those that were elected. Praise the Lord. And so a a new ballot will be prepared and we'll take care of that uh probably tomorrow morning. All right, brothers. Well done
• 93:00 - 93:30 so far. Let's keep keep with it. We are in recess until 3:20.
• 93:30 - 94:00 turning to your
• 94:00 - 94:30 tables. Yep.
• 94:30 - 95:00 Good. Uh would a a page find Mark
• 95:00 - 95:30 Kesler? Mark Kesler, if you are you in
• 95:30 - 96:00 the room, would you stand? I know
• 96:00 - 96:30 everybody else is still moving around.
• 96:30 - 97:00 Mark. Great. Yeah, you're welcome to
• 97:00 - 97:30 come up here Mark. That'd be great if
• 97:30 - 98:00 you
• 98:00 - 98:30 would. So before we uh begin our
• 98:30 - 99:00 afternoon session, Mark Keser is de dear
• 99:00 - 99:30 friend of mine from our walling for days
• 99:30 - 100:00 um about 20 years ago serving as the
• 100:00 - 100:30 elder delegate uh there at Grace, Mark,
• 100:30 - 101:00 would you just open us in prayer as we
• 101:00 - 101:30 ready our hearts to deal with study
• 101:30 - 102:00 committees and other petitions and
• 102:00 - 102:30 requests this afternoon. Thank you so
• 102:30 - 103:00 much for praying. Sure. Heavenly Father,
• 103:00 - 103:30 as we continue your work, Father, we ask
• 103:30 - 104:00 that your spirit would be here with us,
• 104:00 - 104:30 guiding us, giving us wisdom, humility.
• 104:30 - 105:00 Father, help us to uh just maintain
• 105:00 - 105:30 unity as we seek to do your work, to
• 105:30 - 106:00 make wise decisions, to set the
• 106:00 - 106:30 direction. Father, we just ask for your
• 106:30 - 107:00 spirit to guide us, just empower us, and
• 107:00 - 107:30 we ask all this in Christ's name. Amen.
• 107:30 - 108:00 Thank you so much, Mark.
• 108:00 - 108:30 Just a couple of words before we uh hear
• 108:30 - 109:00 from the study committee to examine
• 109:00 - 109:30 articles 24 to 27. Just want to make a a
• 109:30 - 110:00 comment here that uh around 4:40 20
• 110:00 - 110:30 minutes or so I want to reserve for the
• 110:30 - 111:00 board of missions to report and
• 111:00 - 111:30 recognize their missionaries uh some who
• 111:30 - 112:00 have traveled a great distance um before
• 112:00 - 112:30 supper time. We want to make sure that
• 112:30 - 113:00 we give them an opportunity to to be
• 113:00 - 113:30 loved on and welcomed here to BFC
• 113:30 - 114:00 conference. So if for whatever reason
• 114:00 - 114:30 due to time as we progress through these
• 114:30 - 115:00 next items uh at some point I may have to uh just cut off our conversations and then move to Jim MacArthur and the board of missions report. Just want to give
• 115:00 - 115:30 everyone a heads up for that. So with that we are ready for uh the study committee articles 24 to 27 pages 64 and following several pages following in your report book. Brother Bertolet. Brother moderator, I move the acceptance of the study committee report on articles 24 to 27. It has been moved and supported that we receive the study committee's uh work.
• 115:30 - 116:00 If you are in favor of receiving their work, please raise your hand. Opposed, same sign. Motion passes. Please proceed. They uh they told me this was going to be like Uriah the Hittite. we would all get up to battle and they would step back. Um, thank you just for the opportunity to be here to to address conference. Many of you know in my personal life, it's been a rough few years. I thank you for all your your prayers and just the warm welcome I've had from many. I didn't
• 116:00 - 116:30 even ask for that point of privilege. I apologize. We are here to talk about uh the issue of the millennium. And uh as we dive right in, I'm not going to read the entire report. We were intentionally uh detailed in the way that we were in the hopes that that you would read it ahead of time uh and be convinced. But let me just start with this notion of several options that we can take at this juncture uh in our denomination with
• 116:30 - 117:00 what was brought to our study committee. and we weighed four options. And really it came down to as we were debating two potential options. Option number three uh would be that we don't change our articles of faith, but we include some kind of instruction that allows an exception not only for uh currently ordained ministers as the uh credentials committee is doing but that we give some
• 117:00 - 117:30 instruction to the candidate committee to allow the very same exception. Uh so that would create a scenario where on paper we have this exact same doctrinal statement uh that we have now but in practice we have uh stated allowable exceptions and and brothers we weighed that quite heavily and and early in the conversation I think it's fair to say before the debate started as you know
• 117:30 - 118:00 sometimes you take straw polls uh and we weren't all exactly on the same place and and we're not even all in the same place doctrally as a committee when it comes to this issue of the millennium. So, I think it's fair to say that no one on the committee came with an agenda. It's let's study this and let's determine what's best for the denomination. And we really arrived at this option four that you can see uh at the top of page 67.
• 118:00 - 118:30 And one of the reasons that we did not bring new uh legislation this year is we want to be respectful and allow the denomination time to think about this and weigh these weighty things because any change in our doctrinal statement needs to go before the boards of elders. And we can sit here and we can talk about this and we can present a paper and and maybe it'll end up sounding like a lecture and I apologize for that. Uh
• 118:30 - 119:00 but it takes time for that to percolate down into our body. You think about the men around your elderboard and honestly when's the last time that they even read a book on esquetology let alone the current state of a millennialism and how it's different in some ways than it was 60 years ago. That is the kind of thing that we want to be cautious and so we are
• 119:00 - 119:30 asking you this year. You've already received the port report but we kind of at the end of this as we have discussion want to take a straw poll and ask you can we continue and bring serious res uh legislation next year on this issue with this direction that we are are trending. uh we wanted to be careful about it. We spent a lot of time studying the issue and we felt like in our last meeting we could have cobbled together uh uh uh
• 119:30 - 120:00 articles of faith to bring to you but we just felt like that would be even rushing ourselves and then to bring it to conference and say here's all of our reasoning and here's now to go to first reading we felt like was not respecting the history of the denomination and and the reality that this has been an issue that this seems like the only issue that comes comes up on a regular church cal we have a lurggical calendar for how often we study esquetology in in the BFC
• 120:00 - 120:30 I think and so we want to intentionally be I was going to say we want to be intentionally intentional in how we do it that doesn't mean we want to be intentional in how uh we proceed and so one of our recommendations is not only receive this report give us your feedback tell us if you like the direction it's going we'd like to do a mid-year conference particularly uh just kind of maybe a s Saturday morning or an all day thing. Uh
• 120:30 - 121:00 bring your elders, send anybody, bring your Sunday school teachers, anybody that has questions, would like to study the issue, wants particular questions answered. We want to hear concerns, listen, and and frankly, we want to just alleviate that fear that sometimes people have when they hear the word ah millennialism. you're spiritualizing the text. I had a conversation with a pastor one time outside the BFC and uh it was about
• 121:00 - 121:30 esquetology and uh he just felt like if you weren't uh pre-trib pre-millennial, pre whatever other particular nuance, he just wasn't sure that you took the sufficiency of scripture serious. Brothers, that's not where we are as a denomination. We've been very careful about our changes. We've already adopted and already not yet. But we just want to alleviate the fears and communicate that the Bible
• 121:30 - 122:00 Fellowship Church has always been committed to following the scriptures whenever it changes. And you remember that kind of classic essay from Don Kirkwood, dare we change? And people may feel that this is another one of those moments. You're going to abandon a literal reading of scripture. We want to assure you that's not what amalillennialism is. But we want to take the time to alleviate those
• 122:00 - 122:30 fears, to hear what people's concerns are, and to respectfully and responsibly uh address them. And so that's why we've kind of laid out uh this uh couple of next steps. The challenge of of writing this study committee uh and and you may look through this in in detail and go where is the exigesis of revelation 20 and we didn't do any exesis of
• 122:30 - 123:00 revelation 20. And the reason is because the question is not really what does Revelation 20 say, but when we have interpretive differences over the matter of esquetology, what is within the boundaries or should be within the boundaries and what is outside of the
• 123:00 - 123:30 boundaries? And what we're proposing to do is make a slight what we would say a slight adjustment to this allowing for amillennialism. And it's like adding an extra seat at the table, but the core commitments of the table, the authority of the word of God, the sufficiency of scripture, grammatical, historical interpretation, taking the scriptures as God intended, letting scripture interpret scripture, the elements that
• 123:30 - 124:00 define us as a denomination are not being changed because we're s proposing now that an amillennialist is welcome at the table. There are so many hermeneutical issues that go into uh your interpretation of scripture well before you get to Revelation 20. No one interprets Revelation 20 when a blank
• 124:00 - 124:30 slate Well, I'm just doing grammatical historical interpretation. issues of the Abrahamic covenant, the Davidic covenant, the the new covenant, the connection between Israel and the church are all preconditions, whether theological or hermeneutical or whatever you want to say that is going to shape how you view the book of Revelation, particularly Revelation 20. And so the question is in a denomination where we
• 124:30 - 125:00 have never declared ourselves to be 100% dispensational or 100% covenantal but have always said there is a middle range too far this way is not a good thing and not a fit for us. Too far that way is not a good fit for us. Is there a spectrum like that when it comes to the issue of the millennialism? Millenn
• 125:00 - 125:30 issue of the millennium. And we want to argue and hopefully convince you and hopefully the papers done that in some ways uh that yes, there is an allowable range that should allow uh for a brother who checks all of our doctrinal boxes in every other area of the doctrinal statement to also be allowed to serve. if he checks the awe millennial box. We
• 125:30 - 126:00 could find no good scriptural justification or um church history justification to say that at a denominational level. That should be the watershed dividing line for a brother who comes to us from the outside and lines up with everything else. And this is particularly true because we already have brothers in the denomination who
• 126:00 - 126:30 have been granted an exception on that point because they are uh already in the family. They already align with everything else and at some point they shifted their view on one particular issue and we've said that's okay. But if you come to us from the outside and you are a fit for the family in all of those other areas and you hold to that one issue, we say no. And I think we have
• 126:30 - 127:00 good historical reasons. We certainly have concerns. 60 70 years ago, amillennialism did uh spiritualize and some of the current amalillennials will even say, "Yeah, we we kind of did and we weren't good at that and we need to do better ex Jesus." And now we have we're at a point brothers where I think we can ask the question on this particular issue dare we change and I
• 127:00 - 127:30 think it's fair to say yes our goal has been based on our wrestling with the implication of differing interpretations is to convince BFC conference that in the current theological millu of the 21st century there are enough broad similar ilarities between premillennialism today and amillennialism today that the BFC can expand to allow amillennialism in a carefully worded doctrinal statement
• 127:30 - 128:00 that does not compromise our position on the authority of the word of God and our unstated but underlying commitment to authoral intent. And we're not proposing that we add a faith and order section on authoral intent. We're saying we all agree to that and we understand that is how you uh handle the scriptures. So the question is when brothers disagree, when do we divide in
• 128:00 - 128:30 fellowship and when do we unify around greater biblical commitments despite our differences? And that's partly the question of the unity theme of this year's conference. Is amal the amalennial brother seeking to faithfully hand the handle the word of God through normative interpretive methods? And we would argue yes. Does his interpretation uphold the authority, the sufficiency, and the unchanging character of God's
• 128:30 - 129:00 promises? And we would argue yes. And that can be a very a real sticking point because if you read some of the older works in esquetology, particularly from camps that that lean uh dispensational, one of the charges is you're not taking the word of God literally. And because of that, you're saying that God said this in the promise, but when it came to fulfillment, he changed his word. He changed his mind. And I would argue that
• 129:00 - 129:30 while that may have been true in the past for some writers in the amalennial camp, uh it's a false charge today. It really is a a slandering of the brothers. As we discussed as a committee, and you can see the this mini list here on the bottom of page 69. Uh as we talked in a in the committee, we found ourselves and and you know, I hope I'm not outing anybody. There was at least an amalillennialist on the
• 129:30 - 130:00 committee that had an exception. Erin, I hope they don't, you know, just kidding. Um, we found ourselves affirming together grammatical historical interpretation. No one was saying, "Well, I'm a millennial because I see the word of God says this, but I'm only trying to find spiritual applications of it today." The amalennialist affirms literal future fulfillments to
• 130:00 - 130:30 the Abrahamic covenant that cover the entire earth. As Paul says in Romans 4:25, Abraham will inherit the entire earth. And there are places in Genesis and and even with the new covenant where the promises of those things go on forever. And I feel like sometimes in the premillennialism that I was taught, we say, "Here are where the Abrahamic
• 130:30 - 131:00 covenantal promises are fulfilled in the millennium." And then the millennium comes to an end and we move on to the new heavens and the new earth. Brothers, we share, I hope, the same commitment with the amillennialist that while we may disagree in some of the nuances of the already not yet, we all affirm the forever aspects of the unchanging
• 131:00 - 131:30 promises of God. And that's what an amillennialist is zealous to defend. And brothers, I would submit to you as men committed to the scriptures, who are reformed in our doctrine and our high view of the sovereignty of God, those are the type of men we want to lock arms with. We are committed to grammatical historical interpretation, a literal future
• 131:30 - 132:00 reign. Amillennialists are committed to that. Now, yes, we understand there's nuances there in in the differences of how we work that out, but no one in the a millennial camp today that I'm I'm well I shouldn't say no one because I'm sure you can find some writer somewhere or some blog post or something, but but the credible voices within the a millennial camp today are not saying there is no literal fulfillment. They are not saying that everything is fulfilled now in the church and and it's
• 132:00 - 132:30 all spiritualized. Everyone has some kind of category for spiritual realities of the Old Testament that are fulfilled now in Christ. If you take communion, you are saying you are in the church and partaking in the new covenant. Brothers, I submit to you that that is a spiritual fulfillment of Jeremiah and
• 132:30 - 133:00 Ezekiel. We may differ a little bit on do we lean this way in the already or that way in the not yet, but I would submit to you we are operating in the same general paradigm. The edges are a little fuzzy and there are legitimate differences and we are not trying to minimize those for a second. But what unites us and this is why we tried to put together that helpful little chart for you uh because
• 133:00 - 133:30 I hate spreadsheets and but I know some of you love them. So we tried to break it down, but hopefully you can see there is more that unites a already not yet historical or dispensational premillennialism that holds the already not yet. That's us guys. And an amillennialist who holds to a healthy balance of the already not yet. And so we found ourselves agreeing that the Old
• 133:30 - 134:00 Testament and the kingdom promises uh that are not there are Old Testament and kingdom promises that are not fulfilled in the present age. The a millennialist affirms that brothers the balancing of the already and the not yet of inaugurated esquetology where we where we didn't always line up and you read in the literature and you don't always line up. Do you see that same passion? There is always, I think, in a faithful ministry of the gospel a
• 134:00 - 134:30 healthy already aspect to the promises of God in Christ. If we are children of Abraham by virtue of faith, as Galatians 3 says, we have some aspect of already. There is always a healthy aspect of not yet. This is why we want to avoid views of predtoism. And if you're not familiar with that term, that would be the idea
• 134:30 - 135:00 that the second coming of Christ was fulfilled in AD.70. That's out of bounds, brothers. That's not where the amillennialist is. And so, we did draft just kind of to help get everybody on the same page. hermeneutical propositions that I think we would all agree with. Soloscript Torah scripture interpreting scripture uh God has spoken in his word inherency and in infallibility the importance of progressive revelation grammatical
• 135:00 - 135:30 historical interpretation there on page 72 and then a general statement of where we all are uh in terms of God's scriptures telling one unified story of redemption. The BFC is a great place to minister, to find fellowship, to find common ground. And what always amazes me is we
• 135:30 - 136:00 have guys that have come from covenantal type backgrounds and guys that have come from dispensational backgrounds in schools and and we've avoided the extremes. Our brother Kell reminded me the other day that for years as he taught the class to the incoming pastoral candidates when he got to the issue of dispensational and covenant theology for years he emphasized we're not this extreme and we're not that extreme and some guys would say well I'm
• 136:00 - 136:30 more covenantal and other guys will say well look I'm I'm dispensational and yet we've unified around one plan and purpose of God to glorify his name and save a people in Jesus Christ. And that lends us to some sort of view of progressive revelation. And that's really all you're dealing with when it comes down to awe millennialism. How do you understand the nature of progressive revelation? How much is already and how
• 136:30 - 137:00 much is not yet? I do think the areas that we would have more disagreement on in premillennialism and amillennialism is how do we understand the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament? Brothers, it's a very tricky topic. The the the secondary literature is longer than my arm on this issue.
• 137:00 - 137:30 And yet, is there a core that God is the God who speaks in these scriptures? And so, God will not contradict himself. But I think we all acknowledge that as God reveals things, he doesn't reveal everything all at once. And so the next issue with the difference between
• 137:30 - 138:00 premillennial and ammillennial interpretation of scripture is not one side taking it literal and one side not taking it literal. The question is how much redemptive history do we apply to our hermeneutical method? How does the use of the New Testament Yeah, I was going to say the use of the New Testament in the Old Testament. That's the wrong way, guys. Uh the use of the Old Testament in the New
• 138:00 - 138:30 Testament shape how you think about some of the fulfillment language. and brothers, I have read some extremes on both sides of the camp, but I particularly highlighted, we particularly highlighted in the paper, you do run into dispensationalists, and I don't think it's any in our crowd, but it just shows you how far we have progressed as a denomination because we affirm an
• 138:30 - 139:00 already not yet. You do run into dispensationalists who will say things like Peter in Acts chapter 2 didn't appropriate Joel in a grammatical historical sense and he wasn't talking about Joel actually being fulfilled. You can find a dispensational writer, not all of them, who argues that there
• 139:00 - 139:30 are no benefits of the new covenant for the church. And not only that, but the new covenant is quote not salvific because people are only saved by the shed blood of Christ. I scratch my head and go, "Brother, where is your literal interpretation of scripture to derive that conclusion?" What I am saying to you is not to bash other brothers outside the
• 139:30 - 140:00 camp. What I'm saying to you is the Bible Fellowship Church has remained unified around aspects of redemptive history that have kept us away from extremes like that. And there may be some extremes out there in a millennialism. And again, if you read amillennialists from a generation ago, they really did spiritualize. Even some
• 140:00 - 140:30 of the amillennialists are saying, "Yeah, we really did spiritualize that." But you read a guy today like a a GK Beal and perhaps you've seen his big fat revelation commentary and he does the leg work. He doesn't say the scriptures say this, but let me give you the spiritual application to the church today. He has an essay and we cited it in a footnote on Isaiah 65 and it's a thorny passage for amillennialists and
• 140:30 - 141:00 premillennialists and and and does it apply to the millennium or can you make it fit into the new heavens and the new earth and you may not agree with his interpretation but you have to acknowledge he follows the normal rules and cannons of grammatical historical exogesis. If our concern is grammatical historical exogesis, which I would hope we all affirm that and and that's the larger issue that we're often wary about
• 141:00 - 141:30 losing, then brothers, you guard grammatical historical exugesus by talking about grammatical historical exugesus. You don't take a narrow point of doctrine and say if you affirm this, you've affirmed grammatical historical exugesus. And if you don't affirm this, that's the test case for whether or not you've done grammatical historical exogesis. We don't do that with any other area of doctrine. Let us not do that with the
• 141:30 - 142:00 issue of the millennium. The next piece that I think we need to acknowledge as an issue of complexity is um the book of revelation. The genre of apocalyptic literature is notoriously difficult and there have been advances in the study of the hermeneutics of how to use this. Brothers, grammatical historical exugesus says if something was intended by the author to be poetic in the book
• 142:00 - 142:30 of Psalms, don't literalize it. Understand metaphor, understand symbolism. The challenge is apocalyptic literature. All of the book of Revelation is true and is the word of God. But when did the author intend something to be symbolic? How many of you have read interpretations where locusts are helicopters and the mark of the beast is
• 142:30 - 143:00 Gorbachev's uh birthmark? I submit to you that we obviously know that that's not grammatical historical exogesis. But what elements of symbolism were intended by the author? Is is the book of revelation and and the judgments are we to interpret them sequentially or are we to interpret them in a cyclical pattern or are we to interpret them in an overlapping pattern that that as the last one finishes the next set unfolds? And this is why I
• 143:00 - 143:30 prefer the study of Hebrews because it's simple compared to Revelation. But it's a real issue. But let's not bind the conscience of our preachers to explore that and to wrestle with the depth of that text on a narrow point of millennialism. Brothers, I am by conviction a historic premill. None of
• 143:30 - 144:00 my esteemed colleagues or people that I read have convinced me yet otherwise. I'm not up here as some kind of crypto a mill trying to sneak this in the back door, but I am saying that these are good brothers that we can lock arms with and want them to be in our pulpits because they emphasize the priority of the word of God and taking it faithful. There's a lot of nuances in
• 144:00 - 144:30 how you understand Revelation 20. Do you see it cyclical as in things come to a climax in Revelation 19 and now it starts a new section which kind of goes back and gives you the overview of the entire book? I personally don't find that convincing. Do I find it to be a violation of hermeneutics? Do I find it to be a violation of the promises of God of an undermining of the Abrahamic covenant? No.
• 144:30 - 145:00 Let's keep these things, brothers, in proportion. We're not asking anyone to change their view. I wish that we could all be historical premill. But what we are asking is for grace and charity on this issue and not misidentifying the intents of brothers who are likeminded in their use and
• 145:00 - 145:30 handling of scripture. And so there is always in the interpretation of scripture a balancing act. We always let scripture interpret scripture, but have you ever wrestled with the question of am I getting the right scriptural connection to that verse? And we allow grace in that. I personally disagree with someone who says the binding of Satan in Revelation
• 145:30 - 146:00 20 is the same as the binding of Satan that Jesus talks about in the Gospels. Although I do think there's a binding in the ministry of the gospel that sometimes the premillennialist doesn't pay attention to. I just don't think that's Revelation 20. But if a brother is making those connections and doing the hermeneutical leg work, let's not come along and say you're not taking scripture seriously.
• 146:00 - 146:30 You're not committed to literal interpretation and grammatical historical exogesis. Todd Mangab in his book on dispensationalism and covenant theology and the riff that developed out of that basically says that that idea of the covenantal theologian not taking scripture literally kind of became a bismerchment that the dispensationalists started using and throwing out in very careless ways to kind of poison the
• 146:30 - 147:00 well. And he brings receipts. He discusses the history. We weren't dealing with that history, but as theology goes, some of these things start to weave together. The covenantal guys tend to lean all millennial. Obviously, if you're dispensational, you can only be premill per that that system. But the point is the lines of division and where they need to be for us as a denomination are not where they needed
• 147:00 - 147:30 to be 60 70 80 years ago. And so we bring the question and we've answered it for ourselves as a recommendation to you. But we bring the question, dare we change? I'm sure a hundred years ago our brothers with their Scoffield Bibles would have been appalled that we were flirting with letting all millennialists in. They also
• 147:30 - 148:00 would have been appalled that we're Calvinist brothers. We think that there are enough boundary markers that we can put up as walls to hold the line that would allow for an amillennialist to be in our camp. And we should say maybe we would not allow all
• 148:00 - 148:30 amillennialists. someone that does spiritualize the Old Testament, someone that says we don't need this, we just read the New Testament. But there's enough broad overlap between the average a mill today and the average historic premill dispensational uh which dispens uh progressives progressive dispensational anybody that holds to an already not yet view we think should be welcome. So, we've outlined on page 83 some elements
• 148:30 - 149:00 that we could unite around. These are things that we would want to codify in in a tightly written doctrinal statement. But we're giving you the long answer here. Uh so that you can see it, so that you can turn it over, so that we can be clear, so that you can chew on it. I get teased because I don't know how to give the short answer. Um and I apologize for that. So, we gave you some long answers here. Number one, uh, on page 83, Christ's kingdom was inaugurated in his resurrection and
• 149:00 - 149:30 ascension. We already hold that this now. Psalm 2, Psalm 8, Psalm 110 have begun now. The last days have started. We would want to continue with that commitment. And and when this came up, you know, back when we had the Kingdom of God study committee and we codified this, keep in mind that the very hard old school dispensationalist does not affirm this. the the classic classic dispensationalist and we said that's just not where we are and we want to
• 149:30 - 150:00 continue with that. Christ has fulfilled uh has begun to fulfill aspects of the Abrahamic dividic covenant, new covenant. Galatians 3 would be an obvious argument. Uh I I think the book of Hebrews says some things about the new covenant, but it could slip in my No, just kidding. uh the promises are now not revoked uh or replaced uh both in what is uh begun in the already fulfillment and even what we await in the not yet. So
• 150:00 - 150:30 God doesn't say something and come along later in his plan and change the plan. That is not how the amillennialist sees the unfolding of redemptive history. That God promises things and God is faithful to his promises. But could it be that when God speaks to a prophet and tells them what's going to happen, he knows a little bit more than the prophet knows in that moment? And I don't say this facitiously
• 150:30 - 151:00 or or to mock, but we need to be careful that we respect the unfolding revelation of God as God progressively reveals himself. And that's what we're trying to do in this. And an amillennialist that aligns with us in that way is the kind of man we want from our pulpit. Christ has begun to fulfill
• 151:00 - 151:30 these things. Number three, the spread of the gospel in some ways is an advancement of the kingdom. As people are being set free from the kingdom of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of the sun, there are some spiritual elements of the kingdom. We're not spiritualizing. We're saying God tells us these are spiritual elements of his kingdom advancing. Gospel proclamation advances the kingdom and builds the church. Is it the entire kingdom now? No. But it is an
• 151:30 - 152:00 advancement of the kingdom. And a millennialist would affirm this that this isn't the entire kingdom. Now Christ's return will Christ's kingdom will work will continue in this age until his return. Within the BFC, we acknowledge that the kingdom is growing and advancing. Now we also realize the final and ultimate hope is judgment, handing over the kingdom to the father and the new heavens and the new earth.
• 152:00 - 152:30 If you are a passionate millennialist uh or a sort of skeptical millennialist because you can't get around it, just recognize that the millennium isn't the be all and end all of the plan of God. The millennium leads to the new heavens and the new earth. And sometimes in the ex escatological circles and debates that go on, everything gets frontloaded into the millennium and the
• 152:30 - 153:00 new heavens and the new earth is just kind of an afterthought. Brothers, we celebrate a bodily resurrection of all. And that same resurrection, the creation groans, waiting for the full adoption as sons so that we can that they can get what we get. That's the new heavens and the new earth. That is fundamental to a millennial esquetology. And we would want to
• 153:00 - 153:30 welcome our a millennialist brothers and say we unite wholeheartedly on not confusing the penultimate celebration with the ultimate celebration of the new heavens and the new earth. We would want to stay strong on this idea that the church is never promised an age of earthly peace and prosperity until the Lord returns and
• 153:30 - 154:00 crushes his enemies. There is no golden age of the church triumphant until the Lord returns. While the gospel spreads through the whole world until Christ returns and Yeah. While the whole world Yeah. While the gospel spreads through the whole world until Christ returns. And in the gospel, he saves people from every tongue, tribe, and nation until he returns. The church continues to preach Christ crucified and share in his sufferings, filling up what is lacking
• 154:00 - 154:30 in Christ's affliction. The only triumph of the church is in the in this age is her bearing of the cross, awaiting the future hope of glory. If we will be we will be glorified with him if we suffer with him. And the church in this age is never exempt from a life of suffering and bearing the cross. We would do not want to open the door to
• 154:30 - 155:00 postmillennialism because in my estimation, our estimation, postmillennialism is a theology of glory before a theology of the cross. If you remember that terminology from Luther and his I think it was his hidleberg disputations. It's looking for all the victory now and oftentimes in political nationalistic save the whole America,
• 155:00 - 155:30 Europe, whatever in terms of geopolitical states and we'll get to a time where Christianity will so spread through the world that it will be peace and prosperity and the kingdom will be in in physical prosperity before Jesus returns. Brothers, when when I read the New Testament, the church is always hoping for the eminence of Jesus's coming. And the only deliverance from persecution,
• 155:30 - 156:00 from suffering, from bearing the cross, this is first uh 2 Thessalonians 1 and2. The only deliverance is the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. An amillennialist will continue to affirm that. But this is not us coming to you and play say let's play escatological free-for-all. Let's play escatological roulette where we put them
• 156:00 - 156:30 all up here and you can be whatever you want. We want to continue to have boundaries against a postmillennial triumphalist position, a predtoist, certain forms of partial predtoism that see way too much being fulfilled at the destruction of Jerusalem. Some even denying a future bodily aspect of the Lord's return. Only the return of the Lord, page 84, number six, is the liberation of God's
• 156:30 - 157:00 people from the evil of this world, the deliverance of the saints from persecution of the enemies, the future aspect and the future aspect of our reign in Christ, and the establishment of peace on earth, the return of Christ will manifest his kingdom to bring fulfillment of the unrealized aspects of the Abrahamic, Davidic, and new covenants. I just highlight this to you to say the amillennialist does actually believe there are pieces of the
• 157:00 - 157:30 Abrahamic dividic and new covenant that are yet to be realized. They aren't already with a very tiny not yet. They balance the already and the not yet. We may not like some of us that they lean a little too much this way. We may not they may not like that we lean a little too much that way. But there's enough unity when we come
• 157:30 - 158:00 together on the other doctrines. When we come together on our reformed sotiology, our trinitarian theology, our high christologology, our unity can be around the aspects of the already not yet. If there's 30 things in the already not yet and one guy puts 18 on the one side and the rest I can't do the math in my head on the already side and another guy
• 158:00 - 158:30 puts uh slightly you know one more this way and one less that way. Are we not basically in the same camp with the same commitments? This is not to minimize Revelation 20. We would want to see men continue to preach from the pulpit if they are convicted premillennialists. This is what I think the text says. But brothers, you do this in every passage
• 158:30 - 159:00 that you preach that is debated. Commentators debate this and I've weighed the evidence and I want to be circumspect. There are good evangelical guys who disagree on exactly this nuance here in this passage. and let me walk it through and preach it to you with authority. But there is grace for the brother that disagrees. And we think that we can do that as a denomination on the book of Revelation and the issues of esquetology. We're not asking anyone to
• 159:00 - 159:30 change their personal convictions. We're asking us to recognize that if we make this move, what unites us is far greater than what could divide us. And there is enough that unites us that we can say a person with that his what has historically been outside our camp really is close to being in the camp and we can move the line a hair's
• 159:30 - 160:00 breath. We would acknowledge of course that how you define eminence might vary a little bit. This happens already with our preerttrib rapture guys and our post-trip rapture guys and our midtrip rapture guys and our pre-rath rapture guys and our I don't know when the rapture is guys. We acknowledge the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is ever getting closer. And some would say eminence means every any second down to the
• 160:00 - 160:30 moment. And others would say eminence means it can be right around the corner and there may be a few tribulational things that happen but we still live expectantly and we would continue that with a nom millennial but if we have a strong statement on eminence you cannot have a position that says well you know maybe in a thousand years brother Bertolet am I running out of time speaking of eminence is is there an imminent
• 160:30 - 161:00 expectation of the conclusion of your work. There is there is and I apologize. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, we Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. With with great admiration and love. Thank you. I I apologize. I got carried away. Uh thank you for your grace. Look, here's what we're asking on the recommended steps. Receive the committee's work. uh the 2025 BFC conference then we're asking instructs the committee to that you would we're asking that you would
• 161:00 - 161:30 instruct the committee to continue in its work towards bringing a recommended recommended proposal to the articles of faith in 2026. And so here's what we would propose as a result that conference instruct the study committee on the millennium to continue its work in this direction. We didn't say that there. Uh and be it further, that conference encourages the committee to bring to the 2026 BFC conference proposed changes to the articles of faith uh consistent with the sentiments of the committee's 2025 report. We don't
• 161:30 - 162:00 want to surprise you with anything. It wouldn't be anything that we haven't covered in some way. What we're really asking and and this is maybe we kind of battered around the language of straw poll. What we're really asking is do you like this direction? because we don't want to put in another year's worth of work and really drill down an exact tightly written and it's dead on arrival because nobody liked it here. We've tried to do
• 162:00 - 162:30 all the leg work here and one of the things we're trying to do is not have a really really long statement like we have on the kingdom. Uh everybody teases us about that. So, we want to get the language right and tight, but what we're asking is, do you like this and can we keep heading in this direction? I yield. That would be I move the results. Thank you. It's been moved and supported that we consider not a really a straw poll, but an actual resolution. Actual
• 162:30 - 163:00 resolution, not an amendment to any faith in order. uh we had we had sort of clandestinely prepared u the electronic ballot to be able to vote on that but but I my judgment would be we can have a a hand vote on this resolution. Uh we should treat these two resolutions as concurrent resol concurrent resolutions together. Uh and with that, if you were to vote yes, we do envision the next steps being bringing something and between this year's conference and next year's conference having something where
• 163:00 - 163:30 we can present to a wider audience. If you need help uh convincing your elders, uh or you want to assure lay people that we're not going liberal and and allegorizing the text and and I don't say that in a mockery. I think that's a real fear that people might have. We want to be available to address that and and perhaps even do like a mini conference uh where where we can, you know, speak longer on these issues because we haven't talked enough. Okay. Sure. Mark, hold a second. You you
• 163:30 - 164:00 were recognized, but um my judgment is we're not going to open up for a lot of discussion beyond this point. Brother Morrison, you're on your feet. Let's hear you. Yeah. Yeah. I just want to clarify, our brother was a presenter, so he was allowed more time. Yeah. Just reminder, 10 minutes. We've been doing very well. I think 6 minutes and 23 seconds. I have a timer and I don't want to have to call on you because we want to hear what you have to say, but try to be concise, right? Thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much, brother Reed. Oh, wow. Okay. Yes, sir. The reason I rise
• 164:00 - 164:30 to speak is uh because uh I chaired the uh committee that brought the kingdom of God uh legislation. And so I want to stand in support of the committee's work. Uh I think it was extremely well done and I too am a historic premillennialist. I'm not a nonmillennialist, but I recognize there are some real
• 164:30 - 165:00 problems with Isaiah 55 uh and interpreting that in light of a historical premillennialist position that uh a lot of what is many times attributed to the millennium can only be fulfilled in in the new heavens and new earth in that in that particular chapter. And the It would be easy to talk about the strengths of premillennialism. I'd love
• 165:00 - 165:30 to do that. But let me say there are some weaknesses to premillennialism in which if we're going to be straightforward and honest with the text, it's it's tough to deal with without realizing that that particular part is fulfilled in new heaven and new earth. And that is the strength of a millennialism where it emphasizes new heaven and new earth. Uh we need to get to a place whether we pre premill or mill where we emphasize the
• 165:30 - 166:00 new heaven and new earth for that's the final destiny. And so many people think it's heaven. It's the new heaven and the new earth. Amen. And it's that presence with God dwelling with man on earth that is the ultimate rejoicing of the redemptive work of Christ. He has made this world new. Amen. He has overcome sin in his completeness. And I look forward to preaching that. And uh I welcome
• 166:00 - 166:30 uh the enlargement of our position. Thank you, dear brother. Brother Kirk. Okay. He was on his feet, but I appreciate that sentiment, Keith. Um, as the secretary of the Millennium Studies Committee that lasted practically a millennium, I want to commend the committee because going in I'd have said no, but you guys convinced me. I really
• 166:30 - 167:00 like your work, Brother Tim. Your passionate defense of your work. Uh, I stand in support of this resolution. I wouldn't have probably an hour and a half ago, but brother Tim, thank you for your passionate defense of what you have to say. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, brother Roberts. This shouldn't make it complete, but it's interesting. First of all, the uh the man that said, "Dare we change?"
• 167:00 - 167:30 told me years ago, he says, "Jim, we'd all be amillennialists if it wasn't for Revelation 20." But Dr. James Boyce, who was premill pre-trib, started to write a book of revelation right in the year prior to his death. And my son and I were talking with him. And I said, "Jim, have have you changed your mind?" He said, 'N no, Jim,
• 167:30 - 168:00 I have not changed my position, but I'm not near as adamant as I once was. Sort of reflecting the changes that that you were talking about. I think that's come to bridge both sides. So, nothing convincing, but it's an interesting anecdote. Thank you, brother. Thank you. And the previous question was moved. Is that supported? Are you in favor? Say I. Thank you. Oppose. Nay.
• 168:00 - 168:30 Okay. All right. I judge that it passed. So, we are going to vote on the resolution, the two resolutions on page 86. If you are in favor of affirming the committee and its work and moving forward, please raise your hand. If you are opposed, same sign. The motion passes. Brothers, we thank you for your great work. for the moderator. I would say is as the
• 168:30 - 169:00 chairman of the study committee, if you have some questions, concerns for us to think through to maybe bring up, please uh email myself or one of the members of the committee. Thank you so much. Bo Kaufman, would you come to the podium? We're ready for the study committee to ex um on abortion, our position on abortion. Page 97 in your report book. Going to try to get a page 97.
• 169:00 - 169:30 I move for its acceptance. It has been moved and seconded that we receive the report of the study committee to strengthen our position on abortion. Is there any discussion? All in favor say I. Oppose. Same sign or nay I should say. Sorry. Motion passes. Carry on. Uh essentially we are asking for a continuence in order to do our work in the coming year. We had some changes on the committee last year and so uh we are looking to appoint two new
• 169:30 - 170:00 members to the committee and just to continue our work in answering the questions that you have and presenting them to you as a conference for you to vote on. So Okay. Thank you both. No resolutions. uh in the midst of uh pre-conference work uh in conversation with both uh chairman Kaufman and also secretary of the committee Ron Reid uh two individuals have been uh appointed by myself as the moderator. They need to be ratified uh to this study committee. Those individuals are Philip Morrison
• 170:00 - 170:30 and Dr. Gregory Tuk. Uh Dr. Tuk is a part of the Grace Reading Congregation. Uh Phil Morrison resides in Lancaster uh county and so conference needs to ratify those two appointments uh to fill a vacancy. Yes, brother. Dr. Tuke is both a medical doctor and an elder. Elder and medical doctor. Thank you. So uh Ron, would you move that? So it's resolved that Philipp Morrison and Gregory Tuk be
• 170:30 - 171:00 ratified ratified to the committee. All in favor say I. I. Opposed. Motion passes. Thank you so much. Thank you, brothers. All right. Dan Wagner, would you come with the committee to review BPL's pages 98? Just page 98. Yes. Just page 98. Perhaps some of you are
• 171:00 - 171:30 um weary of seeing us at this point. Um this is our last report as I'm understanding it. So um number one, I move the acceptance of the report. It's been moved and seconded that we receive the report of the committee to review BPL's Biblical Principles for Living. All in favor say I. I. Oppose. Nay. Motion passes. Continue. Got resolutions
• 171:30 - 172:00 for us. Yes. Uh resolved that the BFC conference appoint a committee to examine article 104-3 civil government and prepare a statement on the issue of Christ Church and national politics by considering and there are two questions there. I so move. Okay. Okay. It has been moved and seconded that conference adopt the resolution that the first resolution on page 98.
• 172:00 - 172:30 Is there any discussion on that resolution? You just had 45 minutes. I promise I won't be long. I I just rise to speak in support of this. Um, with the younger generation, there's so much coming up. Fascinations with Christian nationalism, fascinations with fascism, quite frankly. Um uh the denomination speaking to this I think would be so appropriate for a younger generation. They need to
• 172:30 - 173:00 learn the wisdom of what is the church's role. Christians can of course be involved in politics. But there aren't just dangers on the the left. There are dangers on the political theological right. And I think Christian nationalism is one of those. So, I speak wholeheartedly in favor of uh us examining this. Thank you, brother Verlet. Anyone else? Okay, we're prepared to vote on this resolution. This is going to be a
• 173:00 - 173:30 hand a hand vote. It's not changing any legislation or anything like that. So, if you are in support to adopt this resolution, uh please indicate that by raising your hand and oppose the same sign. All right, that motion passes. Next one, Dan. Second resolution resolved that the BFC Conference appoint a committee to re-examine its statement on stewardship 104-1 by considering the following
• 173:30 - 174:00 questions which are stated. I so move. All right. All right. And it's been moved and supported that the second resolution uh be adopted to this conference uh leading to again another study committee. Any discussion on that point? All right. Well, if you are in favor of adopting that resolution, please raise your hand and oppose the same sign. All right. We're gonna
• 174:00 - 174:30 Yeah, because this has to be a simple majority, but we want to take a take a count of that. So, if you are in favor of adopting the resolution to re-examine its statement on stewardship, please raise your hand if you were in favor of that resolution.
• 174:30 - 175:00 Well, can you put your hands down? If you are against adopting that resolution, please raise your hand.
• 175:00 - 175:30 Okay. And you can relax for just a moment while they tabulate. I think we can. Let's just wait for a second. 79 to 50 in favor. 79. Okay. So, the
• 175:30 - 176:00 motion passes. 79 to 50 is the division of the house. 79 to 50. All right. Your third and final resolution. And before I state the re the resolution, uh my wife would say that my uh sense of humor is an acquired taste, but the resolution you have all been waiting for. Whereas the current committee to review the biblical principles for living has
• 176:00 - 176:30 presented its final two motions to the 142nd BFC conference. Therefore, be it resolved that the 142nd BFC conference recognized the work of the current committee to review the biblical principles for living as being completed and dissolve the committee according to the faith and order in preparation for the moderator to appoint a new committee to review the biblical principles for
• 176:30 - 177:00 living. I so move. All right. It's been moved and supported that we adopt the third and final resolution dissolving the current uh iteration 7-year cycle of the committee to review the BPLs in preparation for a new appointment at the end of this conference. If you are in favor of adopting that resolution, please uh raise your hand and oppose the same sign. Congratulations. Let's let's thank this current
• 177:00 - 177:30 committee again. Tim Zuck as the chair, Dan Wagner as the secretary, Timothy Rackcliffe, and Michael Zettoire. Thank you very much. Uh again, before we receive the first petition, uh which is coming from Ebenezer. So guys from Ebenezer, please come on up to the podium in preparation to appoint uh study committees, actually three, the the civil government stewardship and a new committee on BPLs. If you brothers have any interest in being a part of one
• 177:30 - 178:00 of those committees, please see me uh before lunch tomorrow. We'll give you that amount of time. There's already a few names that been that have been uh passed my way, but please do come and it's a great way to be a part of uh serving uh the broader fellowship of our denomination. Okay, we're ready to consider uh the petition from the Ebenezer Bible Fellowship Church, page 99, page 100 in your report book. Thank you, brother Moderator. Uh we are bringing this petition to the floor to the bar as we were discussing
• 178:00 - 178:30 the process for changes to the article of faith and seeing there are times when it seems as though this process could be sped up and not be delayed. We talked about in this process to get clarity where we stand as a whole just for clarity for our denomination. we started discussing uh how perhaps could we bring change to help bring this process along when it might be necessary. And so
• 178:30 - 179:00 you'll find our proposal there on page 99 concerning article 701-4 in the faith and order. How do you want me to petition to be received? I make it a motion to to accept it to receive. Yeah, we need to receive the petition first. It's been moved and seconded that uh conference receive the petition from the congregation in Bethlehem. All in favor please raise your hand oppose the same sign. It passes and
• 179:00 - 179:30 it is received. You can proceed to the resolutions. Okay. The first resolution I will make a presumption you were able to read through the whereas and why. Therefore, be it resolved that article 701-4 be modified to require all churches to provide a vote either for or against the a resolution. And as such, the twoth3 count is from the churches that provide the vote. You want each one or both the
• 179:30 - 180:00 other because one is time frame. Yeah. Okay, each one. Thank you. So, we're going to stick with just that first one, right? Just the first uh resolve at the bottom of page 99. Is there support for that resolve? Okay, it has been moved and seconded that conference adopt the resolution at the bottom of page 99. Is there any
• 180:00 - 180:30 discussion on the motion? I I do see brother Ritter Snder. Uh, brothers, I I'm just asking a point of clarification. I um we're voting on a resolution here that's saying we should change our rules, but it feels like the third resolution is the one that actually changes our rules. So, are these really three
• 180:30 - 181:00 separate resolutions that we can vote on? Because I think if we vote on this first one and pass it, but vote on but fail the third one, we put ourselves in a condition where we both said we're going to do something and said we won't do something. I see your point. We'll deal with it when we get there. We'll deal with it when we get there. Yeah. Anyone else? Brother Wagner,
• 181:00 - 181:30 I am reading this If I am reading this correctly, the resolution is we are not taking 23 of our total churches for the number we need to reach. We are taking twothirds of actual
• 181:30 - 182:00 recorded those responded. That's right. Correct. That's right. Thank you, brother Poland. So, I would stand well I forgot this part. Thank you, brother moderator. Uh I would stand against this resolution. Um for a couple reasons. Uh the first would be sort of pragmatically speaking um
• 182:00 - 182:30 anything we require we would also have to enforce. So uh would there be consequences for churches not voting? To say that we require all churches to provide a vote. We there should be some what what would the followup of that be to answer that? I would say the consequence is a nonvote is the consequence. It doesn't count towards that 2/3 needed as it currently stands. So the votes that come in are the votes
• 182:30 - 183:00 that are that are the actual ones that are no penalty just a forfeite of the voice. Sure. Participation. So the other reason then I would be against this is if if we're talking about something as fundamental as as changing the articles of faith, what I would not want is to change our articles of faith because a third of the churches don't care. A third of the churches care a lot and a third of the churches are against it.
• 183:00 - 183:30 And so this group sits out and there's more over here and then we just get this issue where we're changing our articles of faith with a number that is less. I think our standard for changing articles of faith should be extraordinarily high and this is a way to circumvent something that should be in my opinion extraordinarily difficult to happen. Can I get that? Sure. Yeah. uh to answer
• 183:30 - 184:00 that. I think that's where I see the problem and we saw the problem as an elder board right now with no votes. We don't know where people stand on this on a particular you can say a no vote is a no but perhaps it's not and they just didn't to your point they just didn't answer it or discuss it perhaps. So, we're just we just want clarity in that to say it still allows um if you're not going to vote, you've spoken, but it's not going to count against that, you know, for that 2/3 in
• 184:00 - 184:30 that because again, in the other resolution, there is the allowance where conference can say we are giving it the second year, which gets us back to where we are, but at least we know in the first year where we stand, if it even needs to go to a second year, and perhaps that whatever that change happens to be um we can finalize it after that first year or it needs a second year for further discussion and finalization. Okay. Again, this is uh really first
• 184:30 - 185:00 reading legislation would have to pass at 2/3 by the conference here. So, you'll have a voice in a moment uh to speak, you know, to vote for this or against this. Brother Shrunk, you're welcome to speak. Thank you, brother moderator. Uh to my brother's point, I was uh within the last four or five years involved in a study committee that proposed legislation that suffered from this very thing. And I don't remember what the numbers were, but there were a bunch of churches that did not vote. Did not vote. And it was um so so we're already there where you suggested this could take us. We're already there. This
• 185:00 - 185:30 is seeking to change that. Is that right, brother Scott? Correct. And so I I stand in favor of the proposal. And uh brothers, really just just ask you to consider what they're doing. They're trying to hold us accountable to do what we come here to do. No vote, don't come. I guess is like if you're not going to do your work, right? No, we're not saying that. Don't come. Just for clarity. No, I said that. Correct. You did.
• 185:30 - 186:00 That's all this is trying to do is is accomplish what we come here to accomplish. So, I hope you'll support it. And we feel that gives clarity to the whole conference. Shared accountability. Very good. All right. Brother Berlett, I I think I appreciate what you're trying to do. I I'm not a person that likes change, and I just see a value in change on such a serious level of doctrine as as going slow. I think it
• 186:00 - 186:30 allows us plenty of time to think about it, to slow things down. Uh I I just think too when it comes to this brother moderator, I forgot to thank you and uh I forgot to say I I rise in opposition uh to this. I I'm not against the spirit of it. Um but I don't think it really accomplishes what we intend for it to accomplish. And I think the unintended consequences could lead to way more dangers. You could have a church that
• 186:30 - 187:00 fails to vote not because they're lazy or they didn't get to it, but they have some kind of crisis. You could have some scenario where 10 churches are really, really passionate about an issue and so they send in their yes votes and a bunch of churches forget to vote for any number of reasons and suddenly a very vocal minority's position has carried the day and it's a doctrinal change. I I just I'm not sure I foresee all the
• 187:00 - 187:30 unintended consequences. I get it. Sometimes we move way too slow. But in a day and age where everything goes fast and doctrine is moving and blowing, is this really the area that we want to say, let's speed it up? I'm against this. Thank you, brother Miller. Uh, I rise in favor of this resolution.
• 187:30 - 188:00 And I think we're getting ahead to the second resolution. We're not talking about time here. Um, we're talking about counting the votes. So, we can talk about whether it's a 24-month period or a 12-month period with the next resolution. This resolution, as I understand it, is if you don't vote, it doesn't count as a no vote. So, it's an encouragement to vote. So I rise in favor of this first resolution. Let's wait to talk about the second resolution
• 188:00 - 188:30 when that one comes on. Thanks for bringing our attention back to that. Brother Schmooer, brother moderator. I did it. Yeah, good job. The reason that we have uh the current reading of 701-4 is to really uh uh get more buy in. If a organization, a committee, study committee, uh a board, whatever, uh proposes some change, we
• 188:30 - 189:00 all approve it here. It goes back to our boards of elders. I if it's if it's something that people aren't excited about, they're not going to vote yes for it. Let us write things that twothirds of our churches can get excited about. Right? If if uh 51% of our churches wrote in yes, um you have some buy in, right? But but that 23 of our
• 189:00 - 189:30 church's threshold is is inspiring and challenging our study committees to write things that twothirds of our churches can get excited about. If you don't meet the twothirds threshold, you're being told by their silence, they're not excited about it. They're not going to bother to write no, but they're not going to bother to write yes. They don't like it. So, let us
• 189:30 - 190:00 write things that we all like. I speak against the motion. Don't wait. In my judgment, I think Brother Meadows, thank you, brother moderator. Thank you. Uh, I I stand in um favor of this. I think in an as a as a culture, we demand accountability. We demand accountability from our church members. We should
• 190:00 - 190:30 demand accountability from each other. And we should be able to be men and look each other in the eye and say, "I'm for or against something." I don't think we should passively be able to be quiet and control what's going on in conference. I think we should write our name next to it. And as men, if we have elder boards who are unwilling to do that, I think we should hold our elder boards accountable and say we have business to do on behalf of the denomination and it needs to be at the top of the agenda the next elders meeting. We have right now currently in our time period a lot of time to do this and a lot of elder meetings for this to come up at. So, I don't think there's anything unreasonable by saying as men
• 190:30 - 191:00 who want to be accountable to God and to one another that we're going to be serious. And when something's big enough to come before conference, we're going to take it serious enough to say yes or no to it and respect everyone else's opinions and everyone else's ideas, but still be man enough to look each other in the eye and say, "I'm for or against whatever the issue is." Thank you, brother Meadows. In my in my capacity as moderator, I uh seek to protect everyone's voice, but I also uh am duty bound to protect our time. And I think
• 191:00 - 191:30 we're ready to move forward. Thank you. That's what I'm trying to get this to. Very good, brother. Is that supported? Are you in favor? Raise your hand of moving the previous question. If you want to continue debate, raise your hand. All right. The motion passes to cut off debate. This will be a a phone vote. So, if you are in favor of the first resolution at the bottom of page 99, please please vote Y for yes, N for no. Please cast your your vote.
• 191:30 - 192:00 When we're ready for a report of the vote, please let me
• 192:00 - 192:30 know. Anyone need more time, which would be ironic for this particular one. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. All right, the vote is closed. Is there a report? Motion passes. Division of the house is 116 yes. 43 no. Okay. Thank you very
• 192:30 - 193:00 much. And due to our time and our uh coming adjournment for dinner and beneficiary society, we will return to this particular petition most likely tomorrow. and we will also uh consider the northern Lehi and the Cedar Crest petitions or request at that time. Thank you, brother Wright and the Ebenezer Church. Brother Jim MacArthur, would you come please, dear friend, and bring the board of missions report and we have
• 193:00 - 193:30 some missionary guests we want to meet tonight. So, friends, we are on page 102. being true to the just move it. So I trust you've had an opportunity to read the report and uh we moved that it
• 193:30 - 194:00 be received. It's been moved and second seconded the conference receive the report of the board of missions. All in favor say I. Oppose. Nay, it is received. Okay. Uh, any of our board workers are here? If you just come up front while I'm talking a little bit, uh, then we're going to give you a chance to introduce yourselves. Today, I want to talk a little bit about our history. I love
• 194:00 - 194:30 history. I think history tells us where we've come from, and there's DNA in it that we can see in our modern day. And then I want to look at the present and then turn our eyes to the future. As you all are aware because you had to read the history of the Bible Fellowship Church that the Evangelical Menanite Society was formed having under the headship of the seven revivalists in those early days it says in homes and in these three meeting houses they gathered to worship enthusiastically and carry on
• 194:30 - 195:00 aggressive evangelism. Isn't that amazing? They were aggressively pursuing evangelism. And then it goes on to talk about that the evangelical Menanite society in 1858 there was a missionary society of the evangelical mission or Menanite society. Six years later and most significant they adopted the constitution of this missionary society and a society within the preacher society within the larger Christian
• 195:00 - 195:30 church even before they agreed on the confession of faith and the rules of the society and its affiliated congregations. In other words, the foreign mission agency found its documents solidly in place before the articles of faith and the principles of order were firmed up. I would say that shows us that missions has been at the center of the Bible fellowship church throughout its history. Ucbius Hershey, the first missionary, went to Liberia in
• 195:30 - 196:00 November 1st, 1890, and he died a few months later. And much more can be said about that. Today we carry on that history, but sometimes we get sidetracked and the promotion of missions is perceived as just one of the ministries of the church. It's that special interest group. But I would submit to you, I would argue that making disciples of all people should be in all that the church does. Before the King of Kings ascended into heaven, he gave a
• 196:00 - 196:30 command. And we see this in all the Gospels in the book of Acts. I'm not a rocket science. I'll let that up to Kurt. You hear him tomorrow. He is a rocket science. I'll leave that to Kurt. But I think the king wants his followers to carry out his message to all nations. Therefore, this is not the great suggestion, but the great commission. Some of you might wonder what the board of missions does or what I as the director of the board of missions do.
• 196:30 - 197:00 I first proclaim God's heart for the nations. I mobilize global workers from within the Bible Fellowship Church and assist to develop them. I shepherd our supported workers when needed. I assist Bible fellowship churches to develop their global outreach focus. Help develop strategic thinking across the BFC global outreach. What do I mean by strategic thinking? When we look at the task given in Mark 16:15, which says to go into all
• 197:00 - 197:30 the world and preach the gospel, and I compare that against the data of the status of the church and the gospel in the world, we can discover the task remaining. And when you do this, this is what you might discover. Can I Sam, can I have that map up? There you go. If you've seen me at your church, you probably have seen this map. It's from the IMB website. And the green dots represent places that once were unreached, but the church now has a stronghold. And the red and the orange
• 197:30 - 198:00 dots represent where unreached people groups are. And if you could drill down, you see that it breaks it out even further. But I just like the visual image, right? If you were a strategist in myology trying to fulfill Mark 16:15, where do you think we might consider needing to send workers? so that all might hear the gospel. this past year or at this time
• 198:00 - 198:30 there have been many that have gone and there is a need to continue to evangelize locally and globally in disciplehip of and the gathering of believers into churches is our mission and we have had many who have felt this call through our history but today here are some that are here representing their role and I'd like for them to introduce themselves to you and a very brief what they do thank My name is Lisa Barnshaw and I serve
• 198:30 - 199:00 with Kristar. This will be 35 years. I serve in the mobilization department recruiting workers to become church planters among least reached Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists. Thank you. Hi, Bill Early. I've been with Transorld Radio for almost 40 years. um right now writing scripts for a program that is going to start airing in the United States. For the first time in 40 years,
• 199:00 - 199:30 uh an English transorld radio program is going to be airing locally in Lancaster, Lebanon, uh Epherta, uh Hazelton, Eugene, Oregon, and several other places. Um, I'm writing the scripts for the program Mission 66 and uh, other people are going to be voicing it, but when we get this um, uh, there are 613 scripts that need doing and I
• 199:30 - 200:00 only have 183 more to go. So, we're chugging along and it's been a ride. We thank you from many of your churches who have supported us over the years. Thanks. Thank you, Bill. Walt Johnston, Penn State University, working with uh grad student international students. Uh Penn State is
• 200:00 - 200:30 about 65,000 and probably 20% are internationals. Who knows what's going to happen next year, but anyhow, um and the international students really would like an American friend. Um some are curious. um some need fellowship and community and some you know know the gospel some don't but we really praise the Lord for the opportunity to be there and to be um create family create a community and obviously present the gospel uh the Lord has allowed us to be here uh as of May it'll be 15 years uh
• 200:30 - 201:00 23 years in the Philippines so and I start I went to Liberia for one year uh before that so I think it's almost 40 years so I turned 71 this year and I'm going to stop salary and move more into a volunteer role. And I just want to say thank you for so many so many of you that have prayed uh churches that have given, individuals that have given and it's been a blessing and I am uh it's a privilege to be able to
• 201:00 - 201:30 say I finished the race of the career. Uh we're going to stay there. We're going to continue to do ministry with the students. We have somebody that's replacing us. I have three grandkids as of June. Uh so we're have some a few other things to think about. Um if you would like some help in thinking about how to reach um strangers in your community, the uh whatever immigrants, first generation, those you know you're working to looking to reach uh some of the principles that we have learned and
• 201:30 - 202:00 use and uh engage with I think could be quite useful. And if you want to switch it around and if you would like to send someone our direction to work with international students for one year or longer, uh, second career, third career, first career, we don't care. Um, it would be a real blessing. Um, missionaries coming back from the field would be a a really good opportunity because they were the outsiders, the strangers, had to learn another language and culture. Um, and the students are yeah, the the opportunity is is easy to
• 202:00 - 202:30 see. Um, but we have to take a place to pause. So, we're going to slow down. So, thank you again. Bless you, brother. Hi, my name is Gary Shogun and my wife is Karen Shogran. We've been co-missionaries together since 1998 in Costa Rica. We're both on the faculty of a SAPA Bible College and Seminary and we have been we relocated not retired
• 202:30 - 203:00 relocated up to Lancaster County a few years ago because of COVID. All of our courses are now online but uh we both teach mainly in Spanish. Uh I'm teaching New Testament on the graduate level and Karen teaches women's ministries. Um Karen is also in uh the founder and in charge of uh actually the same sort of ministry Phil Morrison addressed very passionately of uh rescuing endangered children protecting them in our
• 203:00 - 203:30 churches. She has a ministry that she launched called Levant Lavos which means lift up your raise your voice speak up for those who are without defender. Uh my second hat is that I'm an editor for eBible translation for Wikliffe Associates in symbolic universal notation uh which is a brand new 2016 constructed language constructed from scratch uh which is all symbols for the deaf
• 203:30 - 204:00 non-reader around the world of which there are 56 million people. Wow. And so um I have a little thing on my arm here where I have some things uh some of the symbols. These symbols are not like uh alphabet. They're not like hieroglyphics which represented sound. They represent concepts. And so um if a person is in the jungles of Vietnam or in Mongolia or
• 204:00 - 204:30 South America and reads this Bible um he or she will um conceptualize the things in their head. So meanwhile I on my end do I'm doing the editing. I'm actually doing some editing in Revelation this week and uh which is a pretty easy book. And believe it or not, compare that to Deuteronomy or Leviticus with, you know, two cubits this way and one cubit this way. Revelation's a piece of cake. Um,
• 204:30 - 205:00 but uh, for me it's like I'm reminded of kind of the the enigma machine of the Germans, you know, I push a symbol, push push a thing, and then a symbol comes up. So um I me stand in front door me knock if person open door I enter and so that's what I type and then it comes out in the symbols. So if you ever want to
• 205:00 - 205:30 take a look at it just let me know. Thank you brother. Thank you, John and Laura Student Roth. And I've been saying this for the last 10 to 15 years with no Laura beside me. And you young guys say, "Yeah, I'm not sure I believe you." She's here. We work with collegiate outreach and ministry primarily at Kutztown University seeking to reach faculty,
• 205:30 - 206:00 staff, administration, and students with the gospel of Jesus Christ. I want to give a real quick sneak preview. Someday the One Voice magazine is going to show up. There'll be an article in there, The Courage to Offend by Roy Tempmpy. Roy Tempimp is the engineer who designed the Gospel Box, which is absolutely central to our ministry. He describes the history and the theology of the box without ever mentioning the box itself. I have a box on my desk. Anybody who's at all
• 206:00 - 206:30 interested to know what I'm talking about or what's going to be showing up on one voice, stop by my desk, get my business card. Laura and I put out a monthly newsletter of prayer requests and praises. You can subscribe to that and we have more resources on the gospel box. Love to share it with you. You want to say anything? Good to be here. Oh, thank you so much friends. Let's express our affirmation of our heroes and
• 206:30 - 207:00 missions. So, in 2024, two of our BOM supported workers passed away, Craig Miller and John Hoover. We're grateful for their lives and their ministry, but please continue to pray for Karina and Kathy as they have begun the new chapters in their lives and ministry. In June, you've just heard the Johnston's will be transitioning to that retirey status and in October, Tim Oarrow will as well uh at the end of October. And I
• 207:00 - 207:30 suspect suspect that there are some other transitions in the works as well as life marches on. You see, we live in a changing world and some of our old ways of ministering do not work in the way they used to. With these changes, the face of missions is changing and so must we. We are part of a global society. God is moving people from countries where they cannot get where we cannot get visas into our backyards. This can be seen as an opportunity or even a stewardship entrusted to us.
• 207:30 - 208:00 These opportunities could lead to programs such as teaching English as a second language and international student ministry like the Johnston's are a part of direct cross-cultural work with the first generation immigrants. An illustration is a young man from our Piscataway church that reached out to me because he had a desire to work in church planting among the Gujarati speaking eastern Indians in the area. Domestic but yet international
• 208:00 - 208:30 cross-cultural church planting. Not new to us. That's what Wayne and Gay Paulie were a part of many years ago with the Chinese immigrants, the the the restaurant workers in New York City. Another development is workplace ministry or business's mission. How do you view your work? Is it something you do to get a paycheck so you can get a house up in the mountains or go fishing on your favorite fishing trips? But work can be used as a platform in order to
• 208:30 - 209:00 proclaim and move the gospel forward. And it's being used, business is being used in missions like a family we have in Asia that has a biofertilizer business with the purpose of helping to connect with local nationals and others. Amy Everett, Lord willing, will be joining the board of missions as our part-time ESL outreach consultant. Would you pray for her that we would be able to res uh raise support for her role? John Laruso, Larry Davis, and I are
• 209:00 - 209:30 working together to help develop a resource, a missionary development plan for use by our churches or the board of missions to help raise up future BFC workers to send into the global outreach sphere. Another thing you might have read in my report is the big idea that I presented to the executive board about the concept of being a church-based mission sending agency which I gave a name for BFC
• 209:30 - 210:00 Global. BFC Global is not a new concept to the Bible Fellowship Church. Believe it or not, it's not new. In 1952, I forgot what the conference was. 69th, I think. Yep. 69th annual conference. There was a statement that Bob Sloan sent me from the minutes which said we were going to be severing our relationship with the United Missionary Church. First over doctrinal differences, but secondly because we wanted to become a foreign sending base
• 210:00 - 210:30 agency having our own workers going out under the umbrella of the Bible Fellowship Church. It's an idea at this stage folks. It's not a reality. But I'd love to get your feedback. I love discussions. So our yeah not knowing now knowing the task knowing why I'm here I'd love to connect to look for ways we can work together with the common goal of making
• 210:30 - 211:00 disciples in all the world who are gathered into biblically based centered churches. To finish I want to read my last thought from the report on page 105. In the next year, will you join me in praying earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers in his harvest? I have been sharing my faith goal are asking God for 30 new workers to be coming up through the ranks being mobilized towards uh global
• 211:00 - 211:30 outreach. Impossible maybe. But if God is in this, we just might succeed. Amen. And thank you for your support. Thank you for emissions. grateful for you, brother. Thank you so much. Okay, brothers, you're done so well. Keep enduring. We have a couple of housekeeping announcements. Sean, would you make your way up here? Couple things uh to keep on uh on your mind. Tonight's uh meeting begins at 7:00. It will be presided over by the credentials committee. So, my work is
• 211:30 - 212:00 done for the day in just a few moments. Um couple reminders. If you have any interest in participating on one of the study committees to be named at the end of conference, please see me. Uh Pinebrook staff has asked uh that you if possible prepare your room uh uh that is prepare your room in the in the morning, clean out your stuff by the end of breakfast time if possible. Uh by the end of lunch um preferably by breakfast. You need to do it by the end of lunch tomorrow. Okay, that's that's the point there.
• 212:00 - 212:30 Have your room ready. Uh keys can be returned to guest services uh by lunchtime tomorrow. A reminder that Byron Roth and and Bill Walters have invited the elders to elders of our denomination to join them in White Chapel at 6:30. Pastors, uh you are um required to stick around for the beneficiary society meeting beginning in just a few moments. Our parting gift for el de dele elder delegate appreciation day. As elders, you get to be the front of line at dinner tonight. All right,
• 212:30 - 213:00 Shawn McNamera, come on up. Sean is both an elder and the chairman of the board of missions. Would you close our meetings in prayer? Yeah, my pleasure. Pray with me, brothers, please. Our father in heaven above, we are ever so grateful for your grace and your mercy and your love that is with us each and every day. We thank you for sending your son Jesus Christ to redeem us and to save us from
• 213:00 - 213:30 our sin and our rebellion and all that he means to us. Father, we thank you for your spirit of discernment and wisdom and unity as we did the work of the Bible Fellowship denomination here this afternoon. Father, we thank you for the unity that it is bringing to us and just pray that it continues well beyond this conference. And now, Father, as we're closing out this
• 213:30 - 214:00 session, I pray for and thank you for the food that you're about to provide. I thank you for the hands that prepared it for us. May it nourish us. May the fellowship that we experience going to experience nourish us and that we look to serve you better tomorrow than we did today. And I pray all this in the precious name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. All right, you are dismissed, pastor. Stick around please for our