Should Your Church Offer A Mentoring Ministry To Your Community?

Last night I attended a Mentor Meeting at Spring Hope Elementary. There I saw the heart of their principal, teachers, and guidance counselors for the children of their school. Over Christmas I had assisted the teachers help 27 families in that community experience a better Christmas. I am seeing people that really care!

They have invited the churches of the Spring Hope area to partner with them. Do you really HEAR what I am saying???? The churches are being invited in to minister to the needs of children and families. Something we should be doing any way. Linda and I discovered we have the time to help out. I plan to stop in at 8 AM one day a week and work with my "buddy" and pray earnestly throughout the week that my "sacrifice" will make an eternal difference!

Some might say, "how can he find the time?" Notice I placed "sacrifice" in quotation marks. If I take 30 minutes away from BoJangles a week - I may make a real difference to a child in my community. And you know what---I think I see a lot of people for TRBA churches in BoJangles solving the world's problems in conversations that could make an impact in solving the world's problems by touching the life of a precious child.

Therefore, I just encourage you to pray about becoming involved in mentoring in your community. If you do not live in Nash County, tghen I am confident you can talk to your local school. This is a way you can affect a young life for years to come, please pray about it and determine what can be done.
On a corporate level - as a church, consider what you can do to reach out to at risk kids. An idle van---some "bored teenagers" in your church youth group who need volunteer hours to graduate -- and a church with a heart to reach outside themselves to touch the lives of others --that's all that's needed to start a summer reading program one day a week (or something else that you feel led of God to do).

I believe God is calling us to DO SOMETHING to impact our communities for Christ. This may be a way for your church to do just that. AT least pray about it!

2010 - A New Year For TRBA

It is still early in the New Year - a new decade. As we enter 2010, TRBA also begins full implementation of its policies and procedures under the "new" ByLaws that were approved by the association. I am grateful for all the hard work that has been done to prepare for the implementation. I am excited as I see how God will use these efforts to help us go forward in the new decade.

By now, you should have experienced our enhanced efforts to communicate the life and work of the Association. We have established both a FaceBook Group and Fan Page. We will use these pages (and the services offered through FaceBook) to communicate to the many members of Tar River that daily use FaceBook. We will advertise TRBA events (inviting you to RSVP to the various events) and also invite you to participate in discussion topics as well.

One very important feature on the FaceBook is that YOU - any member of the group - can send out messages to all other members. This way, you can get the news out to all our member churches regarding activities in your church and community.

We will expand our use of e-zines. Pastors should be receiving a weekly e-zine entitled THE NAVIGATOR. Everyone on our "Constant Contact" list should receive THE MID-STREAM around the 15th of each month. These detail important information to our members and we would appreciate your sharing them with your church family. If you are not receiving these, please email us at tarriverbaptist@hotmail.com and ask to be added to the e-zine lists.

Third, we are also expanding the use of TellBlast. You should have received the first mass effort to get the word out about the Sunday School training on January 30th. We will utilize this a great deal more during 2010 to get information to you in a timely manner.

Fourth, we will utilize both TRBA blogs (one for general membership and the second for pastors) to communicate ideas and discussions about major changes taking place in the life and work of the association. Please participate.

Finally (in the arena of communication) we will also be altering our monthly newsletter, THE CURRENTS OF THE TAR, pretty soon. It is our hope that any changes we make will enhance our communication efforts to our member churches.

There are a LOT of quality events coming forward in the next few weeks:

January 19 - 7 PM: Treasures IRS Update (TRBA Center)
January 23 - 9 AM: Pastors' Families Fellowship Breakfast (Ephesus Church)
January 25 - 6 PM: Associational Council Meeting (TRBA Large Conference Room)
Janaury 25 - 7 PM: Quarterly Executive Board Meeting (TRBA Large Conference Room)
January 30 - 8 AM: Sunday School Training (Pearce Church)
Feb 16 -10 AM: Monthly Ministers' Fellowship (TRBA Large Conference Room)
March 6/7 (TBA): "Life Is A Mission Trip" Training (Duke Memorial)

One final announcement for this post: EVERY MONDAY at 9 AM your TRBA Associational Staff gathers for prayer. All persons in the building will be invited to join us in the small conference room for a season of prayer. During 2010 there will be invitations for all to join in prayer for the ministry that is before us.

Next week's post will be a brief update of efforts regarding the CURRENTS OF THE TAR and some of the particular training events for 2010. We will begin to share our goals as an association in our weekly (hopefully) blog posts. Please join me in praying for the life and work of our member churches as we work together to accomplish the work God has called us to do together.