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.

"What More Can A Body Do?"

I have to be honest. I am PERPLEXED! As a staff we discussed this issue at length today. No matter how hard we try, it seems that nothing we do helkps the situation. What am I talking about? Well--it's communicating the life and work of the Association to our member churches, pastors, church contacts, and Associational leaders.

I send out a weekly e-zine to pastors detailing events relevant to their work. Liz sends a "Mid-Stream" e-zine to almost 600 people around the 15th of each month to update known events in the life and work of the Association. Toward the end of each month, we e-mail the Currents of the Tar to 600 people and send about 750 out in the mail. Throughout the month we send emails with important information and we keep the website as up-to-date as we can. My grandmother used to have a saying, "What more can a body do?"

This was her way of saying, I have tried all that I can and I simply do not know what else I can do. That's the way we often feel after HOURS of work as staff members. We try to get information out in a timely fashion, but it appears that many do not read anything that we send out and many others fail to read through everything.

Think with me for a minute. Let's say we plan a major Sunday School training event. For MONTHS we have it on the calendar; at every meeting of the Association we publish it and/or speak of it and ask messengers to share with our member churches; we send out email reminders and updates; we place articles in the newsletter and/or inserts as reminders; we spend hundreds of man hours publicizing and bring in quality trainers to assist our member churches. We may or may not have good attendance - and that is irrelevant to the point I am attempting to make. Then--the next morning when we get into the office we check messages or get an email and it reads, "When is the Association going to offer some Sunday School training?"

The truth of the matter is---at least 4 or 5 people in EVERY TRBA church have received information and been asked to share with their church. We need your help in getting the word out. PLEASE help us!

Before I started this blog I checked the last 10 association-wide e-mails that have been sent out by Constant Contact. In not one email that was sent did more than 44% of the recipients open the emails. 56% never opened an email from TRBA.

One of our neighboring Associational Missionaries became so tired of hearing church leaders say that they had not received email and mail about events in his association that he began to send mail through certified mail/receipt returned. That is an expensive proposition when emails are free, but I understand his frustration.

I know we get a lot of junk mail (both hard copy and email), but the information TRBA sends out to you is information that people in your church need to hear about. We are asking you to help.

If you have ideas as to how we can more effectiveky get information to you and others in TRBA so that we can more effectively serve you, please let us know. And again I ask you--please get the information we share with you to your church.