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First Baptist Family,
I have three big things for you this week:
1. A Collection of BIG Thank You's
Sunday was another good day at First Baptist Church because of all of you.
Thank you all so very much for your flexibility on Sunday to relocate your Sunday morning Bible study classes to work around our air conditioning issues and still show up for Bible study and worship.
Thank you to our Thriving Congregations team for planning another fun fellowship with our Jam & Jaw After Party. Thank you to our wonderful musicians for sharing their amazing talent with us. Thank you to all who stuck around after worship and jumped in to strengthen rooted relationships in our church family!
And of course, as ever, the thank you's go beyond Sunday! Thanks to all those who continue to show up and serve throughout the week in so many ways - praying, working in the office, serving in the food pantry, helping with A/V tech, teaching, shepherding our preschool/kids choirs & worship, coordinating ministries, serving in leadership, singing in the choir, being part of our Care Team, working in the kitchen, and so, so many other ways of pitching in that help our life together thrive and increase our impact for the Gospel.
Thank you for being an incredible church family. God is at work in and through you and I'm so grateful for it, excited to see what is ahead, and energized be along for the adventure!
Well done! Keep up the good work!
2. A BIG Bill
The good news: after an arduous week of leak detection, digging, pipe-fitting, and more, the major leak in our chilled water loop for the Heritage Hall building HVAC is fixed.
The more difficult news: it was, as you can imagine, a quite costly repair. The final bill is still being tabulated, but likely all-in it will be a more than $40,000 unbudgeted expense incurred. Thankfully because of your ongoing generosity and faithful giving, while this is significant cost, it is not an existential crisis. Thanks be to God!
That said, we would love to be able to say that this incident in no way impacted our other budgeted plans for the year. To help that be true, I invite each of us to prayerfully consider whether we might make an additional gift beyond our regular pattern of giving directed toward this repair cost. If you feel led to do so, you can note a designation of a contribution toward "A/C Repair" or something similar, and we will dedicate it to that purpose. Thank you for your ongoing generosity.
3. A BIG Week Ahead
And now, let us turn our eyes to the exciting week ahead of us! Sunday we will share the privilege of our Kids Choir singing as part of our worship service, which will certainly enrich our time together and help us be ready for two big events we are hosting on our church campus in the week to come, both of which I enthusiastically invite you to attend!
First, on Tuesday night, April 30, we are expecting an overflow crowd as we gather for the FAST Nehemiah Action. At this annual event, our county-wide justice ministry asks for commitments from public officials to implement concrete actions to address issues of injustice in our community. If you would like to serve to help us be good hosts for a full campus, please let Joye Quire know, and we will put you to work. Even if you can't serve, your presence makes a difference! I hope you will be here Tuesday at 7 p.m.
Second, on Saturday, May 4, we will host another important gathering. This the Spring Celebration for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Florida & the Caribbean Islands. This family of folks from 35 churches across the region will join to hear from missionaries, worship God together, and challenge & encourage one another. I am so excited we are hosting this event, and I hope you'll sign up to attend it, too.
We want our building to be a tool which exists to make ministry possible. I am excited for two clear examples of that happening this week. And the reminder of why it is worth it to steward this facility well for the sake of our community now and for generations to come!
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In summary, thank you so much for who you are and all you have already done AND let us not stop now - there is more to do to ever more become the people of God we are called to be. By God's grace, let's do it!
Blessings,
Ben
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