Well, good morning. It's good to see you and welcome you to the Lord's house today. Eagerly anticipating our gatherings today here in Sunday school, our prayer service, our two worship services, especially our time in the word. And it's so good to see you and to welcome you in our savior's name. Let's turn to Acts chapter 20 and let's read a portion here of the apostles' farewell to the Ephesian elders. from Acts chapter 20. And you see some philosophy of ministry in this passage, some theology regarding the divinity of our Lord, and even some hints about church government, all in this farewell to the Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20. And so let's begin our day by reading from God's word, beginning at verse 17. And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church. And then when they were come to him, he said unto them, ye know from the first day that I came unto Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons. serving the Lord with all humility of mind and with many tears and temptations, which befell me by the lying in wait of the Jews, and how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have showed you and have taught you publicly and from house to house, testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, behold, I go bound in the Spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there, save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God. And now, behold, I know that ye all among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God shall see my face no more. Wherefore, I take you to record this day that I am pure from the blood of all men, for I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. Take heed, therefore, unto yourselves and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch and remember that by the space of three years I cease not to warn everyone, night and day with tears. And now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all them that are sanctified. I have coveted no man's silver or gold or apparel. Yea, ye yourselves know what these hands have ministered unto my necessities and to them that were with me. I have showed you all things, how that so laboring ye ought to support the weak, And to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, it is more blessed to give than to receive. And when he had thus spoken, he kneeled down and prayed with them all. Amen, we'll end our reading there. Let's seek the Lord together and ask his blessing. Our Father in heaven, we have met today on your day. Yes, to receive, but more to give. To give unto thee worship, to give unto thee devotion. and to serve our brothers and sisters in this church family. We remember that it is more blessed to give than to receive, and so make us fountains rather than drains today. And we ask that we would render unto thee the worship that you alone are worthy of and that we would be faithful to refresh the hearts of the saints. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. So we're continuing this morning our discussion of an introduction to our church, and this is the seventh time that we've taken up this topic in this series here, and I envision a few more times. We won't go too long with this, maybe 10, maybe 12 lessons. There's not too much more on my list of things, but a few more things. And so where we've been so far is an introduction as to what is the church and the purpose of the church, And then we did one week on our history, on the history of this congregation in particular. We did one week on our doctrinal distinctives, and that was, of course, a very fast run through. But you remember how we just kind of differentiated our congregation from others in the local area and used that to kind of talk about our distinctives of what we believe. And in the last three weeks, we have been in the topic of ministry philosophy. And so that broke down into three weeks, and the first week were our worship services and what our philosophy of worship is, and especially the scripture-centered nature of our worship and the primary importance of our worship. The second week we talked a little bit about our music philosophy and the sorts of considerations that inform our decisions when it comes to our music, our sacred music. And then last week we talked about fellowship, and so the aspects of our church outside of the Lord's Day. And we talked about the importance of the midweek prayer service as the primary fellowship meeting of our congregation, how we do meet for fellowship, very specifically for New Testament fellowship every Wednesday, so 52 times a year. We have church fellowships planned. You always know when they're going to be and where they're going to be. Every week there's a fellowship planned here at our church, and it's at Wednesday at seven o'clock. And then we also talked about youth ministry. I guess one of those things that might be different about our congregation than others in your experience. And our philosophy there of trying to be more family-centered rather than youth-segregated, age-segregated. We think that that's the wiser course of action to keep families together and keep our whole church congregation interacting with one another multi-generationally. And when it comes to children's ministry, to youth ministry, I failed to make this statement last week, but really the fundamental principle when it comes to children's ministry, youth ministry is that we want to give them a faith to grow into and not out of. And so think about that. We want to give them a faith not to grow out of, but to grow into. There's a lot of approach to youth ministry where you expect them to grow out of it, and the problem is they don't. And so you segregate them off for junior church until they're like 12 or 13 years old, and then all of a sudden you expect them to be in the worship service. I mean, what's that gonna look like? Or you segregate them off for youth group all the way until they're 18. It's like, oh, now that you're 18, here. And when you do that, when you're constantly segregating them off from the life of the congregation, not only are you depriving them of the gifted ministers of the congregation, not only are you depriving them from the fellowship with seasoned Christians, but you're also tacitly communicating that yes, we agree that church is boring. So we'll entertain you and we'll cater to you. Like our whole culture is given to catering to youth. Youth culture is the culture, basically. All the advertisers want that 18 to 30 age bracket. They're all aiming for them. Everything's about, everything's catered to youth culture in our culture. And the church, unfortunately, has done that as well. We don't wanna give them a faith that we expect them to grow out of. We want to give them a faith to grow into. And so, that's a really, that's like a fundamental philosophical approach, I think, to the way that we want to be doing things in ministry. So, that was last week's discussion. And I think that kind of wraps up the things I wanted to talk about when it came to church philosophy and just kind of the things that make up a culture of a church. All right, so today, what I want to quickly overview with you is our church government, so how our church operates, and some of the things to talk about there that most of you are well aware of. It hasn't been that long since we We went through the process of writing the Book of Church Order and working through the Book of Church Order in Sunday school, so these things are relatively fresh in our minds, but good to review, and it's good just to talk an overview on this, and it may be that there's some things that come up that you weren't even aware of about how our church operates. in our church government. All right, so I guess we'll start here, that when it comes to church government, there are kind of three categories that churches can fall into. Okay, so three views of church government. There's the Episcopal view, and the Presbyterian view, and the Congregational view. Okay, so Episcopal view is rule by bishops, it's a hierarchy. So that would be the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church, the Methodist Church, the Roman Catholic Church. You have a series of higher church hierarchy, and it's governed from the top down. A Presbyterian church has elders in every congregation, but those elders also form a group of elders that oversee multiple churches. So, there's this connectionalism with the elders. And so, the Greek word for elder is presbyteros, so presbytery and presbyterian goes along with that Greek word. You have elders in every church and those elders are connected with other elders in other local churches and then those elders form a presbytery that oversees the churches, plural. And then there is a congregational church which says that each church is a independent, autonomous organization that governs itself, the members ultimately are the ones who govern the church congregational. Alright, so out of those three views, we would be in that third view, a congregational church. But when it comes to congregational churches, there are also, you know, some variations, as you well know. There are some congregational churches that are strict democracies, like a brethren situation, where the church just votes on everything. I mean, I heard just last week, someone was telling me about a church that voted about music style, what music style they were going to have in their services. It's like, whoa. So, you know, so there's like strict democracy, like no leadership, everybody's on the same plane kind of, you know, congregationalism. There is the kind of standard congregationalism of independent Baptists where you have one guy at the top. And there's a check and balance with a deacon board that kind of acts like the board of trustees. So CEO, board of trustees is the deacon board. They kind of check him. They're the ones that hire and fire him. And he reports to them on the growth of the organization. It's this business model of church. And so that's one way that some churches do it. And then there is what we believe the New Testament teaches, which is a congregation which is governed by a plurality of elders. So that there are more than one, there are a plurality of men that have been set aside as pastors, overseers, elders, those three terms are interchangeable in the New Testament. You see right here in Acts chapter 20 that they are interchangeable. verse 17, he calls the elders of the church, so the presbyters of the church, and then down in verse 28, he says that God has made them overseers, and that's the word episkopos, and so there you have the second New Testament word for these same men, and what they're doing in verse 28 is feeding the church, and that's the word shepherding or pastoring, and so you have all three terms used for the same men. Right? They're elders, they're overseers, and they're pastors. They are functional terms, not different offices. So, every congregation has a plurality of these men in it, and they're the ones tasked with the. responsibility and authority in that congregation. Their authority is not by virtue of their position. It is not by virtue of their ordination. It is not by virtue of their calling. Their authority is Scripture. It's all they've got. Scripture is their authority. They don't have anything else to wield other than Scripture, right? And holding the congregation accountable to Scripture because scripture is the authority, ultimately. The Lord Jesus is the head of his church. He's the authority. And the shepherds are under shepherds, under Christ, and governing the church by the word of God. So, when we're talking like systems, like, you know, where do we fit in all of that, you know, the grand scheme of things, okay, congregational led by a plurality of elders. That would be our church and that would be the standard like reformed view other than the Presbyterian. So maybe a reformed Baptist kind of a view would be the standard view of church government there. All right, so that's like where we fit, where our niche is in the landscape. All right, so to be clear how we operate then, we have stated bylaws, which we have published in our Book of Church Order and Statement of Faith. And these spiral bound copies, we have many, many of these. When we first adopted this and we printed, I don't know, about 100 of these or so and made them available to the congregation and there's still dozens and dozens left in the closet. There's always a pile on the table out there. So each family can have one of these for sure. And so this Book of Church Order has three parts to it. Okay, so the first 20 pages or so, 25 pages are our bylaws. So that would be like our church constitution. And so it talks about what the purpose of our church is and what membership looks like and church discipline proceedings and officers of the church and the meetings of the church and how finances work and that sort of stuff. So our church bylaws, our church constitution, that's the first part. The second part then are our confessional statements. There are two confessional statements in this book that govern the teaching and preaching in this assembly. The first is the Apostles' Creed. That is the standard for entrance into membership. So the Apostles' Creed is, of course, a standard ecumenical creed from the four or five hundreds A.D. So that's the first, and that's just a short, very basic creed of the Christian faith. And then after that is the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, which is the more precise and thorough confession that we have adopted as a congregation. There are 32 chapters to the London Baptist Confession of Faith. We made four changes to that confession, which we are very clear about in the introduction that we wrote, the four alterations that we made to the 1689. Other than that, it's the standard 1689 that was written up, and guess what year? 1689. So it's the standard 1689 confession. And that is not the standard for membership. You can be a member here without subscribing to every jot and tittle of the 1689. It's not binding on your conscience. What this does is bind the teaching and preaching of our church. So our elders are bound to the 1689. So there are three of us. that subscribe to this confession publicly before the congregation and are held accountable to it, but no one else, unless you're teaching and preaching. So it's the standard for teaching and preaching. And like we said, I think we went over this maybe before in one of these lessons, but it's only fair of us to say up front what we believe. It's not good enough just to say we believe the Bible. Right? You've got to say what you believe the Bible teaches because everybody says they believe the Bible. Every Christian church says that at least. So, you've got to say what do you believe about the Bible. It's only fair to be up front about what we believe. So, that's in our confessional statement. That's the second part of this. So, first part, bylaws. Second part, our confessional statements. And then the third part are affirmations and denials. So, there were six issues. that have arisen in the church since the publishing of the 1689 that we thought we had better be clear about. And so we went ahead and made statements affirming and then to be real clear, denying the opposite on these issues. And so the six issues are biblical inerrancy. So we believe that the scripture is free from error and falsehood. Ecclesiastical separation, and so our duty to separate from false teachers and the ecumenical movement. Cessationism, which is our belief regarding the charismatic gifts having ceased with the apostles. Young earth creationism, which is our belief that the world was created in six literal 24 hour days. And gender and homosexuality. And so, our belief that a man is a man and a woman is a woman and that marriage is between one man and one woman. And lastly, biblical gender roles, which speaks about the role of women in the church and our holding to the New Testament standard that elders are to be men and that those who handle the word in the congregation are to be men. All right, so those are the six issues that we thought we better speak to that weren't really addressed in 1689 because they weren't issues in the 17th century. And so we thought we better be clear on. So those are the three parts of this. So the bylaws, the confession, the affirmations and denials. And I guess you could say there's a fourth part. It's not something that's binding or anything, but it would just to be clear. and to be helpful to prospective members. The order of service for receiving members is in the back here, and it gives the actual language that we use at the front of the sanctuary when we question them publicly and they answer, you know, I will, God be my helper. That's that sort of thing. So they know what they're gonna be getting themselves into. And so that's in writing at the back of the booklet. All right, so this Book of Church Order is our, helping make clear how we operate as a church. We believe that the church is under, in the New Testament, is given two offices. So there are elders and then there are deacons. So elders we spoke of already, overseers, pastors, right? And then, and we have three elders in our church, myself, And then John McKnight, our pastor emeritus, and then Brian Wilson, the principal of our school, has been ordained to that pastoral ministry. So there are three of us who are elders in this church, and elders is an ordination for life. And then we have what we call stewards. The King James Version of the New Testament calls deacons, but we use those words interchangeably. They mean the same thing. We retain the word stewards from the way our church has operated ever since the 1950s when it started, and didn't change that when we changed the BCO. So we have stewards, just think deacons if you're familiar with that word and that concept in the New Testament. And stewards are functioning as servants of the congregation. They protect, they're the guardians of the ministry of the Word. The ministry of the word can be threatened two ways according to the New Testament. It can be threatened first of all when the elders are overwhelmed with other things other than prayer and the ministry of the word. So, the deacons do things to free up the elders to give themselves to prayer and the ministry of the word, and that way they're guardians of the ministry of the word. And the other thing that can threaten the ministry of the word is grumbling and complaining and discontent within the body. When things are not going well, when the sanctuary is way too cold or way too hot or It hasn't been vacuumed or the bathrooms aren't cleaned or where the doors are unlocked. That makes for a grumpy congregation that's not in a good frame of mind for receiving the word. And so the deacons are guardians of the of the contentment of the congregation by doing those things to serve the body so that they then can receive the word with joy. And so we have stewards, we have 16 of these men currently. They serve three-year offices, three-year terms, and they're allowed to have two consecutive terms before they must take a one-year sabbatical. So basically six years on, one year off, and they're all staggered in their terms, and so some are up for reelection every year, and we don't have a cap, we don't have a minimum or a maximum on stewards, and we never wanna get into a place where we're just filling seats. It's like, oh, seat 14 is empty. Who are we gonna find for seat 14? Right, we don't wanna be in that position. This is a church office, and the Lord Jesus is gonna lead his church and gift men in the church for this office, and the congregation will perceive it, Whether he gifts five men or 25 men, that's up to him. And we'll just recognize his gifting and his calling when it comes to stewards. And so we currently have 16 of these men. I'm going to go ahead and read off their names just so you all know who the current stewards are. And so, Don Benkendorf, Edward Bensel, Miles Carper, Mark Edwards, Ron Edwards, Brad Fleming, Jeff Merriman, Carl Myers, Nate Olinger, Femi Olerenfemi, Bill Peters, Jonathan Peters, Wesley Peters, Greg Purdy, Mark Smith, who functions as the chairman elected by the board, and Roger Williams. So those are the 16 current stewards. Those men have organized themselves into ten standing committees to make sure that things are getting done that need to get done, and they have been very recently more active in these committees. This is something that's only been about two years old in the life of our church, these standing committees. and organizing the stewards to be more active in serving the congregation. And just lately I've been very encouraged about how these committees have all been meeting and have been reported back to the board about initiatives that they're trying to accomplish. The 10 standing committees are the Facilities Committee. That's the committee, of course, that looks after the buildings and the grounds. The Benevolence Committee that oversees our Benevolence Fund. We have an Agape Fund, which is a charitable fund that some give to, and so they're the ones that receive applications and make decisions based on distributing those funds to needy members in the body. There's the Member Care Committee, which organizes the care of widows and senior citizens and other families in time of need. The Pastoral Relations Committee, which is responsible for compensating church employees. The Finance Committee, which is responsible for the church budget and overseeing finances. The Sunday School Committee, of course, over the Sunday School and Nursery. The Missions Committee, of course, over our missionaries and also any kind of local evangelism. Technology Committee, you can think of all the things that fit under that, like the microphone I'm using right now, with a live stream that will happen in a little bit. The Fellowship Committee, planning and executing different fellowships of the church. And then the Lord's Supper Committee, that is tasked with making sure the elements are ready for the Lord's Supper six times a year. And so the men are divided up into those committees and those are the tasks, the kinds of tasks that they do. The stewards are also the trustees of the church, so under the laws of incorporation in the state of Maryland. You have to have men designated or people designated as trustees of the incorporation. And so, the stewards are also the trustees, and so they elect from among themselves a president and a vice president, which is basically just a legal matter for real estate transactions and that sort of stuff. When it comes to paid staff members, how many people are on the church budget as paid staff members? Are you aware of who the staff members are of the church and how that works? There are six. People on the staff, just two that receive their remuneration entirely from the church, the other four have remuneration from the church and school combined because of a dual role in their employment. So myself and Pastor McKnight are paid exclusively by the church congregation. And then Jonathan Peters and Wesley Peters and Shane Burge and Roger Williams are all paid partly from the church and partly from the school due to their duties being split between those two entities. Brian Wilson. Our third elder is compensated by the school exclusively as the administrator of the school. So there's six, but basically it comes out to three salaries because there's four, you know, as all percentages. And so it's kind of basically three salaries that are paid by the church budget. How does the church budget process work? Are you aware of, you know, how does that actually, how does that work? Right, so every year about this time. there are two committees that function. There's the Pastoral Relations Committee. They're the ones that are responsible for the compensating of those six individuals, seven if you include Brian Wilson. So they overview their salaries and any changes to the responsibilities and they make recommendations regarding the salary structure of of those church employees and they make those recommendations to the finance committee. The finance committee is the one that develops the church budget every year. They work very closely with Shane Burge, we have the privilege of having basically like a CFO around here, someone who's remunerated for looking after the finances. That's a great privilege we have because of the school. If it weren't for the school, we wouldn't have a situation like that. It would be all volunteer or something. Because of the school, we have that privilege of having a finance person, and so he puts together a rough draft budget, he meets with that finance committee, they go through it and make changes up and down and everything, and they vote to send it to the stewards. The stewards meet in June, and they go over that budget, but the finance committee has submitted, and they're the ones that approve the budget on behalf of the congregation. The budget's not presented to the congregation for an up and down vote. It's just presented for their support by their tithes and offerings. And there's an accounting that's made in September in our annual meeting about budgetary matters and where we stand as a church financially. And so that's how the budget process works. If that's interesting to you or helpful to have that kind of transparency about things. All right, we're over time, it's 10.32, so thank you for your attention. Not a typical Sunday school, I guess, they're talking about those things, but good to chat about those things from time to time and to be transparent about them. Let's prepare now for our prayer time.