All right, so we're continuing with our introduction to our church, and I have kind of a miscellaneous agenda today. What I wrote down here are a list of 11 ministries of our church to introduce you to. the kinds of things where if you were new to our church, you wouldn't know about, or even maybe some organizations or acronyms that we use that would need some explanation if you're not kind of in the know. And so I'm just introducing various ministries, various elements of our church ministry, and then talking them out. And we'll see how many of these I can get done in 25 minutes here. So the first thing I have written down here is the way that we do Sunday school. So that should be obvious to you because you're sitting in Sunday school right now. But we have Sunday school classes for various ages. And so we have some young ladies who supervise and make an attempt at teaching the two and three-year-olds. And so of course, a little bit of herding cats there. But there's a table in the nursery on this side of the nursery. They don't, they certainly don't go for a half an hour solid with two or three year olds, but they make an attempt to have them sit and to sing with them and to open the Bible with them. And so that's kind of a training ground for Sunday school. So you have twos and threes. And then we have another class for kindergarten and first grade. So basically ages four through six, it's down the hall in Angela Burge's first grade classroom, Christy Smith and Julia Akers lead that Sunday school class. And then downstairs there are two other classes. We have the second through sixth grades and that is led at various times by either Miles Carper or Matt Bartow or Nate Olinger. And so that's kind of the elementary grades. And we break things after first grade because of, you know, reading level. So typically first graders are, you know, still a little rough on their ability to read. And so it's kind of second grade is when you can kind of expect them to be able to, you know, follow along in their Bible and maybe even read aloud if they're called on. So second through sixth grade is our age breakdown right now. And then we have all of the junior high and high school together, seventh through 12th grade, and they meet downstairs as well, led by either Mark Smith or Carl Myers. And that's the class I'm most familiar with, just in discussing things with them. And so they're building a six-year cycle of curriculum to take our teenagers through, and I think that they're four years into building that cycle, and then they'll kind of recycle once they get through six years. So far, they've done a study on the doctrine of salvation, on soteriology and the order of salvation. They've done a study on finding Christ in the Old Testament. They've done a study on the covenants, and so that's really a way of working your way through the meta-narrative of the Bible by going through the different covenants. Right now, they're doing the life of Elijah. And so an in-depth study of Elijah's life, I think they're using a lot of A.W. Pink's work on the life of Elijah and some other resources. And so, and then there'll be two more years as they build that curriculum and then they'll have six years of curriculum that they can just cycle then through again because there'll be a new crop of students by that point. So that's what goes on in the basement for our teenagers. And then in the summertime, Sunday school runs basically along with the school year. And in the summertime, we try to mix things up. We try to give a break to the Sunday school teachers for one thing, so they have the summer off. And it gives us an opportunity of giving other ministry opportunities to our college students or some other young people. So it's not like a nine-month commitment, but just a three-month commitment. So we'll often have our college students that are home for the summer lead summer Sunday school. And sometimes we'll do gender separate for the teenagers, have a girls class and have a boys class and that gives you some opportunities for talking about some things that way. We've had some summers where we've asked adults from the congregation to all go in week by week and to share their testimony with the teenagers. And we did that a couple years ago. I think that went really well. So we kind of mix things up in the summertime. but still have our classes in the summer. So that's how summer school goes. That's how Sunday school goes. And you know how things go typically in here. Typically what we're doing here is 12 to 14 week studies of books of the Bible. And we're going back and forth Old Testament and New Testament. And by that means we have tackled over 45 Bible books here in our Sunday school class. All right, so Sunday school. Something else, sermonaudio.com and the way that we live stream our services. And so you're aware that our morning and evening worship services are live streamed on both YouTube and Sermon Audio, and then they are saved on those sites as well. We really suggest and recommend sermon audio for going back and for either live streaming when you're at home or for going back and watching or listening to a recording. If you do sermon audio, you're not subject to, you know, the recommended playlist from the algorithm. You're not subjected to commercials and that sort of stuff, advertisements. But they are on both sites. YouTube will save the entire service. So if you do miss a service for traveling or whatever, You'll get the announcements, you'll get the congregational singing, the offertory, the choir number, everything is saved on YouTube just kind of automatically. For Sermon Audio, we trim the service down to just the sermon, and only the sermon gets archived on Sermon Audio. But it's fully searchable by keyword, by scripture text, by speaker, by date, those sort of things. And so sermonaudio.com, they have a wonderful iPhone app or Android app called My Church. And you can download that app. You can save Reformation Bible Church as your church. And then as soon as you hit that app, you're right to our church's site on Sermon Audio. and can see the different series that have been preached through, the latest sermons, both audio and video. And so, remind you that that is an opportunity for ministry, something to pray about as well, sermonaudio.com. I should have went and retrieved some of the statistics from Sermon Audio and didn't do that, but it's really remarkable the reach that that site has. A third thing I had on my list here is the most conspicuous ministry of our church, which is Harford Christian School. And so Harford Christian School was founded in 1966 and by today has grown to over 560 students offering education in grades K-4 through 12th grade. There are right around 80 staff members who are employed by the ministry on a daily basis of faculty and of staff members that keep things running. In our school, we have daily Bible class. So, for instance, in the high school, we run an eight-period day. So, the kids change classes eight times. And they have Bible instruction every day. So, they have just as much Bible as they have biology or English or history. Okay. So, it's treated as a full-length class, you know, a 50-minute class that meets five days a week. hundred and eighty days a year. So on Bible instruction, which we try to make rigorous, it's not just a glorified Sunday school. There's tests and quizzes and memory work. And so we have Bible class and of course the elementary classes are having Bible instruction every day as well. We also have weekly chapels. So the chapels meet in here. The chapels for the elementary grades are split in half. The first chapel that comes in on a Wednesday morning at nine o'clock is the fourth through sixth grade. And they meet on this side and they take up basically from the second row all the way back to like where Scott or where the McKnight's are sitting. So almost the whole side of this. And usually the lectern here is, you know, over on the side. And then at 9.30, the K5 through third grade come in, and they take up both sides halfway back. And so the preaching happens from this spot here. And then Thursday morning, the high school comes in here. They fill the entire sanctuary. So the seventh through 12th grade goes from the second pew all the way to the back pew. And again, we lead it from the floor here. We'll have some announcements that Mr. Wilson gives, and then Wesley Peters sings a hymn with them. And then there's the preaching of God's word for about 30, 35 minutes for the high school. One thing that's a neat thing that Wesley does in the elementary chapels is he has a hymn of the month and a psalm of the month. And so there's an educational element as well. And so they'll sing the same hymn four weeks in a row and the same psalm four weeks in a row. And then so they're learning then 10 hymns and 10 psalms through the course of their chapels through any given year. So this month, the hymn of the month is stricken, smitten, and afflicted. They've sung that. They've sung that this past Wednesday, and they'll sing it every Wednesday this month. and the psalm of the month, I'm drawing a blank. Wesley, do you remember what it is? Top of your head. 51E. 51E, so the confessional psalm, Psalm 51. So, from my sins hide thou my face, I think is how that begins, I think. So, 51E, so that's what they're doing for March this month, and so he has a cycle, he takes them through and teaches them to sing, and they sing well in elementary school. So that's some things for the school. The governance of the school, the way that that works, the school is governed by a school board. That school board in our book of church order must be made up of, a majority of that school board must be officers of Reformation Bible Church. So either stewards or elders, current officers of Reformation Bible Church. And then the president of the school board must be a member of the pastoral staff. And so currently I function as the president of the school board. And then that school board then employs an administrator, and that administrator must, in our church bylaws, be a member in good standing at Reformation Bible Church. And of course, we have the great privilege of having one of our elders leading the school, Brian Wilson. So that's how the governance of the school works. All right. Oh, one more thing about the school is, you know, the phrase Vision 21 that gets thrown around all the time. just what that's all about. So Vision 21 is the name of our capital campaign and under the umbrella of Vision 21 over the last 20 years, the Lord has enabled us to make vast improvements to the campus here. I think I said in passing last week how that you can go on Google Earth and you can back up the camera and you can look at snapshots of campus every year for the last 20 years. And so if you will back up that camera all the way back to 2004 and look at the campus then and then fast forward to the 2024 picture, it is remarkable. It is remarkable. And it's not just remarkable in terms of the resolution of the photo. I mean that's, technology's come a long way. But it's remarkable just the layout of the campus. This looks like a different place. And so the Lord's enabled us to make all those improvements. A new campus for a new century is the, is to buy a line there for Vision 21. And right now we're raising funds for a new school building, a 26,000 square foot classroom building that'll be parked out here behind the sanctuary, God willing, two stories. And it will house the elementary school. And we're praying that we'll be allowed by God's grace to inhabit that building for the 2029-2030 school year. So right now we have over $2 million saved for that project, and we're grateful to God for his provision there. But that's what Vision 21 is. Vision 21 is the catchphrase for our capital campaign for the school, and currently it's focused on a classroom building back there. All right, so that's the first three. Okay, so this is just very random, I know. Okay, so a fourth thing I have on my list here is our Ladies Bible Study. Okay, so the Ladies' Bible Study began three or four years ago. It was my wife and Patty Parks who led the beginning brainstorming of starting a Ladies' Bible Study. They meet about every six weeks or so, so it's not a heavy commitment. And they're not doing a consecutive study through a book of the Bible or a book off a shelf or something, so there's not homework. worksheets and that kind of stuff. Each Bible study is its own individual entity. And the object of their getting together is to break up their time into three segments. So the first 25 minutes, one of the ladies leads a devotional or a Bible study. And depending on the lady leading is on the form that it'll take. So some of the ladies will have a handout and Some it's more devotional-like, but either way, whatever the lady's gifts are and where the Lord's lit on her heart, there's a Bible study for 25 minutes or so, and then they try to have some discussion time for the next 25 minutes or so. A lot of times that will just come right out of the Bible study, some kind of point of application, or an opening up for discussion just right out of the Bible study for 25 minutes. There also have been times where they've come with a particular topic of Christian living to discuss. So maybe it's your relationship to your husband, or maybe it's parenting, or disciplining your children, or things like that. So they'll have some sort of discussion time for that middle third, and then the final third of the study is some prayer time. sharing requests and breaking up into small groups for prayer and that's 25 minutes so an hour 15 total from 9 to 10 15 about every six weeks and they meet in the high school library it's a nice space up there in the high school building for them for them to meet so that's the ladies bible study the next one is, I think, just two weeks out, right? Something like that, two or three weeks out. Two weeks from yesterday is the next one of those ladies' Bible studies. We do have that ladies' Bible study be just the ladies, just the moms. We do have one every year that we open it up to all of the ladies, the young ladies included, usually around Christmas time. But we figured when we started this, and maybe we'll change this eventually as, you know, things evolve. But when the ladies started, they thought it would be good to, you know, have some time away from their daughters, I guess, for that ladies' Bible study. And so it's just the adult ladies for now is how that ladies' Bible study works. Another thing I have on my list is the Reformation Bible Women, RBW, the ladies group that meets monthly on Monday mornings here in the sanctuary. They usually meet about 10 o'clock. The first Monday of the month is the general schedule that they keep. And this group of ladies will meet for a devotional and a time of prayer. And then their meetings are often taken up with planning some two events. They have two events every year that they lead. The Senior Citizens Luncheon in the fall and the Ladies Luncheon usually around Mother's Day or so in the springtime. and that little group of ladies makes the plans and organizes those two events. They typically do a day trip for fellowship in the summertime as well, and they plan that, so I guess maybe three events that they're planning. They have a greeting card ministry where they send cards to shut-ins or to our missionaries or to those who have had recent surgery. They have a meal ministry for the for ladies that are ill or for mothers who have recently had infants and so things, situations like that. So that ladies group meets monthly and that's a difficult time to meet on a weekday at 10 o'clock. A lot of you wouldn't be able to join in in that, but if you are able, on a Monday morning, mid-morning to get out and to join with the RBW. I think you would be encouraged by the devotional and prayer time, and it would be a chance, another opportunity to plug in in ministry and to have something to do in the Lord's work. So, that's the RBW. As far as the men go, this is my sixth miscellaneous point here. We have a quarterly men's prayer meeting that we have shared with the Free Presbyterian Church in Malvern for over 30 years. And so, it was about 30 years ago that John Greer and Pastor McKnight started that prayer meeting for their mutual encouragement. and back in the early 1990s. And we've kept up that quarterly prayer meeting ever since. So the way that those meetings work are there four times a year. We alternate whether they're here or in Malvern. And They're in three segments, just like the Ladies Bible Study, just longer. And so when we gather, the first hour or so is a sermon, always preached by the visiting minister. So when we have it at Malvern, I preach. When we have it here, Pastor Pollack preaches. Then the middle third is an hour spent in prayer. And the way that prayer time works is just men calling on the Lord, It's not small groups. We're all together in a group, and we seek the Lord together for about an hour. And then we have a fellowship meal afterwards. When it's here, we usually have it in the chandelier lobby of the high school. When it's at Malvern, we have it in their basement. And some ladies provide a meal for us, and we have that chance for fellowship. It's just four times a year but really is our primary men's fellowship and so encourage you men to take advantage of that fellowship and to bring your sons along to it as well. Our next men's prayer meeting is the end of April, so still a little ways out, but it'll be a really special one. So it's the last Saturday in April, I think it's the 26th or 5th or 7th or something like that. The last Saturday in April, that prayer meeting, John Greer will be here to preach. And so John Greer, if you haven't ever heard Pastor John Greer preach, I think you'll find him to be one of the most phenomenal servants of the Lord, just a wonderful, wonderful preacher. And he's going to be in the States for about two weeks. And so we have the privilege of having him for the men's prayer meeting that last Saturday in April. And then the first Sunday in May, so a week after that, he's going to be in our services for a morning and evening service to preach. And so it'd be a real privilege, real treat to have Pastor Greer with us from Northern Ireland. And so Anyway, men, if you're able, mark your calendars for the last Saturday in April. That'll be a real special prayer meeting. One of the founders of the prayer meeting rejoining us for prayer that night. All right, speaking of that prayer meeting, I suppose you can't be around here too long without encountering us talking about the Free Presbyterians. And so let's just kind of talk about our relationship and friendship with the Free Presbyterian Church. So there's the first sounds, the first sounds from baby Wilson. That's wonderful. Amen. Amen. You all heard it. You all heard it. That was great. That was great. So the Free Presbyterian denomination are good friends of ours for many years. So a quick history here. This denomination began in the 1950s in Northern Ireland under the leadership of a man named Ian Paisley. who came out and separated from the Irish Presbyterian Church that was undergoing a liberal declension in those years. And the early years of his ministry and of the growth of the churches in Northern Ireland were marked by really significant revivals. The Lord really moved among these people in Northern Ireland and there was tremendous growth in the first 15 or so years of Ian Paisley's ministry and the growth of these many churches in Northern Ireland or what we call Ulster. In the 1970s, the late 1970s, churches began to be planted in North America from Northern Ireland. And the impetus there was the relationship between Ian Paisley and Dr. Bob Jones, Jr. Ian Paisley would preach at Bible Conference every year at Bob Jones. And so through that influence, a church began in Greenville, South Carolina, a church began in Toronto, Canada, and then a church began in the Philadelphia area, which is now the Malvern Church. And those three churches all sprang up right around the same time, 1979, 1980 or so. And our church, especially since the ministry of John McKnight coming back in the early 1990s, has just had a strong relationship with the free Presbyterians. We're very like-minded. They're reformed. Of course, they're Presbyterian, but yet, even their Presbyterianism is not much different than ours because they have an open policy on baptism. And so, they really are very similar to us. There's very, very few differences between us. The relationships, you know, Pastor McKnight attended the church in Greenville under Alan Cairns for some time while he was working on graduate work in Greenville. My seminary degree is from the Free Presbyterian Seminary in Greenville called Geneva Reformed Seminary. There's the close proximity we have with Malvern and the quarterly prayer meeting, which is another link in the friendship there. We've had many of their ministers here to preach. Alan Cairns has done evangelistic meetings when he was living, and he did evangelistic tent meetings here. We've had John Greer here. We've had Myron Mooney here, John Wagner here. Of course, we have in our fellowship the daughter of Colin Mercer, Lois, and so there's another connection there. Miles Carper grew up in the Greenville Free Presbyterian Church. And so just lots of connections in God's providence, and we count that denomination close friends. And we're so grateful for the relationship we have with them through the prayer meeting, the seminary, sharing pulpits. And they have invited us to make use of their youth camp as well. So every July, they have a denominational youth camp. It's up in northern Pennsylvania. And for the last decade or so, they have invited the young people from our congregation to join them at their camp. And so we call that FPYC, Free Presbyterian Youth Camp, and that's a week-long camp led by the ministers of the Free Presbyterian Church. And we've had a dozen or so of our young people joining in in that camp every year, and that's been a real highlight of their year and of the ministry here. All right, well, I didn't get through all 11, but I got through eight out of the 11, so not too bad on my miscellaneous list here. Thank you for your attentiveness to that miscellany, and let's prepare now for our prayer time.