Wonderful Weekly | 45

Hey friends, it's update time.

Did you know Advent is just around the corner?! We are VERY aware of this fact, so a ton of our behind the scenes planning has thrown us fully into holiday mode. We are excited to share more soon. Be thinking about who you might invite to worship over the Advent and Christmas season. Don't worry; we will be giving out some lovely print material for you to share with all of the info on it. And as always, the designs will be hand-made-in-house by Corrie and crew.

This Sunday morning we will be exploring a theology of humanity. Of what are we made? What does it mean to be made in the image of God? How does Babylon relate to Genesis 1? Also, a big part of the teaching will be congregational participation, so get ready! So much to share. So much to learn. I can't wait. 

On November 17 we will host our annual church meeting affectionately known as Gratitude Night. The Board collaborates with the staff on the event, and we use the time to celebrate where we have been in the last year and prepare for the next season of life at FBCP. We will vote on the 202 budget and new Board candidates. The dinner is potluck style, so prepare a dish to share. Two weeks before Gratitude Night we hold a Town Hall. We have synthesized the Town Hall for those who could not attend. You can find that info here. 

For other events that are coming up, check out the links below. See you Sunday!

 

Becoming Benedictions: Moral Mondays and City Council Meetings

A note from Pastor Gretchen…

Cynthia and I have been working together in the partnership with GPAHG, and had signed up to lead the Moral Monday prayer vigil, held in support of making more affordable supportive housing available, on November 4th. That was in place when it became clear the City wanted to present and pass the Tenant Protection Act of 2019, which added a lot more excitement to an already important agenda.

There are so many people in Pasadena who want to see people find housing that works for them. It’s hard to know what to do, though. There are great organizations who have been working toward these issues for years, like GPAHG, Everyone In (United Way), and Union Station Homeless Services. It’s been great to get to know these groups and to see the partnerships they have formed in order to strengthen the work each group does.

I ran into a friend of mine, PJ, at this rally and meeting. I had last seen her a few months ago at a similar city council meeting, where she passionately spoke about her and her neighbors getting unfairly evicted from their apartments. She’s become part of the Washington 16, and has stood alongside others also facing unfair evictions. She and others gave witness to their struggles on Monday, and highlighted ways in which the proposed Tenant Protection Act (it was passed into law Tuesday morning) was good but still lacked provisions for evicted tenants. While there is a good law on the books, there are still needs for help for tenants fighting landlords who are trying to get them out of their property. Hearing PJ speak reminded me of just how much more needs to be done, and the importance of including all voices – those writing the laws, those who are most directly affected by the laws and are living in the reality, and those who want to help out – in the mix of figuring out solutions.

PJ and I are friends through our studies at Fuller. She loves creation, loves God and cares for her teenage son as a single mother. She saw me at this meeting and came up to me to express both gratitude that I was there, and anger/frustration/disappointment that there weren’t other Fuller students at the meeting advocating for changes. I’m sure there are reasons for that, but it made me aware of how much my presence – as a friend, as a faith leader, as someone who’s just concerned – and actions at events like this and even in the day-to-day can mean, how it speaks to my commitments and concerns as a follower of Jesus to those who know me. That’s true of any of us; presence can go a long way to helping people know the reality of God coming alongside of them and His care for them in the midst of their circumstances even if we’re unable to do much more than that.

Thank you all for your continued support and prayers for issues like these. In the prayer we led on Monday, we asked that Pasadena reflect God’s love, rule and reign. Let’s continue to pray that everybody in Pasadena will find hope, healing, health and ways to thrive, and that God will use us to help that happen.

Gretchen

Town Hall recap

On November 3, 2019 we gathered for our annual Town Hall meeting. We know many of you would have loved to attend but were unable to make it for various reasons. So we decided to share the relevant info here! Below you will find links to our proposed 2020 Ministry Budget and other goodies. At Town Hall we also presented our candidates for the Deacon Body and a Bylaws amendment. Ready? Let’s do it!

Budget

The Budget was presented by Blake Horridge, our current Deacon Treasurer. It takes a couple of months to create our yearly budget.* A huge thanks to our Finance Team and Deacon Board for their hard work to get us to this point. You will notice that we are budgeting a deficit for next year, so let me offer some background on how we arrived at this point. Our general offerings are slightly lower than last year, which is a trend we have been watching for the last couple of quarters (three month blocks). We projected lower general offering contributions for 2020, which also meant we tightened up our expenses as much as we could without lowering our ministry capacity. Budgeting a deficit is a short term reality for FBC Pasadena, because we will have some big positive shifts to our revenue stream in the next couple of years. We have healthy cash reserves to absorb any imbalance in the short term as well. Plus we have no debt! Even with all of this, we are looking at a deficit of only $53,000 for next year’s budget. Zach Hoover, our Board Moderator, challenged us at Town Hall to step up our giving for 2020 as a way to close this gap. The Deacon Board have together committed to digging deeper in 2020 to help us flourish as a church. It was a beautiful commitment to generosity, and combined the Board members will be raising their giving by $350/month.

We are continuing to build our revenue streams by expanding our building use, and 2020 will see several new building partnerships. These will be closely aligned with our vision of being a blessing to our city and world. All of these efforts will allow us to expand our ministries while our current and newer members step into expansive generous practices. We think a lot about growth at FBCP, but intend that growth to be sustainable and deep. So we are in the stages of putting down good foundational roots. This is the most important growth of all. From there we believe that any other growth can scale without unraveling our core convictions. Speaking of core convictions…

Bylaw Proposal

We also presented a Bylaws amendment for consideration. We will formally vote on this amendment at Gratitude Night on November 17, 2019. The Board refined the language around membership to more accurately reflect our values and practice as a church. Prior to 2013 (the last major revision to the Bylaws), there were several paths into membership, including the recognition of the unique baptismal and conversion experiences of each person. FBCP has always had a normative path to membership, and that will continue into the future. The baptist distinctive of immersive baptism after a profession of faith will still be our internal practice moving forward. This amendment will once again allow us to welcome people to membership who have been baptized in another Christian community.

Here is the language we are proposing:

The membership of the church shall consist of persons who have professed their faith that Jesus is Lord, have been baptized, participated in the class for membership and signed the church covenant. (Article II, Section 1)

Here is the 2013 language being replaced:

The membership of the church shall consist of persons who have professed faith in Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and Lord, have been baptized as believers by immersion, participated in the class for membership and signed the church covenant. (Article II, Section 1)

Board Candidates

One last thing you missed was a discussion about our candidates for Deacon Board leadership. We have a seven person Board of Deacons. There are four officer positions, and three at large members. The Officer positions are Moderator, Vice Moderator, Treasurer and Clerk. Deacons serve two year terms, and can serve three concurrent terms before they have to take a year of sabbatical before being eligible again. This year we have three deacons terming out, so we are recommending three new candidates for service. Here are the short info statements from each candidate…

Angel Cheng

As we are discovering what it means to be a safe place for people to come as they are without pretense and find the open embrace of Jesus welcoming them home, I believe that what I've learned from seminary and the rooms of recovery about becoming sacred safe spaces of authenticity and grace can be of service to FBC in this season of formation.

Brian Young

I have attended the church with my wife Jen since November 2011. I have served by organizing the young professionals small group, running and building worship slides, and performing various consultations around the church. I also serve on the board for the First Baptist Church Foundation. I work as a navigation engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and just welcomed my son, Elliot, into the world on October 17.

Jason Ellis

I am married to Natalee, and we have sons Asher (9) and Bennett (5). We’ve been going to FBC for about a year and a half. We were immediately drawn to the warmth we felt from everyone on Sunday morning, the diversity, and the preaching. I work at Disney in Title Lifecycle Management, which is a fancy way of saying a project planner for their movies. We’re both California natives and have been in Pasadena post-college.

As you can see, a lot is happening around FBC Pasadena. Our annual business meeting will be on Gratitude Night on November 17 at 6:00pm. At that meeting we will vote on the above topics in the context of worship and celebration. We will also be reintroducing the historic practice of Promise Cards, where we will invite individuals and families to prayerfully pledge to a level of financial support for 2020. This will help us in many ways, and will also allow everyone to enter into their practice of stewardship with intentionality. All are welcome at Gratitude Night, but voting is limited to the membership of FBC Pasadena. If you would like further clarification on any of the above items, feel free to email our Deacon Board or Ministerial Staff using the buttons below.

*First, the ministry staff prepare recommendations for their various areas of focus, collaborating on a preliminary rough draft of possible changes. Those recommendations go to the finance team, who begin the process of balancing the budget. This is accomplished by analyzing income and expense trends, thereby creating run rates to estimates how we will finish year end. Our fiscal year is January-December. It usually takes 3-4 sessions to fully integrate all changes and finalize a budget. The Finance Team then passes their recommended budget draft to the Deacon Board for their notes and changes. They prepare a final budget draft to share with the larger membership, which is how we got to Town Hall.