Ministry Update

Larry Alford, and Steve Rubado, are working with Pastor Craig to establish a servant leadership development process that is intentional and sustainable, helping our deacons, and ultimately our church, to increase our capacity and effectiveness for Great Commission purposes. We want to help each individual find their calling and empower them to be effective leaders in ministry. The long-term desired outcome of this effort will be to build a strong servant leadership culture for the church that results in greater engagement of our members and deeper ministry impact.

This year, our church will be following a new process for deacon nomination. Ministry teams will be asked to look within their team and nominate men who they feel meet the qualifications for deacon and who are serving faithfully within their areas of ministry. Each man affirmed through the evaluation process will be recommended to the church for affirmation by a ballot vote.

Chair: Larry Alford
Vice-Chair: Steve Rubado

By God's grace and the generosity of His people at FBC Peachtree City, we closed the 2022-23 fiscal year on a positive note. Together, we gave $3,121,461 towards the 2022-23 Stewardship Plan. Expenses came in under budget, totaling $3,028,059, resulting in a budget surplus of $93,402. This surplus will be used to improve security at The Bridge, extend the irrigation system on the main campus and reseal the parking lots around our main building and The Bridge.

At our 50th Anniversary celebration, we launched the Mary Maud Hiestand Church Planting Fund. As a church that was planted from First Baptist Church - Fayetteville, we want to pay it forward to plant, replant, or revitalize existing churches for the cause of Christ. Together, we have raised $66,491 since March. We were excited to announce at Engage that the first $40,000 from the Mary Maud Hiestand Church Planting Fund will be used to launch a new church plant in the Calgary area led by Chris and Hanna Greenwood. Our goal is to raise $50,000 annually for this fund. In September, a donor has issued a challenge. If we raise $25,000 before January 1, 2024, the donor will contribute an additional $25,000. We are excited about our momentum and how God will continue to reach lives through our work. Thank you for your faithful contribution of prayer, service, and resources towards our mission.

Chair: Doug Barclay
Vice-Chair: Phil Whitmer
Treasurer: Mike Bell

We have a lot going on this year as we “Live Bolder.” In August, we hosted our annual Engage Missions Celebration! We had 15 life groups participate in a local ministry project during “Engage.”

Our members are serving the nations through multiple mission opportunities. In June, we sent a team to Honduras. We were able to minister to foster children and the deaf community in the capital city. We are excited about this emerging partnership with LaPromesa. In July, we had two trips go out! We had our annual mission trip to Townsend, TN, to serve campers enjoying the Smoky Mountains. This trip is so rewarding for families who get to make an impact for the kingdom and enjoy time together in this beautiful setting. We sent a team to Canada for the first time since Covid. We are excited to reconnect with Chris and Hannah Green and develop a new partnership with Tapestry Network. Finally, we sent a team to the Dominican Republic in September. We are thankful for the partnership that we have there with Global Effect and Ranchera Community Church.

Our MVP is available for 2024! This Mission Vision Plan brochure lays out all of the trips that we have planned for next year! We would love to help you “Live Bolder” this year by participating in one of our mission trips.

Pastor: Mark Matson

The ministries of the Bridge continue to make a difference in our community! We just completed our second Upward Volleyball season! We had 64, 5th-7th grade girls learn the game of volleyball and taught how they can have a relationship with God. We are getting ready to start Upward Basketball practice next week, this is our largest season to date with almost 520 participants! This is 50+ more than last year. We are excited to make a difference in the lives of these families!

Weekly activities at the Bridge continue to support the needs of our community. We continue to see slow, steady growth in our exercise class attendance but are growing by the minute. Celebrate Recovery has kicked off and we are working to try to build some traction so that we can better minister to those struggling with hurts, hang-ups, and addictions.

We have been experiencing a wonderful season of growth as we’ve added 23 new members to the Worship Choir and 8 new members to our Worship Team singers and Band in the past 6 months.

Rob has also begun including the youth as part of the multigenerational Worship Choir on Sunday mornings.  Additionally, Rob formed a new youth ensemble of 9 students which he rehearses on Sunday afternoons. The youth have already done an amazing job helping lead our congregation on Sunday mornings!

Over the past six weeks, we have seen an increase in people visiting our church and as a result, we have been very active in all phases of Guests Services. Mike Phillips serves as our Deacon Lead Team Director for Guests Services. He and Pastor Craig work together to ensure the team leaders are encouraged and resourced. Since May, Ken Takekawa, our Greeters Team Leader, strengthened the Greeter Teams to their full capacity and continues to recruit new team members to our Greeter ministry. Tom Hagan, Security Team Leader, finalized a Security Plan and organized our communications across teams for emergency assistance. Mike Phillips and Ron Finch worked on fortifying our Ushers ministry to fill the gaps in both services. Donnie McMichen and others worked to secure more volunteers for our Parking Ministry and our Café Connections ministry served hundreds each Sunday. Pastor Craig organized team members throughout Guests Services for our annual Leadership Summit in July where each team leader did a breakout session for their particular team members.

Starting Point, our membership discovery class, had 36 attend the class and 48 join the church. We continue to see great success connecting with people on Sunday mornings, personally inviting them to Starting Point and helping them get involved in a Life Group. The goal is to develop a leadership and serving pipeline so that people get involved, not only relationally, but intentionally through a ministry

GROW groups are our discipleship groups of 4-6 men and 4-6 women meeting weekly to discuss life and how their time with the Lord that week impacted their walk. We have increased the amount of GROW groups through the Come and See 12-week series. The discipleship team gave away over 500 Come and See books to congregants and encouraged LIFE Groups to organize GROW groups to discuss further their insights from their Come and See reading.

Women’s ministry had a kick-off in August, rolled out five bible studies in September, and had a very successful Fall retreat in September. The Men’s ministry had their kick-off in September and started their bible study on Wednesdays in September through November.

Pastor: Dr. Craig Hamlin

The new Come and See curriculum has brought an incredible response from the congregation and it is a true joy to watch our people connect with scripture and each other in a new and fresh way. All of the writing for the new curriculum was done by Pastor Joey and Pastor Craig, with a new segment on the way starting in January. People are enjoying the challenge of a daily devotional followed by in-class teaching and preaching from the pulpit. and our LIFE Group leaders have really leaned into the material and worked hard to bring each of their unique teaching styles to a common text.

Over the past 3 months, Pastor Cedric has had the privilege of teaching a young men’s group on Wednesday nights. The group consists of high school juniors and seniors and is co-taught by Keegan Cornwall. This group came to be at the request of the boys themselves; they realized that they needed more than just a bible study, but a place where they could ask tough life questions that would be met with honest, transparent, and biblical answers. It is refreshing to see young men this age who want to learn and grow in Christ, they truly want to have a personal relationship with the Lord, not just be church attendees. The challenges they face today are much more brazen and have been a great reminder of why we need more mentoring programs such as this. We see this model throughout scripture and we should definitely be doing the same. Cedric and Keegan are excited to see where the Lord leads this group and where He will lead us individually as a result of answering this call!

Pastor: Cedric Beckles

Student Ministry has been extremely busy over the last few months. We have been to summer camp, volunteered at VBS, taken several students to Honduras, started a student worship team, and served alongside several of our local mission partners. Our students have stepped up in every way over the last few months, and the Lord has been faithful in our students' spiritual and numerical growth. The Lord has continued to press it on our hearts to see every student become an active participant in the ministry of His church, and our students have certainly bought into that vision. They continue to impress us with their willingness to give their time and energy for the gospel's sake.

The Preschool has launched a new curriculum on Sunday mornings through Lifeway called HyFi that is centered on building relationships, teaching biblical truths and connecting with families all throughout the week. Our teachers have done an amazing job implementing this new curriculum and establishing a biblical foundation in our preschooler's hearts.

A large focus in the Children's Ministry has been developing our Kids Worship experience for Sunday mornings. Mandy Bowen has led the charge in building and training our volunteer teams and ensuring consistency in our Kids Worship curriculum from week to week. These teams are doing an amazing job making sure every child is known, loved, and taught truth from God's word that applies to their lives at school, in their families, and in all the activities they are involved with.

Our church was also blessed on Sunday, October 15, to have 6 families and 8 children participate in Parent-Child Dedication. The families were encouraged to think about how they use their time and were equipped with gifts to help them use their time wisely by leading family devotions, developing parenting skills, praying for their children daily, and keeping Christ as the center of all activities they are a part of.

Finally, we had a great time seeing all the families on Sunday, October 29th at our Fall Family Carnival! It was evident from the kid's faces that they had a blast playing games, getting their face painted, and jumping through inflatables.

Pastor: Ben Woodard