Eagles Nest Church
Church Business Meeting
  • Fall Schedule Changes
    I want to walk you through several changes to our schedule that we are planning to take effect this fall.
    And I know that’s several months out.
    But that is on purpose.
    So you can pray about it,
    So you can ask questions if something is unclear,
    And so you can point out things we may have missed or not thought about.
    The goal in all of this is unity and order.
    Ephesians 4:1–4 ESV
    1 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—
    1 Corinthians 14:40 ESV
    40 But all things should be done decently and in order.
    So I want to begin by looking at Acts 2:42
    This verse is describing the church in its earliest days, just after Pentecost,
    and he tells us what the first believers gave themselves to.
    Acts 2:42 ESV
    42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
    We find four things here the early church devoted themselves to.
    teaching,
    fellowship,
    the breaking of bread,
    and prayer.
    Notice that Luke does not call these programs.
    He calls them devotions,
    the things this church MUST not stay away from.
    Everything I am going to lay out today fits under one of those four.
    We are not inventing a new way to be a church.
    We are taking the rhythms of our week and lining them up more closely with what the church has been devoted to from the beginning.
    The Sunday morning gathering is our primary way of devoting ourselves to the apostles teaching:
    Through preaching in our Worship service,
    and through the Sunday School hour afterwards.
    And one of the changes we are planning to make is to have Communion every Sunday.
    Which comes right out of Acts 2:42’s “And the breaking of bread and prayers”
    That’s communion language.
    But do that,
    we are not going to cut our preaching time,
    our prayer time,
    or our worship time down,
    so we are going to expand our service time a little to include that every Sunday.
    We are also going to expand the fellowship time between the Worship Service and the Sunday School Hour,
    Because 15 minutes is just not enough time for that,
    and this change fits with the “fellowship” that Acts 2:42 mentions.
    So the worship service will start at 9:30 like usual.
    And Sunday School will end at 12:15 instead of noon.
    In Acts 20:7 it reads:
    Acts 20:7 ESV
    7 On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.
    The picture there is a church gathering on the Lord’s Day with the table at the center of why they came together.
    And if you’re tempted to think this change makes the morning run too long.
    Notice how long Paul preached for - “until midnight.”
    In fact, in Acts 20, Paul preached so long that the young man Eutychus falls asleep while sitting in the window,
    and falls out and dies!
    So Paul pauses his preaching and goes and resurrects him from the dead,
    and then says: “May that be a lesson to you all - that’s why you don’t fall asleep in church!”
    or at least I think that’s probably what he said.
    1 Corinthians 11:26 ESV
    26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
    We are adding the Lord’s table every Sunday, because not only because it’s the biblical pattern of the early church,
    but because it’s a glorious and great way to end our worship service together.
    Now, some of you might be wondering whether taking communion every week will make it routine,
    until it stops meaning anything.
    I understand the concern,
    but think about it with me here.
    Every Sunday, we sing, we open the Word, and we pray every week,
    and we do not ration those things out of fear that they will grow stale,
    because the gospel they carry does not grow stale.
    The Lord’s Supper preaches that same gospel with our own hands and mouths,
    and Paul tells us it points forward as well, proclaiming the Lord’s death until he comes.
    Every time we take it we look back to the cross and ahead to the day Christ returns for us,
    and that is worth doing often.
    The next change are doing also comes from Acts 2:42.
    We are reshaping Wednesdays around two needs,
    prayer and the next generation.
    Right now we hold Prayer and Praise on the first Wednesday of the month.
    This fall we will hold it twice, on the first and third Wednesdays.
    and the 2nd one won’t have a meal.
    it will run about an hour, and we’ll simply gather to look at God’s Word and pray.
    Psalm 127:1 ESV
    1 Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.
    We are building, and we mean to keep building,
    and that is exactly why we need to be on our knees more often, not less.
    Prayer was one of the four devotions in Acts 2:42,
    and Paul tells the Colossians to continue steadfastly in prayer (Colossians 4:2).
    Doubling our gathered prayer is how we say out loud that this church belongs to the Lord and depends on him.
    Youth group will go from meeting once a month to twice a month,
    on the second and fourth Wednesdays.
    And I think that be our long term plan for our youth ministry.
    Scripture puts the discipleship of children first in the home, and first in the hands of fathers.
    In Deuteronomy 6: Moses told Israel to keep God’s words on their hearts and to teach them diligently to their children, talking of them when they sit and walk and lie down and rise (Deuteronomy 6:6–7).
    In Ephesians 6, Paul tells fathers to bring their children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).
    Youth group comes alongside that work.
    It does not replace it.
    Which why I’m going to be relying on Father’s to help carry the load,
    and it’s why we aren’t looking to hire a youth pastor and have youth group every week.
    youth group is a supplement to our teen’s faith,
    and the Father’s and the home are the primary nourishers.
    Plus, we want to our Teens involved in our church’s age-wide community groups.
    So here is the plan. I will lead one of the two meetings each month, and I am asking the spiritually qualified men in our church to take the others.
    If we do not have a man to lead in a given month, we will simply meet once that month.
    And that’s perfectly alright.
    With our Small Group Ministries we are changing from having Life Group the first week of month and Community Group two other times,
    To having just two small group meetings a month.
    Life Group is the men with men and women with women.
    And Community Group is everyone together.
    So we are going to combine them into small groups and have them run about an hour and 15 minutes.
    And the last 20 minutes or so will be for the men with men and women with women getting together for accountability, discipleship, growth, and prayer.
    So not everything here is adding to the schedule.
    That change is reducing it.
    The goal of these small groups is not Bible study,
    it’s application.
    Yes, you’ll open your Bible’s,
    but we need more than that.
    We need discipleship and help applying God’s Word to our lives.
    That’s what our small groups are for.
    That’s why I give our sermon application discussion questions for them.
    The truth is, we aren’t meeting enough even with these changes,
    but it is progress.
    And as we often say, it’s about direction not perfection.
    And these changes will enable our church to engage in corporate prayer every week
    either in Wednesday night’s prayer and praise,
    or in the community groups, which will meet twice a month.
    TREATS
    The last change is the smallest on paper but I still want to discuss it.
    Starting this fall, we will not have fellowship treats on Sunday mornings except on potluck Sundays.
    Yes there will be coffee still.
    But this is a change the deacons and I have been discussing for long time now.
    And here’s the reason behind it.
    Many of the people who make this happen week after week are getting worn out,
    and what we are asking of them does not scale as the church keeps growing.
    And as nice as it to have a snack, it’s not worth it if it’s preventing people from serving in more important ways - like discipleship.
    In fact, when I first got to Eagles Nest, when I was asked what I thought about doing treats every week, I said:
    “I’m fine with it - but if becomes a burden that prevents us from discipleship, I’ll axe it.”
    Well, that’s where are.
    And that’s ok!
    Because people who like to cook can still cook for the first Prayer and Praise of the month (which will continue to have a fellowship meal)
    and the monthly fellowship meal we are already having.
    And for the record, fellowship together does not demand food.
    It’s nice - and I love it!
    But it does not require it.
    The fellowship of Acts 2:42 is shared life in the gospel, not refreshments in the foyer.
    Taking treats off the ordinary Sunday does not take away one ounce of our fellowship.
    It protects the people who serve, and it keeps our life together from drifting into something we consume rather than something we share.
    Potlucks are not going anywhere, because a shared meal is a good and biblical thing, and that is the right place for it.
    Also, this fall we will finally be implementing a church covenant.
    This fall we are also going to voting a church to adopt a church covenant.
    A church covenant is not a full statement of all that we believe; our statement of faith already does that.
    It is a set of promises about how we will live together as covenant members of this body,
    our commitments before God
    and to one another.
    We are not inventing a new obligation.
    Membership has always carried commitments like these,
    to gather faithfully,
    to love and watch over one another,
    to pursue holiness,
    to support the work and honor those who lead it,
    and a covenant simply puts into words what belonging here already means.
    In 2nd Corinthians 8:5, Paul said the Macedonian churches first gave themselves to the Lord and then to one another.
    In Hebrews 10:24-25 it reads:
    Hebrews 10:24–25 ESV
    24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
    That is the committed life a covenant speaks out as a reminder to us.
    So today we aren’t implementing a church covenant.
    I am only announcing it.
    We are not voting on it, and I am not asking you to affirm anything yet.
    The deacons and I are finishing the wording, and it is nearly ready.
    Once we are satisfied that it says what Scripture asks of us and claims nothing Scripture does not,
    I will teach through it with you, line by line, so that you understand every promise in it before you are ever asked to take it as your own.
    I would far rather you weigh these words slowly
    and know exactly what you are promising than affirm something you have not thought through.
    So expect to hear more on the covenant in the weeks to come.
    The last thing is we are looking for a new church treasure.
    Right now we actually have two church treasures.
    Josh Howe - who handles all the intake.
    And Dean Dye who handles all the outtake.
    And as most of you probably know,
    Dean just started a new job - and he doesn’t have the time he used to.
    So we need to find someone to take that position over.
    Dean has said he’ll remain in the position under January 1st of next year,
    Dean has served as our treasurer faithfully for years,
    carrying work that most of us never see.
    and rarely think to thank him for.
    But before I say anything else, on the behalf of the church,
    I want to say: “Thank you Dean for serving.”
    Scripture does not treat the handling of a church’s money as a small or unspiritual thing.
    And that’s why we don’t either.
    When the early church grew and the practical needs grew with it, the apostles did not shrug the work off as beneath them, and they did not hand it to just anyone.
    They told the church to pick out men of good repute to take up the task,
    so that the ministry of the word and prayer could go on unhindered (Acts 6:3–4).
    When Paul carried a large gift between churches,
    he went out of his way to keep it above suspicion, taking pains to do what is honorable, as he put it, not only in the Lord’s sight “but also in the sight of man” (2 Corinthians 8:21).
    anyone trusted with such an important task, Paul says that “it is required of stewards that they be found faithful” (1 Corinthians 4:2).
    So here is the kind of person we are looking for.
    Not simply someone willing, though willingness matters,
    but someone trustworthy, careful, discreet, and above reproach with both numbers and confidences.
    as well as someone who models faithfulness with our church’s corporate meetings - Sunday worship, Sunday School, prayer meeting, and small group.
    If that might be you, or if a name comes to mind,
    I would ask you to pray about it first and then come talk to me.
    We have until January,
    and we would far rather wait for the right person than fill the seat quickly with the wrong one.
    One of the big changes we are looking to make as a church is switching to a church financial management software called ChurchTracs.
    For the past several months I’ve been researching various options for us,
    and I and the finance team are strongly thinking this is theone.
    This software will GREATLY reduce the load,
    and allow us to have multiple people carry the load.
    For instance,
    I do nearly all of the church purchases on my church debit card,
    And instead of our treasurer having to track that,
    then tell me what they need,
    then manually add it all.
    I now can see my purchases,
    upload an invoice,
    and then the treasure can quickly double check it to make sure everything is right.
    It also will automatically categorize re-occurring purchases to the right budgets,
    In the past, all of this was done manually through an Excel document,
    Which Dean did an amazing job of,
    but it’s a lot work, especially as our church has grown.
    But this new software will make it drastically easier and more time efficient.
    I’ve just about got it all set up for switching over to it,
    But if anyone’s wondering how much work will be involved once that’s done,
    I would guess to say it will be roughly 2-3 hours a month.
    You log in, look over the transactions, and verify them.
    And if someone turns in a receipt for reimbursement, you add it and get them the check for reimbursement.
    Oh, and we are looking for someone who is interested in picking up the mail every week at the post office in Pequot.
    Alright, you have these changes in May for a reason.
    Between now and the fall,
    I am asking three things of you:
    pray over them,
    bring me your honest questions,
    and if God is stirring you to serve, come and tell me.
    And this next week, I’m out of the office on vacation, so please save your questions until the following week.

      • Ephesians 4:1–4ESV

      • 1 Corinthians 14:40ESV

      • Acts 2:42ESV

      • Acts 20:7ESV

      • 1 Corinthians 11:26ESV

      • Psalm 127:1ESV

      • Hebrews 10:24–25ESV

Eagles Nest Church
pastorzach@eaglesnestmn.org
(218) 562-5252
http://www.eaglesnestmn.org
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