One Priority Briefing for Congregational Leaders from George Bullard — Monday, October 5, 2020

A Family of Baptist Congregations in the Midlands of South Carolina

Our One Priority: Starting and Strengthening Churches to Serve as Vital and Vibrant Missional Communities.

October is Minister Appreciation Month

Let me be among the first this month to say to you – “Thank You!” I appreciate your Christian ministry service. I am thrilled you responded to the call of God on your life to be involved in various Great Commission and Great Commandment activities from the base of a local congregation. I hope your congregation already has plans to appreciate you in some visible and tangible way. (If you think not, and I need to nudge a layperson for you, please let me know!)

Julia Bell, our CMBA Communications Coordinator has written an article about Minister Appreciation month which will be posted on our website at www.ColumbiaMetro.org on Wednesday and will also post on our CMBA Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/CMBAssociation. When it comes out, feel free to slip it to a lay leader who needs to know about the special way mentioned to get a gift for the pastor of your congregation which is being facilitated by the National Association of Evangelicals.

During this year of pandemic, I know many of you have been burdened about how to minister with the greatest effectiveness. I suspect for many of you this has been several seasons of unusual stress as none of you have likely experienced anything close to what the pandemic has brought us during 2020.   Let us proactively express prayerful concern for one another and continue looking for and walking through the new doors of opportunity God is providing to us.

Schedule for October One Priority Briefing Live!

An online video forum for our pastors, staff members and lay leaders to hear about how other congregations are Regathering. You will be the presenters. We have a couple of people who we have recruited ahead of time to “prime the pump,” but we want to hear from many of our churches. Sign on and share how it is going and hear from other churches on how they are handling the current and future stages of the pandemic.

Tuesday, October 6th at 2:00 p.m. – Update on ReGathering Congregations – What is Happening Now!

Tuesday, October 13th at 2:00 p.m. – Handling Thanksgiving, Advent, and Christmas This Year

Thursday, October 29th at 2:00 p.m. – What Will Your Congregation Be Like By the Ides of March 2021?

The third week of the month is Associational Week of Prayer throughout our denomination. That week, George Bullard will be making a presentation on associations: Tuesday, October 20th at 2:00 p.m. – Boldly Going Where No Association Has Gone Before

The Zoom link for these online gatherings for the month of October will be
 https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85604229802.

NOTE: Our One Priority Briefing Live! Held most every Tuesday at 2:00 p.m. To receive the weekly link to this online gathering, please register at https://forms.gle/vdE7eTwvzm1gDkDj7

Time to Complete the Annual Church Profile!

This year our association has designed a CMBA Easy Version for reporting the statistical information and the database. It is much simpler and will take less time. It asks for less information. So you have two choices this year.

Choice One: Complete two simple Google forms for the association, and we will upload your information for you into the SCBC/SBC workspace. Plus the person who completes the form will be sent a “thank you” gift card (actually two if you complete both forms).

Part One is the Statistical Report: Go to https://forms.gle/H95AVCfdQ8DkfNmc7 to complete it.

Part Two is the Database Report: Go to https://forms.gle/BHSpicDbV1YgbWP96 to complete it.

Choice Two: You provide your information online to the SCBC/SBC workspace. Some churches prefer to do this because they want to share more information. You do the work. No gift cards for this choice.

IF you would prefer Choice Two, send an e-mail to Kyndra Bremer at kyndrabremer@columbiametro.org and she will send you the workspace site and the ID and password you need to get into the system to provide your information.

Suggested Deadline: It is helpful to the overall process if we can have your information by October 31st.

Navigating a New Season — First Impressions Conference — November 4th-6th

Use the promo code “ColumbiaMetro” to register for the online First Impressions Conference at www.FirstImpressionsConference.com/ and received a $10 discount. Also, once you have registered forward your confirmation e-mail to CMBA@ColumbiaMetro.org. We will send you a free copy of Will Mancini’s new book — Future Church: Seven Laws of Real Church Growth – when it is released on December 1st.

Check out the video about this digital conference at https://vimeo.com/443194047. During the three days you will hear from Rick Warren, Nona Jones, Will Mancini, Carey Nieuwhof, Efrem Smith, Mark Batterson, Jeanne Stevens, Thom Rainer, and many more. Plus, you get digital access to the archives after the live event for use in your congregation. Just think about it. You may not be able to watch the whole thing, but you will have digital access to pick and choose later, and to share with your leaders.

YOU ONLY NEED ONE TICKET PER CHURCH. Please note: There are NO REFUNDS.

Our One Priority Briefing and the Our One Priority Briefing Online Gathering are made possible by the financial gifts of the member and network congregations of the Columbia Metro Baptist Association at www.ColumbiaMetro.org, CMBA@ColumbiaMetro.org, or 803.619.7110. To donate go to https://columbiametro.org/donate/. Gifts can be made to the general fund, to hunger ministry, or to disaster response.

About the author 

Kyndra Bremer