[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching from God's Word you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to Him. If you're ever in the Madison, Alabama area, we'd love for you to worship with us on Sundays at 8:30 or 10:30am if you have any other questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, find
[email protected] Be sure to also check out our Bible Study podcast, Madison Church of Christ Bible Studies. Thanks again for stopping by.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: The Bible speaks a lot about remembering.
It also speaks a lot about forgetting the past, putting it behind you. But there's a lot of reasons to remember the most important the one we just did in remembering Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior who died for us on the cross.
But for a few minutes we want to look at the past.
The Bible speaks of remembering.
One of those is to see God's faithfulness.
Remembering past provision encourages faith for the future.
Also, remembering the past helps us to learn and imitate.
Remembering the faith of good leaders helps us follow their example.
We also want to remember the past because it helps us to avoid mistakes.
Recalling the past disobedience warns us against repeating it.
And also remembering the past helps us to fight despair.
Remembering God's past helps to lift our spirits.
So let's take a look back at 2025.
Actually, we'll go back to 2024 for just a second.
Two years ago we focused on prayer and Bible study, some key elements in our daily Christian life. And last year we focused on fellowship and hospitality, which gives us the opportunities to encourage others and to teach the truth.
And this year we're going to be building on those two. As you're going to hear in just a few minutes when David Glenn and Keith Parish and Craig Beal speak to us.
We all believe that what's just been mentioned has strengthened this congregation spiritually.
And with spiritual growth comes numerical growth.
But our goal is not in the numbers.
Our goal is in changed hearts and minds.
And that's something that's hard to measure.
But we can show you. The numbers as they do indirectly indicate the spiritual growth that's happening here at the Madison Church of Christ.
We did break out the numbers from our English speaking congregation in the Glacier just so you can see specifically what they have going on.
But for our English Speaking, we had 81 baptisms in 2020, 53 of those were at Limestone Prison, Siegfried, Bill, doing a great, great work there.
Many of you kind of behind the scenes helping him, but the others were because of you and all the great work that you have done. In the last year, you'll see that our average attendance has grown to 1,202 at the end of 2025. That's an increase of 52 people on average from 2024.
And we welcomed in 46 new families to this congregation in 2025.
So you may have been here just a month or maybe 10 or 11 months, but again, we'd like to welcome you here to the Lord's family in Madison, Alabama, for our glacier.
Seven baptisms in 2025, and their average attendance on Sunday morning has grown to 60, an increase from 2024.
And they have a new family as well, meeting and worshiping and working with them.
God continues to bless this entire congregation with growth, and we are so thankful for the challenge that he has given us through that growth.
We'd like to focus for just a few minutes on 2025 and our domestic and worldwide missions, because that is a very important focus for this church.
So let's look at some of the activities from last year in this area with the time that's available this morning. I want to focus first on some new areas of work that we started in 2025.
So after an exploratory trip in 2024, the Madison church began working with the church in Uruguay in 2025. And the Church there is already growing. And Madison is working with the congregation in Montevito to plant a church in Salto, which is about six hours away.
The Montevideo church recently installed elders. That's good news.
I believe the three men wearing the ties in that picture are the three new elders there.
And they also formed a Salto congregation which is already having baptisms.
Dr. David Vanderpool of Live beyond, which is based out of Nashville, Tennessee, we are now working with him.
Who he is working with people in the West Bank, Israel, providing therapies, nutrition and education to children with disabilities in the West Bank. This has already been a tremendously successful outreach opportunity in a very hard to reach area.
Humberto Valazquez works in Central and South America, and we are now working with him. And he's very active in teaching and evangelizing throughout the region. Humberto's work even led to a baptism, not in Central or South America, but in Switzerland, of all places. But because of the work and the help that we are giving him, he was able to reach out to someone in Switzerland who is now a Christian, Javier Rosaro in Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador who's working there, preaching, evangelizing and doing outreach with various congregations in the region. We're now working with him.
Vandan Kumar from the Mayapur Church of Christ in Hybridad Telanga State, South India is another organization, another person that we're working with. Vanden is very active throughout this entire region. And one three month period alone, which was June through August of last year, Vanden and his wife reached 20 villages in their area. They held five preachers meetings, they studied with six Hindu families, they taught 24 Zoom classes and they had 14 baptisms.
We also started supporting in some other areas around the world. Alan Nalli in Southern Brazil, Carlos Candelaro in Uruguay and Wayne Parker in Cyprus, Greece and also Derek Brown in the Philippines. So as you can see, our mission efforts continue to grow because of the great financial support that you provide.
Now let's highlight some of the work and the happenings in Africa in 2025. Now our own Barry Smith leads our World Mission Africa effort and is doing a great job as you'll see here in these slides, as he supports all of the people that you see here, as many of you do as well.
In Liberia, David Kallay, the president of the Central Liberia Bible College, they're going to be having their first graduation ceremony this year of their two year preaching interns. That ceremony will be held in June in Ghana. Emmanuel Acqua and Michael Segbafia are working there and you can read about what Emmanuel is doing on the screen.
But Michael continues his twice weekly radio broadcast in Ghana when there's also some deeper study campaigns going on in five different different churches there, resulting in substantial growth of their Bible knowledge and for the preachers there as well.
And in Namibia here faithful Brethren are conducting a local campaign in their city and brought in almost 100 visitors because of the support that we help provide them. So great work is continuing there.
In South Africa we're supporting Peter Manuel. He's 90 years old. I hope when I'm 90 that I can be doing the things that he's doing. But he works weekly at both the local shelter and in the congregation that he helped establish 40 years ago.
Rohan Jones works with about five congregation and he travels around and he teaches and encourages the Brethren in several other cities in South Africa as well as in Namibia and he reports 22 baptisms in 2025.
In Tanzania we support Bright Mwakwa Boko.
He is the shining star of the evangelists there. Barry tells me. And Barry likes to call him the Energizer Bunny.
And he is able to spend his time doing a lot of outreach because he's trained the men in his congregation to be leading the worship services and to do preaching and the things that he would otherwise have to do. And they now have about 70 to 80 people in their worship every Sunday.
Back at his home congregation in Kenya, we're supporting Hiram, and not only is he a great preacher, but his wife is also a faithful supporter and very biblically knowledgeable of herself. And she's constantly increasing the knowledge of the women there, strengthening their faith in their home congregation.
And then also in Kenya, Nathan Olamu is a local preacher, but preaches to also not only the congregation, but to inmates and the staff in the prison there.
And he also teaches them not only the word of God, but he teaches them the necessity of treating people with integrity and decency. Good things In Zambia, we have Wilson Salzio, who serves as an elder of the Lord's Church there. And you can read all the great things going on in Zambia on the screen there, where hundreds and hundreds of people are being reached because of his work. And folks, this is just a small sample of the things that are going on in Africa, but they're going on because of your support, and we appreciate that.
And finally, let's focus just a bit on Ukraine. We began supporting Jeff Abrams and rescue Ukraine in 2025 on a regular basis as he supports and encourages the churches over in Ukraine. Ukraine is the second largest European nation.
It happens to be at war, as you've heard, with the largest European nation, Russia.
The good work that Rescue Ukraine is doing and the growth of the church there would probably take over an hour to fully inform you. But let me just hit a couple of highlights that you, yes, you have been directly involved in Camp americrane.
The crowd there you see on the screen was attended by four of you this past year, helping the church there in Ukraine deal with the trauma of the war, with addictions, helping them to develop elders for the church in Ukraine, and many other topics as we stand here today. As far as I know, there are no elders in Ukraine, but there are more Christians in Ukraine than anywhere else in Europe.
So we're working to help them get elders in those congregations there.
Camp Americrain this past year, again, where this photo was taken, it was the largest gathering of Christians in Europe in the history of mankind.
And we were there and we were a part of that.
An outcome of Camp Americrain is at Madison the church here is also starting to financially support some of the ministers of the gospel there.
The gentleman on the left is Victor Sheikha. He is the Siegfried Bill of Ukraine. He heads up the prison ministry and he reaches hundreds and hundreds of prisoners, male and female, with the good news of Jesus. And the young man on the right hand side of the screen is Nazar Semikaz. He's the youngest and probably the most energetic minister Ukraine has.
We try to meet with him every week on a zoom call and it's just so encouraging to hear him talk about what's going on there.
And we are now helping to support that young man.
Slavik Krinevsky. He is the man standing to the left of the woman wearing the colorful jacket. That's his wife runs a drug rehabilitation center in Ukraine.
Most of the men who come to this rehabilitation center are not Christians, but when they leave, they are.
And this organization is pretty much self sustaining.
Slavic takes very little money from others to run the center. They raise goats and then they milk the goats and then they turn the milk into cheese and then they go to the market and they sell the cheese and then they use the money to support the organization. They have farmland and they grow the crops that they need to eat, and they also grow what's needed to feed the goats. And they've always had to rent a tractor to do all the farming. And renting a tractor, as you know, is kind of like throwing away money every month or every time you use it, but they don't do that anymore because of you.
The blue tractor you see was purchased in part by this congregation and they now own that.
And they're continuing to be self sustaining and do the great work they do there because of your financial support.
So just wanted to say thank you.
Thank you for what you did in 2025, for your prayers, for our mission efforts. We appreciate that so much and thank you for your personal sacrifice. If you have been going to one of these places and helping encourage the brethren over there.
Thank you. Next, Bob Houghton's gonna come up and he's gonna speak of some things that are happening back here at home in Madison.
[00:14:44] Speaker C: Good morning, everyone. Indulge me just for about 10 seconds here and everybody smile.
I just want to look across our family here at Madison and just see all the wonderful faces and wonderful people. I'm so excited for what we're going to be doing in 26, but we're going to talk a little bit more about 25 first.
We have so many great leaders here at Madison, men And women that step up and do so many different things to serve the Lord, to serve others, and not for their glory and their gain, but for the glory of God and for the growth of the kingdom. And I'm so excited about that.
One of the many changes we had this year was Jordan Abrams began a new children's ministry in May. It's something that we've needed and talked about for a while, but it's something that, that we finally took action on. And Jordan is already engaging several people as deacons, the parents, getting them involved. And this ministry is more than just for the children of Madison, but also for the parents and the families as well. And we're, we're excited about that work. We've added new deacons, another 15 deacons to the congregation, another five men transition to do additional works.
And in addition to the deacons that we've added in the children's ministry, we've added deacons in the youth ministry, which we haven't had in a bit, our prison ministry. We've added deacons there to assist Sigfried in doing some of the things that can grow that ministry even more and fill the gaps that he's seen that we need.
We have a medical response team. It started up last year and we've kind of designated that as its own ministry for this year and an involvement ministry, which you'll hear more about later.
We also hired Seth Miller as our second youth minister.
Everybody was so excited about that. All the ministers, many of the parents, if not all the parents that knew Seth. Seth is interned with us for the last two years.
And we're so excited about that to have him here and, you know, not to leave anybody out, but all of our ministers, all of our administrators, our staff are the people that lead different ministries, not necessarily in a deacons role. They're all leaders here. And if you have the opportunity to thank somebody today for the work that they do.
By the way, nobody was more excited about Seth Miller than Richard.
So on our construction, we want to thank the Prestons for everything that they have done.
Chris and Terry and Braden.
Everything is moving along and in these stages, sometimes it doesn't look like it's going. There's so many things that had to go into place for us to be able to pour that slab, which we hope happens this coming week. And then we'll start working on the erection of the building.
But the elders are so excited and thankful for Chris and his heart.
Chris brings to us a request that we pray for all the workers that are working on this building for their safety and for their souls, that we have opportunities to reach out to them and to make a difference in their lives. And I can't tell you how much that means to us as an eldership to have that prayer request and to know that we picked the right person. Somebody that's not just focused on putting a building up, but is focused on the purpose of the building even as it's going under construction. And we're excited about that. We want to thank Joe Harless and Lori Kendrick. Without them, I would be completely lost in working with the bank and working with Chris.
They're a necessity in this process, and I just wanted to thank them for everything that they do.
So construction is well underway. Like I said. Hopefully we pour that slab this week. We have six truckloads of steel already.
We have probably, I don't know, I'd say a dozen more coming. We can't keep them all on site at once, but once the slab goes up, you'll start seeing the building rise, and it's going to be amazing to see that strength structure start to form. And we're excited about that.
You've also probably noticed out in the annex, we lost a little bit of space there, but that's where we're going to connect the two buildings. So they've already begun working there. There's so many things that are already in place. And one thing I was extremely excited about, you know, you always worry about timeline slipping, but Chris told me that, you know, we are on pace right now to complete the construction in 1Q27.
And I'm excited about that down in my gut. You know, I think weather will get in there and everything else, and we're looking at third quarter. But no, Chris told me first quarter, and I'm excited, and I'm living with that until I hear anything different.
All right, so our overflowing campaign.
Wow. Thank you.
We are about halfway through the campaign, and we're sitting at $2.1 million, which is well over halfway of our commitments at 3.5.
So I am excited. I want to thank you for what you have done and what you have committed to this campaign so far.
We know that this has been a tough year for many people, so there may have been some financial challenges. There may be people that haven't been able to make their commitment, and we understand that. But we also know that there are so many people that have been blessed beyond any expectations that they might have had, and we're thankful for them for stepping up and keeping us on pace and keeping us ahead of schedule.
And I just want to challenge everybody, you know, on that chart, our commitments were 3.5 million, but our goal was 5 million. We're closer to our commitment, we're closer to our three year goal than we are to our commitment with the pace we're on. And I want to challenge everybody to keep that up. Let's blow that 5 million out of the water and let's exceed that. And I want to challenge everybody to do that and keep that focus as you go through your finances and as you make your plans for 26.
Okay, so this is time for our offering. You know, we separated From Communion and Second Corinthians 9, 6, 8 says, the point is this, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. And whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.
We give so that the gospel can be delivered to those that are lost and those that are seeking.
We do that for the people in Madison, in our community, in this area, and we do that for so many places around the world that Mark just went through.
And that's one of our primary purposes for what we give.
We also give to feed the hungry and care for the sick, provide for the orphans.
And through our programs like Comfort and Careness and Care Bears and Benevolence program and places that we donate to, like Agape, we're fulfilling that mission that we're challenged to support.
We give in faith.
We have to trust that if we give generously, God will provide all of our needs. He will be.
He will give us more than we can do as long as we continue to give to the good works and good service. And we do it with the right motives and the right heart.
And here at Madison, there are so many opportunities to serve others, to win souls, and many of those start with your generosity.
We also need to give cheerfully because not so much that it's expected, but because it's pleasing to God.
God gets joy when we give generously and we give in joy. And that's our purpose for doing it in a proper motive, in a proper attitude.
So you're going to see true joy when these children come up here. And I've never done a late service, and I've never done a combined service and I don't know how I'm going to get off stage with all the children coming up here.
But following our prayer, we'll have a song and the children will come up and they'll give and you're going to see true joy. And then those children, they're going to head off. Many of them are going to head off to kids corner back in the annex and then we'll continue our servants. So if you'll bow with me.
Dear Heavenly Father, we're so thankful for the blessings that you give us. We're thankful for the opportunities that you give us and the challenges that you give us. We're thankful for the chance to serve you and to serve others and to do the things that we know are a purpose to please you and a purpose to win souls for the kingdom and a purpose to feed the hungry. We know in Matthew that we're told that when we do it to the least of these, we're doing it to you. And Father, we pray that we will always strive to serve in our actions, but also to serve in our contributions.
Giving of our means, giving of.
[00:24:16] Speaker B: What.
[00:24:16] Speaker C: We have, not our surplus, Father, but sacrificially giving in such a way that we know that it has purpose behind it and it's not just the leftovers. We pray, Father, that we will do that in all that we do serve you first, seek you first, love you first, and let all other things be delivered by you. Father, we pray this in Christ's name. Amen.
[00:24:45] Speaker D: So when I told my daughter that I drew the straw for presenting the budget, she gave me what I think is some good advice. She said make it quick.
So we'll try to do that. We want to hit some highlights from start with 2025 want to hit kind of an overview of 2025. We had a budget in 25 of a little over $3 million.
And as you often do, you exceeded that budget and contributed a little over 3.2 million, 2.3% over our budget.
In addition to that, we had opportunity to give to some special causes throughout the year.
And again you came through on those things and again, just commend you gave close to an extra hundred thousand dollars to some causes.
We were able to support church in Los Angeles in response to the fires that they experienced last year.
We were able to give support to a church in Jamaica in response to the hurricane that they experienced.
In addition, we were able to give additional funds to the Linda Glover foundation to the work going on in Ukraine as well as Nikki Presnol Memorial Scholarship that was established.
In addition to that, our kids give actually collected close to $20,000 over the course of the year. Each quarter we give give to a different cause that impacts children.
So we were able to give to some great causes. The Linda Glover foundation, the Foster House Project to support children in Ukraine and then this last quarter to agape.
I just really, really like to to highlight that work and again commend our children.
We started this to.
One of the reasons we do this is to help train our children on the importance and the value of giving.
And one of the things that I've found is they end up training us, I think especially on the joy of giving. And Bob mentioned that it's always good to see that every week.
So our to our kids, I'd like to just say great job and keep up the good work.
For 2026, our budget is as you see, a little over $3.4 million and that works out to about $66,000 a week. It's a 7.8% increase over our last year's budget and that breaks down to 3.3% of that is is increases to current ministries that we're supporting.
And then we have a 4.5% increase to account for our construction loan that will. So we did not have any construction loan payments in 25, but that will begin in 26. So as we start paying on that, so we have that in our budget to account for that.
This represents a 5.4% increase over our actual giving from last year.
A couple things I wanted to highlight from this is you'll notice that our outreach and our missions is 63% of our budget. And in these areas, spreading the gospel has always been our priority and continues to be.
And we're excited for the different works around the world that we get to support as well as the many works here locally that we get to support to help spread the gospel.
Also wanted to mention as we as we move into supporting building payments, it was important to us that we not reduce the work that we're already doing. So with your generosity we've been able to do that and we see a 3.3 increase into works that we're already involved in.
I remember several years ago when we have what we called Budget Sunday, then I remember Mike Winkler would often get up and say, you know, this increase works out to such and such amount of dollars per person.
It's usually about a cup of coffee, right? I think I remember him saying that Often.
So as I did the Math, with about 1,200 attending each week, this increase works out to about $4 a week per person.
I know some will be able to do a lot more than that, some may not be able to do that, and that's okay. It's important.
We all just give what we can.
Ultimately, though, it's not about the amount of money we give. It's about our hearts. It's about serving God and honoring God with our giving, however much that is.
It's also about the joy that we receive from giving.
As Bob mentioned, God loves it when we receive joy from our giving.
Ultimately, God already owns all the resources. He already owns the whole universe. We're stewards of it.
He doesn't need our money.
And at the cross, he's done all the work to achieve salvation. He doesn't really even need our work.
But to me, it's an act of grace that he invites us to participate in his work.
And he does that in meaningful ways.
In some ways, I think our contributions are kind of like, kind of like the 5 year old that helps his daddy fix the car.
But yet it seems like the work that we do, the work that we do, the dollars that we give, the prayers that we offer, really do have an impact in the kingdom. And I think it's an honor that God has invited us to participate in his work in that way and that our work can actually have significance and impact.
I'm often amazed at this, and I think it's an honor and a privilege that we have to participate in his work. And I hope that we see that it can be a source of great joy in however we participate in his work. Thank you.
[00:31:12] Speaker A: God is doing a great work here.
It's incredible what God is doing through his spirit and working in this congregation, in this community, and how he continues to work through us to reach the world.
Our focus as we begin to shift our thoughts in the presentation today, thinking about our focus for the coming year and our focus as a congregation and our spiritual focus, and we think a little bit about where we're coming from. All these signs on the wall that have been here for over five years. Five years ago, we put a plan in place that we want to grow and we want to grow in the attributes that make us able to serve God in this community. Things like loving one another, imitating Christ, Christ worshiping in spirit. All these things that we've been individually working on and collectively working on these last few years and then has already been mentioned in 2024 we tuned the focus down to prayer and Bible studies. Hey, if all these people are going to come here, we want to share God's word with them. We want to be prepared to do that. We want to be able to pray together in passionate and good ways. And we trained and worked on that in 2024, in 2025, we wanted to open our homes and we opened our arms to one another and to the community and. And we worked on developing a spirit of fellowship and hospitality and all these things. Now, as we go into 2026, we want to take these things that God is working in us and these talents and these skills and these abilities that we've been working on and bring them together and work together to build strong connections in this family.
So the picture that we want you to have and we want to have as a family in the coming years, a picture of a strong net. And imagine this net that's really strong, that every single tie is strong. Every knot is strong. There's no worn places, there's no tears, there's no holes. That's the picture of what we want to build in that kind of spiritual net of brethren here at this congregation.
No worn places, no holes.
Our action is going to be connecting, and we're going to be talking today about, as we look forward, connecting in three ways. And I'll talk about the first one, and that's in connecting to each other.
United in love is the defining characteristic of the church. In the very last night that Jesus spent with his brothers before his death, he prayed this prayer. And in this prayer, you'll notice that his prayer was to his Father. And he says, I want all of them to be one Father, just as you and I are one, may they also be in us so that the world.
[00:33:26] Speaker B: So what?
[00:33:26] Speaker A: So that the world may believe that you have sent me. And at the end of this prayer, re emphasize, then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. The defining characteristic of this congregation in terms of reaching this community and demonstrating to this community we are God's children, is our relationship with one another and the unity we have together in love. So connecting to each other is fundamental to being God's servants at this place.
And as we learn to connect to one another, as we close those holes, as we tie those knots, as we pull close those gaps, we brace up those worn places, the things that we're intending to do is provide a way to bear one another's burden. Who hasn't had a burden to bear? Who hasn't been in difficulties and troubles and needed someplace lost loved ones just needed someone to hold our hands. We want to be that one for every one other, as it says in Galatians, to bear each other's burdens. And that's fulfilling Christ's law.
As we grow together, sometimes we don't always step in the right places. Sometimes we're not moving in the right direction. But we need each other to be accountable to each other. Scriptures say, as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. We care for each other. If I didn't care about you, I wouldn't talk to you about the things that make you grow, and you wouldn't talk to me about the things that help me grow. But because we're together, because we're knotted together in this net and we love each other, we're willing to make each other be accountable. And in connecting to each other, we're constantly giving each other encouragement. Everybody needs encouragement. Not everybody's up riding on cloud nine every day. Sometimes we're swooping through the valley and we need each other for those purposes.
So what actions do we need to take in place in this coming year? What are some deliberate, on purpose actions that we can take to strengthen our connections to each other?
Most basic one, just be there. Just be there.
You never know when your presence in this congregation in their seat, it's just what someone's been looking for, they've been following that you're always there. That's an encouragement. You never know when the time that you're going to be there, you're going to have an opportunity to speak a word of encouragement to somebody who needed it, that only you could say that right word. So just be present, greet one another.
It's okay if you don't know my name.
I'll give you five strikes. Okay, you got to give me seven.
But we're going to work on that. We're going to agree with each other in the hall and everywhere. We're just going to get to know one another. It just takes time, it takes effort.
If you're going to be embarrassed, just go ahead and be embarrassed. But that's what we're going to do, share with each other. This is a great, generous congregation.
Sharing means letting people know you have needs and then meeting those needs when you hear about them. And sometimes just sharing your story. There's so many good stories in this congregation, so many things. People have come from places all over this world to this place, and they have so much truth and love in their Hearts. Sharing those together binds us together, makes that net stronger. So when you come, just look, look, know your brethren. Listen to what they're saying. Listen to their tone of voice. Are they up? Are they down? Do they need my words? Do they need my help? And touch, if you want to be touched, grab Norm Glock. He'll hug your head off.
It's just, we get used to that. That's good.
We want to learn to love and connect to each other. Hearing, listening and touching.
And what's going to happen when we're doing that, we're going to be bound together like that net in love. We're going to have a mutual network. You're never going to have to worry about that. If you get in a hole in a hard place that there's not somebody right next door to you, connected to you, to support and to lift you up. And when people come in this door and they come in this building and they look to see what we're about, they're going to see what kingdom life is about. They're going to see people who love each other, who care for each other, who go the extra mile for each other. And we're going to keep Satan out of here. We're going to defeat Satan through God's spirit working through us. Satan wants nothing more than to create division and hardship and hatred among us. But he's never going to be able to achieve that when we build this strong network of connections to each other.
So getting started, here's the easiest place to get started. You know, at five o' clock every day we have connect groups.
It's our Bible classes. Just be there, come be a part of it. There's a whole crowd of folks in there that's just like you. Come and spend some time with them, greet them, share with them, get to know them.
Along those lines, your elders. We want to be effective at helping the congregation be connected. And we want to connect even better than we ever have. And to that end, your elders are going to be assigned to, associated with, to different connect groups. So we're going to be working closely with the connect group leaders who I want to give thanks to. We have some tremendous men serving as connect group leaders right now.
And we want to reach every member of this congregation. So this is all about forming connections together. And your elders are highly invested in that.
So that's the first way that we want to be connected in 2026 is being connected to one another.
Keith is going to talk about the second way.
[00:38:23] Speaker E: Back in 2006, when my family and I first came to Madison, there were two things that I noticed pretty quickly.
I had friends here and this was an active congregation.
Like David just said, developing relationships is a key foundation to a strong, close knit congregation. Following on with the fishing net metaphor, think of yourself as one of the many nodes or intersections in the net.
I want to talk about connecting to a ministry, which is like weaving strands of that net and attaching to other people in a work I've seen that successfully executed in my nearly 20 years here.
If you'll allow me a mixed metaphor for just a second.
There's a line from an 80s song.
You've probably heard it if you've been anywhere near a ballpark in the last long time.
That line is put me in coach.
I'm ready to play today.
If you are not involved in some ministry at Madison, that's the attitude that we hope you'll embrace in 2006.
So let's talk for a minute about the mechanics of involvement and getting connected to a ministry and some of the ways that we're going to try to improve that in 2026.
David Wade alluded to the fact that we had some ministry rejiggering where we moved some people around, as well as adding new ones.
Wesley Cannaday was one of those and he is now the deacon of the involvement ministry.
And so we're currently in progress. He's got a team of people that are going to work this year to improve our ability to connect people to a ministry.
We're going to be improving our tools, the forms that we take for participation, MSP Ministry Scheduler, Pro Servant Keeper and one call to try and improve our data gathering, but especially improve our communication.
Going to visit the connect groups, try to work through them in order to get updated data from all the members. Try to be an encouragement there, Encourage our ministry leaders to get connected to the data that applies to their ministry and to use the tools as they are improved. And so we're asking everybody to help Wesley out by responding to this message when you get it, so that those tools, they're available to be used even as we work to improve them. And there are deacons and ministry leaders who can answer the who, what, when, where and how of being connected to a word.
But the question I want to spend the most time answering is the why.
The first motivation is having a direction.
I heard a term about 10 years ago that applied to the way that the world is moving and it's still true today. And that term was constant partial attention.
I'm sure, there are plenty of young agile minds here that identify with that term.
As you talk with somebody while you're looking at a screen with music playing in the background, you have constant partial attention to all of those activities that go on around you.
Personally, trying to operate that way drives me a little batty.
A motivation to lessen that feeling of three or four things going on at once in your brain is giving some dedicated service to God.
Finding direction helps bring clarity to your life.
You can say, my life is about these things, but not those.
And I'm a participant in the kingdom by spending time, God given time and talent working this, as you can see on the screen, Colossians 3, 23, 24.
Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for man, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward.
You are serving the Lord Christ.
And I want to pull on that word heartily just a little, little bit. The Greek word translated as heartily right there means either breath of life or soul.
And so that animated part of you that can bring life to the work that you choose.
Here I want to make a point.
It is okay to be choosy in what you participate in, but what we want you to avoid is saying no to everything.
A wise choice means you'll bring more passion to the job that aligns with your interests and skills.
A wise choice can help you give your all to work heartily in your service.
One of the points that was made during the off site we had to prepare with the elders and ministers for 2026 was that we're busy and that's great, but are we efficient?
A wise choice leads to dedication, which leads to efficiency.
If you think you like help deciding how much is enough or too much, we stand ready to help you navigate that.
The congregation has experienced incredible growth over the last few years, and there are ample opportunities to serve.
Many hands make light work.
The way this congregation gets even stronger, healthier, more vibrant, and closer to God is to make sure that the net is well woven with people serving effectively and efficiently, with the friends that they have here and with the relationships that they've gained through their service.
Another motivation for us is having purpose generations past.
I'm a boomer. I'm from the end of the boomers, but I'm a boomer.
Generations past seem to be more motivated out of a sense of duty, like is found in 1 Peter 4:10.
As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God.
While that still holds true Today the church seems to be more motivated by having a sense of purpose that's more reflected by Ephesians 2:10.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.
That's your purpose and those works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Purpose brings meaning to your life in the knowledge that you are doing what God has prepared for you to do.
The strands of your part of the net are not lying loose and aimless, but are joined with others to make an effective tool to accomplish something for Christ and the kingdom.
That purpose brings fulfillment.
I felt very fulfilled during my time at NASA.
Sometime if you got an hour or two you don't need, I'll talk to you about it.
But those accomplishments, however long they last, won't have the eternal legacy that working for something in the kingdom will.
Returning to Ephesians 2:10, God wants your purpose in life to align with his purpose for you.
He wants to give you clarity, fulfillment, all the good feelings that come with a purpose filled life in his service.
The final motivation we'll explore is impact.
And I would caution you by saying that there is a motivational fine line between having an impact and seeking recognition.
Recognition is a trap that Satan uses to turn the focus inward by appealing to pride.
Ephesians 6 the latter part of verse 6 and 7 gives the right motivation.
But as bond servants of Christ.
[00:48:36] Speaker B: Doing.
[00:48:37] Speaker E: The will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, and then also Paul and the Spirit.
In Ephesians 4 earlier 4 verses 11 through 16, he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, the teachers, to equip the saints.
Now everybody's in a bucket somewhere. I just included everybody. But listen to the activities and the impacts for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be tossed by children, no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes, rather speaking the truth in love we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ, from whom the whole body joined together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds own its up in love.
It's obvious in the history of the Church that People have had impacts ranging from internal to the congregation to external, in the community, in the region to the whole wide world.
We now have entered into that labor for the edification and expansion the body of Christ.
So, to summarize, we're an active congregation with a wide variety of ministries for members to be involved in.
And it is our desire to do more and to improve what we do with the increased resources that we have, whether that be time, talent, or money.
Those resources are blessings from God.
Our desire is for a congregation that wants to connect to a ministry and to work more efficiently in 2026.
And we hope that leads you to direction, purpose, and impact in your life.
So From Romans, chapter 12, kind of a summarizing statement, for as in one body, we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function.
So we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another.
Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them if prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service in our serving, the One who teaches in his teaching, the One who exhorts in his exhortation, the One who contributes in generosity, and the one who leads with zeal, the One who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness, you will not only improve your life, but you'll improve the lives of others, with some being blessed by being added to the kingdom through the impact of your work.
The more nodes for the net, the stronger bonds in the net, the better the net to be fishers of men that we're called to be.
I'll now turn it over to Craig Beal to talk about another aspect of connecting in 2026.
[00:52:55] Speaker F: Thank you, Keith. And thank you all for being here this morning. When you see this, you see the invitation. You know, in the old days, we used to use our songbooks, you know, instead of having things on the screen. And you knew when the preacher started offering the invitation, you'd hear Bibles close, and then you'd hear those songbooks come out of the rack. So this is the. This is the sign that we're almost done. So breathe that collective sigh of relief as we. As we finish up here this morning.
I love what Bob said about connecting with each other and smiling. I want you to do one more thing. Turn to your neighbor and give him a fist bump there. You can't be in a room like this and be this close together and not connect. Okay? So that's part of that first, part of connection there. So thank you for doing that.
You know, we've been talking about this idea of the net. And we're called to connect with each other as David talked to us about.
And I want you to turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter four. We'll have the verses on the screen, but if you'd like, turn to Matthew chapter four. And I want to draw our attention to a couple of verses of Scripture there. You know, when Jesus came and called James and John to be apostles, they're brothers there, they were doing something that I thought was interesting. The they were actually sitting there mending their nets. Now, that net was their livelihood. It was the way that they did their work, but they were paying attention to and mending those nets. Okay, Matthew chapter four. Matthew recording this event, says going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets. Jesus called them and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. I want to draw our attention there to the idea of mending those nets. And as David talked to us about the idea of connecting with each other, that is a way for us not only to make those connections, but to renew those connections, to keep them fresh and make sure that as the net, that we're all linked together in a way that we. We can accomplish the work that we're called to do. We form a net that links us together as we talked about, so that each one is supported, each one is loved, valued and protected.
All right, that properly knitted net won't let anything slip through. I love what David Glenn said. He said, we will defeat Satan, not by Lou, by not losing God's children, number one. That is, you maintain those kinds of connections and not missing those who would become God's child. I love the way he put that. So our net needs constant attention so that as Paul told us in Ephesians, that we can continue to be joined and held together so that each can do. Look what it says in the easy to read version. His own work, right? So we need to be able to do that, keep that net formed up with connecting with each other. We're called to connect with the work that God has us for us to do, as Keith told us about.
If you look just earlier in chapter four, Jesus had called Peter and Andrew and it says that they were casting their nets. Look what the scripture has to say. It says, as Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting their net into the sea. And what Were they doing? They were accomplishing their work, for they were fishermen. Come, follow me, Jesus said, and I will make you fishers of men. And once they left their nets, their physical nets, and became part of that net that Jesus would use to collect the souls of men and bring them into his kingdom.
I want to make this point. This work is the most important work any of us could ever be involved in.
The net not only connects us with each other, but it allows us to connect with our community.
When we cast ourselves, as it were, into the community, we invite those around us to enjoy the benefits that we have as being part of the body of Christ. And then they are in turn encouraged to become part of that net themselves.
And the cycle continues. And as we grow that net, we're able to reach more and more in our community.
You know, Jesus talked about In John chapter 12, around verse 32, he says, if I'm lifted up, then I will draw all men unto me. And then he goes on to say in John 13:35, if you love each other. We talked about this earlier. If you love each other, then everyone will know that you are my followers. You love each other like I have loved you, and it will draw all men unto Jesus. When we're connected together with each other in the love of God, we serve as a beacon to the community that we're a part of.
Now, all of these things that we've talked about this morning, connecting with each other and connecting with the work, are enabled by our connection with God the Father, His Son, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. I want to talk to you just a minute about those. Why would we do that?
Well, God says we're created in his image. He tells us that in Genesis chapter one, he desires to have a relationship with us. He desires to call us sons and daughters. We are adopted as sons and daughters, and we can call him Abba or father. Romans, chapter 8.
God intended that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being. Acts, chapter 17.
God wants a close relationship with each one of us. Now we connect with Jesus, his son.
[00:58:55] Speaker D: Why?
[00:58:56] Speaker F: He is the vine, we are the branches. He is the basis from which we spring forth into our community. John, chapter 15.
His blood cleanses us from sin. And if you look at that word cleanses in first John chapter one and verse seven, the idea there is that it is a continual action, present tense. It's a continual cleansing. We don't have to worry about sin anymore because that blood just keeps, keeps washing those things away as we repent of those things.
And Jesus has been through what we face. We don't have a high priest that doesn't know what we go through, but he can relate. Hebrews chapter four and then connecting with the Holy Spirit. You know, this past year we've had some emphasis talking about the Holy Spirit. I had someone in class earlier, last or last quarter that said, you know, I spent more time listening to and talking about and studying about the Holy Spirit in this past few months than I have in my entire life as a Christian, right? All about some Holy Spirit. She said, why do we connect? Well, John records Jesus reassurance to his chosen ones. And he said, I'm going to go away, but I'm going to leave you an advocate or a helper. I'm going to leave you the source of truth. You're going to have the Holy Spirit as a teacher or a reminder of those things.
He's going to give you peace, give you comfort as you go through your daily life. And he is available to and abides in believers.
Scripture says he's not available to those who are, who don't know Him. Right. So we need to come to know God the Father, Jesus His Son and the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit will provide these things to us as we connect with him as well. These are the ties that bind us together. Connecting with God, His Son and the Holy Spirit is essential because connecting, just peer to peer, without them is just friendship, without strength or longevity. We're going to spend eternity together.
This is not just here. You don't just get to enjoy that here.
We get to spend eternity together in the presence of God. Connection to a work without them is just busyness. I got called out for spelling it this way, but I wanted to draw your attention. It's just being busy if we don't have them involved. And our work would be without goal or purpose if we don't have them involved. Our net is only strong when very they connect us together. They are the ties that bind us together. As we looked earlier at Ecclesiastes chapter 4, the threefold cord that is you, me and them is what makes us strong. It builds that net for us together.
So the question to you this morning is, are you willing to be part of the net? We hope that you are. You need to make a maybe you need to make the first connection.
And that is response to God's plan of salvation. What is his plan?
His plan is we couldn't do anything for ourselves. So he sent his one and only begotten Son and he came here, took on the form of a man, lived a sinless life and then gave himself sacrificially shed his blood on the cross of Calvary. That we wouldn't have to go through that. That's the plan. How do we respond to that plan? We come to him believing that we repent of our sins, we confess his name and then we're buried with him in baptism. That's the first connection. If you need to make that this morning, then we pray that you'll do that. Perhaps you've lost your connection to the net.
Let God, let his son Jesus and let the Holy Spirit reconnect you. Perhaps you need to have the prayers of this congregation. And we invite you to come to take advantage of that and let us help you reconnect. Will you be part of the net? That's the question that we need of each of you to answer. As together we stand and as we sing.
