Trinity River Baptists will gather at Cal- vary Baptist in Dayton on the evening of Tuesday, Dec. 8 to celebrate Christmas to- gether. The event begins at 6 p.m. Reservations are due by Wednesday, Dec. 2. To make your reservation, call Theresa Adair at 936-336-9232. The cost is $10 per person to help pay for the meal. Guest speaker will be August Boto, ex- ecutive vice president and general counsel for the Executive Committee of the South- ern Baptist Convention. The evening’s mu- sic will be led by Larry Pittman, music minis- ter of First Baptist Liberty. NEWSPLASH December December 2015 2015 Reservations due Dec. 2 Christmas Fellowship great start to season 2401 Grand Ave., Liberty, Texas 77575 936-336-9232 David Williams, Director of Missions The menu includes Pork Loin, Twice Baked Potatoes, Green Beans, Salad, Roll and Dessert. “This is going to be an evening to remember,” said David Wil- liams, TRBA director of missions. “Delicious food, great music, and a special guest from our national convention. I have known Augie Boto for several years and am excited he has agreed to be with our association that week. It is an honor to have him.” Boto also will be guest trainer during Pastor Essentials on Mon- day, Oct. 7. His topics include the Southern Baptist Convention, the Cooperative Program, and legal issues facing churches. “This will be a highlight for our Pastor Essentials students,” Wil- liams said. “Other pastors are welcome to come. Just let me know early that morning so we can include you in the count for the meal. Or come after the meal at 6:30 p.m.” AUGUST BOTO Church planting focus of TRBA annual meeting The photo on the front of the program showed a man and his son planting a sap- ling in the ground. The caption read: “The best time to plant a church is 20 years ago. The second best time is TODAY.” And so began the 71st Annual Meeting of Trinity River Bap- tist Association, Tues- day, Oct. 27, at Old River Baptist Church. As messengers arrived, they were asked to fill out slips of paper guessing how many beans were in a large basket displayed at the front of the sanctuary. During his director of missions report, David Williams ex- plained the number of beans—70,000— was the same as the number of people in the area covered by TRBA. Then Williams had a representative from each church come forward and fill a cup with beans. Each cup held 650 beans, which is the average worship attendance of TRBA’s largest church, Old River. After 41 cups were filled, the basket was still more than two- thirds full of beans. Williams pointed out that even if all 41 churches grew as large as Old River they would still not reach the lost tens of thou- sands in the area. “What do we need if we are going to reach the rest of the people in our area?” Williams asked. The answer came back loud and strong: “More churches!” During his message from 2 Corinthians 6:1-2, Gruver underscored the need for planting churches to show that the grace we have received from God is not in vain. “Today, God is calling the people of Trin- ity River Baptist Association,” Gruver said. “It's not just Bro. David. It's not just a few pastors. It is the people of God working to- gether tilling the soil, planting the seed, wa- tering the seedling, and trusting God to pro- vide the growth of His kingdom. “The call is for we, the people of God, to work together to plant new churches, spread the gospel, and see God build up His king- dom,” he said. “We are called daily to show that His grace in our lives is not in vain.” Messengers adopted a 2016 budget based on Acts 1:8, elected officers and lead- ers, and approved the 2016 calendar. Counting beans —TRBA Director of Missions David Williams shows messengers that most people are not being reached by existing churches. Challenging messengers —Heights Pastor Tim Gruver urges listeners “not to receive God’s grace in vain” but to work together to spread the Gospel through planting churches.
Transcript
Trinity River Baptist Association
P.O. Box 1269
Liberty, TX 77575
Address Service Requested
Nonprofit Org. U.S. Postage
PAID Liberty TX
Permit No. 38
Receipts October 2015
Trinity River Baptist Association December 2015
Sat, December 5 AM Mendoza, R. McGuire PM Dosier, Skinner Sun, December 6 AM Hinch, Gault PM Snell, Catching Sat, December 12 AM Thomas, Clark PM Hortmans Sun, December 13 AM Presnulls PM McGuires
Sat, December 19 AM Goff, ____________ PM Garvins Sun, December 20 AM Radley, Downey PM Baldridges Sat, December 26 AM C. & G. Theis PM Nichols, Kinney Sun, December 27 AM Smarts PM Herring, Morales
Family Visitors’ Center Schedule
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 6:30 pm Gideons Meeting
2
3 10:30 am Pastor Prayer
Fellowship
4 5
6
7 6-9 pm Pastor Essentials
8 6-8 pm
TRBA Christmas
Fellowship
Calvary Dayton
9 10 10:30 am Pastor Prayer
Fellowship
11 12
13 14 6-9 pm Pastor Essentials
15
16 17 10:30 am Pastor Prayer
Fellowship
18 19
20
21 6-9 pm Pastor Essentials
22
23 24 Christmas
Eve
25 Christmas
Day
26
27 28
29 30
31 New Year’s
Eve
Oct 15 Jan-Oct15
Batson Prairie 0.00 874.00
Berean Tabernacle 0.00 1,000.00
Calvary, Dayton 500.00 5,000.00
Calvary, Liberty 258.00 2,400.44
Center, Thicket 44.00 625.00
Central Daisetta 0.00 879.12
Central, Liberty 108.43 1,302.84
Covenant 115.61 718.14
Eminence 0.00 378.00
First Anahuac 833.33 8,333.30
First Batson 0.00 1,600.00
First Concord 0.00 93.99
First Daisetta 266.00 2,743.00
First Dayton 649.94 8,961.44
First Devers 664.43 4,118.14
First High Island 0.00 1,328.00
First Hull 0.00 1,867.72
First Liberty 937.96 13,645.77
First Saratoga 373.04 3,923.02
First Sour Lake 912.46 9,148.65
Grace Community 650.00 5,750.00
Grayburg 0.00 600.00
Gum Grove 40.40 349.18
Hardin Baptist 1,081.69 13,289.48
Heights 575.88 6,931.48
House of Living Waters 0.00 0.00
Kenefick Southern 826.69 9,147.83
Mt Calvary 382.91 4,842.02
North Main 1,800.12 11,607.91
Nuevo Amanecer 0.00 0.00
Oak Island 37.90 370.31
Old River 1,166.67 11,666.70
Pathways 114.00 1,087.00
Primera Dayton 75.00 675.00
Smith Point 29.91 474.77
South Dayton 50.00 500.00
Sweet Home 0.00 0.00
Trinity 100.00 1,000.00
West End 469.00 4,976.00
Whispering Meadows 260.40 2,475.15
Wild Country Mission 362.00 1,513.00
Interest 4.89 87.02
TOTAL $13,690.66 146,283.42
Trinity River Baptists will gather at Cal-vary Baptist in Dayton on the evening of Tuesday, Dec. 8 to celebrate Christmas to-gether. The event begins at 6 p.m. Reservations are due by Wednesday, Dec. 2. To make your reservation, call Theresa Adair at 936-336-9232. The cost is $10 per person to help pay for the meal. Guest speaker will be August Boto, ex-ecutive vice president and general counsel for the Executive Committee of the South-ern Baptist Convention. The evening’s mu-sic will be led by Larry Pittman, music minis-ter of First Baptist Liberty.
NEWSPLASH
December
December
20152015
Reservations due Dec. 2
Christmas Fellowship great start to season
2401 Grand Ave., Liberty, Texas 77575 936-336-9232 David Williams, Director of Missions
TRBA Office Closed, Dec. 24 through Jan. 4
The menu includes Pork Loin, Twice Baked Potatoes, Green Beans, Salad, Roll and Dessert. “This is going to be an evening to remember,” said David Wil-liams, TRBA director of missions. “Delicious food, great music, and a special guest from our national convention. I have known Augie Boto for several years and am excited he has agreed to be with our association that week. It is an honor to have him.”
Boto also will be guest trainer during Pastor Essentials on Mon-day, Oct. 7. His topics include the Southern Baptist Convention, the Cooperative Program, and legal issues facing churches. “This will be a highlight for our Pastor Essentials students,” Wil-liams said. “Other pastors are welcome to come. Just let me know early that morning so we can include you in the count for the meal. Or come after the meal at 6:30 p.m.”
AUGUST BOTO
Church planting focus of TRBA annual meeting The photo on the front of the program showed a man and his son planting a sap-ling in the ground. The caption read: “The best time to plant a church is 20 years ago. The second best time is TODAY.” And so began the 71st Annual Meeting of Trinity River Bap-tist Association, Tues-day, Oct. 27, at Old River Baptist Church. As messengers arrived, they were asked to fill out slips of paper guessing how many beans were in a large basket displayed at the front of the sanctuary. During his director of missions report, David Williams ex-plained the number of beans—70,000—was the same as the number of people in
the area covered by TRBA. Then Williams had a representative from each church come forward and fill a
cup with beans. Each cup held 650 beans, which is the average worship attendance of TRBA’s largest church, Old River. After 41 cups were filled, the basket was still more than two-thirds full of beans. Williams pointed out that even if all 41 churches grew as large as Old River they would still not reach the lost tens of thou-sands in the area. “What do we need if we are going to
reach the rest of the people in our area?” Williams asked. The answer came back loud and strong: “More churches!”
During his message from 2 Corinthians 6:1-2, Gruver underscored the need for planting churches to show that the grace we have received from God is not in vain. “Today, God is calling the people of Trin-ity River Baptist Association,” Gruver said. “It's not just Bro. David. It's not just a few pastors. It is the people of God working to-gether tilling the soil, planting the seed, wa-tering the seedling, and trusting God to pro-vide the growth of His kingdom. “The call is for we, the people of God, to work together to plant new churches, spread the gospel, and see God build up His king-dom,” he said. “We are called daily to show that His grace in our lives is not in vain.” Messengers adopted a 2016 budget based on Acts 1:8, elected officers and lead-ers, and approved the 2016 calendar.
Counting beans —TRBA Director of Missions David
Williams shows messengers that most people are
not being reached by existing churches.
Challenging messengers —Heights Pastor Tim
Gruver urges listeners “not to receive God’s
grace in vain” but to work together to spread
the Gospel through planting churches.
Floods hit TRBA churches — South Day-ton (left), First Hull (above), First Liberty, Heights in Liberty and Eminence in Wal-lisville are TRBA churches impacted by the flooding that came at the end of Oc-tober and the first of November.
Luke 10:2 quotes Jesus as saying to His disciples, “The
harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord
of the Harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (NIV).
The first thing we usually notice about that verse is that we need more work-
ers in the field. But look closely at what Jesus said first: “The harvest is plentiful.”
Mission JourneyMission Journey
Do we really believe that the spiritual harvest available to us is plentiful? Or do we, instead, tend to think that the har-vest is meager, that few are ready to trust Jesus? When we don’t believe the harvest is plentiful, we are reluctant to share the Gospel. We don’t want our seed falling on “rocky soil,” so we just keep it to our-selves. We don’t want to “cast our pearls before swine” so we keep quiet. Big mistake. Jesus said the harvest is plentiful. We need to take Him at his word. We took Him at His word at the Lone Star Motorcycle Rally in Galveston in November and told our three-minute stories to 1,031 peo-ple who walked into our tent to win a motorcycle. After hearing our stories, 269 of them prayed to receive Jesus as Savior and Lord. That’s one out of four. The harvest is plentiful. We took Jesus at His word at the Men Alive Outdoor Expo and invited Hank Hough and his Kingdom Dogs to share the gospel with the 188 peo-ple who came. After Hank led us in a prayer of salvation, 59 marked their cards, “I prayed that prayer.”
That’s one out of three. The harvest is plentiful.
It seems to me that the more peo-ple we tell about Jesus, the more people trust Him as their Savior. What if we told everyone about Jesus? What if every time we told three or four people about Jesus, one of them trusted Him? When Jesus met the woman at the well, she ran back to town and brought all the townspeople out to meet Jesus. His disciples had just been to town and all they had brought back was food. Jesus told His disciples that day: “Open your eyes and look at the
fields! They are ripe for harvest!” (John 4:35, NIV). The harvest is plentiful. No ques-tion about it. But, as Jesus said, the work-ers are few. The problem is not that the harvest isn’t ready; the problem is that not enough of us are working. Would you share Jesus with three or
four people during the next few days and let me know what happens? I can’t wait to hear from you.
Working the field alongside you, David Williams
Pray for our pastorless churches First High Island, since November 2015 First Devers, since October 2015. Send resumes to: [email protected]. Wild Country, since May 2015 First Hull, since February 2014 John Guedry, interim First Concord, since January 2014 Richard Stidham, interim Oak Island, since December 2012
Pastor Prayer Fellowship 10:30-11:30 a.m., Thursdays
TRBA Conference Room
Followed by Dutch Treat lunch for those pastors able to stay
Mission Lone Star, Nov. 5-7, Galveston
Hank Hough and his Kingdom Dogs
Men Alive Outdoor Expo, Nov. 14, TVE
Door prizes —Scott Tidwell, left, calls the num-
ber for one of dozens of door prizes given away
during the Men Alive Outdoor Expo as David
Williams, TRBA director of missions, hands a prize to another winner. Below: Williams hands
the grand prize of $500 to Darren Canova, who
had just moved to Hardin and was looking for a
new church home.
Annual Meeting —Above, messen-
gers and guests worship during
music led by Joe Horan and the
praise team of Old River Baptist. Left, The Old River Vocal Band sings
and thanks those attending TRBA’s Oct. 8 Volunteer Appreciation
Banquet at First Dayton.
Bible Give-Away — Michael Graves, pastor of
Smith Point Community Church, picks up boxes
of 104 English, 56 Spanish and 40 Vietnamese
Bibles provided by TRBA. The Chambers County Ministerial Alliance gave away the Bi-
bles during a Nov. 14 community event during
which they served a meal to 400 people who
gathered at the Anahuac Middle School gym.
Special Screening —Rodney Sellers
of Mount Calvary Baptist shares an
invitation with a crowd in a packed
Kingwood theater after viewing the new Christian movie, “Woodlawn.”
Sellers said two-thirds of the people
“stood to their feet in an invitation
to either accept Christ or to stand for
Him in this dark world.”
State convention — In his role as
chairman of the credentials commit-
tee, First Liberty Pastor Steve Bean
gives a report during the Baptist General Convention’s annual meet-
ing Nov. 9-10 in Frisco.
Gospel Family — The Frank Aragon
Jr. Family leads worship and Jona-
than Williams speaks on Gospel
Family during TRBA’s Nov. 17 Ex-ecutive Board meeting at First Sara-
toga. Each family received a copy
of Williams’ book, “Gospel Family.”
Cut this out, fill it out, mail it in to TRBA today
Pastor Essentials Nomination I see something in this man that makes me think that
perhaps the Lord might call him to be a church planter
or pastor. I nominate him as a candidate for the Pastor
Essentials class. Feel free to tell him the nomination
came from me.
Candidate:
Name _____________________________________
Church ____________________________________
Address ___________________________________
Phone _____________________________________
Email _____________________________________
My Name: _________________________________
My phone: _________________________________
Cowboy KickOff — The country/western band from the
Cowboy Church of Orange County leads worship for a
Sunday evening service in the activities building of
First Liberty on Oct. 25. The event was designed to create interest and discover prospects for First Lib-
erty’s new church plant, Line Camp Cowboy Church.
Line Camp’s core group is meeting for a weekly Sun-
day evening Bible study at the home of Horace and
Iris Whittington in Devers.
Gospel Family — The Frank Aragon
Jr. Family leads worship and Jona-
than Williams speaks on Gospel
Family during TRBA’s Nov. 17 Ex-ecutive Board meeting at First Sara-
toga. Each family received a copy
of Williams’ book, “Gospel Family.”
Luke 10:2 quotes Jesus as saying to His disciples, “The
harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord
of the Harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (NIV).
The first thing we usually notice about that verse is that we need more work-
ers in the field. But look closely at what Jesus said first: “The harvest is plentiful.”
Mission JourneyMission Journey
Do we really believe that the spiritual harvest available to us is plentiful? Or do we, instead, tend to think that the har-vest is meager, that few are ready to trust Jesus? When we don’t believe the harvest is plentiful, we are reluctant to share the Gospel. We don’t want our seed falling on “rocky soil,” so we just keep it to our-selves. We don’t want to “cast our pearls before swine” so we keep quiet. Big mistake. Jesus said the harvest is plentiful. We need to take Him at his word. We took Him at His word at the Lone Star Motorcycle Rally in Galveston in November and told our three-minute stories to 1,031 peo-ple who walked into our tent to win a motorcycle. After hearing our stories, 269 of them prayed to receive Jesus as Savior and Lord. That’s one out of four. The harvest is plentiful. We took Jesus at His word at the Men Alive Outdoor Expo and invited Hank Hough and his Kingdom Dogs to share the gospel with the 188 peo-ple who came. After Hank led us in a prayer of salvation, 59 marked their cards, “I prayed that prayer.”
That’s one out of three. The harvest is plentiful.
It seems to me that the more peo-ple we tell about Jesus, the more people trust Him as their Savior. What if we told everyone about Jesus? What if every time we told three or four people about Jesus, one of them trusted Him? When Jesus met the woman at the well, she ran back to town and brought all the townspeople out to meet Jesus. His disciples had just been to town and all they had brought back was food. Jesus told His disciples that day: “Open your eyes and look at the
fields! They are ripe for harvest!” (John 4:35, NIV). The harvest is plentiful. No ques-tion about it. But, as Jesus said, the work-ers are few. The problem is not that the harvest isn’t ready; the problem is that not enough of us are working. Would you share Jesus with three or
four people during the next few days and let me know what happens? I can’t wait to hear from you.
Working the field alongside you, David Williams
Pray for our pastorless churches First High Island, since November 2015 First Devers, since October 2015. Send resumes to: [email protected]. Wild Country, since May 2015 First Hull, since February 2014 John Guedry, interim First Concord, since January 2014 Richard Stidham, interim Oak Island, since December 2012
Pastor Prayer Fellowship 10:30-11:30 a.m., Thursdays
TRBA Conference Room
Followed by Dutch Treat lunch for those pastors able to stay
Mission Lone Star, Nov. 5-7, Galveston
Hank Hough and his Kingdom Dogs
Men Alive Outdoor Expo, Nov. 14, TVE
Door prizes —Scott Tidwell, left, calls the num-
ber for one of dozens of door prizes given away
during the Men Alive Outdoor Expo as David
Williams, TRBA director of missions, hands a prize to another winner. Below: Williams hands
the grand prize of $500 to Darren Canova, who
had just moved to Hardin and was looking for a
new church home.
Annual Meeting —Above, messen-
gers and guests worship during
music led by Joe Horan and the
praise team of Old River Baptist. Left, The Old River Vocal Band sings
and thanks those attending TRBA’s Oct. 8 Volunteer Appreciation
Banquet at First Dayton.
Bible Give-Away — Michael Graves, pastor of
Smith Point Community Church, picks up boxes
of 104 English, 56 Spanish and 40 Vietnamese
Bibles provided by TRBA. The Chambers County Ministerial Alliance gave away the Bi-
bles during a Nov. 14 community event during
which they served a meal to 400 people who
gathered at the Anahuac Middle School gym.
Special Screening —Rodney Sellers
of Mount Calvary Baptist shares an
invitation with a crowd in a packed
Kingwood theater after viewing the new Christian movie, “Woodlawn.”
Sellers said two-thirds of the people
“stood to their feet in an invitation
to either accept Christ or to stand for
Him in this dark world.”
State convention — In his role as
chairman of the credentials commit-
tee, First Liberty Pastor Steve Bean
gives a report during the Baptist General Convention’s annual meet-
ing Nov. 9-10 in Frisco.
Gospel Family — The Frank Aragon
Jr. Family leads worship and Jona-
than Williams speaks on Gospel
Family during TRBA’s Nov. 17 Ex-ecutive Board meeting at First Sara-
toga. Each family received a copy
of Williams’ book, “Gospel Family.”
Cut this out, fill it out, mail it in to TRBA today
Pastor Essentials Nomination I see something in this man that makes me think that
perhaps the Lord might call him to be a church planter
or pastor. I nominate him as a candidate for the Pastor
Essentials class. Feel free to tell him the nomination
came from me.
Candidate:
Name _____________________________________
Church ____________________________________
Address ___________________________________
Phone _____________________________________
Email _____________________________________
My Name: _________________________________
My phone: _________________________________
Cowboy KickOff — The country/western band from the
Cowboy Church of Orange County leads worship for a
Sunday evening service in the activities building of
First Liberty on Oct. 25. The event was designed to create interest and discover prospects for First Lib-
erty’s new church plant, Line Camp Cowboy Church.
Line Camp’s core group is meeting for a weekly Sun-
day evening Bible study at the home of Horace and
Iris Whittington in Devers.
Gospel Family — The Frank Aragon
Jr. Family leads worship and Jona-
than Williams speaks on Gospel
Family during TRBA’s Nov. 17 Ex-ecutive Board meeting at First Sara-
toga. Each family received a copy
of Williams’ book, “Gospel Family.”
Trinity River Baptist Association
P.O. Box 1269
Liberty, TX 77575
Address Service Requested
Nonprofit Org. U.S. Postage
PAID Liberty TX
Permit No. 38
Receipts October 2015
Trinity River Baptist Association December 2015
Sat, December 5 AM Mendoza, R. McGuire PM Dosier, Skinner Sun, December 6 AM Hinch, Gault PM Snell, Catching Sat, December 12 AM Thomas, Clark PM Hortmans Sun, December 13 AM Presnulls PM McGuires
Sat, December 19 AM Goff, ____________ PM Garvins Sun, December 20 AM Radley, Downey PM Baldridges Sat, December 26 AM C. & G. Theis PM Nichols, Kinney Sun, December 27 AM Smarts PM Herring, Morales
Family Visitors’ Center Schedule
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 6:30 pm Gideons Meeting
2
3 10:30 am Pastor Prayer
Fellowship
4 5
6
7 6-9 pm Pastor Essentials
8 6-8 pm
TRBA Christmas
Fellowship
Calvary Dayton
9 10 10:30 am Pastor Prayer
Fellowship
11 12
13 14 6-9 pm Pastor Essentials
15
16 17 10:30 am Pastor Prayer
Fellowship
18 19
20
21 6-9 pm Pastor Essentials
22
23 24 Christmas
Eve
25 Christmas
Day
26
27 28
29 30
31 New Year’s
Eve
Oct 15 Jan-Oct15
Batson Prairie 0.00 874.00
Berean Tabernacle 0.00 1,000.00
Calvary, Dayton 500.00 5,000.00
Calvary, Liberty 258.00 2,400.44
Center, Thicket 44.00 625.00
Central Daisetta 0.00 879.12
Central, Liberty 108.43 1,302.84
Covenant 115.61 718.14
Eminence 0.00 378.00
First Anahuac 833.33 8,333.30
First Batson 0.00 1,600.00
First Concord 0.00 93.99
First Daisetta 266.00 2,743.00
First Dayton 649.94 8,961.44
First Devers 664.43 4,118.14
First High Island 0.00 1,328.00
First Hull 0.00 1,867.72
First Liberty 937.96 13,645.77
First Saratoga 373.04 3,923.02
First Sour Lake 912.46 9,148.65
Grace Community 650.00 5,750.00
Grayburg 0.00 600.00
Gum Grove 40.40 349.18
Hardin Baptist 1,081.69 13,289.48
Heights 575.88 6,931.48
House of Living Waters 0.00 0.00
Kenefick Southern 826.69 9,147.83
Mt Calvary 382.91 4,842.02
North Main 1,800.12 11,607.91
Nuevo Amanecer 0.00 0.00
Oak Island 37.90 370.31
Old River 1,166.67 11,666.70
Pathways 114.00 1,087.00
Primera Dayton 75.00 675.00
Smith Point 29.91 474.77
South Dayton 50.00 500.00
Sweet Home 0.00 0.00
Trinity 100.00 1,000.00
West End 469.00 4,976.00
Whispering Meadows 260.40 2,475.15
Wild Country Mission 362.00 1,513.00
Interest 4.89 87.02
TOTAL $13,690.66 146,283.42
Trinity River Baptists will gather at Cal-vary Baptist in Dayton on the evening of Tuesday, Dec. 8 to celebrate Christmas to-gether. The event begins at 6 p.m. Reservations are due by Wednesday, Dec. 2. To make your reservation, call Theresa Adair at 936-336-9232. The cost is $10 per person to help pay for the meal. Guest speaker will be August Boto, ex-ecutive vice president and general counsel for the Executive Committee of the South-ern Baptist Convention. The evening’s mu-sic will be led by Larry Pittman, music minis-ter of First Baptist Liberty.
NEWSPLASH
December
December
20152015
Reservations due Dec. 2
Christmas Fellowship great start to season
2401 Grand Ave., Liberty, Texas 77575 936-336-9232 David Williams, Director of Missions
TRBA Office Closed, Dec. 24 through Jan. 4
The menu includes Pork Loin, Twice Baked Potatoes, Green Beans, Salad, Roll and Dessert. “This is going to be an evening to remember,” said David Wil-liams, TRBA director of missions. “Delicious food, great music, and a special guest from our national convention. I have known Augie Boto for several years and am excited he has agreed to be with our association that week. It is an honor to have him.”
Boto also will be guest trainer during Pastor Essentials on Mon-day, Oct. 7. His topics include the Southern Baptist Convention, the Cooperative Program, and legal issues facing churches. “This will be a highlight for our Pastor Essentials students,” Wil-liams said. “Other pastors are welcome to come. Just let me know early that morning so we can include you in the count for the meal. Or come after the meal at 6:30 p.m.”
AUGUST BOTO
Church planting focus of TRBA annual meeting The photo on the front of the program showed a man and his son planting a sap-ling in the ground. The caption read: “The best time to plant a church is 20 years ago. The second best time is TODAY.” And so began the 71st Annual Meeting of Trinity River Bap-tist Association, Tues-day, Oct. 27, at Old River Baptist Church. As messengers arrived, they were asked to fill out slips of paper guessing how many beans were in a large basket displayed at the front of the sanctuary. During his director of missions report, David Williams ex-plained the number of beans—70,000—was the same as the number of people in
the area covered by TRBA. Then Williams had a representative from each church come forward and fill a
cup with beans. Each cup held 650 beans, which is the average worship attendance of TRBA’s largest church, Old River. After 41 cups were filled, the basket was still more than two-thirds full of beans. Williams pointed out that even if all 41 churches grew as large as Old River they would still not reach the lost tens of thou-sands in the area. “What do we need if we are going to
reach the rest of the people in our area?” Williams asked. The answer came back loud and strong: “More churches!”
During his message from 2 Corinthians 6:1-2, Gruver underscored the need for planting churches to show that the grace we have received from God is not in vain. “Today, God is calling the people of Trin-ity River Baptist Association,” Gruver said. “It's not just Bro. David. It's not just a few pastors. It is the people of God working to-gether tilling the soil, planting the seed, wa-tering the seedling, and trusting God to pro-vide the growth of His kingdom. “The call is for we, the people of God, to work together to plant new churches, spread the gospel, and see God build up His king-dom,” he said. “We are called daily to show that His grace in our lives is not in vain.” Messengers adopted a 2016 budget based on Acts 1:8, elected officers and lead-ers, and approved the 2016 calendar.
Counting beans —TRBA Director of Missions David
Williams shows messengers that most people are
not being reached by existing churches.
Challenging messengers —Heights Pastor Tim
Gruver urges listeners “not to receive God’s
grace in vain” but to work together to spread
the Gospel through planting churches.
Floods hit TRBA churches — South Day-ton (left), First Hull (above), First Liberty, Heights in Liberty and Eminence in Wal-lisville are TRBA churches impacted by the flooding that came at the end of Oc-tober and the first of November.
