The Kerusso – June | 2023

Five Denominational Priorities (A Continuing Series by International General Superintendent Edwards)

Thanks for your time and interest as I’ve been sharing these last months about the focus word for 2023 ... PEACE. As you know by now, “peace” is a mnemonic tool for remembering five denominational priorities that will continue to be foundational targets for us in EMC leadership:

P Planting Churches

E Educating Ministers

A Aspiring to Holiness

C Connecting People and Churches

E Equipping Leaders

The last of the five priorities conveyed through the peace acronym is “Equipping Leaders.”

God’s WORD is crystal clear that this is something that we MUST do. In profoundly straightforward terms, the Apostle Paul admonishes us who are in ministry roles to EQUIP GOD’S PEOPLE.

“Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:11-13)

We must be duplicating ourselves, empowering people to do the work of ministry. And implicit in the word “empower” is the task of giving power to ... which means releasing control. That’s hard, especially when we so badly want to ensure excellence and attention to detail. But if we don’t release power, we will never adequately train. One of the hardest things to do is to give others the freedom to make mistakes. Sure, we want to prevent catastrophic errors that deeply injure people and dishonor Christ, but proper discipleship and training will always involve taking some risk.

Over the next several years, we hope to find increasingly better ways of empowering pastors, and lay people in our local churches. We welcome your thoughts and ideas as to how best to do so. In all of our District meetings around the country this year, we have been asking for specific feedback on just that subject.

As soon as we have time to process the information we have gained from attendees in Tennessee, California, Washington, and North Carolina, we will report back to you about what we hope to see happen in this regard in the coming years in the EMC.

Thanks! Max Edwards

EMC International General Superintendent

From the Desk of the General Secretary-Treasurer

Growing up, my mother and father taught me the importance of sharing and having a heart set on giving, not greed. I have always tried to live up to that godly counsel in many ways personally. I modeled that behavior in my ministry as well. As a pastor, if I read a book that ministered to me, I would pass it on to others. If I attended a meaningful conference or event, I would try my best to pass on what I had learned to my congregation. As a Superintendent, I passed on from time-totime relevant articles or online podcasts to pastors. And now, as General Secretary-Treasurer, I see the importance of continuing that practice.

Below are links to important information regarding church financial matters and board governance that I think will help you as pastors and local church leaders.

How Well Does Your Church Prevent Financial Misconduct? | Church Law & Tax (churchlawandtax.com) - This link will take you to a webpage with a collection of nine articles on safeguarding financial misconduct in the church and advice on how to deal with it if it unfortunately happens.

What Can Churches Do in Response to the Recent Bank Failures? - CapinCrouse LLP - Here is a short article from our auditors on how churches and non-profits should respond to the recent U.S. bank failures. I will discuss these with the Board of Finance in the coming months.

Ten Questions Every Church Board Member Should Ask - Brotherhood Mutual - Ten good questions suggested by Brotherhood Mutual for the Board of Stewards and staff members to answer. Have a blessed day!

District “Journey” Meetings 2023

ONE FINAL MEETING COMING UP:

CrossLink Church

Rutherford College, NC | June 7-8

Church Clippings

Jared Winslow - North Carolina

Excerpts from Pastor Jared’s 2022 Ministry Report: “2022 was my first full year pastoring Community EMC. Some church events that I led in 2022 were: Creating and distributing Easter baskets with Gospel and church information to children throughout the community; Distributing goody bags with glow sticks, tracts, and church information at a Fourth of July fireworks event. Holding our church’s 83rd Anniversary homecoming service on October 2nd. We took up special offerings for the Myanmar refugee relief as well as relief for hurricane victims and the November Missions Offering.

“For the first time, our church entered a float in the Thomasville Christmas parade, with a live Nativity scene, with church members walking alongside the float passing out bags of candy, church information, and gospel tracts. I am praying our church members grow closer to each other and to God through our Bible study and prayer time each week, and that we can bring new members in.”

Roger Burns - North Carolina

Excerpts from Pastor Roger’s 2022 Ministry Report: “Our motto for the year of 2022 was the acronym of REM which is, Reaching, Evangelizing, and Making disciples one heart at a time. We are cultivating a ministry through Crumpler’s Funeral Home. This past year I’ve done many funerals in hopes to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because of that ministry we have won families back to the church. This year we took in 9 new members.

“Our prayer was for a children’s ministry. Wow! God is Faithful. We tried a one day VBS and we are thankful for Sister Taylor Angel and all who volunteered for this past Summer Outreach. Rick and Kathy Angel put a focus on our children and now we have an active Children’s Ministry. We now have a Children’s room decorated and painted for our kids. Children are coming back to the church and we MUST continually keep our focus upon them.

“In 2023, our verses are Hebrews 13:5-6 “Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So we may boldly say: ‘The LORD is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?”