Ministry Update May 1, 2022 - We exist to make, mature, mobilize, and mul4ply disciples of Jesus Christ - FBC ...

Ministry Update
             May 1, 2022

We exist to make, mature, mobilize, and mul4ply
             disciples of Jesus Christ

DEACON MINISTRY
          Jonathan Robinson            Doug Jones
                Chair                  Vice-Chair

Jonathan Robinson will continue to serve as chair until July 31st
when Doug Jones will take over for his year of service.

Doug has been working with the Nominating Committee to select
people who will serve on the Personnel and Stewardship
committees, as well as naming chairs of said committees.

The Deacon Ministry is a call to serve–to influence other believers
to full maturity in Christ by intentionally serving people at the
point of their need. At FBCPTC, we believe the most effective
means to accomplish this mission is through the Life Group
ministry. The primary role of the deacon is to partner with the Life
Group leader and members to help create and facilitate a nurturing,
Great Commission community.

This year we made the decision to remove the duties of the call/
care/connection teams in order to allow the deacons to focus on
leading or attending GROW groups. Each deacon has been
challenged to form or attend a group with the sole purpose of
helping other men grow closer and create a deeper relationship and
understanding of God. In each meeting, we have been training the
men on how to better lead these groups in ways to make them
more effective.

Each deacon is assigned to at least one widow. We ask that they
contact that widow at least once a month. Lynn Fairly is currently
leading our Widow Ministry and keeps us informed on any new
widows we have so that we can minister to them.

We are also in the process of formulating a new process on how the
deacons can better serve the church and how we can be more
effective and efficient in how we serve the congregation.

                MEMBERSHIP UPDATE

            Baptisms                              10
             Deaths                               5
         New Members                  48 Individuals / 15 Family
                                                Units
             Visitors                131 Individuals / 59 Families
  Attended Starting Point Class             28 Individuals

         *All data from October 18, 2022, to May 1, 2022

                   PERSONNEL TEAM
                 Tom Windham Eric Phillips
                     Chair    Vice-Chair

           Members: Rachel Jones, Leigh Anne Simmons,
            Bill Manto, Lindsey Burton & Charlie Tingle

The second half of the 2021-2022 church year has been very active
for the Personnel Committee.

Major projects/activities include:

1. Student Ministry – Our Student Pastor, Jason Gossett,
   resigned from FBCPTC at the end of March and joined a
   church in Tennessee. With our love and gratitude, the PC
   organized a farewell reception for Jason and authorized
   Pastor Cedric Beckles, under the direction of Pastor Craig
   Hamlin, to lead the Student Ministry in the interim. The PC
   team, along with four Student Ministry Council
   representatives, are beginning the process to seek out,
   evaluate, and select our next Student Pastor.

   Personnel continued…

2. Staff Job Descriptions (Reference paragraph 206 in PC
   Policy Handbook) Reviewed and approved job descriptions
   for all church employees. Each job description outlines the
   position’s General Purpose, Functions, Tasks, General
   Expectations, and Qualifications.

3. Staff Review/Evaluation Process (Reference paragraph
   207 in PC Policy Handbook)– Reviewed and approved
   formal bi-annual performance review/evaluation process
   for Ministry and Support staff. The process includes both
   self-evaluation and a supervisor evaluation. Engagement
   review forms for both, self and supervisor, are available for
   documenting each review.

4. 2022-2023 Personnel Budget Reviewed and approved the
   2022-2023 Personnel budget which reduced the Personnel

impact on the overall church budget from 53% to 52%. All
       staff positions will be given Bonuses and COLA increases.

   5. Personnel Staff At-A-Glance

       •   26 total staff positions in the 2022-2023 budget
       •   13 full-time positions, 2 vacant
       •   13 parttime positions, 6 vacant

                 STEWARDSHIP TEAM
                 Mac Tignor           Gary Wood
                   Chair              Vice-Chair

    Members: Mike Bell, Steve Roof, Kimberly Johnson,
      Tommy Statham, Kim Hullett & Doug Barclay

What an amazing year! God continues to demonstrate His grace
and faithfulness to our church through your generous giving.
Through March, we have received $2,209,380 in gifts towards the
2021-22 Stewardship Plan - $267,047 above our spending plan
target. Expenses through the same period were below plan by
$161,589 totaling $1,771,744.

After completing our Unleashed campaign last May, we returned
$245,929 to the budget in 2021-22 for missions and ministry
purposes, set aside $58,000 for facility improvements and raised
our capital reserve contributions by $38,667 with a balance
through March of $202,697. We completed renovations to the
preschool and children’s areas in the fall and will be installing new

playground equipment in July. Modifications to the office opened
up needed conference space, home to our new member Starting
Point classes. Ongoing work to complete the support kitchen and
replace exterior windows will be completed this summer.

The Dream Bigger fund is off to a good start with gifts totaling
$46,087. This fund, combined with budgeted monies, and a
potential surplus from the current fiscal year, should put us in a
great position to begin work on planned projects. These include
repairing and painting the building exterior, landscape
improvements, parking lot resealing, and security and technology
improvements.

Our church staff continues their outstanding job of managing cash
flows and being faithful stewards of all that God has provided our
church through your generosity and faithfulness.

MISSIONS TEAM
                       Pastor Mark Matson

  Members: Anita Butler, Ken King, Bill Manto, Margaret
      Phillips, Scott Sandahl, & Carlton Spaulding

                  Missions & Pastoral Care

Our recent Engage Celebration Missions Conference was a huge
success after a two-year hiatus. We were able to share and
celebrate just a few stories of how we have engaged locally over
the past four years. Our Widowed Luncheon and Festival of
Nations were also great ministry events.      Our Ambassadors
continue to work hard to keep our Life Groups informed on what
we are doing as a church missionally.

We are making plans for two mission trips this summer. Our
annual CHARM trip will be July 10-16 in Townsend, Tennessee.
Also, we are hopeful to get back to Canada, July 9-16, to assist
Chris and Hannah Greenwood and ministry to thousands of
Canadians during their annual Stampede festivities.

Our Pastoral Care line is pastoralcare@fbcptc.org or calling
470-615-2828. This is where our church family can let us know of
any illness, hospitalizations, surgeries, and procedures related to
those in our church.

The Bridge
Our Upward season finished up strong in February. We had a great
number of participants and awesome families. We had our first-
ever post-season tournament for our 5th-6th grade divisions.

With summer coming fast, we will once again have our volleyball
and basketball camps which were both filled last year. Volleyball
camp will be June 6-10 and Basketball camp will be held July
11-15. For the first time in our history, we will have an Upward

Volleyball League in the Fall. That season will be held in August
and September and registration will open on June 1.
                     WORSHIP ARTS
                      Pastor Rob LaLiberte

                      Worship Ministry

The Worship Ministry is saying goodbye to our Worship Associate,
Timothy Stroud as he has accepted a call to be the Worship Pastor
at Crossroads Baptist Church in Valdosta, GA. We wish him well
and send him with our blessings.

We recently had a wonderful time of ministry on Palm Sunday,
featuring our worship band and choir along with Steve Green as he
ministered powerfully through song and word.

Christmas was extra special this year as the Worship Team, Deaf
Ministry, and Drama team brought a powerful time of worship for
our Christmas Kickoff on December 5. Then our worship team led
us in our first ever Christmas Eve in the Park down by Lake
Peachtree! The first annual attempt at this was a huge success and
a fantastic outreach experience for our community.

The Worship Ministry looks forward to preparing for our annual
Freedom Celebration service and picnic.

DISCIPLESHIP MINISTRIES
                     Congregational Life
                       Dr. Craig Hamlin

Over the past six months, our discipleship team has gone through
some transitions, but we are hard at work making sure every area
of our Preschool, Children’s, Student, and Adult ministries are
moving toward growing a disciple-making culture. We have also
been hard at work assimilating new families into the life of our
church. With the excellent work of Ben Woodard, Pastor of Young
Families, and Cedric Beckles, Pastor to Adults and Interim Student
Pastor, we have made huge strides in reaching young families who
have found a home here at FBC. Our goal has been to connect
them to a LIFE Group and for them to find a place of serving
significance. Obviously, getting them connected into the life of our
church so they can begin their spiritual growth journey with us is
paramount.

As we looked over our assimilation strategy, we felt that we could
make some improvements to broaden the teaching and put new
membership candidates on a stronger footing that would lead them
toward our mission of seeing them make, mature, mobilize and
multiply as a disciple of Jesus Christ. To do this, we rebranded our
Partnership Class to a new process called: “Starting Point”. We
built Starting Point around our mission strategy. Starting Point 101
would take a look at our core values, and core beliefs allowing
them to see our overarching purpose as a church. Starting Point
201 would show them how God connects people in relationship
and how biblical community was essential for spiritual health.

Starting Point 301 would then take a deeper dive into how God had
designed them and where they could serve within the body of
Christ here and in their community. Starting Point 401 would teach
them how we are structured to be on mission and how they can live
missionally by teaching them how to share their faith story and
share the Gospel intentionally within any relationship. These four
classes started on Sunday, March 6. They meet for four weeks
every other month. The next four-week series will begin on
Sunday, May 1.

Congregational Life continued…

We are still working toward a fully integrated online presence with
a curriculum and choices for people to study. Currently, we are
working on a fifteen-session Basics to Christianity. Other bible
books and resources will follow as we are able to edit and publish
the work through our online platforms.

                       Adult Ministries
                      Pastor Cedric Beckles

As many of you know, Life Groups are a vital part of the ministry
here at First Baptist, and they continue to be strong as ever. Each
of our Life Groups, both on and off-campus, continues to meet
each week to study God’s word, grow in Christ and connect. A new
group composed of middle and high school parents has started and
is booming; Pastor Mark leads this group, and they will outgrow
their classroom before long.

We are in constant need of new groups, multiplication of existing
groups and meeting space. All of these are good problems to have
as it indicates the growth of our Life Group Ministry. We are
looking for willing and able teachers and facilitators to help with
leading groups and are excited to see how God continues to use
this for the health of our church.

Our midweek men’s bible study completes its second seven-week
installment before breaking for the summer. The second segment
saw our men committed to studying and applying the principles
and teaching from the book of James. Pastor Craig led this study
and saw tremendous growth from those in the group.

Adult bible studies of this nature have lots of margins, and we
would love to see more of these happening for both the men and
women of the church. We have a plan to continue growing this
ministry and ask that you partner with us in this endeavor. We are
grateful for what the Lord is doing in our church, and our love for
Him and ministry continues to increase.
             Preschool & Children’s Ministry
                       Pastor Ben Woodard

The Preschool and Children's Ministry is an exciting place to be
these days!

Since opening our renovated facilities in September, our average
Sunday morning attendance has increased by 50%. Thank you to
all of the awesome leaders who faithfully teach God's Word to our
kids on Sunday mornings.

Our Fall Festival, Christmas Party, 5th Grade Disciple Now, Easter
Celebration and Daddy-Daughter Date Night have all been filled
with laughs, and memories and have encouraged our families in
their faith journey.

Vacation Bible School is coming up June 13-17. This summer at
Spark Studios we are going to kick our creativity into high gear as
we learn that God's creativity did not stop in Genesis. The Master
Artist is working to redeem, reclaim and transform us - His
creation - to the design he planned for us. We can't wait for you to
be with us here at PTCKids! Register your kids or sign up to
volunteer. https://kideventpro.lifeway.com/myEvent/?id=61064

Please keep our 30 students and adults in your prayers as we attend
CentriKid Camp at Gardner-Webb University, June 27-July 1.

We look forward to getting our new playground in, adding on some
theming details in our Preschool and Children's wings, and
creating some awesome family fun nights this summer!

Stay in touch with everything we are doing on our website https://
fbcptc.org/kids/

                      Weekday Education
                        Mrs. Tonya Sparks

From fall festivities to the Christmas program and class parties, to
Read Across America Week and a visit from The Cat in the Hat, to
Easter festivities, and finally Bike Rodeo…we have had a busy
time with a lot of fun and learning as we go!

We are seeing growth! We are currently operating with a staff of
15 teachers/assistants and myself. We currently have 79 students
and already have 60 on our roll for the fall. Last year at this time,
we only had 46, and the previous year, 28. It’s looking like we will
need to have two classes for 2’s, 3’s, and 4’s next year!

The end of the school year is fast approaching. To close out the
year, the students, along with Ms. Ginny, are working hard on the
program (May 11) and kindergarteners are anticipating their
graduation on the 18th.

Students
                      Pastor Cedric Beckles

This part of the year has historically been a high point for student
ministry. We’re riding high from a challenging but enjoyable time
at DNOW, have a great sense of community, and we’re prepared to
ride that wave to Beach Week, no pun intended. We have seen an
increase in attendance and engagement on Wednesday nights,
while Sunday morning small groups are more vital than ever.
Although students are in the middle of a leadership change, they
have shown patience, understanding, and resiliency while looking
with excitement about what the next chapter of student life at
FBCPTC may entail.

We are only a few weeks away from Beach Week, which kicks off
a fun-filled and hectic summer. In addition to camp, we will have a
few lake days, pool parties, Sunday night gatherings and eat all the

summer food we can. In the middle of all of that, we want students
to understand the importance of having a life with Christ; often, we
have a misplaced view of how we should relate to God, which
causes us to behave in ways that keep us disconnected from Him.
We will spend time in scripture and rethink how we relate to God;
we want students to see that God wants to have a relationship with
us.

The work of ministry is often challenging but extremely rewarding.
I ask that you continue to support us as we continue the work of
helping students grow in faith, connect and have a healthy
relationship with God.

             Senior Adults (Legacy Builders)
                       Pastor Mark Matson

Legacy Live is the first Thursday of each month at 10:AM in our
Worship Center. This is a time for concentrated prayer for several
different things that need our prayer. We also have a time of
sharing and singing some good old gospel hymns. Every three
months after Legacy Life we go and have lunch together.

The Celebrators conference will once again be in Pigeon Forge,
Tennessee October 10-13. Registration is now open and a deposit
of $25 will be needed by mid-May to register and hold rooms.

Our annual Peach trip will be coming in July and the Apple trip in
the fall. We are also discussing the Joy Luncheon returning in
September.

                 Nomination Team Report

Nominations for Personnel:

                      Krissy Bush           2025
                      Amanda Statham        2025
                      Greg Harrell          2025

Vice-Chair Lindsey Burton

Nominations for Stewardship:

                     Andrea Strain              2025
                     Todd Roberts               2025

                              Vice-Chair Doug Barclay

Officers to be reconfirmed:

Treasurer            Mike Bell

Trustees             Tank Smith                 2022 – 2023
                     Lynn Fairley               2023 – 2024
                     Alan Harrelson             2024 – 2025
                     Jack Miller                2025 – 2026

                          Dr. Joey Rodgers
                            Senior Pastor
                          joeyr@/bcptc.org

                            Craig Hamlin
                 Executive Pastor Congregational Life
                          craigh@/bcptc.org

Mark Matson
        Executive Pastor Missions & Care
              markm@/bcptc.org

                 Rob LaLiberte
         Executive Pastor Worship Arts
                robl@/bcptc.org

                Cedric Beckles
             Adult Ministries Pastor
              cedricb@/bcptc.org

                 Ben Woodard
            Pastor of Young Families
               benw@/bcptc.org

                  Jacob Sparks
              Communities Pastor
               jacobs@/bcptc.org

                  Chip Yeager
Executive Director Operations & Online Ministries
                chipy@/bcptc.org

                Kim Kocikowski
              Director of Operation
                kimk@/bcptc.org

                Tonya Sparks
     Weekday Director of Education Ministry
               tonyas@/bcptc.org