“So everything David did was supposed to be for Israel’s sake.” “We are trying to raise $200,000 to completely wipe out the debt and go into our fortieth year debt-free.” “They are building hundreds more homes right down that street, and all that traffic is going to go right by our church.” “Temecula is known for two things: wine country and the Pechanga Indian reservation casinos.” “We want to grow. We want to move forward. We want to do the best thing for the church as a whole.” “When we have the mindset that this is not my kingdom, this is not my control, I am not in charge of this thing, I am just here to serve and do what is best for the most people, then I am just praying for smoothness in the transition through all of that.”
A Production-Minded Pastor
Today’s video is a peek into a production-minded pastor’s workflow. In last Wednesday’s printed bulletin I shared fifteen bullet points of things I am working on at the church. They are all at various stages of completion, but all of them are for people. I am a production-minded pastor. I know that has its faults, and I have talked to our church about that, but I also know it is how God designed me. Everyone has their perfect picture of what a pastor should be, and I do too, and although I am very far from the ideal pastor in my mind, I really do seek the Lord about what I should be doing and what we ought to give our time to. So for us, I am very often in production of something I believe will be of some spiritual value to people. I am preaching Sunday on King David being instituted as king. The Bible says in 2 Samuel 5:12, “And David perceived that the LORD had established him king over Israel, and that he had exalted his kingdom for his people Israel’s sake.” So everything David did was supposed to be for Israel’s sake; his reign was really for their benefit. And the text goes on to show some of the production he threw himself into. In today’s video I am not going to talk so much about the people side of the ministry or what the production will lead to. I will talk more about the production side, giving you a little sneak peek into what I am calling a production-minded pastor’s workflow. I explained some of these on Wednesday night, but the beauty of these videos is that we can go into them in a little more detail than I would in a Sunday service. So this is for our church, but if you are new here, my name is Ryan Rench, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Temecula, California, and I am excited to share some of what we are doing. This was our Wednesday night sheet. I included some Scripture references for the sermon, some resources I have found very helpful in my own weekly studies, and some of the emails that had come through, topics I would not necessarily cover in a church setting all the time, but I thought, “These are good. Go check these out.” So I shared some of those in the printed bulletin. But I also put this whole projects section in the bulletin, and I want to go through these fifteen items. Some I am almost done with, and others I am just starting, and here are a few more details on some of them.
Be Debt-Free Sunday
The first one mentioned is our Be Debt-Free Sunday. The Be Debt-Free Sunday booklet is something I am working on. We are trying to get to our thirty-ninth anniversary with a big offering to send us into our fortieth year debt-free. I think it will be a one-time offering and then a one-year commitment, similar to faith promise, where we sacrifice one time and then maybe make a one-year commitment, just to help us become debt-free. Here is a sneak preview of the first couple of pages of the booklet I am working on. I am really looking forward to seeing what God will do, not only in meeting the physical needs of our church but also in the spirit of our church. I believe there is a good spirit. Some people are against talking about money and all that. We do talk about money regularly, but I am not ashamed of that; Jesus did too. Money is what makes the world go round, and we live a lot of our lives in it. Money is at the center of all our exchange. We are not in a bartering system anymore; we are in a money-exchange system, so money is central to what we do and talk about. For those who have had bad past experiences, or who are a little tense about talking about money, I think it is uncharitable to say all we do is talk about money, compared to the vast amount of other things we talk about. So I am okay with just seeking the Lord and trying to follow Him even in the area of money. In this case, we will be talking about our Be Debt-Free offering. We are trying to raise $200,000 to completely wipe out the debt and go into our fortieth year debt-free, and for anything in addition to that, we are dreaming big. I have a vision for any size of gift, depending on how many zeros are at the end of it. It could be a parking lot upgrade. It could be a new sign, and I will talk about that in a little bit. It could go all the way out to a church-planting intern and a long-term commitment, or it could be something much, much smaller, like a new printer, and we will talk about everything in between.
A New Monument Sign
The first one mentioned here is a new monument sign. For the past couple of years I have really been burdened to get our front entrance either a new sign or some kind of beautification project, to catch the new traffic that is going to be driving by our church. Just a couple of weeks ago they opened Nicolas Road, the street our church sits on. It is a big pass-through that eventually makes its way out to Butterfield Stage Road, which will eventually go all the way through to Murrieta Hot Springs and Auld Road. It is going to be the pass-through for a huge neighborhood they are building right now. They just finished Summerly, I think it was, apparently 2,000 homes, and they are building hundreds more homes right down that street, and all that traffic is going to go right by our church. I would love to have a nice, beautiful sign; right now we just have some scrub trees out there. I would really like to update our sign and have a beautiful front entrance, so I have asked a couple of guys in our church who are good with CAD drawings to put something together so we can get some kind of visual. I have been trying to use ChatGPT to get a visual together, and it just will not quite get it. But here is the image from Google Earth, cleaned up a little. I am trying to get the idea right here in this pink area; that is where the sign would be. I want to change that whole front corner, potentially even with some kind of archway or gateway over our parking lot to match the City of Temecula gateway, as a nice, inviting way to welcome people as a front entrance. I am scrubbing through all kinds of sign ideas, red brick sign ideas, and ways our front entrance could be, based on what we see when we drive around Temecula wine country. Temecula is known for two things: wine country and the Pechanga Indian reservation casinos. When you drive around to the wineries and casinos, they have some of the most attractive signs, and those are for the vices of drinking and gambling. They are selling something we believe is harmful, and we have something so much greater in the gospel. We want to share the gospel in an attractive and beautiful way and not give the gospel a bad name, so to speak. So I would love to get a nice, beautiful sign out at the street, and anything beyond paying off our debt would go toward this new monument sign.
Capital Improvements
In addition to that, we have other capital improvements in the works. The first part of our church buildings was built in, I think, 1991 or 1992, and since then there have been a few additions. The latest addition started in 2006, twenty years ago, which means the newest parts of our building are twenty years old. We have done some renovations, and we keep it looking very nice; it is almost hard to believe the buildings are twenty years old, but the newest part truly is. I think it is wise to think about the future and look ahead to the air-conditioning units that might break down, the roof leaks, and the things that just happen as buildings age. So we want to plan ahead for some capital improvements and think about what is coming. We want to give the outside a fresh coat of paint. We want to finish out the two-story building. We renovated the sanctuary and the children’s wing, but now we need to change out the carpet, paint the walls, and update the lighting in the two-story wing. So capital improvements are in the plans for the next couple of years, depending on any additional funds that come in beyond becoming debt-free. That is another of the projects we are preparing right now.
Ladies’ Devotionals and the Baptist Baptism Book
Another is my wife’s upcoming ladies’ devotionals. She finished the Joy devotional, which has already been such a blessing. So many people have contacted her and me about using it. When we were at the GIBF meeting, the Global Independent Baptist Fellowship meeting, last week (maybe it is a couple of weeks ago now), she had so many people saying, “I bought it when you first released it, but I have not had a chance to get to it.” And a couple in particular said, “I am working through it now,” or, “We just finished it,” or, “We just brought our ladies’ group at our church through it,” and it was such a blessing: so many specific, helpful, encouraging thoughts from the book, and even some real spiritual breakthroughs because of it. I was so encouraged for my wife in that regard. And here she is with another one, the Ezekiel one. I mentioned it last year, and it is really, really good. The next one she has coming out, the feelings book, is going to be so helpful. She has not finished writing it; she has the framework for all four sessions done but has not fully written the lessons yet, and we are not even sure this will be the final cover design. But I am really excited to share both of these ladies’ devotionals with the world, and they are coming very soon.
Next is my Baptist baptism book. I have received so much feedback; even this morning, as I was preparing some other things, more feedback came in on the Baptist baptism book, and there are many more ways I could add to it. Somebody said, “You need to basically double the length of it,” and I said, “No, I have already doubled the length from before.” I am trying to work within the parameters of keeping it short, approachable, and readable for those who want a bit of a deep dive, not just the surface level. It is not a twenty-page pamphlet; it is about eighty pages of some rich thoughts. But I am trying not to go so academic and deep that it is confusing, putting some of the arguments and other material in the footnotes, trying to make it as readable as possible while also fielding the different theological viewpoints on all the texts I deal with on baptism, and on Baptist baptism in particular. I have been working on it since my sermon at Heartland; I preached at the church planters conference on Baptist baptism and got some good feedback from that. I sent it to several of my friends, and they have sent their thoughts back by now; I am still getting some of those in. I have a lot of editing to do. It is not a pressing project right now, and I am just working on it in my free time, but I anticipate it will be about a month before I finalize it and get it available on Amazon. So the Baptist baptism book is in the works.
Visitation, a Printer, and Summer Camp
Our visitation program is coming along well. We are really working on Saturdays to follow up with guests especially, but of course I also want to do in-home visits with our church members and families and just drop in on folks. That kind of thing has been a weakness of mine, and I want to get better at it, so since the new year we have started working on it a little more on Saturdays. The next is a new printer. I do not have any beautiful graphics to share for this one. Our sixty-month, five-year lease on our old printer is up, and by the end of it we had paid several thousand dollars more than the value of the machine. By the nature of a lease, you are locked in, and I did not realize it was sixty months when we signed for it. There were a couple of other factors too; I was not super pleased with the machine we got. It has been okay, but I am looking forward to upgrading. It will probably be $12,500 to buy a new machine outright. I am working with Konica Minolta, Kyocera, and Sharp, all three, and we are in the process of trying to get the right machine at the right price, with the right service provider who can service our area, make sure we have toner, and fix any problems that come up. I am really looking forward to getting a better printer for less cost. Our costs increased by ten percent every year, which was another thing I did not realize, so at the end of this five-year lease we are paying way too much for our printer. I am excited about the new printer and some of the new printed materials we will be able to do on it. We are also in the middle of preparations for summer camp. We sent our welcome email to all the churches, youth pastors, and pastors who are going to join us. Several churches joined us last year, and I am looking forward to coordinating and organizing that again this year. We work through all the rules, the registration process, the music, and all of that on our end, so we are in the process of spreading the word. If you are in the area and would like to come to summer camp with us at Camp Ironwood, let me know, and we will see if we can get you added to the list.
Interns and Baptisms
Next, we are finalizing our summer interns. I just confirmed with the pastor of a student who wants to be with us, and his pastor said, “Yes, go ahead and have him. I think it would be good training.” So I am excited to announce Brother Marcus as our summer intern. He is from New Mexico. I do not have a second intern yet. There is a married couple I have been talking to a little; they have been through our church before, but I am trying to figure out housing and finances and all of that. We are making plans for our summer, and that includes summer interns, so a lot of projects are stacking up and waiting for them. Next is part of any ongoing ministry where people are being saved: there are always people to follow up with on baptism. I am excited that Caesar, a young man in our discipleship right now, who was baptized maybe a couple of years ago, is getting serious about his discipleship. He led his sister Isabelle to the Lord, and she needs to be baptized, along with a couple of others, and we have to get those scheduled. I am thankful for the baptisms we had a couple of weeks ago and looking forward to more this coming year. That is what it is all about right there.
The Phoenix Church Planters Conference
Next, I mentioned the Phoenix church planters conference. I am helping coordinate some of it, and our website, swchurchplanting.com, is available for anybody to check out. It is for the southwestern states (California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, even Utah, and that whole southwestern region). We gather with pastors and church planters to present the needs of church planters, and the pastors who bring offerings give to those needs. I represented the California churches last year. Brother John Vaude coordinates especially for the Arizona churches, and he is the one coordinating the entire conference. Each state has a representative who presents the church planters from their state. I am so excited. I was so encouraged last year by the preaching of Brother Dean Herring, and this year, as you see on our website, the conference preacher is Brother Alan Fong, a phenomenal preacher, a great preacher on soul winning and on leading the people of his church. So if you can make it, I encourage you to set some time aside and be with us June 1st and 2nd, 2026. It starts on a Monday night and concludes on a Tuesday night, and you can check out all the details on the website, swchurchplanting.com. There is a little welcome video John and I did, and a lot of the information is right here. If you are a church planter, you can register by clicking the registration form and filling out your information. There is a little doctrinal and philosophical video you watch and click that you agree with, just to make sure we are not platforming somebody we would not agree with; it shows that these men have been vetted. Then add your information here, and this will be a way to potentially be considered for some of the fundraising at the conference. I hope people can make it. It is going to be a wonderful time.
A Staff Intern and an Office
Next, I mentioned Brother Alex Delid, who is coming on as staff intern. He is graduating from Heartland Baptist Bible College in May. He interned with us in 2023 and 2025, and I love his spirit, the way he presents and carries himself. He was here for our preaching rally last weekend, or a couple of weekends ago now, and ran all the games, and many of the youth pastors assumed he was a full-time staff member, a seasoned vet, but he is just a college student. It already shows the hand of God on his life for the calling of youth ministry, and I am excited that he is coming as a staff intern. He is committed to a year, and we are committed to a year, and if God continues to open doors after that, I am praying God allows us to bring him on as our youth pastor. That is coming in the future. We cannot pay him this first year, and he has agreed to work for free, but if we become debt-free, maybe there will be funds available to take him on as our youth pastor. I hope that is the case. Next is an office space we are working on. My dad was just down here measuring some things, and we might build a little shed out back for the decorations, because one of the rooms inside is completely full of Christmas decorations, communion table decorations, and all that. We are going to move all of that out to the shed and convert that room up by the youth room and Brother Zach’s office, probably into Brother Alex’s office. So even though Brother Alex is coming to work for free, he is still costing us money. I am excited to have him, and also excited about some of these projects coming up as we have a shift in focus.
Shifting Classes
With Brother Alex coming, a lot of our classes shift around. Brother Alex is going to come in and immediately start ministering to the teens, but since he is unmarried and new at this, I still wanted Brother Zach and Miss Shay involved with him, and Miss Shay can focus on the young ladies of the youth group. With a single youth pastor, we will have to stock the youth ministry with a couple, or maybe a couple of couples, alongside him all the time. Probably the current youth staff will eventually transition out, allowing Brother Alex to come in with a fresh start, with an entire youth staff beginning fresh. With that, I believe Brother Zach and Miss Shay will be better suited to another class. I have been talking for a couple of years now about a young couples’ class. Brother Zach probably will not take that, but it has been on my heart to start a couples’ class. That leaves Rooted, our young adults class, open, and Brother Zach and Miss Shay might work with them. There are a lot of moving parts; we have some things in the works, but not everything is quite worked out yet. So we are in this process of, “Man, we want to grow. We want to move forward. We want to do the best thing for the church as a whole.” I have been praying that God would allow the spirit of our church to accommodate these transitions: a new youth pastor coming in, a teacher shifting, some who are already in one class shifting to another, and others who are not in a class joining a brand-new class, and for God’s grace to cover all those little moving parts. When we have the mindset that this is not my kingdom, this is not my control, I am not in charge of this thing, I am just here to serve and do what is best for the most people, then I am just praying for smoothness in the transition through all of that. There might be a little shift in our kids’ classes as well. With transition Sunday coming up this summer, I think in June, a lot of the kids promote from one class to the next, so there might be some teachers or classes shifting around because of the age divisions. Some classes might be completely empty or down to one student, so we want to shift some of those around as well. I am just praying for flexibility among our teachers and the helpers and workers in all these classes, praying God will allow something beautiful to come of it. That is just a little glimpse of the fifteen things we have in the works, and of course there is much more than that all the time; there are always plenty of things we are working on. But those were the fifteen things, at least, that we mentioned to the church. I hope that gives you a little peek into a production-minded pastor’s workflow, the things we are always working on. I hope you enjoyed it. We will see you in the next video. God bless you.
