What a day yesterday! It was the biggest one-time offering in the history of our church, and it really felt like a biblical way of giving. Hi, church, and welcome back to today’s video. This is a wrap-up of yesterday’s service. It was our thirty-ninth anniversary, and we have been wanting to go into our fortieth year completely debt-free. That has been the goal: to knock out the last of this $2.1 million loan. If you are new here, I am Ryan Rench, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Temecula, California. I want to talk about yesterday’s offering and some of what we covered in the afternoon service, and at the end I will give the exact total of the offering and tell you what the commitments were for the one-year commitment that ends on our fortieth anniversary. We have been calling it our Be Debt-Free offering. We have been preparing for it for a couple of years, talking about it, but this was the first year we really started promoting it in earnest: “On our thirty-ninth anniversary, let us take a one-time offering, as sacrificially and as biblically as possible.” I have been preaching through 1 Samuel and into 2 Samuel, now into the preparation for the temple, and yesterday was the tenth sermon in our temple series, the House of God series, where we have been making connections between the Old Testament temple, Solomon’s temple, and even Ezra’s second temple, and the house of God today, the church of God, looking at the parallels and connections. It is a beautiful way to analyze our own giving, looking at what giving looks like in the Old Testament and the New Testament and how that correlates to us today.
Twenty Years Since We Were Debt-Free
So our church people, you who are watching, participated in this sacrificial offering, with the goal that for the first time in twenty years we could be debt-free. We had paid off certain portions of our buildings through the years. Our first building was built in 1992, and that is now the children’s wing. Then in 1996 the sanctuary was built; that is the two center sections of our pews now. Then in 2006, 2007, and 2008 the two-story section and the gymnasium, the fellowship hall, were built, and the church met in the fellowship hall for a year while the existing sanctuary was expanded and the outer sets of pews were added to make it what it is now. Again, that was 2006, so the last time we were debt-free was right before we took out that big construction loan. This is the first time in twenty years we can be debt-free again. We have been plunking away at it; we have had stewardship campaigns over the years that my dad led. But yesterday was my fifth anniversary as pastor, and in these five years we have never done a push quite like this. So we wanted to see what the Lord would do in providing for us and allowing us to become debt-free. We said this would free up about $9,000 a month that would no longer go to the banks but could go to ministry, to the Great Commission, to reaching souls here in our valley. We had about $200,000 left at the beginning of the year, and for the past few months we have continued our regular mortgage payments, so we were down to about $183,000 out of the $2 million loan, right there within striking distance. We wanted to double our payment this year to knock out the debt.
So the goal was, just imagine entering our fortieth year debt-free. Yesterday was our thirty-ninth anniversary, which means we are now going into our fortieth year. We are not giving toward a big building program; we have already been enjoying these buildings for twenty years. It is not some big, visible thing people can sacrifice for and get excited about, so it may not seem very exciting to give toward an offering like this. But we wanted to present the vision, and over the past several weeks in our bulletins we have looked at different parts of the vision, which includes staff, souls, and stability, with a different focus each week. Several weeks ago we had several groups of people over to our home, talking about what this offering would mean, what it would do, how it would help our church immediately, and what changes it could bring to our church even though we are not working toward a big building program.
Staff
Here is the vision of what it would be. First, it would help our staff. Right now our staff salaries are far below average. I shared some numbers from reports we purchased for churches our size, factoring in our annual budget, the tenure of our staff, the amount of education an associate pastor has, our zip code, and various churches around this area. Taking all those factors into account, our associate pastor makes about half the median salary for our area. We do provide housing for him, but we want to get him up to a living wage. So some of our increase once we are debt-free would raise our staff salaries so we can keep them around long-term. I would love to keep Brother Zach and Miss Shay around long-term. Brother Alex Delid is joining our staff in a couple of weeks, actually, as a staff intern for the first year, ministering with the teens. He will be our summer intern and work full-time, but during that time he will be looking for jobs, because at the end of the summer he will back down to part-time, working a couple of days a week at the church, preaching to the teens on Sundays, and running youth activities. That will be his main focus. But if we are debt-free, in the long term we could increase his salary and bring him on, perhaps not full-time yet, but more days per week. So: increasing our associate pastor’s pay and bringing on a youth pastor. The next thing would be retirement. We would be able to set up a 403(b), which is like a 401(k), but for a nonprofit, a church. That way we could take advantage of the long runway in front of our young staff, of time and compound interest, and start a retirement fund that builds toward the future, so that the future members of Calvary Baptist Church will not have to rely on tithes for it but on the retirement we have put in place. If we can get the salaries and the retirement in place, that would be a huge step, one of the next steps we will take before we jump into any major projects.
Souls and Stability
Next would obviously be souls: greater outreach and more focus on missions, being part of church missions programs, church planting here in the U.S. We want our Jerusalem reached, and our Judaea, our region here, and our Samaria, our state of California, or domestic church planting here in the United States, and unto the uttermost parts of the world. So with missions projects, when the missionaries present a special need, we would be able to give toward it, and becoming debt-free would really give us a step up there. Next would be stability. By stability I mean everything after we are debt-free and after the staff adjustments, whether ministry improvements in phase two or ministry expansion in phase three. Anything above the $200,000, once we are debt-free, would go toward ministry improvements: exterior upgrades, interior upgrades, increased generosity, missions trips, those kinds of things. Every year we are trying to take care of the tripping hazards. Our parking lot is all cracked up. Our buildings are twenty years old, so the newest paint job is twenty years old, and it is not looking the greatest, so we could give it a fresh coat of paint. Some of our AC units are original, from 1992; those are really old units, and as they start to fail, we want to plan for them. Our printer is at the end of a five-year lease, so we might purchase a new printer and get a maintenance contract on top of that. This would allow some new carpeting upstairs; we did the sanctuary and the children’s wing, and we could upgrade the rest of the buildings up there, although the carpet is actually still doing very well. There are a couple of frayed spots I noticed, but for the most part it is not a pressing, urgent need. Probably some interior painting would happen. Then there are missions projects, as I mentioned: the California church planting conference, the national church planting conference, different missionary trips, missions special requests, and our annual missions revival, so we would not have to rely so much on special offerings but could rely on the regular giving of God’s people.
A New Monument Sign
One big project we have already been working toward is a new monument sign. They just opened up Nicolas Road. There is a path that goes out to Summerly, which I think they are still expanding at the far end; it is about 2,000 homes in that housing development. Another brand-new housing development, with model homes open right now, is just beside it, across the street on both sides, and further up the hill there is another one. So there are four major housing developments right up the street from our church, and all that traffic funnels right in front of the church, along with a new bike path and pedestrian path right in front of the church as well. We just want a nice presence, an upgraded, updated front area. So I am working with a landscape architect, a design architect, to put some drawings together and get the full picture of the layout of our whole five acres, but specifically the front area: a new sign design, a new landscaping design, even some lighting ideas. He is a local man who has done projects just up the road from us; he did the new school just up the road, and he does incredible work. He knows how to tie in existing architecture, he knows the landscaping and the drought-resistant plants for this area, and he knows the city codes and all of that. We needed some outside help, and he is doing a good job so far. I actually have a meeting with him today to talk through some ideas. What he sent me last week were a couple of architectural sketches, just line drawings. I put some of his line drawings into AI and said, “Okay, we have a red brick building, and I like the lumber on the outside of our buildings. We have a big, beautiful, weathered wooden cross, probably, I do not know, twelve or fifteen feet tall. Maybe we could tie some of that in, have an arbor over the top of our sign, get some timber elements and the red brick elements, take the architect’s designs, and see what that might look like.” These are just AI renderings, so do not get too attached to them. They are just ideas we are throwing around. The City of Temecula might limit us on the size or height of the sign, the square footage, how far we can go around the corner, or how far back from the sidewalk we need to be. And there is a big power pole and a big water pole there, and none of that shows in the AI renderings. These are just beautiful pictures of what it might be. Here is one idea with some beautiful landscaping he has drawn up, some timber-frame construction around it, and some red brick, with our church logo on a circular sign as people drive by. This would be a two-sided sign, seen from the street view. The front of our property stretches a couple hundred feet, and on the far side, by the Presbyterian church, there might be another little brick column with our church logo. Then the main sign might be an angled two-way sign with an arbor across the top, with those timber-frame elements and a nice pillar on top. Again, we do not know any of this; we are not married to any of these designs. We are just pitching ideas and seeing what they might look like. Here is another corner design idea; if it is a wider sign, something like that might work. But it may be that we have to live with our existing sign and just update some landscaping. I do not know. It was fun to dream and to look at these kinds of things, so there are a couple of ideas there.
Ministry Expansion
Ministry expansion would be phase three. After we have done a lot of the interior and exterior upgrades and the major updates to our church’s visibility, then we can think about expanding to new housing. Our pad up there is graded and zoned for a staff house; back in 2006, when we did all the grading, that was included in the master plan. We would love to get some new housing, get a new vehicle to replace our old church Jeep, and perhaps think about a church-planting internship. Here is another AI rendering of what it might look like with a double-wide trailer up there. If anything, maybe we put in a pad, get some power and septic up there, and at least make an RV parking area. Long-term, maybe we put a house up there with a sheriff’s deputy break room, a place where our Riverside County Sheriff’s Department could come write reports and have a quiet place with some snacks. If that is connected to the staff house somehow, there are many, many different ideas of what we could do up there.
The Offering
So this is a two-step program. Step one was the Be Debt-Free offering, and I was so excited even leading up to it. There was a hundred thousand committed right on the money, and if it had been less, that would have been totally fine. It was not about a goal, necessarily. I was hoping our church would give from the heart. We said multiple times, “If you are giving grouchy, just keep it. God is fine without it. He is a rich God. He can take care of it.” He wants us to give with a committed heart, a heart that offers willingly. So we led up to our thirty-ninth anniversary yesterday. There was singing in the service, then the preaching, then the worship, and the offering came after the preaching and worship time. Then we went to a meal, a time of rejoicing, a wonderful time together. The morning service closed with the offering, and then we had a wonderful lunch together, the most incredible smoked brisket, plenty of it, at least half a pound for every person. Rick and Jessica Fisher did an amazing job and probably stayed up all night the night before getting it all ready. After lunch we had the one o’clock afternoon service, and it was the best-attended afternoon service we have ever had. I think people wanted to hear the commitments and the total offering taken, and it was such a blessing to see everyone giving willingly, giving cheerfully. The deacons took up the offering at the close of the morning service and counted it during lunch, and at the one o’clock service we were able to report that the total offering that day, the biggest one-time offering in our church’s history, was $138,484.42. It was so humbling to come away from God’s people generously and sacrificially giving to the Lord. It was not as if one giant offering was given; everybody contributed, and it was a huge blessing. We felt like David in the text we preached from that morning: “Who am I, and what is my people?” Why would God be so merciful, so kind to us? We are nothing. We do not deserve this. God is just so good. We focused on verse 13: “Now therefore, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name. But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee.” So we took some time to celebrate in the afternoon service. We are going to put all $138,000 right on the principal of our mortgage. We were down to about $183,000 or so, and with this chunk of money I think we have about $44,000 left. The interest was $650 a month before, and now it will be about $150, since there is only a little left on our mortgage.
Step Two: A One-Year Commitment
So step one was the Be Debt-Free offering, and step two is for those who could not give directly to the one-time offering on May 3rd. Some people said, “Well, can I stretch it out, commit over the next year or so, and break up my offering?” So we wanted an opportunity to give one time, and also a commitment offering, in addition to our tithes and faith promise missions, from our thirty-ninth anniversary to our fortieth anniversary: a one-year freewill commitment toward the debt, and once the debt is paid off, it will go into phase two. We did this, I think, twelve or fifteen years ago in our stewardship campaign, and I did not know we could stop. I committed years ago to give toward our building program, toward the debt, and we have always been putting extra on the debt over the years, and I believe a few people have continued that. But this one has an end. It is a one-year commitment ending on our fortieth anniversary, and from the commitments that came in yesterday alone, the total was $21,976, an additional almost $22,000 committed. With the additional cards that might come in, and additional gifts from those who may not have been there yesterday, I believe God is going to allow us to knock this debt out completely.
Baptisms
Yesterday was an incredible day of celebration, and the highlight of the day was celebrating the biblical ordinance of baptism at the close of the service. It was so wonderful. We showed Lucas’s video testimony of how he came to Christ at the close of the service, and everyone got to hear his story. He has been coming to our church for several months now. He came because of Joey and Eli, who themselves got baptized just a few weeks ago, and through their connection with him he is saved and now scripturally baptized. And just this past Wednesday, Ishmael and his wife came to the services. I was not here, but my dad met with them and spoke with them about their salvation. They are saved but had not been scripturally baptized yet. She was working, unfortunately, but Ishmael got baptized on Sunday afternoon as well. Solomon was building the temple, but in the text we were in, 1 Chronicles 29, David charges Solomon to have an upright heart, to not just build the temple but to connect the temple to the commandments of the Lord and keep his heart before the Lord. I think the same is true for us. If all we did was pay off a building or have a church building, but we were not actually doing the work of the ministry and seeing souls saved, baptized, and discipled in the things of the Lord, then what are we even doing here? Why would we pay off the debt if we are not impacting souls for Jesus Christ? So the close of our day yesterday was the final cap on all we have been working toward. It is not only about the money; it is about the blessing of God through the ministry, seeing lives changed and helped by the gospel. That was a wonderful end to a wonderful buildup, and now we go forward into our fortieth year, hoping to knock out the last little bit of this debt, and we are so excited about what God wants to do in our fortieth year and beyond. God bless you, church, for giving. Thank you to those outside our church who are along for the ride and praying for us. What a great day it was, and we are very excited. We will see you in the next video.
