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🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 All right. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Verity Baptist Church. Take out your bulletin. We'll go through a couple things real quickly. First, let's count up salvations from this past week, if there's any salvations to report. So let's start in the back section. Any salvations? Anybody? All right. How about in this section? Any salvations? Two? All right. Anybody else? Two? One? One? All right. So six salvations. How about in this section? Any salvations to report? Six? Two? So that's fourteen more. Anybody else? All right. Anybody else? Three? All right. Anybody that I missed? All right. Great job, everyone. We do have soul winning this afternoon. As I mentioned in the first set of announcements, we do have ice cream arriving at around 1230 here today. I think the sermon is going to be actually shorter. If it's like it was yesterday, it wasn't as long as most of my sermons. So that could be good. We'll see though. No promises. But ice cream arriving around 1230 for lunch time. A couple other things to mention. We do have our monthly prayer meeting later today after soul winning. We're going to have one group for men here and one group for women back there. So the format is going to be different. The actual prayer time is not going to be as long. It's going to give you prayer partners for the month. And so today though, we'll have to explain the format simply because it's the first time we've done this. But that's going to be later today. And then of course we do have choir practice after the monthly prayer meeting. So I believe that's it for announcements. We'll have Brother Rafi lead us in another song. Say it one more time. First Sansa, please sing the last Sansa. First Sansa, ready? Sing. First Sansa, ready? One more time. Last Sansa, ready? Last Sansa, ready? Last Sansa, ready? Last Sansa, ready? Last Sansa, ready? Amen. For scripture reading, please open your Bibles to the book of Matthew. First book of your New Testament. The book of Matthew, chapter 20. Matthew, chapter 20, and we will be reading from verse 20 down to verse 28. Matthew, chapter 20, verses 20 to verse 28. Please say amen if you're there. Amen. Matthew, chapter 20, verse 20. Then came to him the mother of Zebedee's children with her sons, worshiping him and desiring a certain thing of him. And he said unto her, What wilt thou? She saith unto him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one in thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom. But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what he asked, Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They say unto him, We are able. And he saith unto them, Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with. But to sit on my right hand and on my left is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father. And when the ten heard it, they were moved with indignation against the true brethren. But Jesus called them unto him and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you, but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister. And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant, even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. Bless the reading of God's Word. Let us pray. Lord God in Heaven, thank you Lord for this day that you have given to us. I pray the Lord that you would please bless the Lord for this day. Give us good weather, Lord, and health for our soul winning and our fellowship laid on. I pray the Lord that you would please bless the preaching and the preaching of your Lord for this day. Amen. Alright, we're here in Matthew chapter 20. And so this is the second to last sermon in the Pastoral Training Series. And this sermon is on administration. Administration. This is probably not the most exciting sounding sermon, you know, with the topic, but there's always good information from the Bible. And this is about administration. Now the word administration can be broken down into two parts. You have the first two letters, ad, which is a prefix, which means to basically toward, with regard to, or in relation to. Administration is the provision of assistance or care. So basically in regards to the provision of assistance or care. And the reality is that when you run a church, there is actually a lot of administration that is required to run a church. It's not really what you necessarily think of at the first. It's not the most fun part of the ministry. But it is actually a requirement to get the job done. It's kind of like a secular job. A lot of your time is spent responding to emails, taking phone calls. It's not the fun part of the job. You know, my job, I just like to be on Microsoft Excel all day, and then sometimes you go through the morning and it's all gone, and it's just administration you've been doing all day long. But that's the part of any job that you have. Now it mentions here in Matthew 20, verse 25, But Jesus called them on to him and said, He know that the prince of the Gentiles exercised dominion over them, and they that are great exercised authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you. But whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister. Obviously minister, ministration, ministry, these words are very closely connected. And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant, even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life for ransom for many. Now go to Luke chapter 2. Luke chapter 2 in your Bible. And what I'm going to do is look through a lot of Bible here, and then we're going to give you kind of some examples of just basic administration we do at church. And look, if you're planning to be in the ministry one day, this sort of stuff is actually a very helpful sermon for you to be prepared. But I also think it's helpful for people to understand kind of how our church operates and some of the basic things going on. But notice what it says here in Luke 2, verse 48, And when they saw him, they were amazed, and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. Verse 49, And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my father's business? So Jesus uses this word in relation to the ministry. He says business, right? Think of a business. You think of a business, they register with the SEC, they have an annual CPA report. I mean, we have all of those same things here, right? You write checks, you have credit card, there's payments, and all kinds of information. I mean, we do the same things here. You say, why? Because we operate like a business. I mean, we are legally actually a business, Verity Baptist Church, Manila Incorporated, or something like that, right? But we are actually a business that's registered. You say, why? Well, you have to. Now, if you have a very small church, maybe they don't officially register, but we're not really a small church at this point. This is a small day, and we're in the 60s. It's not really small, right? And so you have to do things very officially, very professionally. I mean, these things are required, and Jesus uses the word business, right? Go to 1 Timothy 3, 1 Timothy 3. One of my biggest regrets in life is that I have a long signature, you know? When I was in cursive in school, it was the one class I was barely able to get by. I did not get an A in that class. The teacher's like, your writing is so muggle-o. It's like, this could hold you back, right? And so I try to do like my M is like a perfect M, and then the A. Well, I sign a lot, right? For this church, it's like I have to sign on a lot of different things. I wish I just had a doctor signature, but mine is like really, really long, you know? And it's one of my big regrets in life. But, you know, think of our church. You know, when we have the money that comes in for the offering, and it's like we have a couple men that will count the offering. We try to do it as discreet as possible. They both sign on it and everything like that. You say, why? All these things are kept as receipts. These things are requirements. All these things are backed up information in case it is ever needed. You have to do things professionally. And look, as a church, we have to operate like a business, right? Otherwise, you can get yourself in major trouble, right? 1 Timothy 3, verse 1. This is a true saying. If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. When you think of an office, you think of a printer, computer paper, pens, a stapler, staples, scissors, binder clips, paper clips. You know what you would find in my bedroom in my house? You would find a printer. You would find paper. You would find stapler, staples, scissors, binder clips, paper clips, you know. And I don't have an official office space except in our house, so it makes it very, you know, modulo and very packed inside of a room. But you say, why? Because I need all those things. Right? I have lots of folders, envelopes, all these different things. You say, why? Because it's like an office, right? That's where I work. And if you work at home, what do you have where you work? You have, you know, paper. You have pens. You have scissors. You have all those things. Why? Because it's part of the job. And it says the office of a bishop. And there's just basic work that has to be done every day or at least every week that is just administrative work. It's not soul winning. It's not preaching a sermon. But it's stuff that needs to be done in order for us to operate smoothly as a church. Look at verse number 15. Verse 15. But if I tear you long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is at the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. So the Bible speaks about in the house of God, where people gather together to meet, that there's a proper way to behave yourself. Right? And look, just think of working at a company. You work at a company, there's basic rules. Quite honestly, at our church, we do not actually have that many rules. We don't tell you what time you have to get here. We let you show up on Filipino time. Right? The only dress standards we have at this church are no man can wear a dress inside this building, and you have to cover up the basics, which is not a problem, but I think would be obvious to us. Those are the only rules. But here's the thing. You work at a company, they will tell you how to dress. Companies I work for, there is a dress standard. You must wear this. And look, I agree. I mean, it makes sense at a business. They have a set standard. You work at, you know, I worked at Little Caesars in college. Guess what? I had the black shirt with that little logo of Little Caesars. You say, why? Because you have to wear the company shirt. If you work at Coca-Cola, you can't wear a Pepsi shirt. Right? They have rules. In fact, my father-in-law worked at Coca-Cola here in the Philippines. He was not allowed to drink Pepsi. That was one of the rules of the company. Right? Because you work for a company, they have basic rules. Honestly, our church just does not have a lot of rules. Right? Go to Titus chapter 1. Titus 1. Trust me, you would not want to go to a church that has no rules. The first Baptist church I went to after I was saved, there was one Sunday where one of the young ladies in college who came to church, and I use this term very lightly and loosely, because she brought her boyfriend and she was kissing and making out with her boyfriend during the church service for like 15 minutes. And we're just like, I mean, I didn't walk out. I probably should have, though. But you're thinking, what is the pastor doing? It's like you're not even telling her to stop. You've got to be kidding me. Right? I mean, how could you allow that to happen while the church, while the preaching was going on? Everybody saw it. And the pastor did nothing about it. Would anybody want to be at a church like that? It was disgusting. It was disturbing. It's like you're trying to, you know, it's just like, man, I can't wait for this sermon to be over. Right? Obviously there's a balance on things. You would never want to go to a church that has no rules and it's a free-for-all. Now, I definitely believe a church can be too strict with rules, and obviously, you know what, there's a balance there that everybody who's leading a church is trying to find. You know, Brother Roger gave me permission to tell this story. It's kind of funny. Here's an example of something that I wouldn't do, but it's pretty funny to talk about. You know, he went to Bible college at his old church, and they had like a Bible college at the church itself. And Roger's last name is pronounced Gill, right, because his father is of Indian descent, so it's a hard G, Gill. And then he's like, and Roger was in Bible college, and he quit Bible college because, you know, he needed to work to make money, because they'll say, give one year of your life to the ministry. Just, you don't have enough faith. And then it's like, you know, every week he's saying, you know what, some of you with Bible college, to me, Gill. And then everyone's like, Brother Roger, is like, oh, he's talking about you. To me, Gill, he's talking about you, Roger. And it's like, that's just obnoxious. It's funny to talk about now, but it's like, that's just rude, right. And so anyways, Titus chapter 1, verse 5, the Bible says this. For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city as I had appointed thee. One of the things you do is set things in order, right. This is going along with administrative sorts of things. Turn your Bible to 1 Corinthians 14. 1 Corinthians 14. It's very unlikely you're going to find a secular job where everybody likes the boss. It's probably not all that likely, to be honest. And I'm realistic. I don't expect everybody to like me, to be honest. You say, why? Because if you're the one making the rules, not everybody's going to agree with your rules. It just is what it is, right. But you know, that's not really my biggest concern, because my biggest concern is just do what God says, right. And look, if you're going to be a preacher, just beware of the fact that not everyone's going to like you, right. People might gossip about you. People might criticize you. Because look, if somebody makes decisions, no two people agree on everything. If I make 100 decisions, not a single person is going to agree with all 100 decisions. Not a chance, right. My wife and I don't agree on every single thing that comes up. Why? People are different, right. But you have to make decisions. You have to set things in order. You have to have some sort of standard at the church. Otherwise, you have people that are making out during church if you have no rules. Now, I would hope people would have decency to never do something like that, but I've seen it in church before. It's like no rules, and it's just a free-for-all sort of mentality. We're not built like a non-denominational megachurch. We'll never be operating in that sort of structure. 1 Corinthians 14, verse 40. Let all things be done decently and in order. Decently and in order. Very famous verse, very commonly preached inside the church. Obviously, the Church of Corinth was very disorganized. Go to verse 33. What's the result of things not being in order? For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace as in all churches of the saints. If things aren't organized, it leads to confusion. People don't know what's going on. If it's not said, if it's not very clear, it can lead to confusion. That's why you have to have set and clear rules to prevent these sorts of things. Go to 1 Corinthians 11. In just two weeks, we have the Lord's Supper coming up. It's kind of apropos that this is in my sermon notes here, 1 Corinthians 11. One of the big things of the Lord's Supper is just the fact that we're united together. We do it at the same time. We'll talk about that next week, but for those that have been here for the Lord's Supper, we eat the bread at the same time. We drink the grape juice at the same time. I don't know how they do it in other churches. Pretty much every Baptist church I've been to is done at the same time, because that's exactly what the Bible says. But the idea is that you have to be united to do this. Notice what it says here in verse 17. 1 Corinthians 11, verse 17. Now in this said, I declare unto you, I praise you not that ye come together, not for the better, but for the worse. For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you, and I partly believe it. For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you. Now, one of the big dangers of divisions or cliques, which we're going to see here in Acts 6 in a second, is it can also lead to heresies creeping in. In fact, what Paul says is, if there's divisions, there's going to be heresies. Right? There's going to be different groups. Now that does not mean that that's the intention of anybody, but that's what will end up taking place. Once a church is not united, once it's divided, then all of a sudden different doctrines come in, and then it can lead to a disaster of a church. Right? So we must be united together as one, very structured, very organized, to prevent a clique mentality, to prevent divisions. And look, these things will form at any church as a church grows. It just is what it is. This takes place. By nature, all of us, we want to hang out with those that we're close to. Right? And there's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but we need to make sure we have the same love one for another. Right? It mentions divisions, and then the result is there's heresies. Verse 20. And what we see here in this passage is divisions, disorder, heresies. They're linked together. Right? We must be very united together as a church. A long time ago, I preached through a series on church problems. I think it was eight parts. And it was not the most exciting sermon series. This was like two and a half, three years ago, but these things are important things because one of the big things of our church is that we're just united together. Right? Think of your old Baptist churches where people aren't even united on the topic of repentance. It's like a big split. Somebody visits church, you know, what do I have to do to be saved? And then people are fighting to tell them their opinion because there's different opinions. Well, that's not going to be the case here because 99%, if not everybody, would agree 100% on the topic of repentance because I preach on it. On salvation, I preach on it. I mean, you're very clear. I mean, we're in this alphabet of Bible doctrines, and as I said, doctrine divides, but doctrine also unites, doesn't it? We need to be very clear on what we believe and how we operate, very organized, in a business-like way. Right? Turn in your Bible to Acts 6. Acts 6. Acts 6. And we'll get a few more places, and then we'll get into some kind of examples. Acts 6. Acts 6, verse 1. And in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplied, this is our Bible verse of the week on the bulletin, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. So as the church is growing, you've got the Grecians, you've got the Hebrews, and the Grecians are mad at the Hebrews because they say, well, more time is being spent helping the Hebrew women that are widows as opposed to the Grecian women. Now, this is an obvious split that would take place when you have multiple ethnicities. Right? For example, if you go to Verdi Baptist Sacramento, you've got people from a lot of different countries. There's a lot of Russians at the church. There's people from India at the church. There's Hispanics at the church. And it can lead to natural divisions because obviously, you know, people that are from Russia are going to be very excited to be able to speak Russian to one another. It's their first language, right? These sorts of divisions can, and I understand why Pastor Mena is very excited when I preach against cliques in Sacramento because these things can easily form a church. And here we see, as the church grows, all of a sudden, there's like a separation between the Hebrews and the Greeks. Verse 2. Then the Twelve called the multitude of the disciples on to them and said, it is not reason that we should leave the Word of God and serve tables. What they're saying is, hey, there's too much administration to do. It's like we can't spend the time on soul winning and preaching sermons and writing sermons and what you would assume to be the spiritual work because there's just kind of the secular work that goes along with the spiritual work. Verse 3. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. Once again, we see this word business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. Go in your Bible to 1 Timothy 3. 1 Timothy 3. When our church started, soul winning was very, very, very easy. For those that were there in the early days of Bayview Park Hotel, I mean, this was our schedule. Church service, Chow King, Rizal Park, right? And here's the thing. And we got a little bit more structured once we came here, which was the plan. I said, you know what, I want to hold off on being too structured. I'm just learning to do all this stuff. But after Chow King, we would just go to Rizal Park. And then it's like, all right, soul winning time, just go somewhere. Because there's lots of people there. We had like 60 people out soul winning last Sunday. That's a lot of people. I mean, it's getting complicated, to be honest. I mean, it's a good problem to have. But I'm just saying, on the pairing, here's the reality. We might change how we do the soul winning pairing in the future of necessity. We're starting to get to that point where it's just like, we've got to start thinking, is there an easier way to do this? That's a great problem to have, but I'm just being honest and realistic. Look, I used to do the soul winning pairing in Sacramento, and I remember when we had those meetings, I had the meetings with Pastor Mendez, it's like, all right, what are we going to do? Because it's getting impossible to pair people up soul winning. And we just had to do things differently. You say, why? Because the church was bigger. As a church gets bigger, things must be done a little bit differently, right? As a church gets bigger, do you think that we should be more organized or less organized? More organized. More strict or less strict? More strict, out of necessity. It's a good problem to have, but it's just reality. We've got to face it. We are not a small church anymore, and praise God for that. We're not a small church. But that also means things get more complicated. It just is what it is. Now, there's a couple reasons why things change a little bit. Number one, because I've been running the church for four and a half years, there are things I would do very differently in hindsight, because obviously I have more experience. The other thing is we're just a bigger church. We're going to operate a little bit differently in some ways. We're going to have to make changes. Why? Because here's the thing, as excited as I am that our church is growing, our goal is to grow as much as is possible. That's our goal. Now obviously we're not going to be able to grow that much here, because we're going to be way too packed out on a big Sunday, which one thing to pray about is we have been actively looking for lots and trying to get approval to build a church and subdivisions nearby here, and obviously that's the need of our church right now, because we're growing, and praise God for that. But the reality is, as our church is bigger, we must operate a little bit differently, a little bit more strict. You say, why? Because our goal is not just to have 60 soul owners, it's to have 100 soul owners one day, to have 200 soul owners. Now I'll be honest with you. In my flesh I am perfectly content if we never grow, because as we grow it gets more complicated. It gets more difficult. It gets harder. I mean, I'm happy. I mean, we've got a great church of great people that love God, and I'm excited about that. But we should be praying for more laborers. Why? Because we're still not reaching everything. It's like, yeah, I don't know how big our church is going to grow, but I would say this. If you really think of our church and our attendance, for the first couple years we really didn't grow in terms of number. Now we had people that left the church and then new people came to the church and stuff like that. Really we've doubled in size in two years. Right? In two years. I find it very interesting the timing on it started two years ago, but we've doubled in two years. Now I don't know if we're going to double in two years, but let's say we're running 150 people in another two years. We're going to have to do some things a little bit differently, just out of necessity. Why? Because we're going to be a bigger church. We're going to have to be very organized, very strict, very business-like. Why? Because it's just harder. I'll give you an example of something that is now difficult to do, and we're actually going to be changing this, and there's nothing wrong with it. It's just based on our size. You know what? When we get done with the sermons, we have the last song, before we have lunch, I'll say, all right, let's pray, let's pray. Everybody's fellowshipping, and that's a good thing. Here's the problem. Since there's so many people here now fellowshipping, it's hard. Sometimes I say, let's pray like 11 times. And it is what it is. That's a good thing because people are fellowshipping and having fun. I'm just saying it's harder now. You say, what are you going to do? Well, the person who does the last song or the person who prays in the auditorium, they're going to pray for lunch because it's just very hard now to gather everybody together to be quiet at one time. And, of course, some people are leaving, and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not mad at anyone. It's just a reality. As our church is bigger, we just have to do it differently now because, honestly, it's been like this for a while where it's like I can hardly have my voice heard, and I already lose my voice sometimes during the sermon. It's like, let's pray, let's pray, and then a lot of people don't hear me, and that's a good problem to have. I'm just saying we have to do things a little bit differently. Here's the thing. If you visit our church in Pampanga, though, we're still going to do it the way we've been doing it because it still works based on the church size that it is. Different churches, different sizes, they can operate slightly differently depending on the situation. We have to operate a little bit differently as a bigger church. I'm sure in the future there's different things that we're going to start doing a little bit differently. And, of course, I learn by experience by things that work and things that don't work, and we're all trying to figure this out as our church is growing. We just look at the book of Acts, and it's great that the church is growing. It also leads to some problems. Well, we're going to exhibit problems as well as we grow because of the fact God is blessing our church. And we're all going to have to learn how to work around that and realize, hey, you know what? Our goal is that we're not just running 86 people on a Sunday, but we're running 186 people. And who knows how much we could grow in the years? Obviously, we're never going to be a megachurch. Quite honestly, as our church took a long time to grow, I wasn't sure we'd ever reach 86. And it's like, wow, we've really grown in the last two years, and praise God for it. Right? Turn in your Bible to 1 Timothy 3. 1 Timothy 3. Another thing we're going to do, we're going to start having a set closing time at church. In the early days, I thought it was great to really encourage people to fellowship and play games, and people were still allowed to do that up to 6 p.m., but at 6 p.m. the doors here are closed because based on how big our church now is, I just think it's better to be a little bit more strict with that. Whereas in the early days, I thought it was great. People are fellowshiping and hanging out really late. Now it's like I think it would be better that we just have a set closing time at 6 p.m. because our church is bigger. Now, if I had to go and do things over again, I'm sure there's a lot I'd change. I'm not sure what I would change. I would have to look at the situation. I'm just saying with our church being bigger, we shouldn't have this small church mentality where we say we want to just keep it the same, add nobody else, everything the same. No, it's like it's good that we're growing. That's great. We have more people that are at this church, and as a result, things are going to change if we keep growing. Some things are going to be done differently just because we're a bigger church. 1 Timothy 3, verse 5. For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God? The Bible speaks about ruling your own house, and as a result of that, you can learn how to take care of the church of God. Obviously, your own house is not going to be big, as big or have as many people as a church is going to have, but it's a good training ground for before you run a church. Now, I'll be honest with you because Pastor Menes is very strict. He's in the military. There's a lot of rules. It's very structured. It's very organized. Anyway, honestly, pastors are different. Some are more strict. Some are less strict or whatever. I am not the exact same in terms of my personality as Pastor Menes. What I will say is I'm starting to learn now with Verity in Sacramento, who's definitely a bigger church than this, why he is so strict sometimes because it can prevent problems from coming in, and by necessity, you have to be. I can just say that I will probably be more strict than I was in the past. Why? We're a bigger church. You just have to be. You have to be more organized, more strict, and it's just like as a church is this big, if there's one opinion here, one opinion there, one opinion there, one opinion there, it becomes very overwhelming. It's like we just have to be more strict. I am sure that if you went to the secular world, a small business does not have to be as strict as a big business. But if you're going to be a big business and reach lots of people and be very successful, you have to be organized, you have to be strict, just by the fact that you've gotten bigger. It just is what it is. Turn to 2 Samuel 19. Look, I get it. A sermon on administration is not the most exciting sermon. It's kind of like your first day at a new job. It's just that you learn all the rules of the company or whatever. But it's definitely helpful if somebody ever becomes a pastor to kind of know that, hey, you've got to be structured and organized. You've got to figure things out. Because you're going to be the leader of the church. You are the one that makes the decisions. And if you don't make a decision to operate your church in a certain way, other people make the decision for you. And it will not go the way that you want it to go. But you are the one that's the leader. You make those decisions. And it's not going to make you the most popular person at church. Some people will not agree with you. Some people get mad at you. It just is what it is. But you must make those decisions. I think it's also helpful because, as church members, I think it's helpful for us to understand this. We are a bigger church. We're a much bigger church than we used to be. For those that have been with us for at least a few years, I mean, we used to have a much smaller church than this. Right? I mean, when people were on Filipino time on some Sundays, I wondered, am I going to be preaching to an empty room? Now it's like we've got plenty of people before the service. And that's great. But as a bigger church, we've got to do some things differently. We've got to be more strict. And certain things might change a little bit just for the simple fact we're a bigger church. Right? Now, I'm going to give you some examples of various administration stuff we do at this church. One thing we have at this church is we have a Facebook group chat. We have one for Manila. We have one for Pampanga. We have one for Bicol. Okay? All of our churches. We don't do that at Sacramento. In the U.S., people use text messaging more than I think they do here. I think Facebook's the best way here to get in touch with everybody. And so we use Facebook. And our Facebook group chat is very helpful. You say, why? Because we're able to get out information to everybody. During the week, it's like, hey, just a reminder, we have a soul winning marathon this Saturday. It's a great way to get information out. I think it's a very helpful thing that our church has. It works well for us. Obviously, different styles. People might not have it or might not, depending on the church. But I'll be completely honest with you. In the early days, I almost got rid of the Facebook group chat. You say, why? Because it caused more problems than it did good. Right? And let me read you these verses, and then I'll explain. 2 Samuel 19, verse 21. It's like he's reminding Abishai, hey, you know what? I am the king. You're not the king. I make the decision. But the sons of Zeruiah, I mean, they have some good traits. I mean, Joab, Abishai, Asahel, but they also had a lot of bad traits. They were just too zealous. They were too hardcore. They were overboard. It's like they always wanted to kill everyone. Can I kill them? It's like, no. Right? You say, what are you saying? Well, in the early days, our church was too zealous. It was. Some of the young men were just too zealous. Right? I mean, they were just too hardcore. What do I mean by that? I mean, like, they just wanted to rip every single false prophet all over Facebook, both in our group chat and then on their wall, like, every single day. I mean, I literally preach sermons to try to calm these guys down. And I was being honest about this. I was like, you are going to show up to a job interview, and they're not going to give you the job because they said of what you said about Catholics on Facebook. That is a fact. That's what they're going to do. Right? They're going to look at what you've said on social media. That's the world we live in, and they're not going to hire you because of what you said, because you look like an absolute jerk online. That's the truth. So I preach that. By the way, a lot of people were upset about that sermon. Right? And, you know what, in our group chat, it was just like leading to, because people were just saying all these things in the group chat. I'm just thinking, what are you doing? Right? You're just being obnoxious. You're just being rude. And here's the reason why I didn't like it. Even though I often agreed with what they were saying, I didn't want them to say it. You say, why? Let's say we get somebody saved, and they start coming to our church, and then they join our group chat, and then they say, hey, you know what? This is why all those sodomites need to be put out back and shot. It's like, that person's going to leave our church because of what you said. Right? I mean, look, there's a way to say things, and look, here's the thing. People that are new to church, they're not going to know all these doctrines, and it's just like I didn't like the mentality that was being taken. And what was developing at our church was the new IFB part of church, and if anybody new came to church, we've got to test them out to see if they're really new IFB. That's why I preached against the idea of being new IFB in the early days, because it's like, hey, we're just a church. We're one body. Nothing against. I mean, I agree, and I love all those pastors, but it's like, hey, we are one body, and if somebody's new to church, just accept them as a church member. Don't make a division. Well, it's like we're like the inside click, the real hardcore new IFB. If somebody's new, we've got to test them out for a little while. And that is literally what was being done at church by people. Not audibly, but it was obvious that is what was taking place. I didn't like it. You say, what did you do, Brother Stuckey? I fixed it. I fixed it via the preaching. And how did I fix the problem with the group chat, with administration? This pretty much permanently fixed the problem here. Right? What did I put in the bulletin? Let's see what it says. And this is, I get it, our bulletin is not that exciting, but I don't like administration, so I try to quickly finish this and get it done with all the, and I usually have 27 mistakes. Right? But what does it say in the Facebook group chat? And look, we haven't had an issue on this in a long time, so I'm not bringing this up. I'm just using this as an example. It's meant to be a source of fellowship for our church. If you are 16 and older, then you're welcome to join the chat. It's like, oh, why 16? Well, I just picked that age. Right? 16 years. Group chat do's. Share praise reports, prayer requests, share important information, wish happy birthday, and other encouraging things. I think everybody loves our group chat because of the fact it's like happy birthday, happy anniversary, we share important information. It's like it's great. Everybody likes it. There's no problems with it. Group chat don'ts. No controversial language. Brother Stuckey, you're so watered down. Well, think whatever you want. No gossiping. No criticizing others. No mocking false prophets. No preaching many sermons. You say, why did you write all that stuff? Because that's exactly what was going on. I mean, everybody knows that in the early days, right? That's not the culture I wanted at our church. I just wanted a culture of a family-oriented culture where we're united, we love one another, and where someone could just come to our church, they're new to church, and they could just feel like they're at church and not part of this giant, massive movement or whatever. They can just come to church and I'm just a church. People that love God, they're friendly, and that is the culture that we have at church. But this basically fixed it. And it makes a statement, this is meant to be an edifying group for people whether they just got saved or have been saved for a long time. And what am I saying there? I'm saying, hey, if somebody just got saved, lay off all the controversial things that are going to offend them. Because what's going to take place? If we got somebody saved and they started coming to church and everyone's just saying whatever in the group chat like it used to be, it's going to drive people away. It's not going to drive people here, right? I mean, there's a lot of things that are true. It doesn't mean that they need to be said, right? So there's an example of just basic administration where we have the group chat and I didn't foresee problems coming up and we had to make a change to fix the problem, right? Or just our bulletin in general. We have a church bulletin and we do this just to present important information. It's just a reminder of everything. We're able to put the Bible Memorization Challenge, upcoming activities. All this stuff just makes it very easy to just give the information out to everybody very quickly. Another thing that we do at our church, or for example, we have the bulletin and sometimes I don't realize there's a holiday coming up and somebody says, Hey, Brother Stuckey, there's a soul winning marathon in this day. And we add it, right? And that's why it's helpful to have the bulletin. One thing we have at our church is we have a preaching calendar or I have a preaching calendar on Microsoft Excel that is on Dropbox. So you can ask me, Brother Stuckey, what are you preaching in four weeks? I can tell you exactly what I'm preaching unless something comes up last second. Like this sermon was written like a month and a half ago or something like that. It was written a long time ago. You say, Why? Because I use a preaching calendar. It makes it a lot easier. It makes it very easy to avoid missing topics because honestly, if you go in the ministry, you can do whatever you want. I would be extremely stressed out of my mind if every Monday I woke up and I had no idea what I was going to preach on Saturday and Sunday. I'd be stressed out of my mind. And I know it does work for other pastors. It would not work for me. This is a suggestion from Pastor Menes, and I love it because it gets rid of the stress level. I already know what I'm going to be preaching. Even if I don't write the sermon, I can at least write the topic or whatever. And I don't have to worry about trying to come up with something last second. If you do that last second, the danger in that could be that you always preach on what you want and you might be missing certain topics. Now, I'll be fair, though. The danger of having a preaching calendar and writing sermons in advance is sometimes my wife asks me, Oh, what's the sermon about this weekend? And I'm like, I don't remember. I'll have to review. Right? Because I wrote it a month ago. Okay? 1 Timothy 3.15. But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. Our church is meant to be the pillar and ground of the truth, where you learn the entire counsel of God, all the Word of God. Honestly, a preaching calendar makes it a million times easier because I can look and realize I haven't preached on pride in six months. I haven't preached on bitterness in six months. Right? I can see things that I have covered and I haven't covered, and it makes it very easy to fill in the gaps. Go to Acts 2. And look, I'm not trying to go into all the details of everything that's just basic administration, but here's the truth. When our church was small, there wasn't that much administration. Now I find myself, the first days of the week, there's just so much administration to do and emails to answer and just things to get organized because we have a lot more activities, we have lots of soul winning, we have a lot more people at church, and it's great, but it does take work to do these things. Acts 2, verse 41, Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. Verse 47, Praising God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord out of the church daily such as should be saved. And so this church goes out soul winning and three thousand people join the church. Now, I don't think this would happen in our modern day because this is right after the resurrection of Jesus. Special place, special time. Honestly, if three thousand people joined the church before next week, I think I'd quit the ministry because I wouldn't know what to do. I'd be like, what are we supposed to do? Right? If everybody on Coggin-Hwan came into our church, I'd be like, I quit. I can't handle it. It's just too much. Right? It's like, hey, you know, we're already packed. If anyone wants to go to the church over there or the church down there, they can go, no, I'm just kidding. Right? I wouldn't know what to do, and I'm sure this is the way they felt. I'm sure they felt very overwhelmed. Like, all these people are joining church. It's like, what are we going to do? Right? Go to Acts chapter 5. Acts 5. Acts 5, verse 27. And when they had brought them, they set them before the council, and the high priest asked them, saying, verse 28, Did not we straightly command you that you should not teach in this name? And behold, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine and intend to bring this man's blood upon us. Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men. Go to verse 42. And daily in the temple and in every house they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. A growing church that's doing lots of soul winning, and it's not just the Gospel, but the doctrine filled the city. Everybody knew what the doctrines of the church were. You say, Brother Stuckey, how does this happen? Well, one thing that helps is trying to be as organized as possible so you can focus on the work of the ministry, the soul winning, the preaching the Word of God. I get it. This is not the most exciting sermon, but it's a reality that our church is just a lot bigger than it used to be. And it's like we have to be organized, right? I mean, when we do the soul winning pairing, you know, one thing that really helps is when people are, and they started ahead of time now. When we were in Sacramento, you know, it was like during when somebody was preaching, you know, you'd start pairing people up and everything like that, but people would come late. It would get very magalo and confusing. But it's just like having everybody front and center so they can see. And look, the reality is, at our present size now, when the guys do the soul winning pairing, they're going to make some mistakes. Why? Because somebody might, you know, not be going soul winning for the day or something like that, or something's a little bit different, like, oh, I'm actually not going. And it's hard to transmit all the information. It just makes it more complicated. I'm not saying we're going to change the way we do pairing, but we might. Why? Because we had 60 people last week. It's a lot. 60 people out soul winning. I mean, it might seem very easy. You say, Brother Stuckey, all you got to do is pair them up. Hey, feel free to volunteer. These guys would love it because I'm sure they hate it. I'm letting them feel the pain ahead of time that I felt when I was in Sacramento doing the pairing. It's not easy. It's complicated. And that's a good problem to have, but the reality is we have to be structured and organized. It's even why we start with the soul winning anthem. You say, what's the purpose? It gathers everybody together. That's really the reason why. It's like it gathers everyone together. I mean, if you ever noticed during the church service, people are fellowshipping and everything. They don't realize it's time for church. And once the singing starts, people get to their seats. They gather together. That's just kind of the way it goes. And it makes it more organized. And we have a soul winning tip. Why? Because we have new people here that are newer at soul winning. We want to be organized to teach all the things that we teach. I mean, these are just various structure and organization. We can't just be a free for all where it's like, hey, we have church sometime in the afternoon. It would be a disaster. You've got to be very structured, very organized, all of these things. Now, of course, I'm not perfect. I'm going to make mistakes. But honestly, the more organized I am and the more organized our church is, it's just going to make us more efficient for the main work that we are called for, for soul winning and preaching the word of God. And look, I believe that God is blessing our church because we're very zealous for soul winning, which all of us are a part of. Or at least 90% and you other 10, it's time to get on board. Right? And because we focus on preaching the word of God, we don't hold back. We teach the whole counsel of God. And I believe God is blessing us. And praise the Lord for that. Right? But the reality is that as we grow, we're going to have to make changes and be very organized. Why? Because it's just a little bit more complicated than it used to be. And I believe God is blessing us because he believes that we can handle it. I believe that. But this is something that's a team effort. Right? Acts 6, verse 1. And in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. The reality is that as a church grows, problems can take place. It just is what it is. And I'm aware of this. Obviously, all of us are aware of this. It's going to get more complicated. That's a good thing, though. And I thought of this example. Let's say somebody has surgery. Let's say they have a liver transplant surgery. That new body part has to learn to adjust to the body. Ninety-nine percent of the body is the body that already existed. Anybody who comes that's new to our church, obviously, and look, most people at our church come from a Baptist background, different Baptist churches. Baptist churches operate very differently than us. The reality is most Baptist churches are pretty disorganized from my understanding. I haven't been to other Baptist churches here in the Philippines. I almost visited, when we were in, before our church started, I almost visited Metropolitan just out of curiosity, but I did not do that. I almost went to the ecclesia, but I did not do that. On that first day that I arrived, because I was tired, I was exhausted, I almost made it to the ecclesia. But I haven't been to other Baptist churches here in the Philippines. And so I don't know, but from my understanding, people say, yeah, we're just a lot more strict than other churches. And it's interesting to me because, honestly, I'm probably a lot less organized, which is not a good thing, but a lot less organized than Pastor Jimenez. And so it's just like, I understand in other churches, it's kind of like you can kind of do whatever you want. It's just not the way we operate around here. Pastor Jimenez would never let me just have that sort of mentality, just, hey, let everyone do whatever they want. It's just not the way we operate. And I think it's a good thing because the more organized we are, the more we can reach people. We have set rules. We have standards. And the reality is that a new body part has to learn to adjust to the rest of the body. And quite honestly, what we have is a church body. Today of 63 people or whatever, it's a low day for us. But let's say there's 10 new people that get added. It's not just the new body part that has to learn to adjust. The entire body has to learn to adjust. Now, it's primarily going to be the person that's new to church, but the entire body has to learn to adjust. Quite honestly, all of us are in this phase right now where we are adjusting on how to deal with a bigger church. And we've got to change things a little bit. It's nothing against anyone. It just is what it is. I'm sincere when I say I'm not mad at anyone. I'm just saying we've got to be more organized. And it might sound like, man, Brother Stuckey is changing. It's like, I just have to be more strict because we're growing. And so, yes, there might be things that we do differently because we're growing. And all of us, as part of this church body, we are adjusting. As there's new people added, we've got to be more organized. Things have got to be done decently and in order. You say, why? As a church grows, if we don't have strict rules and strict standards and just be very organized, it's going to lead to confusion. It just is what it is. The way the church is supposed to operate is there's basically one person running the show. Now, that never makes the person running the show the most popular person because there's always going to be somebody mad at me. That just is what it is. But it's just like, I am required to try to make things very strict and organized. Why? Because we've got to reach people. We've got to be very successful. And there are things, just to be completely sincere, that we're going to do differently or I might be more strict going forward, where it's like maybe in the past... And look, the truth is, in Pampanga there's certain things that I might still allow because it's a smaller church. Because I think it actually works well for a smaller church, but at our church it's just not going to work anymore. One thing I mentioned as a reminder is I'm not doing the prayer today for lunch. The person who does the closing prayer can pray for the food at lunchtime. And if they forget, then you can pray at your table. You say, why? Because now there's so many people fellowshipping, it's just too noisy for me to say, Hey, let's pray. Let's pray. It's just difficult. Right now everybody's quiet, so everybody's listening, and it's no problem. But if there's a lot of talking, which there's nothing wrong with that after service, it just makes it more difficult. As I said, this is not the most exciting sermon. But I think it's helpful for all of us to realize this, that we're a growing church. And praise the Lord for that. But when you see a growing church in the Bible, you also see that there's going to be problems. There's going to be things that just don't operate as smoothly, and just things have to be done a little bit differently just simply because the church is getting bigger. Let's close in a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here today, and I ask you to help us to apply this sermon to our lives and to our church, God. We ask you to continue to bless our church, God. Help all of us adjust to these new changes as our church grows, God. We just pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. The chorus is ready. Sing. Some through the water, some through the blood. Some through the blood, but all through the blood. Some through great sorrow, but that means a song. In that season, all of our days are gone. Let's begin. Sometimes I have not heard a song, gentle light, that leads us into the light. Sometimes in the valley, in darkness of night, that leads us into the light. Some through the water, some through the blood. Some through the fire, but all through the blood. Some through great sorrow, but that means a song. In that season, all of our days are gone. Those sorrows we call out of hand, say they're all gone. God, we thank you, Lord. Through grace we can come, where we feel the light falls. God, we use a song to let all of us... Hi, everybody. Some through the water, some through the blood. Some through the fire, but all through the blood. Some through great sorrow, but that means a song. In that season, hello, hello, hello, hello. Away from the fire and away from the rain, the days are still chilling all alone. Away from the glory, glory, glory, the days are still chilling all alone. Some through the water, some through the blood. Some through the fire, but all through the blood. Some through great sorrow, but that means a song. In that season, hello, hello, hello. Amen, ladies and gentlemen.