It's Our Turn

Well, I want to thank, Rhonda Frizzell and, my wife actually, who worked on the original design and the slogan that we have, back here for our fundraising campaign. The sign that you see behind me, was designed by them, but it wasn't painted by them. We took it to a professional sign painter, Carol sign painter here in Choctaw, but it was done based on, some ideas and the sketch done by them. And I've had this sign put up here because today we officially kick off our fundraising campaign in order to pay for the renovation, the expansion of this church building. And it's always, you know, it's impossible to get the entire church together to give them information.

You know, like even today, people have gone on vacation. I know there are a whole bunch of families that are on vacation, some working, some ill, but, we need to start somewhere. So today's the day where we're starting that. And I wanna review some of the ideas, some of the key ideas with you this morning. One of the key ideas is, if you look at our attendance, we're consistently averaging over 300 people at worship.

Now, this number always a little down in the summertime because of vacations and that. But if you look at over a 12 month period, we consistently average over 300 at worship, and this represents 80% of our seating capacity. Now, in order to accommodate natural growth, natural growth, this congregation has been growing at an average of about 15% a year for the last 4 years. And that's a considerable amount of growth because the national average for any congregation is about 5%. 3 to 5% is the national average, so we're 2 to almost 3 times the rate of of growth.

Problem is that, we need to add about a 100 more seats in our auditorium to accommodate the growth that we have experienced in the last couple of years. Now, church growth experts, people who study this type of thing for a living, tell us that, churches that don't plan and encourage growth by expanding and updating their buildings usually level off, and then they begin to shrink. You know, church growth doesn't go like this. You know, it doesn't go straight. It's not a straight line up.

It goes up, it peaks, and then it goes down for a while, and it peaks and goes down. And if you don't accommodate for that growth, it'll peak, it'll flatten out, then it'll start working its way down. And we don't want that to happen. That's happened in the past, we've kind of flattened out for a long while and then we started to grow again, we don't want to flatten out. This time, we want to take advantage of this growth and build on this growth so that we can eventually accommodate a 500.

We're at 300, 300 to 400 member congregation we want to be a 5 to 600 member congregation. Choctaw and the surrounding areas are growing. If you've read in the Sunday Sun article recently about Southeast Oklahoma, they didn't give good marks necessarily to Del City, and they didn't give great marks to Midwest City about their growth and their expansion potential, but they did give very good marks to Choctaw and Harrah, as, towns and communities that had tremendous growth, potential. As a matter of fact, I've been told, by, one of our members who's on the city council that at the moment, there are 8 propositions in front of city council for building or housing developments in Choctaw. Not houses, housing developments, 8 of them that want to put in new housing developments in this area.

That brings houses, people, people mean people, go to church, people looking for a church home, members of the Church of Christ, and other individuals coming into our community that we will be able to evangelize. So we're we're in a we're in a kind of the time and the place Geographically and historically, we're at that time and place where there is a growth boom going on around us and we have to follow that growth boom. We have to accommodate the growth that is coming our way and the growth that the Lord is providing for us. The renovation we've talked about will include, new carpeting and covering of fuse in this auditorium and the new stage, new lighting, new expanded foyer. I mean, those walls back there are leaving, those walls on the side are going.

It'll go all the way back, and where the underpass is now, that will be the new foyer. That'll all be redesigned. New classrooms, new fellowship hall. Hopefully, it'll hold about 200 people. So if we have a wedding or if we have something, that we wanna do as a congregation, we'll have plenty of room here to do it.

We won't have to rent another hall. Storage, kitchen, new kitchen, new offices, storage, bathrooms, nursery, new nursery, new mission room, teacher work room, as well as a new side portico entrance. People will not have to go up those stairs. People who have canes and walkers and wheelchairs, things like that, will have a new portico entrance on the side where it'll be much easier to come in to the auditorium. And in addition to that, we'll be renovating the existing hallways and classrooms.

So a lot of work that needs to be done and that will be done. The big question, of course, is how much will this cost? People always say, Yeah, it's great, but how much? Well, our general estimate is put up here $500,000. I say this, and I say general estimate, because it's hard to estimate exactly to the penny, to the dollar, what a renovation is gonna cost.

If it's a brand new building that you're putting up in the back, that's easier to pinpoint because you've got new materials and so on and so forth. But if you're renovating, that means you have to tear things out and tear things down, and it's very difficult to pinpoint how much that will cost, but our general estimate is $500,000 We're adding 8,000 square feet. We're adding 8,000 square feet to our existing 13,000 square feet. This church building, this congregation already is one of the largest congregations of the Lord's church in this area. And it with this expansion, definitely will be a very large congregation in comparison to others in this area.

Well, the next question is, how do we get the money? It's easy to say, Oh, let's spend. Let's spend a half $1,000,000. Maybe I should wait 5 minutes and wait till everyone gets over a sticker shock. And there are some of you out there who have experience with buildings and things like that, realize that $500,000 is not a lot of money.

I mean, not a lot of money for commercial construction. Those of you who have built things before know that even at this budget, Dave Roberts, who's our building committee chairman and the men and women working with him will have to be very frugal and very careful with every dollar to make sure it goes a long way, because that's not a lot of money to do all the things that we wanna do. But we estimate it should be in this area. So how do we get this money? Well, our goal is to raise this money in 2 ways.

First of all, we hope that the members will give or pledge most of this amount. When I say give or pledge, I mean over and above what they normally give. If somebody gives $20 a week, they'll give their normal $20 a week to maintain the work of the church, and then we'll give an additional 20 or whatever it is for a certain amount of time in order to pay for this construction. When I say give, I mean to donate a cash amount, or maybe sell some bonds, or maybe, you've got a second or third car that you could sell and use the money to give to the church, or use personal property or and donate it to the church. Very biblical concept.

You see it in the book of Acts, people selling their, property and selling their possessions in order to donate it to the church for the work. You You see that in the Old Testament when they were building the tabernacle, people were bringing mostly their jewelry, to be used, in order to, to build the, the tabernacle. The other way is by pledging. When I say pledge, I mean if someone doesn't have the ready cash or the ready valuables, they can pledge to give a certain amount over a period of time. We say a 3 year period of time paid monthly until the pledge is complete.

Some people say, well, I don't have any cash, I don't have any savings, and I want to give. How do I do that? Well, you can commit yourself to give a certain amount of money each month for 3 years, let's say, for this building program. Some say, well, I wanna give $2,000. Let's just pick a number out of the air.

$2,000. Well, fine. Give $2,000 over a 3 year period, break that up into monthly payments and do it like a like a bill, if you wish. Or you can pay it in 2 years or 1 year, whatever. That's what a pledge is.

A pledge is, I have an intention to give a certain amount. And of course, as Christians, we understand if the Lord is willing. If the Lord is willing, if the Lord gives me life, if the Lord preserves my health, if the Lord preserves my job, if the Lord protects me from catastrophe, you know, if the Lord is willing, I pledge, I, I, my intention is to give so much to the Lord. But in the end, the Lord will provide for me, and the Lord will protect me, and the Lord will enable me to do this. Let's, let's understand that we're not being, we're not being, presumptuous on the Lord.

If God is willing, we will do this thing. If God is willing, we'll do this thing too. We'll do this. The second way we plan on raising the money as a congregation is to borrow money from the bank. Our plan, of course, is to collect as much as we can from gifts and pledges from the church.

If we can go all the way to 500,000, that's great. We won't have to borrow any money from the bank. But if we only collect 400,000 or whatever, the rest we will borrow from the bank and we have made arrangements. We've contacted several banks, several banks have made bids, and we have selected the bank that has given us the best interest rate. I can tell you there's nothing secret, everything is above board, anything you want to know.

The bank that we've chosen is the Liberty Bank here in Choctaw. There were several banks competing for our business, but they gave us the best rate. They gave us a 9 and a quarter fixed rate for 15 years. Now I'll tell you something, there's no bank. We couldn't find a bank that would offer us a fixed rate.

None of them would give a church a fixed rate for 15 years except Liberty Bank, 9 and a quarter fixed. And that's pretty good when you calculate that the, the New York rate, okay, the bank rate is 8a half. So they're only playing with, like, 3 quarters of 1%. But it's promised for 15 years, and they're going to work with us. We're in the process of doing that.

Now, according to our calculations, there are 160 families in our church. A 160 families make up the Choctaw Church of Christ. That means like if you're a mom and dad and 2 kids, you're a family. Or if you're a single mom with a daughter, you're a family. Or if you're a single person living by yourself, you're a family.

Okay? You see how that works? We have 160 of those what we call family units in our congregation. Of those 160 family units there are approximately 230 individuals who are earning a salary. See what I'm saying?

160 families, 230 salaries. In other words, my family there's my wife and I and 4 teenagers. We're 6. We're 1 family, and we are 1 salary because I am the my wife is the homemaker, so therefore there is 1 salary coming into our home. There are other people who are married, but both of them work.

And so there you have 2 set 1 family, 2 salaries. That's how we calculated that. 160 families, 230 different salaries coming in. Salaries pension is like a salary too. And so if you do the quick math, the quick math says if each individual earning a salary or earning a pension could donate $2,175, we could raise a half a $1,000,000 in this church.

Sounds like a lot of money and it is for some. For some others, $21.75, they could write a check right now. And, you know, it wouldn't put a dent, not too much of a dent. For others, $2,175 is a lot of money. They couldn't write a check.

They'd probably have to make a pledge to to cover an amount like that. Now this figure, $2,175 per person with a salary, this is a target. This is not a have to. This is not a compulsion. This is not you must.

This is nothing like that. Your giving is between you and the Lord. But we have to offer everyone a sort of a target to know what they're shooting for. So if you if you give 2175, let's say, you know that you have at least hit the average that we need from each person. If you're a person that God has blessed and you have a lot of money in the bank, you might say, Hey, I can give 21 I can give 5.

I can give for me and somebody else, or I can give 4 times that amount for me and 3 other people. Some people are like that. Other people, boy, if they could just scrape together $500, that would be the max amount suffering, you know, bleeding from the wallet. That would be the max that they could give. So we don't know.

Each person is different. Each contributor is different. Again, remember, this is not compulsory. It's an average. It's something we're shooting for.

Well, another important question is this, when is all of this going to happen? Well, here's the schedule, we have a schedule, and we pray that God will help us follow this schedule. Today is June 22nd. Today is the kickoff for our fundraising campaign. This evening, after services, we will meet with what we call team leaders.

We have 10 families in this congregation. Now some of them are here and some of them are I know Ron and Norma, for example, are if you're a team leader, would you please stand for a moment? Don't mean to embarrass you, but please stand up for a moment. Go ahead. Your team there we go.

There's there's 1 family, 2 families, 3, 4, 5, 6 families, 7, 8, 9. Excellent. 9 out of the 10 team leader families are here this morning. Thank you, brothers and sisters. Those 9 and the 10th one, by the way, is our Ron and Norma Hanks and they're on vacation.

They'll be back in a week or so. These 9 couples have been charged with the responsibility of going into the homes of every single family in this congregation. And each one of these couples will have with them a binder with this picture and all the information about the plans, the cost, how to do pledges, how big the bathroom is gonna be, where the nursery is gonna be, when the constructionist you see what I'm saying? They're gonna be trained to answer all of your questions because this is not fair. I'm talking to you for a half hour about a building project.

You don't have an opportunity to ask me any questions. So we're gonna solve that problem by sending these brothers and sisters into your homes within the next month or 2 to answer all of your questions. And these 10 couples are gonna meet tonight at 6:30 over at the country kitchen there. We've reserved a dining room. We're gonna eat, and we're going to do our training session, and they're gonna receive all their materials.

So please expect a call in the weeks to come from one of these families, and they will, they will come into your homes, and they'll give you all the, all the details. They will also leave you with a card, a pledge card. And on that card, that's your business, there'll be a card in an envelope, you will write down what your intention is. In other words, I intend to give a one time gift of x amount of dollars or I pledge over a 2 year or a 3 year period to give so much to this project. Okay?

Now on August 17th, on Sunday, August 17th, we're gonna have what's called celebration Sunday. That's when we're gonna add up all of these pledges and all of these gifts, and we're gonna find out how much we have given towards the goal, the $500,000. And we will find out how much money we're gonna have to borrow. Some people say, how do we pay back the money we borrow? The money we have to borrow will be factored into our weekly budget.

And the, team leaders will be able to explain to you how that works. I really don't wanna take up all of the time here, right now. Celebration Sunday is when we, we're gonna celebrate, hopefully, that we've hit our target or certainly come close to it. So I want to encourage you, let's give in such a way that we will, that we will celebrate. Then on September 14th, September 14th is Homecoming Sunday, because it's around September in the area of mid September that this congregation was originally established in September of 1939.

And so September 14th is homecoming. It's a celebration. It's the remembrance of the establishment of this congregation. On September 14th, we're going to have homecoming. We're inviting people who were formerly members to come back and celebrate with us.

We're going to have family day where, we've rented the 10 Acre Park, and we're gonna go to 10 Acre Park and have our great family day celebration that we have every year. And we're also on September 14th, if God is willing, we're going to have our groundbreaking ceremonies to officially kick off the construction phase of this project. We're gonna invite the mayor and the councilman, all the contractors are gonna come. It's gonna be a tremendous day on September 14th. Well, like I said, some of you may be in shock, you know, $500,000 I want to encourage you too with the news that we're all we're not starting at 0.

We're not starting at $0. In a few moments, I'm going to reveal how much money we already have. You see, when you start something, you've got to get the leaders to commit first. So we had a finance committee. And on the finance committee, there were 5 people on that finance committee.

Steve House, Rhonda Frizzell, Dale Gill, Peggy Garvin, and myself. We were the finance committee. It was our job to put together the loan business at the bank and to put together all the fundraising work for this project and this sign and all that stuff. We had to go first. It was our job to commit and to offer our gifts first.

Then we went to the elders, and we said, Alright, elders, now it's your turn. And so the 5 elders or the 5 families, they also committed, they also gave their money and made their pledges. And so in a few moments, I'm going to reveal to you what the first 10 families have done towards this goal. If these 10 families were not behind this project, in other words, the elders and so on and so forth, then we would have no right to ask the rest of you to follow. If the leaders don't lead, if the leaders don't lead, then the followers will not follow.

And so we will reveal, just in a moment, just a few more comments I wanna make, how much we're beginning with from the first ten families. But first, I want to talk about the past. Another 5 minutes or so. Let me talk about the past. 58 years ago, 58 years ago, faithful Christians organized a gospel meeting in a park here in Choctaw, outdoors.

From that 2 week meeting, the Choctaw Church of Christ was born. These brethren quickly rented a hall in the downtown area of Choctaw to to worship together. And among the original members of that church were, Opal, Gibson and, Ruth Haught, I believe, who are still with us, who are original members, 58 years, who have been faithful to the Choctaw congregation. And we love them. I want them to stand for a second.

Where are they? There's Ruth Haught back there. And where's Opal? Opal, there she is. If you love these sisters, say, Amen.

Amen. Amen. Thank you very much for a lifetime of faithful, faithful service. Well, these brethren quickly rented a hall in the downtown area, and, it was wartime. And money was tight, and things were scary.

But they soon scraped enough money together to build their own meeting place in 1941. And things went well for another decade. Then in 1951, after having outgrown this initial building, they purchased land and they built another more spacious meeting room that had the greatest new invention, indoor plumbing. They tell me we were so thrilled to have indoor plumbing in 1951. And classrooms, they had classrooms and indoor plumbing.

It was just a marvel of modern technology, the Choctaw Church of Christ in 1951. Well, the church continued to grow. And by faith, a brother donated several acres of land here, corner of Choctaw and Reno. And for the incredible amount of $150,000, this present facility was built, the one that we now meet in, back in 1976. What a step of faith this was for these 150 people, not 150 families, 150 people.

A $150,000 back in 1976 is like $3,000 to $400,000 today. They tell me that they sold bonds to raise the money, and everything was paid for in 3 weeks. A 150 people raised a $150,000 in 3 weeks. Now in subsequent years, the church grew and each generation added new classrooms. You know, a couple of wings were added to accommodate that growth.

And of course it was during that time of boom that brother Louis Thompson became the full time minister here, and the church enjoyed a tremendous period of growth and stability. Well, now we're 1997, we're on the edge of the year 2000. We're not 150 people anymore, we're 160 families. We're not 150 people anymore, we're over 400 people. Our 13,000 square foot building, parking, van, offices are all paid for.

We are debt free. You should see the banker's look on his face when we tell him we own everything. We don't owe anybody a dime. They're very happy to lend us money. We have 2 full time ministers.

We have a part time, when I say a part time, a missions minister. We also have a full time secretary. And all of this has been built and paid for by the faith, and the hard work, and the perseverance of the people who came before us, many of which are still here, are sitting in this very auditorium. This is what I want to say this morning. It's our turn.

It's our turn. It's our turn to have faith. You know, the project is bigger than before, and the amount is large. But you know what? The Lord who provided for them in 1939 is the same Lord that will provide for us in 1997.

The same Lord. It's our turn to show that we have the faith and the trust in Jesus that they have. The same faith will get us to the same place. It's also our turn to give. You know, the generation that came before us has provided everything that we now have.

You know, any complaint that we make, those of us who are younger, who've come after, we shouldn't because everything that we see around us, whether we like it or not, we didn't buy it, we didn't build it, we didn't pay for it. It's our turn now to sacrifice. You know, $2,200 is a lot of money, and $4,400 is a lot of money if there's a 2 income family, a lot of money. And everyone knows it's a sacrifice. But you know what?

That's what it'll take. It'll take a sacrifice and nothing less than a sacrifice to finish the job. You see, if it was easy if it was easy, there'd be church buildings all up and down Choctaw Road. You know, the Methodist church, they have a sign up there, future home of the Methodist church here on Choctaw Road. And I spoke to a lady who's a member there, and they say, yeah.

She said to me, she says, well, that was the easy part, putting up the sign, but they can't get the money together to actually start building. A sacrifice is what's needed. Well, it's our turn to shoulder the heavy load. It's our turn to carry the burden of the gospel's word for our world and our generation. It's our turn to give sacrificially.

And it's also our turn to set the standard. What will the 1997 congregation of the Choctaw Church of Christ be known for in 20 to 40 years from now, when our children and our children's children are speaking of the church? Maybe there'll be a Mazzalongo Junior preaching here one day. That groan you hear is from my son. As long as it's not from my daughter.

Will our children be able to use us as an example of faith, an example of generosity? You know, will we be able to if any of us live for 40 more years and we're still in this church, will the preacher in those days be able to say, Brother so and so, stand up, stand up, you're our example? Will they be able to do that? Or will they review the history of this church since 1939 and say that, well, in 1997, there was like a peak there. There was a peak, but it didn't go anywhere.

It fizzled, and it went down because this group did not rise to the occasion. Brothers and sisters, what we do now builds the foundation for a new horizon in the future. What we do now provides an example and a reason why the church grew, or an example and a reason for the for why the church didn't grow. There's tremendous potential in this area now, and that's not just, you know, pulpit blather, marketing blather. There is potential in this area.

This area is growing, and we can grow too by preaching the gospel to the people who come. It just depends on which legacy we leave behind. God has given us the resources, both human and financial, to do the job. The question is, are we ready to give our finances and give our resources to God and trust him to provide for us? On September 15th, we're going to find out how we did when it was our turn.

Let's, let's find out what the first 10 families have given and pledged so far, and this is where we will stand. I'm gonna ask, Steve here to help me because this sign, by the way, is a little if you push it too much, it might fall in the back of the tree. I can straighten it out later. $90,000. 10 families, $90,000.

I'm here to tell you these people want this thing. The standard has been set. The standard has been set. 10 families, $90,000, it's $9,000 a family. Now it wasn't $9,000 a family, you know, some gave more, some gave less.

That's the average. I'm telling you right now, if we manage to keep this pace to the end, we could raise $1,000,000 We can do this. This is a doable thing. You just have to believe that we can do this through Jesus Christ our lord. I wanna offer just a a prayer at this time, then we'll extend our invitation.

Would you please pray with me? Heavenly Father, we are so thankful, first of all, that you've given us the opportunity to serve you. So many people in this world are serving Satan and are serving themselves, and they do not know the sheer joy that comes from giving themselves over to you and serving your kingdom, Father. At this time, we want to thank you for giving us an opportunity to serve in a great way here in Choctaw. We're grateful, Father, that you've given us many talents that we might multiply them to your glory and to your honor and, in so doing, glorify ourselves through Jesus Christ.

Heavenly Father, we pray in thankfulness for the faith, Father, and the generosity of the people, who have begun this project with their gifts. Heavenly Father, I pray that this will inspire, that this will light the fire of faith and zeal in every single person gathered here this morning. Heavenly Father, bless each person working on this project. Bless each hand that gives. Bless each mouth that speaks, Father.

Bless all those who work and give them wisdom and give them accuracy and help them, serve and work, father, to the maximum of their ability. Heavenly father, forgive us when we do things that are wrong in this thing. Guide us, heavenly Father, that we might complete this project exactly as we intend to complete it and that we might use it to honor you and to give you glory and to raise up the name of your son, Jesus Christ, in this community. And at the same time, Father, set a standard for the future of this church. Heavenly Father, we love you, and we thank you for blessing us, and we pray all these things in Jesus' holy name.

Amen. Well, we've talked about the project this morning, but this building work serves a greater purpose, obviously. We want a facility which is gonna provide a place from which we can preach the gospel and teach God's word, minister to each other, and serve our community. And so in this regard, if you have a need, if you have a need to become a Christian, or if you have a need to be restored, or if you have a need to receive the ministry of prayer, or if you have a need to identify with this congregation this morning, we encourage you to come forward now as we stand and as we sit.