The past few years have had many challenges for churches and the ministry of BBM. Churches have faced shutting down, going live-stream, and looking for new ways to stay relevant. Some churches simply closed. Other churches found new ways to impact their communities.
A challenge for BBM has been the limitations for making contact. In most of our past years, there were opportunities for ministry at regional conferences resulting in contacts for expanding our ministry. Now many churches seem to be more concerned about staying open than seeking to build their ministries.
Looking Back
Since leaving the position as Senior Pastor in 2012, I have been able to either consult or lead five churches through pastoral transitions. I served as Transitional Pastor with two churches. We rejoice to say that the Lord is blessing all five churches.
Serving as Transitional Pastor in one church led to a complete restart and now a vibrant growing church in ways only the Lord could do.
I continue to serve on a church transition leadership team with the church that had a complete restart.
One of my special joys is coaching pastors and ministry leaders.
A major organizational change is that we moved our incorporation from New Jersey to Pennsylvania. The new corporate address is officially 1600 Colonial Manor Drive, Lancaster, PA 17603.
Because of a part-time position selling RVs, I have been taking very little income from BBM. This gives me the opportunity to offer consulting to pastors and leaders with minimal or no compensation.
Looking Ahead
Our website and Facebook page is one of the ministries that is growing in reaching people. Moving forward we hope to make the website a greater resource for churches and pastors. Currently we are seeing an increase in views at the website.
Recently Thom S. Rainer (a well known author, researcher and analyst for churches) wrote an article on the “2023 Trends for Local Churches.” Several of the trends are directly related to what has been the ministry of BBM from it beginning over 20 years ago. With this confirmation of the need for Biblically Balanced Ministries we are going to emphasize the following ministries:
Transitional Ministries
Pastor and church consultations
Helping develop local church ministries to train elders, leaders, and potential pastors
Renewing Vision for local church evangelism
One of the ways we are seeking to expand our ministry is through building relationships with three different regional church associations. We will be offering pastoral coaching, church consulting, and transitional ministries.
We are asking the friends of BBM to join us in prayer for each of these ministries as we move ahead in 2023. Another way you can help BBM is to connect us with a pastor or a church that could use our ministry services. Please feel free to recommend our ministry or refer their name to me personally.
On a more personal note the board and myself are always thankful for your support and prayers.
Looking ahead to see how The Lord will use us in 2023,
Gary
I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy,because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:3-6