Connect24 President's Address

It is my privilege to address you at this, the 130th annual meeting of the Fellowship of Evangelical Bible Churches.
​If I could just reflect for a few moments. Last year’s meeting was an incredible reminder of what this Fellowship represents.

• First, those delegates who spoke up about retaining the Ministries Coordinator were clear in their appreciation for the mutual support and encouragement offered by our Fellowship. In a sense, we got back to the basics.
  
• Second, I have often shared an organizational chart which shows the churches, represented by their delegates, at the top. The directors report to the churches. That the delegates moved in a direction unforeseen by our leaders demonstrated exactly how that structure works.
  
• Third, the decision to move forward boldly despite the financial picture was a step of faith. While we must use wisdom and experience when leading an organization, we are primarily people of faith. Praise God for how he moved among us at that meeting, and how he continues to inspire folks to give in faith.

Since that pivotal meeting we have seen many individuals and churches respond to the need. We have received very generous one-time gifts, as well as long-term pledges from both individuals and churches. A handful of our churches have chosen to add the MC position as a supported missionary. Some churches have also increased their regular support levels to respond to the needs we expressed last year. Your sacrificial giving is an encouragement and a gift from God.

As I mentioned in my Annual Report, last year was full of activity and several unusual achievements. The new fiscal year has come with more normalcy, and time to devote more directly to our vision. For instance, we released a new resource about leading effective member meetings, and behind the scenes, we began to work on a completely revised Directors’ Manual, which is badly needed and crucial to the daily operations of our organization.

Can we talk about money for a minute? I don’t want to bore you with a lot of numbers, but I also don’t want us to miss an opportunity to praise God, from whom all blessings flow. As we discussed at great length last year, things weren’t going so well, and we had to seriously reduce our budget. This included cutting the Ministries Coordinator position and the printed magazine, among other things. But as those cuts were scheduled for the middle of the year, we still had a plan to use $121,000 in reserves - $71,000 in Joint Ministry reserves and a $50,000 transfer of reserves from FEBC Canada.
But God provided enough money to FEBC Canada that they were able to meet their $50,000 commitment without tapping their reserves. So, we were looking at $71,000 in Joint Ministry reserves to be spent.

However, when you determined at Connect23 that we would maintain the Ministries Coordinator position, we effectively raised that number to around $120,000.

When you look at the report, you see that the total amount transferred from reserves was actually about $10,000. And guess what? That $10,000 was planned transfers from restricted funds. Like the scholarships that are only paid from the Scholarship Reserve Fund, and we always use those restricted funds first. That is why below that line you see total net cash of almost $9,000.

Think that through for a minute. Between the US and Canada, we expected to draw $170,000 from reserves to pay the bills, and instead, we gained almost $9,000. Can we just praise God for that?
God provided in various ways. As I mentioned before, we saw support begin to come in for the Ministries Coordinator position, along with other increased giving and individual donations. We sold our office building in Omaha, giving us an influx of cash, and our investments produced gains instead of losses.

To be clear, this doesn’t mean we can all sit back and watch the FEBC make money. There is much work to be done – and that is why our Project Offering is going towards funding the Ministries Coordinator position. Next year, we may not gain money on our investments, and we certainly won’t have a building to sell. We must continue to consider as churches and individuals whether God would have us increase our support of this Fellowship.

I want to acknowledge our staff. Can you imagine being Gary Krehbiel at last year’s business meeting? He had already been through the emotions of planning for a career change and received a fond farewell, when he got to listen to a room full of delegates resurrecting the possibility of his future with us. I know it was a whirlwind of emotions, but he handled it all with grace, accepted our offer to continue, and took your vote as a mandate. He has redoubled his efforts to personally visit churches and church leaders, offering valuable support and encouragement.

Janet Rosenquist, our office administrator, faced reduced hours, the closing of our office, and the need to create a home office space, and maintained an excellent level of support and care for our constituents. Rebecca deftly handled the switch from a paper magazine to an online version, which turned into a complete overhaul of our website. Crystal Klassen magnificently handled the details of Connect, with a shorter than normal timeframe and plenty of other unexpected hurdles. In addition, she has worked year-round to increase connection via our Facebook page.

Someone who does not work for me, but with whom I have had the pleasure to work is Samantha Nemanishen. She has served as the Financial Secretary for FEBC Canada for about 10 years, and she has lent a vast amount of expertise during those years. She is stepping down now, and I am sorry to see her go. I have grown to appreciate her, and I consider her a friend. Her heart to serve this Fellowship has been unquestionable. Sam, you will be missed.

The new Canadian Financial Secretary will be Annie Bueckert. She is no stranger to our Fellowship, as she has already been helping the Prairie West Extension with their finances, and her brother serves as one of our pastors. I don’t know if there is any sibling rivalry there, so I won’t mention his name, but it rhymes with Mike Binther.
So that is a lot about what is going on. but I am here to answer a question: What is the state of our Fellowship?

I honestly believe we are in the best position we have been since I arrived, for many reasons.
Internally, the FEBC staff and volunteer leaders are busy honing our ministries to better serve our vision. And we have renewed our focus on the things that matter most: Connecting with and strengthening our local churches. I would say that Gary and I have struggled at least a little with job overlap in the past but are now growing into our respective roles and learning to better leverage our individual strengths and weaknesses.

While the move out of the office building was especially challenging, we are each settling into our new surroundings, new routines, and learning how to maintain our connections with one another outside of the office.

But I am even more excited about what is happening among our member churches. Last year, the leaders of the FEBC felt that the prudent and wise path forward was to cut back on ministry to get our expenses as close as possible to our income. One could say that was wise, or that we lacked faith. But to be super transparent, we had been saying for years that if we did not receive increased giving, the budget we were on would not be sustainable. We had been praying that churches and individuals would respond over those years, and we had not seen significant movement. We tried to showcase the value of the FEBC as much as possible, and we hoped that folks would catch the vision and increase their support. Last year going into Connect I would say our attitude was: “Well, we tried, but it just isn’t going to work.” At the risk of being too transparent, we were starting to believe that no one really cared that much.
But apparently, we were wrong. Maybe the message that we are running out of money today and cutting services and employees resonates a bit more deeply than the notion that we will eventually run out of money if nothing changes. We humbly notified our churches of the need, and before Connect even began last year, we had received a couple of large gifts from concerned individuals. Then of course, at Connect, we had the great delegate insurrection of 2023 – where you instructed us to have faith, get creative, and trust God for Gary’s support.

Slowly but surely, that support has grown over this year, along with other general giving. Of course I am excited to watch God meet our financial needs, but I see a much larger benefit. Our churches and the individuals within our churches are taking ownership of this Fellowship. The delegates at Connect23 didn’t just sit back and say, “That’s a shame, but whatever the directors decide is fine.” They challenged the directors to move forward in faith. They charted a path that would not be easy, but if successful, it would benefit our churches. And since that moment, we have seen various churches and individuals take ownership in the way of financial responsibility for the decision that was made.

This is the foundation upon which this Fellowship was built. The Fellowship was started by individuals and churches who took ownership and formed relationships and structure and policies that would benefit every member church. That foundation of taking ownership of our mutual care for one another has sustained this Fellowship for 135 years.
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I ask you today to help us build on this foundation. Take ownership of this Fellowship! What do I mean by that?

•  Consider whether God has given you the resources to personally donate to our ministry. Or if you are already giving, perhaps God is prompting you to increase that giving.
  
• Ask your church leadership to consider what could be given to support the work we are doing. We are grateful to those churches who have met the challenge to give 4% of their annual budget. Some of our churches are exceeding that percentage. And now there is the added effort to raise MC support. We are so grateful for your sacrificial giving.
  
• Consider how you can serve our Fellowship. Perhaps you could serve on one of our commissions or as a director, or volunteer your time to serve churches in some other way.
  
• Choose to be informed about our Fellowship. If you have not already subscribed to the Fellowship Focus online, I encourage you to do so. Follow us on Facebook. Check out our website once in a while just to see what is new.
  
• Be an ambassador within our Fellowship. Part of the role of a delegate to Connect is to share with others in your congregation. Whether you are a pastor or a layperson, you can let others know what we are doing, encourage them to subscribe to the magazine, tell them something you learned at Connect. You have a pool of potential FEBC leaders in your church. Consider who you might encourage to be a delegate for your church next year. Consider who you might nominate for an FEBC position.
  
• Be an ambassador outside our Fellowship. You may know of churches in your area that would benefit from the type of Fellowship we enjoy. Take ownership by engaging folks in conversations and introducing them to me or one of our directors as it seems appropriate.
  
• Help us fulfill our vision. We are here to strengthen churches. You can play a part in that. If you know of a resource that would help other churches, let me know. If you feel you could help develop a new resource, let me know. If you know that your church could benefit from some help, let me or Gary know.
  
• Choose connection. Reach out to Gary or to me. Reach out to your fellow church leaders.

Our Mission is “Joining our hands to strengthen His church.” I like this phrase because it invokes a very specific image. When you join hands with someone, it is not a passive act. If someone grabs your hand when you weren’t expecting it, that’s just creepy. Joining our hands is something that occurs when we mutually desire a connection. You must take part in it.
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Let’s continue to reach out this year. Let’s truly join hands. I believe that when we do, God will be glorified, and our churches will truly be strengthened!

Thank you so much for your ministry at your own church, for your dedication to this Fellowship, for your courage in the face of financial challenges, for your prayers, support, and continuing encouragement.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kevin Stone has been in full or part-time ministry for over 30 years. Before accepting the position of President, he spent 12 years as the full-time Pastor of Worship at Crosspoint Bible Church in Omaha, NE - one of our FEBC churches.