Bill Maye

Live Life Out Loud - Day 23

I was thinking the other day about what it was like to work a job all week and then spend my time off working in the yard or going fishing or playing golf, you know,  a life that is "working for the weekend".  I know, it's my inner 80's rock star coming out.  I watch people on facebook, what they do with their lives and what they do for fun and I wonder is that all there is to their lives?  It's true that for moments going to the beach and enjoying a hobby is awesome and Michelle & I try to do that as much as we can but... it's not our driving purpose in life.  In fact every time I find myself living mainly for those things I always have this growing emptyness inside.

I love today's verse Ephesians 2:10 "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."  God has alwas had a plan for your life.  Before you were born He choose you to live life for Him... that's where true fulfillment comes from. 

So even when I'm right in the middle of a day at the beach,a get together on the back deck grilling out, or band practice on Tuesday night, God's purpose and plans are central in my heart.  I live in such a way that the main purpose of my life is to doing His will... that makes me content and satisfied.

Bill

Live Life Out Loud - Day 16

What if?

What if... everyone in our church gave to our capital campaign... I mean everyone giving according to their measure of faith... I wonder how much we would be able to give if we did it all together?

What if... everyone who attends BCC became debt free in the next 18 months... I wonder how long it would take to pay off our building?

What if... we had no building payment whatsoever... what could we do with all of that money available to reach people who don't know they matter to God?

What if...

There are so many possibilities when we work together.  I love today's message in the 40 day guide... that David gave everything he had available and then challenged the leaders to "follow his example".  We have had that happening here.  Our leaders (28 families out of an estimated 140 families in our church) committed to give a faith offering totaling $216,710.00.  That is an average of each family giving $215.00 a month over and above their tithes for 36 months.

What if... every one of the remaining families gave the same average?  That amount would be $1,083,600.00... and that would really push us over the top!

Let's keep praying and allow God to increase our faith.

Bill

Live Life Out Loud - Day 16

What if?

What if... everyone in our church gave to our capital campaign... I mean everyone giving according to their measure of faith... I wonder how much we would be able to give if we did it all together?

What if... everyone who attends BCC became debt free in the next 18 months... I wonder how long it would take to pay off our building?

What if... we had no building payment whatsoever... what could we do with all of that money available to reach people who don't know they matter to God?

What if...

There are so many possibilities when we work together.  I love today's message in the 40 day guide... that David gave everything he had available and then challenged the leaders to "follow his example".  We have had that happening here.  Our leaders (28 families out of an estimated 140 families in our church) committed to give a faith offering totaling $216,710.00.  That is an average of each family giving $215.00 a month over and above their tithes for 36 months.

What if... every one of the remaining families gave the same average?  That amount would be $1,083,600.00... and that would really push us over the top!

Let's keep praying and allow God to increase our faith.

Bill

Live Life Out Loud - Day 15

OK,  I had a great question yesterday and it lead me to the idea that there may be a lot more questions that you guys have about this whole money thing.  Seeing as how I told a personal story without the luxury of time to fill in all of the details, I wanted to take some time to clarify some important aspects of giving.

What if I've been following God and I haven't tithed in a long time, do I need to go back and figure out what I owe and give that?

That has to be decided by God.  He may want you to just start fresh, or He may be calling you to give a certain amount that would make up for it.  Whatever the case you need to realize that it is all His and He calls the shots, all we have to do is recognize His voice and do what He says.  This is not some big mystery either.  Most people try to make it seem so difficult to hear God but the truth is you will know inside and when all else fails just follow the path of peace in your heart and get some good counsel from someone you trust can hear from God.

How do you know the difference between "Sacrifice" and "Irresponsibility"?  Shouldn't paying your bills come first?

In my story I talked about falling behind on our house payment but continuing to give above my tithe.  The reason that we did that is because Michelle and I had made a vow to God to give a certain amount.  The bible is very clear on paying vows. 

Numbers 30:1-2  "Moses said to the heads of the tribes of Israel: "This is what the LORD commands: ² When a man makes a vow to the LORD or takes an oath to obligate himself by a pledge, he must not break his word but must do everything he said."

We made choice... instead of breaking our vow to God and using the money to help us get out of our situation we were going to place our faith in God to deliver us.  Not only did He do that but He went beyond the immediate need and helped provide a way to get rid of all of our debts.

When it comes to sacrifice, look at where your spending your money each month, you might be surprised.  Where there are areas that you are spending on things for your own pleasure, think about stopping that activity, whether it's movies or cable or eating out and give the money you would spend on that to God as a sacrificial offering.

Most importantly, if you and your spouse are in this thing together then you must both agree about the amount you are to give.  You have to be in Unity.

I'll add some more of these as the week goes on... don't want to bore you right off of the bat.

Bill

Live Life Out Loud - Day 10

I must honestly thank my mother for introducing me to the idea of tithing (of course it was not her idea.)  She knew all to well that God’s word was true.

My first Job was waiting tables.  Mom encouraged me to tithe my money and by no means was I following Christ at that time in my life, but for some reason I listened to her advise and began to see God provide an obvious increase in my tips.  Even as the restaurant business began to decline and fewer people came to dine  my tips were always more than my co-workers.  You see, we were constantly counting during our shifts and comparing what we collected.  And we didn’t have to share it.  Whatever we earned was ours.  I also had watched as my mom faithfully give her tithes and offerings after my parents divorce.  I can tell stories of God providing for us during that tough time.

 I waited tables and completed the Cosmetology Program at Fayetteville Technical School.  During that 12 months of my life I was able to completely pay for my school and purchase my first $400 vehicle that ran until I graduated.  Then it blew up.  But God had another waiting around the corner...a cool 1970 mustang!  Well, It was cool to a 19 year old girl.  

Tithing does reveal the condition of your heart but it is the only place in the Bible that God really challenges you to challenge Him. Tithing is a spiritual law and it just works whether you heart is in it or not.   The law of sowing and reaping is the same way.  Even when it comes to money.   I still did not choose to follow Christ until a couple of years later but I continued to tithe because it worked.  I feel kind of silly saying all this now but it’s what happened in my life.

So, parents your children are watching and listening and if you train them by example and also give them the opportunity to join you in giving, when they grow up they will remember seeing God provide.  Trust me. God shows Himself to children in ways we overlook many times.

And if you're not tithing or you’ve just begun, don’t let your heart get in the way.  Just do it whether you feel like it or not.  I promise God will not let you down.  Test Him!

Michelle

It's All In The Numbers!

Most of you know that we are in our Capital Stewardship Campaign and we're not only raising money for our outreach projects for 2009 but also for our building expansion.  Yesterday during the message I gave the minimum amount that we needed to accomplish all of this... $750,000 in commitments over the next three years.

After the message was over one of our members came up to me and gave me a sheet of paper with some numbers that he crunched and it kind of stirred me to figure out just what we could do.  So here are some of my figures...

Our yearly attendance average right now is 408 people per weekend, so I will base my figures off of that.

If every person who attended our church (man, woman, & child) gave a dollar a day for the next 3 years it would equal - $446,760.00

Let's say that half of those people could give $2 ($60.84 per month) per day then the total would be - $670,140

Let's say that half of those people could bump it up to $3 per day ($91.25 per month) then the new total would be - $781,830 which exceeds our goal by $31,830

Now lets look at it in context of families... let's say that we have 140 family units that make up the 408 person average. 

If every family unit gave $100 per month that total would be $504,000

If a third of those gave $150 per month and another third gave $200 a month that number would be $748,800 almost at our goal.

I wonder what other kind of numbers would lead us to our goal?  The truth is that if we ALL decided to do this together it wouldn't be very hard to reach our goals.  What creative numbers can you come up with?

Bill

Live Life Out Loud - Day 8

Don't Trust in your riches but trust in God!

This is a lot easier said than done.  Doing this is a constant discipline of acknowledging that everything belongs to God and I am only a manager of what He has entrusted to me.  God always expects a return on His investment and so I must use what I've been given in such a way that He will get a return.

That doesn't mean that I never get anything for myself in fact God delights in giving us the desires of our hearts.  What it does mean is that I should be constantly in tune with Him and what He wants so that I use the resources I have in the way which He desires.  I like to think of it as serving God with my resources.

The other side in this is that when things go wrong I don't have to bear the weight of responsibility to fix it.  It's all God's!  My job is to stay connected with Him and trust that He knows what's best and will lead me in the right direction... and just a note to everyone, He has never failed me yet.

John 14:1 "Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Trust in God."

Bill

Live Life Out Loud - Day 3

Well I've spent some time reviewing the Generous Life book and it really brought me back to remembering what it was like before I started fully trusting God with the finances.  WOW!!!! it's actually pretty scary to think about what that felt like.  I mean back then, when my finaces were absolutely aweful, it was a scary to think that the God I loved was requiring that I give him 10% of all that I earned and then trust Him for the rest.  It will really force you over the "do I really believe in God" line.  Then I read in the Bible where it said to test God and see what He would do... I guess that my finances were so bad that I didn't really have any other options... so I started paying the tithe.  You know what it was still hell!  But as I went along God kept showing me more and more about serving Him and about how to handle the money that I had and you know what everything started to turn around.

There's some really cool advice about giving on pages 9 & 10 and then Day 3 is all about being a steward of what God gives us.  The truth is that I don't own anything... it's all His, and when I screwed it up it was my mess until I started truting Him... then it became His mess.  This is my favorite verse from Today.

Romans 14:7-8 "None of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone.  If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord."  

It's all or nothing!  Live Life Out Loud!  I love it... but it doesn't come easy.  It's the toughest thing you will ever do.

Bill

Live Life Out Loud - Day 1

The 40 day Spiritual Journey - Day

OK it's simple, everything is God's.  This means that nothing is mine, I am just here to manage it.  Now that will mess you up.  If the money that I have, is given to me by God to manage, then I need to make sure that I'm using it in the way that He wants...  this will change the way you look at money!  Think about it,  when you go to Cook Out for lunch today does God really want you to buy that milk shake? 

Bill

iwantanewmarriage - What's Got To Happen For a Marriage To Work? - Wk2

Marriage is tough. Without a passionate relationship with Christ, marriage becomes next to impossible.
Two people placed together with different backgrounds, beliefs, personalities and preferences that do
not have Jesus as the unchanging center of their lives, practically destines a marriage to fail. Jesus is that important. It’s not enough to say, “Yeah, we’re Christians.” In order for the marriage relationship to endure, our connection to Jesus must be dynamic.

>> Do you believe that marriage is sacred? Why do you think the divorce rate among Christians is no different than among non-Christians?

>> Why does God hate divorce? Why do so many believe that divorce is not a sin? (Malachi 2:16, Matthew 5:31-32)

>> Why does the misconception of love hurt so many relationships? Please read 1 Corinthians 13.

>> From a biblical standpoint, what is love? It has been said that love is a decision not a feeling. Do you believe that is true?

>> What misconceptions about marriage did you have before the nuptials? What kinds of questions should singles ask before marrying?

Many say, “God doesn’t want me to be miserable,” as a justification for seeking divorce.  Jesus tells us
in John 16:33, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.  In this world you will
have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world.”  Is happiness your right as a believer?
How has Jesus made your marriage better?

>> What are you doing to make your relationship with Jesus stronger? How can you protect the integrity of your marriage?

>> How can you keep finances from becoming your Achilles heel?
>> Are you communicating well and enough?
>> Are you spending time together?
>> Are you meeting each others emotional and physical needs?

If you’re not asking your spouse these questions, you should start. Today.