And love you. And follow you. Father, as we go forward in the service, God, have your way in here. I know it's not the normal service that we're used to, God, but you're still here. And we still honor you. And we still give you the right and the room to do and say whatever you want, God. We love you. We are so thankful, God, that you love us and that you are faithful. Thank you, Lord. Have your way in this service.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Let me grab this one. I got it. Thanks. My heart is full.

My heart is full. Bless us, children. I'm going to use this microphone again in a little bit. I'm muted for right now. I'll give it to Brandon in a few minutes. I want to say welcome to you guys. If you are visiting here with us this morning, I'm Pastor Curtis. It's a blessing to have you guys here with us today. It's a little bit different Sunday. On 5th Sundays, we do something a little bit different in the life of our church. We try and give all of our volunteers,

a break that 5th Sunday. And this Sunday, we try to leave all the children in the service. And this is one of the prices that we pay. I'm happy to pay that price.

So, it's a little bit of an abbreviated service, but we got some folks who are going to give some pretty cool testimonies today with some of the things that we value here. Did I mess that up? Sorry. I got it. I tripped it off.

As far as far as our home groups go. Wanted to say thank you to Joe and to Bobby for filling in for me. Thank you for all of those who have sent encouraging text messages and sent meals.

I'm recovering from my surgery. It's been a road on this knee surgery. And it's the second time. So, hopefully, second time is a charm. Right?

And I want to say, if you're visiting with us this morning, please take time to fill out a visitor card. It's located in the chair in front of you.

Place it in one of the churches here or one in the back as well, too.

Here you go, sweetheart. The singing time was earlier. Remember?

Yeah.

Thanks, baby. Go see mommy.

And this is also where we receive our gifts and offerings. And tithes and offerings is in those boxes as well, too.

Today, it was really hard to pass up an opportunity to preach because I've been out of the pocket for two weeks.

And so, I really wanted to preach this morning, but I'm not going to. I'll stay true to the service.

I want to just real quickly rejoice.

Rejoice. Miss Glinda, can we rejoice with you? Is that okay?

Yes.

Yeah.

Amen.

Amen. God is good.

God is good.

Amen.

Miss Glinda got a PET scan, her PET scan on Wednesday, Thursday.

And all clear. No cancer. Cancer free. Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Want to just give you a heads up.

We've kind of, we kind of, I kind of dropped the ball.

We had the hurricane and a couple of things that happened over the last few weeks.

Ben Burkett, who volunteers, Ben and Jessica are part of our church.

Ben helps in our, in our security area of our, of our church as well, too.

Volunteers in that.

And they had a baby boy, Bridger, who was just, we're just days before the hurricane.

And it kind of slipped through some, some cracks.

But, uh, the, uh, in the back, back there, you see Jan Westcott has set up a thing, stocked the shelves.

If you guys could help us this week, next week, uh, Sundays, just bring some, uh, just items for little babies.

Okay.

Diapers, uh, just whatever, knickknacks, all that good stuff.

Right, Jan?

All that, all that stuff.

Uh, anything that you would want your little one to have, just, just try to bless them and just kind of help them stock the shelves on that.

So I wanted to make you aware, aware of that.

I, I got a couple of notes here today.

Brandon's going to give you some more information.

But today, if you're visiting with us today, we hope that you would take some time to go with us, venture out.

We got, uh, some folks grill out some burgers.

Maybe you smelled the burgers and hot dogs cooking when you, when you came up.

And maybe some of you never made it in here because you're still.

as, as, as well too. Today really kind of marks also our six year anniversary here in the life of our church. Six years that we've been in this facility. We've kind of had our, our first service six years ago in this facility. It's been a journey that God has led us on something that we've, um, we tell the story, uh, often, but, um, we never planned on a, uh, planning a church. It was God's idea all from the beginning. This was just a Sunday night Bible study that was taking place.

And God had something and God had a different plans and we were just obedient to those plans. And it just developed into this. We shouldn't have been able to purchase this property because we were only three months into a five Oh one three C C three. And so, uh, there shouldn't have been able to purchase this property, but God had something supernatural in mind and something stepped up and we were able to purchase this, purchase the other property and purchase, uh, uh, the five acres, five and a half acres out back as well too. So it's just a great story.

I'm not going to go into it in great depths, but I never want to get, I never want to grow weary of telling the good news of what God has done for us here at Ramon community church. Cause it's absolutely humbling. It's just humbling. I want to say thank you. Uh, I think angel had to step out, but, um, is angel still in here? She stepped up and say thanks to angel. She's been helping out with the hospitality for so long.

She's stepping into some other roles here in the life of our church, but just want to say thank you to her. But also she gave me props and told me to follow my wife's advice and don't tuck your shirt in today with jeans. Cause I, I didn't want to tuck my shirt in. I think it looks sloppy. And she's like, no, don't don't know. You know, so, uh, anyway, thanks. Thanks to angel on that. But, um, listen in, in the spirit of transparency as well, too, we want to talk a little bit about, um, we were making some adjustments in our budget.

Vision 21 is our three year budget plan. Not going to go into great depths on this, but in the, in the view of transparency, just want you to know that team effort was a missions organization that we've been housing here for the last four years. And I just met with the CEO, uh, through, uh, three weeks ago, just prior to my surgery. And they're at a place right now where they, uh, their ministry is struggling. They, they may not make it much longer and they're having to really look at some changes. We need to pray for them on that, but they're not going to be coming back.

Back here for at least a few years. They have to make some assessments and make some readjustments. It just seems that young people are not wanting to go on mission trips anymore. They want the, the big camps. They want the fun stuff. And, uh, I don't know, maybe that's just part of, uh, just what's going on right now. Maybe there's a turn in the tide or whatever. And that's not a diss on young people. I'm just saying as a whole, it's just not taking place right now. So they're, they're feeling the brunt of that.

Now within our budget, we were calculating approximately $10,000 of extra income in 2020 and 2021 that we would have received after we paid out all the expenses of hosting them. That's not going to happen. Okay. So in order to look at apples to apples, okay, we've made, I just want you to know, we've made some adjustments in our budget. We've also made some adjustments in some of the line items.

We've had to adjust some things and that $10,000. It's unfair to ask our congregation to, to come up with an increase in our budget and an additional $10,000 as we grow this ministry, because that's just not reality for who we are. So we've taken all those expenses and those at income off the table. And now we're just looking at straightforward percentages of growth.

And I want you to know, as of the end of our August, we are, we are only, we are right on, we are $1,000 behind right now. That's it. As the end of August. So we're right on line with where we need to be to make 2019.

I'm asking you to please continue to be faithful to give as the Lord lays on your heart. And as we grow this ministry, you'll hear about some more things to come.

Now, so that leads me to the next thing I wanted to talk about. And that's the future of our mission wing. If team effort's not coming back, what are we doing with that space over there?

Because we have, we have bunk beds and we have other things out there. I want you to know that your elder body is praying about some things right now.

But one of the things we are looking at is Saved by Grace is a ministry right down the street here.

And they really minister to a lot of the homeless and the transit people that are right here from 341 all the way this corridor.

There's a...

to stay. And so we are going to be working with Saved by Grace because they have to spend a lot of their monies to put people up in hotels for temporary housing. That gets very expensive. And plus, it doesn't allow for the body of Christ to come around somebody and to love on them as well, too. So we're going to be working with Saved by Grace to help provide housing for single moms. They're going to be doing the vetting, okay? So we're not going to take people with certain... There are certain felony records that we're going to have to stay away from.

Everyone deserves a second chance, yes. But there are children involved in our church, and I don't have to go into great detail without you not understanding what I'm talking about.

But they will do the vetting. We will be able to approve some of those, and we'll be able to provide temporary housing and also food, and also food for their soul as well, too, while they're here.

They're so afraid. They're like, well, we've talked to many churches. A lot of churches don't want them to come to their worship service.

I'm like, you know, Lord have mercy. They will be welcome here. James Cross was in the first initial meeting. I think that's one of the things that James said is,

they will find a place of welcome here. And I love that about you guys. I love that about your heart.

So we're looking forward to working with them in the days to come.

We've got Jimmy Osborne coming in next week to help us get some beds set up, and we'll move forward on that.

That's the future of the Mission Wing.

And I guess last, before I bring Brandon up, I want to talk, I want to plant a seed with you guys.

We need your help with something. As you know, we have purchased, the Lord has allowed us to purchase five and a half acres back there.

The orchard, the orchard, we have a dozen blueberry bushes, and we have, we have the cuties, the trees, and the grapefruits, and all that.

We will have a small crop this year. Next year is when we're really going to see a big crop,

and we'll be able to take a lot of those fruits over to Morningstar and be able to bless those kids up there.

We're also hoping to get a couple of raised garden beds planted before next spring so we can have some vegetables to provide for them as well, too.

But we've got the irrigation out there, everything set up. We've got everything out there rolling.

One of the things where we need your help is there's about almost a half an acre that's tied, it's about four-tenths of an acre that's tied to River Ridge subdivision.

That's part of our property. It's at the very first, it's that very first lot at River Ridge.

It does nothing except for collect water and create mosquitoes. Okay, that's all it does.

The county has it assessed at an exorbitant amount of exorbitant price value, and we have gone and tried to ask them to reassess it.

They're not really going along with us and asking that.

Because we're a 501c3, we don't have to pay property taxes on all because we're using our property,

but we don't have any structure. We don't have anything on that one piece of property.

We're spending about $800 a year in taxes on a piece of property that's just sitting there, okay?

Okay, could we sell it? Yeah, okay, we could sell it.

We're not going to get what they say.

I don't care about making money on the property.

But because it's so low-lying and it collects water,

but we can get it exempt from taxes if we have some sort of structure

or we have some sort of church function on that property, right?

So my prayer is one of the things where we need your help is some of you men are really gifted at building,

construction, and this and there.

Lonnie, raise your hand real quick.

Lonnie Cawthorne heads up our facilities right now and does a phenomenal job.

Lonnie needs some help with some guys who could come and tackle this project.

As it starts to get colder, this would be the time to do it.

My vision is right off the mission wing out there,

I wanted to build, you ever see like the state parks,

they have those wooden walkways that are above, just off the ground, about maybe three feet.

Have a walkway that meanders just very briefly back into the property from our road

and create a nice, big, large deck, sitting deck,

where people can have, we can have prayer time, devotion times out there.

Our students can use it on Sunday evenings when they meet.

When the folks that come from...

But it also, once team effort does come back, I believe they will in probably three years, it gives the kids a chance to have those devotions. And all we have to do is build it, take a picture of our church using it, and there again, we don't have to pay taxes. Now, there's a huge explanation, and it's something that's viable to where we can use for ourselves as well, too.

We'll end up probably putting some tiki torches out there, making it really nice. We'll have to pull them up, because some of the kids in River Ridge will probably set fire to the thing if we don't, okay? I get that. I was a kid like that one time, too.

But that way, we can have the bug replant pellet and all that good stuff, and it'll look really nice out there.

And the church will provide all of the money for materials, okay? We'll fund the material thing. We'll find the money for that.

What we need is people to help. So pray about it. If you can help, if you can be of any help, or maybe you have some idea that's better than mine, safe, any idea better than mine, please talk to myself or talk to Lonnie.

Go see Lonnie, and Lonnie will coordinate trying to pull that together, okay? Don't want to, don't need to, and we're not going to put it on Lonnie to do that, because if I ask him to, he'll do it.

And so I'm not going to do that, okay? So we need to protect that as well, too.

So, because we have an open format today, Brandon, come on up here while Brandon's coming up.

And again, in the spirit of transparency, do any of you have a question about our church, where we're going, what's going on, the days ahead, this, that, and the other, that I can answer for you right now?

Now, I'll be happy to do that on the, on the bottom right there. There's a mute button right there when you're ready.

Any questions?

Oh, you guys are easy.

All right, Brandon, it's yours for the rest of the day, man.

Good morning.

So this morning, we're talking a little bit about just continuing the conversation about biblical community.

If you've been here for the last month or so, you've heard sermons, you've heard several stories and testimonies about the impact of biblical community on the lives of some of the folks in our fellowship.

And this morning, we're going to continue that.

We're going to have a couple of testimonies.

There's Hannah and Noah, if y'all want to come on up, and Foster Lindbergh.

I don't know where Foster is.

Where is Foster?

Is he?

Okay.

You can come on up, Foster.

I know y'all will be encouraged.

We want to hear a couple of stories, and then I'm going to close out with a few thoughts.

Thank you.

It's happening.

Good morning.

I'm really nervous, so please bear with me.

So, I guess just talking about our testimony.

Well, I'm Hannah.

This is Noah.

I'm Noah.

Guys, I don't think you understand right now.

Okay.

Take two.

Take two.

It's okay.

You got it.

Okay.

We've been coming to this church for about a year, and something that we've really struggled

with was always finding that type of community that we could just fall into.

And with the young adults headed by Taylor and Caitlin, we've really found that home that,

you know, we can go to and we can turn to whenever we need to.

Do you need to go to Ramah?

Do you need to go to Ramah?

Okay.

I'm better at this.

So, about a year ago, we started coming to Ramah because I graduated from college in

2018, and I was driving home from Augusta, and I was just praying, and the Lord was like,

go to Ramah.

And we had a local church here, and I was like, what?

What, Lord?

So, we kind of struggled with it for a little while, and then we started coming, and we

had a really hard time, like, with some family issues, and we've been here for about a year.

So, about three months ago, we started going to young adults, and our lives are, like, totally

wrecked.

Like, we love it.

Community.

I've been praying for community.

We didn't have a community, like a Christian good community in college that I prayed and

wanted so bad.

We've made friendships.

We're growing so much.

And I just encourage, if you want to get in a small group.

been so good. Like I cannot ask God for anything better. And it's just been so, so good. So if you really, I would really encourage people to get connected. It's, it's changed our lives personally.

Thank y'all so much, really. Hey, and I'm nervous too, so I can understand. So thank y'all. So this is Foster Lindbergh. He's one of our elders and he's also one of our home group leaders. So I just wanted to hear, I wanted you guys to hear his heart a little bit this morning.

Well, good morning, everybody. Katie is the other, my better half. She's not here this morning because she's not feeling well. She's a little under the weather, but she doesn't really like to get up and speak publicly anyway. So she's probably relieved. Yeah, that's why she's sick. Yeah.

Well, I wanted to share with you some of the things that we have shared together as a home group. And the people that are in our home group, we've got the Drury's and we've got the Westcott's and we have got the Cross's and the Brown's and then the Lindbergh's.

And we've had a whole mix of kids with this group of ours from the beginning. So we have, we've shared life together. We've shared our cars, our childcare, meals, dog care.

We've shared our family challenges. We've shared our health concerns, our electrical problems, our window problems, our legal issues.

And we've shared one another with one another who we are. And we have shared that, I think, with some real intimacy, but in a really healthy way and in a safe way.

We love each other despite knowing who we are. Or maybe because of who we are.

And we have extended this beyond ourselves to serve others in the community by God's grace.

One of the other, I guess, benefits of our group is, if you're like me, I've always been interested in critters.

And we have all kinds of critters here in southeast Georgia, if you haven't noticed, right?

We've got every kind of poisonous snake and stinging, biting bug and alligator galore.

And one of the things I've really enjoyed is learning at the feet of two experts on this subject, David Drury and Mr. Westcott back there.

They have really educated me on snakes and alligators and such like that.

We have shared the heart of the church with foster care through Dave and Katie's ministry in our group.

And I think that this probably sums up what the Bible has to say about our lives together and I think what has really taken place in our home group.

This is from Romans chapter 12, verse 5 says,

So we though many are one body in Christ and individually members one of another.

And Katie and I, for example, had to be up in Kentucky.

My mother passed away on August 5th and we were up there for the whole month of August attending to that.

And to have the support of a home group, the encouragement, people praying for you, people reaching out to you.

Even though you're away from home that long, you felt like you had home with you, so to speak, as you're going through something like that.

And Romans chapter 12, verses 9 through 18, is a pretty good, I think, depiction of how we're to live life

and how I think as a home group we have filtered life through the lens of God's Word.

Let love be genuine, abhor what is your love.

Be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.

If possible, if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. And by God's grace, that's what has taken place in our home group. And I would encourage any of you who do not have a home group to seek that out. It can really be an important part of your journey, of your walk with the Lord.

Thank you, Pastor. We can just close in prayer now and we're good.

Um, so I just wanted to, uh, to actually follow up exactly a lot of what Foster was just saying. I just wanted to give, um, as much as I love these stories, they're so encouraging. I love to hear stories of biblical community, how we're doing life together, how we're, um, sharing all things, how we're growing in our faith. I love to hear these stories. I love to hear how we connect with one another. And I wanted to give, um, I just, I've had this passage that's been on my heart and I just wanted to talk about it a little bit in Acts. If you have your Bible, turn to, uh, Acts 2.

Um, so this is following Peter, his sermon at Pentecost. He, he's unfolded the gospel, the message of who Jesus Christ is, that he is, has been made both Lord and Christ.

Um, and then as he's, as he's unfolding this, the crowd in verse 37 says, uh, let's see in verse 37, it says, now, when they've heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do?

And Peter said to them, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.

And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit down in 41.

So those, those who received his word were baptized and there were added that day about 3000 souls.

So what we're, what we're seeing, and I want to go into 42 through 47 real quick, but what I, what I want to say is you see people that are responding to the message of Jesus.

You see them responding, repenting, being baptized, following him and the Holy Spirit filling them.

Now what we look at is the response that they have to one another through the power of the Holy Spirit.

What the Holy Spirit is doing in and through them as they live in community together.

So in verse 42, it says, and they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship and the breaking of bread and the prayers and all, and all came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles and all who believed were together and had all things in common.

And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had in need.

And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people.

And the Lord added to their number day by day, those who were being saved.

And I just want to say that this is the biblical model or this is the model that scriptures give us for biblical community.

That we're, as we're transformed by the Holy Spirit, we are devoted to being, we're devoted to the scriptures.

We're devoted to being transformed by scriptures.

We're devoted to prayer with one another.

We're devoted to fellowship.

And then as we do these things, as we do these things, we grow in faith, yes, but it's not just for our growth.

It's so that God uses us to bring others to himself so that we make disciples of Jesus Christ.

So I just want to say that this being a model of biblical community, we, home groups are not the only way, basically.

Home groups are the next step if you're not currently in biblical community.

If you are, awesome.

We want to encourage you.

We want to walk beside you.

We want to help equip you and help you take the next step as well.

If you're not in biblical community, home groups are a great first start, a great next step.

Let's pray.

That may be the next step for you. We'd love to help you do that as well. So today what we're going to do is we have a table set up under the blue tent right outside these doors. We also have a table in the refuge that we're going to have some of our group leaders and group members, our home group leaders and home group members that are going to be out at the tables. There's some information. We have a map, which I think, yeah, we've got a map. This is on the table as well, but this is a map of our home groups. We have seven groups currently. We're adding two as of next week.

Which is awesome. I'm so excited that we have two new groups. This map is on the tables. We have information about each group, when they meet, what days they meet, what times they meet. And we'd love to have a conversation with you.

If you're interested in taking next steps, either starting a group, being involved in a group, just making that connection, we'd love to talk to you back there. We'll have several people at each group, I mean, at each table that could have a conversation about that.

If you have any questions, if you have any further concerns, or just want to know more about the experience of being in a small group, being in biblical community with each other.

I think that's most everything. I do want to remind everybody that we're having lunch in the refuge, and everybody's invited. We'd love to have a meal with you.

We're excited to be able to sit down, have fellowship, and get to know you a little bit better.

Worship team, if y'all want to come on up. I'll pray for us real quick.

I want to pray for the food, pray for our fellowship.

Let's pray real quick.

Father God, thank you so much for allowing us to gather in your name.

Thank you for your son.

Thank you for the food you provided.

I just want to pray that you just bless our fellowship today, that it honors you, and it edifies, that we edify each other.

All these things I ask in Jesus' name. Amen.