JOURNEY WITH JEFF: Blessed to Serve

Blessed to Serve

I am blessed to be able to serve, first and foremost, the Lord, but also the people and churches of the BMA of Arkansas. I have enjoyed the past few months as I have had many opportunities to visit churches and share an update on the ministry of the Baptist Trumpet and a message from God’s Word.

The latest visit was at Grace Baptist Church in Russellville on July 31. I was able to share and fill in for Pastor Roger Pearce in his absence. This is a great church that is faithful in supporting the Trumpet.

I look forward to visiting with many of you in the coming months as we begin to gather for the local association meetings. You can find each association’s meeting information in our District Meetings listing each week in the Trumpet. I encourage you to check it each week as we will update the information as needed. Just this week, the Judson Association meeting was moved from Oct. 8 to Oct. 15.

Almost Out of Time

We are just a few weeks away from the end of our fiscal year (Aug. 31). Up to this date, we count all special offerings we receive outside of the regular giving toward our Special Emphasis for the year. As I have shared with the churches I have visited lately, God has been faithful to supply our needs through the faithful giving of His people. We are still short of our goal of $45,000, but through the Trumpet Team and the first portion of our Special Emphasis funds ($20,000), we were able to make up the planned deficit for the year.

As you may remember from last year, after calculating our production and post-production costs, we realized that we were bringing in around 45¢ per issue per subscriber, but our total cost was right at 90¢ per issue per subscriber. That is why we implemented a rate increase of 15¢ to help alleviate this deficit.

The remaining $25,000 of our Special Emphasis is designated for a special software and website project that will help us with long-term stability. You may remember that, a few years ago, we changed the software we use to manage our subscriptions. While that change was good and, for the most part, is working well for us, it comes with a price tag of around $600 per month. Thanks to a connection with a member of one of our churches who has a software development business, we are working to develop our very own program. Not only will this allow us to save quite a bit per month, but it should also allow us to further reduce some redundancy that takes place now in managing our subscriptions and donations.

As of today, we are 70% of the way toward meeting our goal. That means we were able to cover the expected deficit by completing the Trumpet Team funding and have some funds from Special Emphasis (around $12,000) to put toward our software project. We will trust that the Lord will meet our needs in His time.

Special Emphasis Update

Thanks to these churches and individuals that have given since our last report:

2022 Special Emphasis • Goal — $45,000

Previous Balance (July 20) $30,672.03

Grace, Russellville $500.00

Pleasant Valley, Greenbrier $100.00

Old Hickory, Hattieville $250.00

Hershel and Bonnie Newton $200.00

Total $31,722.00