Churches can have access to online Bible study materials RightNow

Posted on March 25, 2019March 25, 2019 by CBA Administration

Churches can have access to online Bible study materials RightNow

Scrolling through a website filled with thousands of Bible studies, Executive Pastor Jared Maier of Rheas Mill Baptist Church, clicks on a photo of Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow. The study, an inspirational series of videos where Tebow shares stories from his life “to illustrate what it means to seize each day for God’s glory” is part of RightNow Media’s original, video-based, online content.

Maier regularly uses items from the library to augment their midweek small-group Bible studies. Just a few miles south, the crew at RightNow Media is busy planning a one-day livestream event which will connect people from around the nation with well-known Bible teacher Francis Chan, business tycoon Steve Green, the outspoken Christian and President of Hobby Lobby and others. This annual conference and webcast are just one of the many high-tech productions originated from their Collin County headquarters.
“Our passion is to help people live out their faith in their neighborhoods, offices, schools, homes and around the world,” said RightNow Media President Brian Mosley.
The video production company began 40 years ago as Mosley’s grandfather documented the work of missionaries for churches. Today, the company is a giant in the world of Christian multimedia, serving over 15,000 churches, ministries and Christian business owners.

Brian Mosley, CEO of McKinney-based RightNow Media.

Mosley says their niche audience is small-to-medium-sized churches because they have fewer resources than churches with large paid staffs. And, while the company has been supporting churches for years through VHS tapes, and then DVDs, the explosion of the internet and the ability to stream video content directly to an individual’s computer, tablet, or smartphone has revolutionized their business model.

“Suddenly, we are able to serve the pastors, and the small groups, and youth groups and children, and families and people at every age and stage,” said Mosley, who added that RightNow Media does not replace church workers, but supplements limited church staff and volunteers.

Mosley notes the changes in technology have significantly changed how their materials are used. “When the content was on VHS and DVD, and sent to a church, it was really for group consumption,”Mosley said. “But once that content was placed online, it’s now being used by families or individuals in their homes. Now people have access to all of this great content, which you can still use in a group setting, or for your own personal growth, or for your family’s use.”

Maier confirms this trend. Not only does he use RightNow Media for small-group studies at his church, but the app is loaded on both his phone and smart-tv so his children can access programming for children. “It’s like having Christian Netflix for your kids,” Maier said. “I don’t have to worry about what they are watching if they are watching through RightNow Media.”

CBA Executive Director Vince Smith and RightNow Media’s Phillip Bleecker discuss the partnership between CBA and RightNow in the McKinney studio prior to shooting some promotional materials about how RightNow Media can help churches and associations.

RightNow Media is partnered with the CBA Church Network and offers free accounts for CBA pastors and discounts for CBA churches. For more information, contact Phillip Bleecker at phillip@rightnow.org.

Extra Cups on a Sunday Morning

Posted on March 25, 2019March 25, 2019 by CBA Administration

Extra Cups on a Sunday Morning
By CHASE SMITH

Sunday morning is a sacred time as a pastor. Most wake up early and get to their church before anyone else does.

If you’re a small church pastor like me, you’re probably turning on all the lights, adjusting the thermostats, making the coffee, making sure the bulletins are printed and in order, and reviewing your sermon one last time before the band comes in to practice. Most pastors have a routine they follow and like to stick to that routine as closely as possible.

One Sunday morning, I got a call from a pastor friend of mine. He pastors a church nearby, and he and I have become friends through the CBA Church Network. Knowing what his obligations are on Sunday mornings, the timing of his call was strange. When I answered the phone, he asked me if I had any cups for the Lord’s Supper, because they were doing it that morning and he was running short.
He came by to get the cups, and all was well with his service. In that moment, it was a simple conversation about small disposable cups, but the relationship leading up to that conversation took months to build.

Pastor, let me ask you a question: when you have a need, who can you turn to? It can be communion cups on a Sunday morning, or it may be wisdom, guidance, and prayer because of infighting in your church.

What the CBA Church Network provides us as pastors is a group of churches that are battling back the same lostness as you are and in the same area you’re in.
We have large and small churches in our network. We have new church plants and churches that have been around for more than a century in our network. We have traditional churches in historic buildings, and we have churches meeting in a shopping center in our network. We are a diverse group that has one goal, to build God’s Kingdom.

I have networked and partnered with pastors from the CBA in serving our town with a clothing and food pantry, a city-wide call to prayer after a tragedy, high school graduating senior ceremonies, as well calling to see if a certain family was attending their church in order to minister to them.

Outside of my town, I’ve partnered with CBA pastors to travel to Washington DC and to be trained at the NAMB headquarters in Georgia.The opportunities for pastors to have a brotherhood network of men serving the same God in the same area is here, all you have to do is get involved.

I’ll end with this challenge: there are pastors in your area, probably within a 10-minute drive of you, who need an encouraging call from you and who need your prayers and compassion. Networking isn’t hard, it starts with a phone call. And who knows, the relationship you start with that phone call may have extra cups for you on a Sunday.

Chase Smith serves as pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Farmersville, Texas, and is currently working on his doctorate from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. You can connect with him on Twitter @ChaseMSmith.

Keeping Kids Safe: Educating The Church About Abuse Workshop

Posted on March 6, 2019March 6, 2019 by CBA Administration

Local response to Southern Baptist sexual abuse scandal results in workshop, new policies

By Marc Ira Hooks

New guidelines for churches and a seminar designed to prevent incidents of sexual abuse are being initiated by the CBA Church Network as Southern Baptist churches in Texas and around the country experience fallout from an expose about SBC clergy and staff members convicted of sexual abuse.

Just weeks ago, an investigation produced by the Houston Chronicle uncovered more than 700 victims of sexual misconduct perpetrated by Southern Baptists in positions of power. The examination by reporters covered a 20-year span and found more than 200 pastors, youth ministers and deacons who were convicted or took plea deals for sex crimes.

In response, Collin Baptist Association Church Network is taking steps to ensure the safety of Southern Baptist parishioners in Collin County. “This is mission critical stuff,” said CBA Executive Director Vince Smith. “Yes, this is a black eye on us as a denomination. But our focus must always be to love people in the way that Jesus loved them. That means that we are more concerned with preserving our people than we are with our system.” Because of the denomination’s non-hierarchical structure, churches are not under the authority of Collin Baptist Association, but choose to cooperate together under the umbrella of the Network.

The Network will host Keeping Kids Safe: Educating the Church About Abuse – a half-day workshop designed to both raise awareness about sexual abuse in our churches, and to equip churches to use personnel screening services and other policies that might weed-out sexual predators before they are able to enter the church as staff or volunteers.

The workshop will focus on sexual abuse in the church awareness, prevention and protection. Church leaders will hear testimony from a woman abused by her youth pastor, and presentations from the Collin County Child Advocacy Center and The SANE Initiative. A counselor with the Baptist General Convention of Texas will also share information about MinistrySafe, a service which provides training, screening, background checks, and monitoring and oversight for churches.

“The only acceptable number of victims is zero,” said Smith, who believes the Network can be a catalyst for change at the church level. “We must engage the issue of sexual abuse with compassion and care.” In addition to the workshop, Network leaders adopted a “Statement of Principles” concerning sexual abuse recently crafted and approved by the Southern Baptist Conference of Associational Leaders. The preamble of the SBCAL document states, “Our desire is for the churches in our respective associations to be safe havens for survivors and safe from abuse. We also call on our associational leaders and ministries to be models of compassionate care.”

Keeping Kids Safe: Educating the Church About Abuse will be held April, 25 at First Baptist Church of McKinney, 1615 W Louisiana Street, from 9 a.m. until noon. For more information, call the CBA Office at 972-529-5222 or send an email to info@cbachurchnetwork.org.