Kingdom Builders Update & Introduction to Romans 12
Kingdom Builders Update
This was a Kingdom Builders Sunday, and it felt right to give the whole church an update. Back at the end of February, we shared honestly that in 2025 the church had a significant financial deficit. What made that so unusual is that it went against everything we would normally expect. The church was growing numerically and growing across all of our discipleship programs, and yet giving was in decline. Those two things almost always go hand in hand, so this was something of a unique issue.
Working alongside the trustees, we have done everything we can to make cuts and savings wherever possible so that we can be good stewards. We are deeply grateful to the staff for being extra diligent with how we spend. We can say with complete certainty that the staffing, the budget, and the spending for Word of Life match a church our size, and we are doing all we can to be responsible.
A Generational Call
Back in February, we shared a conviction that this is a moment for a generational call. There is a generational call to make His church your church.
Scripture often describes a generation as roughly twenty years. One generation achieves something, and the next picks it up and carries it forward. For us, that pattern is written into our own history. About forty years ago, Dan & Marjorie Rought, along with a few families, came and started an Assemblies of God church in Baldwinsville, and that became Word of Life. Twenty years after the church started, this part of the building was built. Here we are now, twenty years later. This is our time to step up and say that we are the generation who will keep moving this forward. Generations have gone before us to get us where we are, and now we have the responsibility to pick it up and keep going.
This is not only our story. After February, we asked Phil McMillan for his thoughts. Phil is the Convoy of Hope representative who comes most years to share about One Day to Feed the World, and he speaks with churches and church leaders about giving more than almost anyone we know. He listened and called to talk it through, and one of the things he pointed out is that this is a nationwide reality. Across the country, younger people are not stepping up to support the local church the way their parents and grandparents did.
Our responsibility is not churches nationwide. Our responsibility is to serve our church here in Baldwinsville. But the point still stands. We can complain about the problems all we want, but the answer is the local church. The local church is God's answer to a hurting world. We can be frustrated at the news and angry at the state of things, but the church is God's answer. Generations before us understood this and sacrificed to build it. This is our call to step up, sacrifice, and build the church so that his kingdom can advance across our area and beyond.
Signs of Progress
Three months ago, when we put this challenge in front of the congregation, it did not fall on deaf ears. Many of us dug deep. You stepped up. You chose to sacrifice.
Looking at the numbers, year to date, comparing January through June of 2026 to the same period in 2025, our step one giving, our tithes and offerings, is up 15.6 percent. That is tremendous, and we are deeply grateful to those who have sacrificed. This is a combination of new tithers, people who have started giving more consistently, and some larger offerings from people who believe in the work of the local church.
There is still a challenge ahead. As of the end of June, the halfway point of the year, we have received 47 percent of the annual budget. Last year at the end of June we had received only 41 percent, and we ended that year significantly behind. So heading into the second half of the year at 47 percent is genuinely encouraging. We are moving in the right direction.
Some of our faithful tithers have gone further and further above and beyond, and we are grateful for them. But the long term solution is for those who have not yet started building the church through their giving to get started. There is a your church in the phrase make His church your church.
Teaching the Next Generation to Give
Some conversations happen at home before they are ever preached in church. Two obvious examples are sex and money. When these are taught at home, then what is said in church simply reinforces what parents have already been teaching, rather than dropping brand new information.
Our own kids have started earning a little money shoveling driveways and doing chores, and it is not easy to convince a twelve year old that the five dollars they made means fifty cents goes to the offering on Sunday. But as hard as that is, it is far easier than teaching an adult who has never heard about the importance of giving, the purpose behind it, or the blessing of it.
So parents, teach your kids! Tell them the stories of God's provision and how he has blessed you. Tell them how you put God first through the ups and the downs. When your kids give their fifty cents, nudge them during a baptism service and say, you helped make this possible. God took your offering and used it to change someone's life. Help them catch the vision that giving is not just about dollars and cents. God is able to take all of it and use it to transform lives. If these conversations are happening at home, we are setting up a future generation to be generous Kingdom Builders.
Everyone Carrying the Weight Together
Not long ago we talked about the four friends who carried their buddy on a stretcher to Jesus. Four people carrying someone to Jesus is a lot easier than three, and far easier than two, and far easier still than one person slinging a friend over their back and hiking the whole way alone. That is a good picture of the financial responsibility of the church. When everyone plays their part, we can get more and more people to Jesus without dragging down or burning out anyone. When people do not play their part, the weight falls on fewer and fewer shoulders.
Praying Over the Cards
Back in February, everyone had the chance to fill out a card with their goal, their intention, their step of faith in giving, and their prayer requests. We gathered those cards and prayed over them together as a whole church.
Lord, this conversation around finances can be sensitive and even uncomfortable for some. But ultimately we trust you. You are our source and our provider. You give us the strength to get up and go to work, and the imagination to innovate. It is all a blessing from you. We lift up every need written on these cards, the people desperate for a new job, those drowning in debt, those facing bills they are terrified to face. We ask for breakthrough in Jesus name. We have already begun hearing stories of breakthrough, and we ask to hear more and more of how you have made a way where there seemed to be no way. We submit every need to you and take confidence in your word, in Jesus name. Amen!
Introducing the Summer Series in Romans 12
Every summer we walk through a series together, and this summer we are going to spend close to two months in Romans 12. We will share the preaching across the pastoral team, so you will get to hear from everybody.
Romans is a fascinating book. One thing you notice, which is typical of all of Paul's writing, is that he spends the first portion laying out theology. He works through the grand ideas, helping people make sense of faith, the cross, and the power of grace. Then he shifts gears toward the end of the book and turns to practical application. Romans 1 through 11 is Paul walking through what it means to follow Jesus, the message of Jesus, the meaning of the cross & the power of grace. Then chapter 12 asks how we actually put all of that into practice in our lives.
Romans is one of the most popular and most quoted books of the Bible. Some of its best loved verses run right through the heart of the gospel. Romans 1:16 declares that Paul is not ashamed of the good news, because it is the power of God at work saving everyone who believes. Romans 3:23 reminds us that everyone has sinned and falls short of God's glorious standard. Romans 5:8 says that God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. Romans 8:1 announces that there is now no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. Romans 8:38 assures us that nothing in all creation can ever separate us from the love of God revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The verse that will anchor our whole series is Romans 12:2. Do not copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
The Story Behind Romans 1 Through 11
To lay the groundwork, we watched an overview of Romans from the Bible Project! It’s well worth rewatching this week!
Paul, once known as Saul of Tarsus, was a devout Pharisee zealous for the Torah, and he saw Jesus and his followers as a threat until he had a radical encounter with the risen Jesus. Commissioned as an apostle to the non Jewish world, he traveled the Roman Empire announcing the risen King Jesus and forming communities of his followers. Romans is one of the letters he wrote to such a community. It was written late in his career to a church in Rome made up of both Jewish and non Jewish believers. That church had become divided, partly because Jewish believers who had been expelled from Rome returned to find a church that had grown very non Jewish in custom, which created real tension. Paul wrote to unify them and to prepare them as a base for taking the gospel even further west.
Across the first movements of the letter, Paul explains that the good news reveals God's righteousness, his faithfulness to do what is right and to keep his promises. He shows that all humanity, both the nations and Israel, stands guilty before a just God. But that is not the final word. Jesus came as Israel's Messiah to die on behalf of all people, taking on himself the consequences of sin and overcoming it through his resurrection. Those who trust in him are justified, declared to be in a right relationship with God, given a place in his covenant family, and set on a journey of transformation by grace. Paul points back to Abraham, who was declared righteous by faith before the law was ever given, to show that this new family is made up of Jews and Gentiles alike who share the same faith.
He then contrasts Adam, through whom sin entered, with Jesus, the new Adam, who offers his life so that others can be made right with God. Baptism marks the move from the old humanity into the new. Paul explains that the commands of the Torah were good but could not fix the sinful human heart, and in fact made the problem clear, until the solution arrived in Jesus and the Spirit, who transforms hearts to truly love God and neighbor. Finally, Paul wrestles with the place of his fellow Israelites, trusting God's character and promise that he will not give up on his covenant people. All of this leads into the final section of the letter, chapters 12 through 16, where the call becomes clear. Because of their faith in Jesus, Jews and Gentiles are now one family, and the only reasonable response is for the church to be unified.
Coming Up
Next Sunday we begin our journey through Romans 12, and we will spend the whole summer working our way through this incredible chapter. If you have a chance this week, take forty minutes and read through the book of Romans. It will be forty minutes well spent.
