The 9Marks Weekender started on a Friday afternoon with a warm greeting, laughter, and a loaded question. The pastor asked each of the thirty leaders to answer the question, “When were you saved?” Some people struggled to give a detailed answer, while one man gave us the place, date and time of his conversion. He had been listening to a program when God showed him his sin, brought him to repentance and belief in Jesus Christ as his Savior! What a dramatic way to start out the conference.
After passing the initial Q&A session we were welcomed upstairs to a great meal and the warm hospitality of the church family at Bethany Baptist in Bellflower, CA. At around 7 pm we made our way to a large room for the Elder’s meeting. We had been warned that the meeting might go past midnight, so I got some extra snacks and caffeine and found my seat.
We started the meeting by singing accapella for all five stanzas of a favorite hymn. As soon as we finished singing, the pastors started praying and they didn’t stop until all the members in the church had been prayed for. One of the pastors got on his knees while the other two stayed seated. Each of them had a copy of the church directory. It was evident that these leaders had been praying for their people. They went person by person and prayed deep, informed prayers for each of them. It was impressive to see how detailed and recent their prayer requests and praises were. As I listened to them praying I couldn’t help thinking about the parable of the Good Shepherd who left the ninety-nine to go look for the one lost sheep. The shepherds at Bethany Baptist know their sheep by name. They know how to pray for them and it was clear to see that their love and concern for their people.
After praying, we took a quick break and then jumped back in for the Member Care portion of the meeting. This was when one of the pastors surprised us by sharing a recent personal struggle in his life. He asked the others to pray for him. They did so and also gave him some accountability questions to consider. The pastors told us there are 117 active members at the church. They use the Member Care time to talk about people in the church who are troubled, hurting, or in need of accountability. They did a great job of assigning each need to either a pastor or someone who was close to the person. By doing this they were able to make action items to help care for the church family.
After discussing Member Care and New Members the pastors delved into finalizing the budget for next year. Having worked through church budgets before I found the process to be efficient and pastoral. They had been reading a book on church budgeting together as a pastoral team and I could tell it had an impact on how they tackled the church finances.
At around 11:30 pm, the pastors told us the meeting was done, at least for us. They told us they were going to have a private meeting to finalize some things in preparation for the next day. I was glad our part of the meeting was over, but I couldn’t help to think about all the work those pastors put in to help shepherd the people of God. I had already been with these men for seven hours and I could tell they modeled the theme verse of their church, 1 Thessalonians 2:8, “We were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.”
The conference continued with this same atmosphere of pastoral care and intentional church life from Saturday through Monday morning. The conference covered many topics including church government, church history, pastoral strategies, membership, and church discipline. These Weekender conferences are put on periodically in different churches around the country. If you are interested in more information you can find it at https://www.9marks.org/events/.
