Michigan Camp Meeting 2017

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Practical

Kevin Barrett

Everything You Wanted to Know About Michigan Advance Partners (MAP) But Were Afraid to Ask

Father in heaven, Lord, we count it a privilege to be a part of Michigan Advanced Partners, and we ask, Lord, that you just guide and direct as we delve into the details and the blessing that MAP has been to this conference for almost 40 years now.

Let's just start out with talking about how it all began.

So, Lay Advisory is a program that was actually started back in the late 70s.

And there was a lay person by the name of Jerry Snowden from Escanaba, he still lives there.

And he had this idea, how could laymen and pastors work better together in the conference to finish the Lord's work here in Michigan?

Unfortunately, well, it was fortunate for his idea, but unfortunately at the same time there was a big financial crisis that the conference was going through at the time.

And Jerry is quite a go-getter, still is, and he contacted with help all the churches in Michigan and said, hey, we'd like to have a representative from your church, we need to get together, we need to talk about this crisis and this idea, how we can help get us out of this crisis.

177 So over a period of a few weeks, there was a lot of meetings that took place in various parts of the state.

And they were, a lot of prayer that was going on because I can't remember exactly what the amount of money was, but it was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Long story made short, they engaged the executive committee and some of the officers and said you know let's kind of formalize this thing And they developed a committee of about 13 people as an original committee elected in 1978.

And the lay advisory concept was officially born.

The good news is that this snowball was rolling, you know, and Jerry and his various people from these elders and some pastors, they had this real burning desire to see if we can, you know, help the situation out.

And it was only a matter of like a couple, maybe 3 months, that enough funds were obtained from the various churches to basically cancel out that financial crisis.

It was a miracle And it was a beautiful thing.

They wanted to keep it going, and the executive committee and the officers wanted to keep it going as well.

So they set up a regular schedule of meeting and basically discussing the needs that the conference had, you know, financial needs in various areas.

And some of the things that they were discussed, you know, we carry through even today, you know, as far as education, evangelism is concerned, you know, various other needs that the conference has.

And basically the whole concept of Michigan Advanced Partners.

And the concept of RIOT means that it's basically people in Michigan wanting to advance the work of the gospel here in the state.

And almost 40 years later, I put this number on the board here, $22.3 million is how much money, how much MAP money has been contributed in that time.

And This conference would look entirely different Had it not been for that little do people realize is that this is the largest source of non tied income that the conference operates under And so it's very important that we have consistent partners and the recommendation, as you probably know from various appeals, is 1% of income.

1 of the things I wanted to point out was that, did you see this map report?

This map report's on the right side, right pocket, and it has, you've probably seen this before, but it shows the breakdown.

So this is like a third of all MAP monies go to evangelism.

And then the church and building Fund 25% we'll talk about that a little bit later.

Project Assist is for worthy students and Great Lakes Adventist Academy gets 15% and then you can see the breakdown 4% for camp meeting and 4% for campus albo and then 0.67% for church equipment, church school equipment.

Now what I wanted to point out here was this 25 percent.

Now this 25 percent is what is known as the pooled resource fund.

And the pooled resource fund, in your left pocket, you'll see I have a handle called map pooled resource Fund guidelines.

This pooled resource fund is 25% of MAP funds that are received and that is the fund that the Lay Advisory Coordinating Committee has oversight and distributes over the course of a year.

That committee is made up of, if you look on the back of the sheet, made up of the officers here, myself being the chairperson.

Right now we have a vacancy in the vice chair area, secretary, and then you see the area districts.

Each district, Each area is made up of several districts area being districts 1 & 2 area B districts 4 5 & 6 area C districts 9 10 11 and D District 7 8 & 12 and you see the various names in there.

Each area has a chairperson a vice chair and secretary You know That's a good point because I was just I was going from some other things when I was putting this together It's a good point.

So this group which is which was called the Lay Advisory meets about 3 to 4 times a year and what do they do?

Well they sit around, they get some conference reports, you know, as far as you know what's happening in terms of evangelism, what's happening in terms of you know do various things, do various programs that are going on the conference.

And what is unique to Michigan is that, to my knowledge, this is the only conference that has such an oversight of laypeople.

And so the conference officers are sharing, you know, reports and things, you know, and different needs statuses of various projects that are going on and they look for input from lay people and they Welcome that input and they you know They get they get a lot of feedback, which is very helpful to them.

After those reports are given, and then we have the time of the meeting where we talk about the various requests.

The various requests now in your packet you will see a Map funding request form see that Also pull out your map pooled resources fund guidelines.

This is the report that the churches will submit to the district chair in your, excuse me, the area chair and you know that is whatever your district is on here okay so you would contact Dick Harris you would submit that to him do you know dick no okay so dick will work with you and kind of evaluate your request and you know Help you out with you if there's some additional things that are required if you're if it's a Is it if it's a physical building requests, you know, like repair or something that we want to look for at least a couple to 3 bids that you've gotten for the work.

There's really 5 basic guidelines, you know, at the very top there.

1 of the things that people don't realize, and I was I was hoping that you know we'd have more people to kind of hear this, is that number 1 unique outreach evangelism products can be funded up to a hundred percent out of the MAP pooled resource fund.

Well maybe it's unique to your particular church.

Maybe it's, you know, maybe somebody's had an idea for, you know, a way of doing BBS.

Or Maybe it's a Bible worker that you're wanting to help fund, and you're looking for funding for that.

I'm just rattling things off the top of my head that other people have requested in the past.

You know, we've had some people in some of the urban areas have special programs for youth that the church was trying out in the area and we're looking for some additional funding.

So, funding for new building projects will be decided by the Lay Advisory Statewide Coordinating Committee on a case-by-case basis.

The reason why that's in there is that we ran into some trouble back in the 90s because it was in the guidelines that we would match, well, 10% of the total project fund.

And it was like the roaring 90s and everybody was building and we had projects that were like a hundred, well, a million dollars and then here and then over.

So 10% of a million is a hundred thousand.

So what happened is that the funds got rapidly depleted to the point where, you know, we basically had to put a moratorium on those types of requests.

So it was like for quite a long period of time there was just like no money to do anything.

And so we were honoring those requests and make a long story short it took over 10 years to kind of catch up to a point where we are now.

I think we're just finally we're paying off the last you know Few projects and we might have can be completely can you know caught up on that now?

But it's not that we're saying no, we're not gonna help you with a new building or that type of thing.

It's just that We're just gonna evaluate in a case-by-case basis Right exactly show that it's needed.

You can't just go, we decided we didn't like this building anymore, we want to move over there.

So I'll get into that a little bit later.

You know some other areas that kind of qualify in that on a case-by-case basis type of thing.

Number 3, funds granted for approved remodeling, improvement, and maintenance projects will be from 1% to 50% up to of the total project cost need, based on the need.

And it's roofs that need to be repaired, boilers that are broken, furnaces, lots and lots of parking lots, people who are looking for help with paving and that kind of thing.

We recommend to people that don't look to MAP as a primary source of funding for those projects.

You know, we are more than happy to help out.

We have a church in the conference, I won't mention which 1, but they're in a situation right now where the, you know, there's a few people attending on fixed incomes And the building is literally about ready to fall.

And in order to make it safe, you know, now they've done their best to raise some funds, you know, to make it safe again.

That's 1 where we're going to, you know, it's kind of more of an emergency because if they don't get this thing fixed They're just not gonna have a church there so those that's 1 thing that we're gonna probably address here later this summer and So they can do the unlock revelation seminar and all that Other situations we've had schools in like in the middle of February their boiler blows up you know that's an emergency situation and that's where you know if it doesn't fall within 1 of the like the 3 to 4 times that we meet we'll have a phone call to address the need and but we'll still want them to submit paperwork it's like you know what kind of funding do you have available what have you raised you know locally to address this emergency and That type of thing For it's really important all requests for funding are subject to the availability of projected pooled resource fund balance Why do I say that we don't spend money we don't have.

We got in trouble and you know people just kind of lost track of Matt because we were busy catching up and you know like I said it's the largest source of income that the conference utilizes outside of tithe.

So, I mean, you got, you know, evangelism being positively affected, you've got education being positively affected, but people just kind of, you know, just kind of, it kind of happens.

It's really the systematic faithfulness of members in Michigan all banding together to make it happen.

You know, we have close to 190, if not 190, churches and companies here in this conference.

And the thing I was trying to, what I wanted to emphasize was that it's, you know, you have all these churches kind of working together, you know, it just makes it so much easier.

It basically enables maybe some other churches to do some things that they wouldn't normally have the ability to do financially, and everyone benefits from it.

I believe it follows the You know the first church model in the book of Acts where everybody was, you know sharing resources and it's a very very much along the same line of Thinking Number 5 any changes to Matt percent allotments would be recommended by the Labor Advisory Statewide Courting Committee to the Michigan Court.

All that means is that right now we've got these percentages set up.

We just can't go in there willy-nilly and just change the percentages.

We're going to be working with, you know, through committees and the executive committee of the conference.

If there needs to be a change, it's going to be addressed in a proper manner.

Leroy Bruch

Let’s Not Get It Reversed

Father, thank you so much for your goodness to us.

Pray that your Holy Spirit will come very close to us now as we talk, as we study.

Send us forth with an understanding of the people we need to be in these closing hours of earth's history.

But I'm going to tell you the world's going to end up in a reversal before it ends.

Ellen White, I don't know about you but I read Ellen White, I trust Ellen White, I think she was inspired.

I haven't met a human being yet that was but when the Holy Spirit spoke through her I believe she spoke the Word of God.

She says and notice this the principle that man can save himself by his own what?

Now you say what are you talking about this for well let me tell you something folks community services is a works-based ministry somebody ought to say man what are you doing you're feeding the hungry you're clothing in the naked right is that wrong no that's not wrong that's not wrong there's just a little cup few nuances that go with this that we've got to understand for our own protection.

The principle that man can save himself or herself by their own works lay at the foundation of every heathen religion.

Israel was supposed to be separate from that but you know what?

Do you think spiritual Israel could get caught it's possible the foundation of every heathen religion wherever it is held men have no barrier against sin And I've seen this in my short lifetime.

Well, it's not so short anymore, I guess.

But I've seen people, I mean, they look so perfect on the outside, but there's a lot of problems inside, right?

And that's where you and I don't want to go.

But we're going to be faced with a challenge.

In fact, if you want to look at a heathen religion, You see that 666?

In fact, the Bible tells us, and he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of signs which it was given to him to perform in the presence of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life.

And it was given him to give breath to the image of the beast so that the image of the beast would even speak and cause as many to be, as do not worship the image of the beast, to be killed." Now is this a religion of works?

Do what we tell you or you will be killed.

And it was given to him, I think we already went there, and he causes all the small and the great, the rich and the poor, the free men and the slaves to begin a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and he provides that no 1 will be able to buy or to what?

Except the 1 who has the mark, either the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

So, can I say to you that at the end of time, and we're gonna get really a little bit more clarity on this, at the end of time, when the mark of the beast goes out, there's gonna be 2 camps?

There are gonna be those who receive the mark, and those who receive the seal.

Those who receive the mark are bowing down and worshipping in accordance with state legislated enforced worship.

Those who receive the seal refuse to do that, correct?

The question is, could God's church in these last days get caught into a salvation by works trip now?

Adventists, I want to tell you something.

You go talk to a Baptist yeah and they're gonna tell you man you guys are not the legalists right I've had them say it to Madigan went to a Bible study 1 night and this guy came in.

He came in, he was his pastor, and he was bound and determined he was going to get him away from this crazy Adventist preacher.

And he said to me, you know, you're nothing but a legalist.

And I just sat there and looked at him and said, well, I'm just trying to do what God wants.

He finally got so mad he got up and left.

But that's what they say, oh, you guys are a bunch of legalists, you know.

Jesus had 6 parables and he talked in 6 parables to counteract 2 very dangerous concepts.

And these, If you get caught with either 1 or both of these concepts, you're in trouble, we're in trouble.

The 2 dangerous concepts, Number 1, we can earn salvation by our works.

Number 2, we do not need works to be saved.

I can't be saved by my works, but I can't be saved without works, right?

Well, dangerous concept number 1, We can earn salvation by our works.

Jesus taught 3 parables in Luke chapter 15.

But that sheep, he decided he wanted to go out wandering, didn't he?

You know, the thing about sheep is they're either nearsighted or farsighted.

I'm not sure which 1, but they can't see far away.

And so sheep have a tendency, they start nibbling on grass and they start nibbling and nibbling and nibbling and they can see right in front of them, they just keep nibbling until finally they get out so far that they turn around and they can't see anything because they're nearsighted.

He went wandering off, eating away, got lost, and so did he get back to the foal?

So in the parable of the lost sheep, Jesus teaches that we can get lost and he's gonna have to find us.

Jay Gallimore

The Song of Moses and the Lamb

I hope you have your Bibles with you tonight in some form or another.

We're going to talk tonight about Moses, the song of Moses, and the song of the Lamb.

And the Scripture is read so nicely tonight by Hilder Reichert.

But if you turn back to that same scripture, Revelation chapter 15, that's a serious message, Revelation 15.

It's maybe a message sometimes that our modern world would not be too politically correct, but it's the truth, and we need to take a hard look at it tonight.

Let's start, if you don't mind, with verse 1.

Then I saw another angel, another sign in heaven, great and marvelous." Notice how it's introduced.

This is great and marvelous, what we're about to see here.

For some reason we don't think of plagues being great and marvelous, but the introduction here is that these mighty works of God are great and marvelous.

For in them, the wrath of God is complete." Another way of saying that, the wrath of God is finished, Which means that there were plagues before this.

If He had not had judgments in the land, you wouldn't be here tonight.

Christianity would have been wiped off the face of the earth.

Godly people would have been obliterated.

But God's judgments are in the land, and they have been in the history.

I want to flash back, if you don't mind for a moment, to the 7 trumpets.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on the 7 trumpets, but I want to spend a little time and I can't have time to bore into them, but I want to take a look.

If you look back at chapter 11, chapter 11 verse 15 begins to tell us about the seventh trumpet.

Now I believe, and Adventists have taught traditionally, and I think correctly, that we're living in the time of the seventh trumpet.

So when this trumpet is done, it's finished.

We have the 7 seals, the 7 churches, and then you have that principle repeat and enlarge and they cover the time from the cross to the coming of Jesus.

So the 7 churches, and then you have repeat and enlarge with the 7 seals, and you have the repeat and enlarge of the 7 trumpets.

But each of them approach it from a different aspect.

The 7 trumpets are God's response to evil in the Christian dispensation, if you please.

If you look at verse 15, it said, Chapter 11, verse 15, Then the seventh angel sounded, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever." That verse sums up the finish, if you please.

And of that seventh trumpet, the 7 last plagues are part of it.

And the kingdoms of this world becomes the kingdom of our Savior, for He's King of kings and Lord of lords.

If you look down at verse 18, I'm sorry, verse 17, we give you thanks, O Lord God Almighty, the 1 who is and who was and who is to come, because you have taken your great power and reigned.

It's like the devil and his evil angels have just ratcheted up, angry.

They're not just angry at each other, they're angry at God.

Let me just give you just a quick view, if you don't mind, of these 7 last plagues for just a moment.

The first, the trumpets come in 2 sets, a set of 4 and a set of 3.

These are judgments against the enemies of God's people.

The first 4 trumpets take down pagan Rome.

Those trumpets, and you can see the symbols there, But remember that pagan Rome was a great enemy of God's people.

When you look at that Colosseum in Rome, how many Christians lost their lives?

How many prayers of mothers and fathers begging God for deliverance?

In fact, the whole scene of the 7 trumpets starts out with this mighty angel, which I think is a representation of Christ.

Not a created angel, by the way, just to make sure.

And He's taking the prayers of God's people like incense and he's presenting them.

And there's an answer in heaven to the prayers on earth.

And it's lightning and thunder and earthquake.

And then you get the response of heaven in those 7 mighty trumpets.

You have the 10 years of the persecution of Diocletian.

They would have wiped Christianity off the face of the earth.

There's never been a more despot than Nero who took the life of the Apostle Paul and the Apostle Peter.

Rome, the city of Rome that had not been invaded for 800 years.

In 410 AD, the Goths invaded and breached the walls of Rome.

In 66 years, down to the date of 476, the lights of Rome, the sun, the moon, the stars, the leadership of Rome, it was turned off and turned into darkness.

And it began the great, called the great, dark ages.

In 66 years, the great empire was finished Because God ordered it.

But then out of those ashes arose another enemy of God's people.

You're familiar, How many of you have been to an evangelistic meeting?

You know when that terrible 1260 years of the supremacy of papal Rome began.

And it began in 538 when Justinian, the Roman emperor, by law and definition, made the papal see the Pope of Rome in charge of all Christian ministers.

But God also raises up forces in those last 3 woes.

To the inhabitants of the earth because of what is going to happen.

God often sometimes uses other movements to check other movements.

I was just doing a little reading, and I said by 600 A.D.

The Papal See had become utterly corrupt.

They had a thing called simony where you buy the office and then you give it to your children.

I don't have to get into it, you can read the history yourself.

In 570 AD, a man was born by the name of Mohammed.

Some years ago, you may not have been too acquainted with him, but most Americans today are quite acquainted with him.

By 600 AD, we have the Muslim movement beginning to start.

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