George Bernard Shaw said, “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything”. This is important for us at Liberty Baptist Fellowship because we are in the midst of change ourselves. In fact, we are challenged personally by change. It is interesting to look at the creation, and everything was created with seasons. We have seasons of weather, seasons of growth, and seasons of life that all equal change (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8).
I like the seasons of life thought. Richard Blackaby recently wrote a book on this topic (
Seasons of God
). It is an interesting read, one that I would highly recommend to each of you. As I read that book, I thought about how my life had changed. I also thought about how my life had gone through those seasons of life several times.
Over the past year LBF has gone through a season of change. We have gotten a new endorser (Steve Keith), created a new position and hired an Associate Endorser (Keith Travis), created a new website, moved to an automated contribution system, and planned and implemented a training program. We are particularly excited about the training program helping our chaplains minister more effectively and helping them take better care of themselves. We have also raised the cost of our dues to cover automation and inflation. Finally, we have implemented background checks on all new chaplain applicants. No doubt, it has been a season of changes!
As mentioned, our dues have gone up slightly. To be frank, we struggled with this, but need to offset the fees for automating the monthly contribution system and inflation. On this note, the desire of our founding church (Thomas Road Baptist) is that our organization (LBF) be self-sustaining and supporting within the year. In the past, we were not as concerned about member’s dues because the church supported our ministry almost 100%. All said, we now must insist on dues being timely and highly encourage you to use the new monthly automated giving system.
On a similar note, we highly encourage you to be consistent not only with your giving, but with your Bi-annual Reports. It is our God given mission to endorse you, lead you, advise you, encourage you, and to effectually pray for you. Your communication allows us to enter your season of life with you, whether rejoicing, mourning, or struggling. Please allow us to minister with you and to hurt with you, struggle with you, and rejoice with you in all that the Lord is doing in your ministry. It is our heart’s desire to be there for you!
Our vision is to provide the best chaplains to the armed services and other organizations that we can. Thank you for being one of those chaplains. We are extremely proud of you and thrilled to have you on the LBF Chaplain Team!
In this season of life, may the Lord use all of us for His Glory!
Dr. Keith Travis Ch, Col, USA (Ret.)
