PASTOR CHRIS : And we were going to do this after the song, but since y'all are sitting, I don't want to have y'all stand up and sit back down. Pam has an update she wants to give to you about what's going on in the life of our church. Pam just became our board chair January 1st of this year and has already made a huge impact, and that impact is important and has happened, not all because of her, although she is wonderful, but because all of us have started to say it's time. It's time for us to use the abundant gifts that God has given us to move the church forward. So I'm going to let Pam give her little talk now and then we'll close our worship together with song and the benediction. So Pam, go for it. PAM DAVIS: Thank you. I'm humbled to stand before you and represent people that are working for all of us and for our mission, and we have a mission. We have a mission statement, and it's on your bulletin. It's on the front page. It's at the bottom, and it's on the screen. Royce City Methodist Church exists to glorify God and make disciples by serving together to be renewed and rooted in Christ. That's what we're about. That's what we decided as a fellowship of Christian brothers and sisters we're going to do. And so, Pastor Chris asked me to answer a couple of questions, and so I'm going to answer these questions, and I hope I remember that I answer them in the vein of this mission statement. First of all, the laws of Texas require that we have a charter and we are a business, and so there's a group of people that are elected by this body to serve the business of our church. Pastor Chris and his worship team are in charge of our spiritual well-being and growth in the ministries of the church. The governing board and leadership board is charged with the business of the church, and so sometimes I put on the business hat that I wore for a long time, and I step in a different box, but I need to remember that my business is this, and I want to thank, first of all, before we go any further, Aaron Stringfeller, John Woodford, Austin Pelley, Shirley Magnus, and Jay Chesser. They just rolled off our board, and ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters in Christ, they did a great work for us that board last year because we had some really hard times, and they had to make some really difficult decisions. Now, some of the people are still on this board, and I thank you for serving because they are fired up, ready to go and get to work, and so the question we ask, how did we get here? Well, we know the answer. We got here because our church just literally burned to the ground, and everything we had ever planned and decided we were going to do as a body of Christ revolved around that sanctuary, and where we were going to build and what we were going to do was always, we are not leaving this building. Well, it left us, so we're meeting in this school. We're meeting in Glenda Arnold. You know it was offered up to us by the school district. They've given us a wonderful deal to be here. We have plenty of parking. We have great access. We can seat 200 people in here comfortably. We have facilities available to us. We have classrooms available to us on Sunday morning, so we can do Sunday school under the same roof. We have air conditioning that works. We don't have to clean it. We don't have to fix the light bulbs, and so we're blessed to have this wonderful place together, and so that's why we're here, and you know, we're still here, but you know what? We're not going any place either because we're still here as the body of Christ called to serve him in this location and in this body, and that's what I mean by we're still here. We did go out and hire a real estate firm. That firm is called Ridge Point Commercial Real Estate. If you drive around our church, you might see their sign if you want to know. Why we picked them was the previous board put together a task force to select a realtor to represent us, and they looked. We interviewed three different groups, and Ridge Point has done a lot of commercial real estate in Rockwall County, Hunt County, Collin County, and in this area, and they've worked with a lot of churches or a number of churches, let's say. They've also worked with big corporations. They helped bring Costco into Rockwall, so they've got their hand on the pulse of what's going on in our area, so why did we hire a realtor? Well, as a collective body, we voted 102 to 29 people to move away from our current site, and we did that because of a lot of different considerations, so we hired this realtor group to help us, and David and Grant English have been very helpful to us. They brought us probably over 25 properties to look at, and we've looked at them, all different sizes, shapes, different things. We haven't exactly found what we're looking for. We think we have found a parcel of land that we like. It's right down here on 66. It's on the side of the police station, and you go back a little bit. There's a developer back there that is putting in 450 homes. He's also putting in a school, and he would like to have a church, so that's attractive to us right now. We have not put any money down. We have not signed any contracts, and part of that reason is the developer is working with the city of Royce City on a land swap. He has some land that the city wants, and the city has some land that he wants, but they haven't worked that out yet, so we don't have a defined parcel. We don't have more information than that. Our realtors check with them at least once a month. They'll see where we are, but we haven't done anything, but remember this. No contract to buy a piece of property will be executed without a charge conference. A charge conference is a vote from the body of our church, our congregation. Why are we looking at this piece of property? First of all, we thought we'd like to be on 66. We found quite a few properties, but what they don't have is the infrastructure to the property. That means no streets, no water, no sewer, no electric. We can do that if we purchased a piece of property that doesn't have those things there, but we have to put them in, and that's going to be at our cost, and so that's one of the considerations that we're looking at this particular piece of property. We found another property close to 66 that looked really good until it had no water, no sewer, no electric. It had an easement from the Highway 66, and it had an easement from the railroad, so it just shrunk, and it was very defining on what we could use, so that's where we are today. We are continuing to look when the right piece of property comes along at the right price. You'll hear about it, but I'll keep you informed, and then where are we on selling our property? Well, it's listed. The realtors have brought several different lookers, but it hasn't sold yet, but I'm thinking at it this way. For 40 years, I managed office buildings, and one of my jobs was buying the highest and best use for a piece of property, and I think back, and I think, oh, Lord, you're making me think about that stuff again, but you know what? We have buildings that are paid for. We have buildings that we do need to maintain, but they're paid for. We don't have a mortgage, and we're not having to pay rent, so maybe it's a blessing that God hasn't brought us the right buyer yet for our property. Also, things are changing in Royce City, and as they grow, our value also increases of our property, so I guess the word is we're still here. We're still waiting, and then the board. Could the board members stand up again? The current board members, you're here. I know you're here. I saw you. Thank you. All right. You know, Pastor Chris told us something. If we are going to succeed, if we are going to make it, we can fold. We can fold, and I'm sure Satan would be so happy if we walked out these doors and never came back, but I'm not going. I'm here, and you know what? The people that have gone before me for 120 years are standing behind me, and they push me in directions I don't want to go because we're still here, and so if you have questions about what our church is doing, ask these board members. We've put an email out there. If you have a question and you want to ask, write an email on there. We will answer it. Over here is a basket. There's some cards. There's some pens. There's a sign that says Leadership Board Questions and Suggestions. Fill those out. How do we know what we're doing well or not if you don't tell us? If you have an idea, tell us. We can't do it and be successful if you don't tell us. If there's another way we need to communicate to you as a body, please let us know. We're working hard to do that, and lastly, we've established some new working groups, so if God is calling you, even if you don't want to come and he wants to use you for something, please speak to one of us about it. We do have a working finance group now that's working with Nancy and our church treasurer, who is Michael Dana back there. We have a working trustees group that is working with Andy Weir back there in our facilities. You know what? These people volunteered and said, I want to serve. I had another person this week come to me to talk about something else, and she said, God is calling me to help in an area, and tomorrow night when the board approves it, she's going to be working. You know, it's not just Michelle's job to set up our worship service. It's not Pastor Chris to take care of the chairs and the facilities. It's up to us if we're going to make it, and I'm moving on. I'm not turning back, and I'm not giving up. (Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)
