The OBC Elders met for their regular monthly meeting at 7:00 p.m. on March 21, 2023. The meeting began with Pat Abendroth leading the elders in a time of prayer. The Lord is so good, especially to His church, as He commands us to pray about all things. 

We are thankful for being truly saved in Christ, who is not only our Savior and Lord, but also the Head and authority of the body of Christ. This is a great comfort to us as elders as it relates to our local church ministry and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We are praising Him for His continued sovereign love and plan to use even this local church to preach the gospel for His glory and our benefit. As elders, we never take for granted the blessings from preaching the gospel, which is the power of God for salvation, and the very means to building up the maturity of the body as we regularly meet for public worship. 

Dave Guthrie read through Chapter 9 of the London Baptist Confession of 1689. It is titled Free Will. In this particular chapter, which is so important, it details in the Scriptures that God alone gave man a free will as part of man’s creation mandate to choose good.

But as we know, man chose evil and lost the ability to do anything spiritually good as it relates to salvation. The confession in this chapter rightly concludes with the great reality for the Christian that God’s converting power through Christ’s grace alone, frees the believer once again (by faith alone in Christ alone) to freely will that which is spiritually good.

Christians of course don’t perfectly do good always because of flesh in this life. But the fact remains, only Christians enjoy freedom from our fallen will. It was encouraging to hear again and again the details of the gospel and all of its amazing benefits, especially the ability and obligation to act in our free will!

With the summer months fast approaching and spring ministries concluding in May, it is always a good time to review and plan for how you might serve in the body of Christ here at Omaha Bible Church. As always, I would urge you to be in prayer about all the ministries here (we have so many!) and your participation.

We are all gifted to serve as we obey the Lord in our gratitude for saving us. We as elders are so encouraged when the body of Christ serves. But nothing replaces corporate worship on Sunday mornings. As we all know, we need each other.

The relentless pursuit of corporate worship is a good thing to desire and is a need to pray about. Please continue to pray for Pastor Pat and his preaching ministry. He is currently preaching through the book of Exodus. 

Finally, Dave Guthrie and Mike Holloway discussed the Giving & Attendance Report for February of 2023. Giving is well short of our budgeted number, so we are praying and ask you to pray for God to meet our ministry’s budget as this year progresses into the spring.

We are so thankful for the ongoing sacrificial giving of the body over the years.  Never could we continue to function as a local church body if it were not for continued sacrificial giving of all of us as the body of Christ. We are praising the Lord and praying for great days to come at OBC. 

The meeting closed at 9:15 p.m. The next regularly-scheduled elders meeting is planned for April 18, 2023.