For Your Provision

Well, good morning, man. It is so good to be with you, Beltway Park. If you're our South Campus, our North Campus family, people that are online, I know we have people who are ill and they're at home, so love that we have this option. We have people around the world joining us. We are present together today to celebrate. We have a God who is faithful, amen. And we have a God who's working among us, and we want to celebrate together His provision. We want to say thank you to the Almighty for what He has been doing among us. And when we walk in a spirit of gratitude, it's actually a statement of faith for the days ahead. Because the God who did in days of old, whether the days of old are the Bible, or the days of the Bible, or whether the days of old are kind of our yesterdays when we've seen His faithfulness, it gives us faith to step into all He has for the days to come.

I came to, um, Beltway Park, um, spring of 1998. And yes, I know that makes me old to say 1998. Um, April 1st, 1998, to be exact, almost 27 years ago. And I remember well the first week I was here. My family was still back in Lubbock. We weren't going to transition till after school was out. And I had stepped into this role as lead pastor, something I felt like I was supposed to do since I was 15 years old. I was then, uh, almost 31 years old. And you step into something. Let's be honest, sometimes when you step into something you know God wants you to step into, when you're finally in it, you start having those doubts, right? You start having those moments of, "God, are you sure?" Because you know your own weaknesses, you know your own struggles. I was having that kind of moment. You see, I came from a large church that was in, geographically, in the center of Lubbock. I was preaching quite a bit to this church. I was leading a large portion of the staff. And God called me to Beltway Park Church on the edge of Abilene, Texas. Just let you know, most people don't know where Abilene, Texas is. I travel around the world, they've never heard of it. I get that. And then I got here in 1998, and no one knew where Beltway Park Church was. They'd never even heard of Beltway Park Church and such. And so I was on a Wednesday, and I was wrestling. I was having those doubts. I was dealing with my own fears, my own insecurities about stepping into this role. And I was kind of having these moments of, "God, are you sure? You took me from this big church and the center of town, lots of influence, lots of activity, and I'm out here in the middle of nowhere?" I go to leave my office, which was then in what we call the C building of the South Campus. The C building of the South Campus was the only building in 1998. None of the big metal buildings, um, of the South Campus existed. None of the North Campus existed. None of that. We had the chapel building. And I stepped out and I was going to go up, um, north to the chapel. And when I looked over to the south, to my right, about 20 feet away, was the outside door facing south, which is now where most of our South Campus building is. I looked over there, and there's a field back there. But up against the door, literally of that south door, was a cow. And that cow had its nose pressed in like it was looking and trying to get in. And I'm sitting there going, "Great. I left a church that was big and the center of influence and all this stuff, and now I'm going to have to figure out what to do with a cow." Welcome to senior pastor life, David. Um, so I call, um, one of our elders who was up here working, helping out around the church, Ray Templed. And I said, "Ray, cow got onto our property. What, who do we need to call to come get their cow?" And Ray said, "Well, you know what? We ought to just be good neighbors and let's just go move that cow over to our neighbor place for them. That's just what neighbors do." And my outside voice said, "Yeah, let's be good neighbors." My inside voice is going, "Let's be good neighbors and move the cow." I didn't have the heart to tell Ray I was from rural Texas, pain handle, but I'd never been close to a cow. I had no idea how to move a cow. Had nothing, knew nothing about it. But somehow, we got that cow back over to our neighbor property. And I just stayed out, uh, in the south part of our property and started praying. Really whining is what I was doing, um, but it was directed to heaven, so that counts, right? And I was saying, "God, are you sure?" I said, "Look around. There's nothing but cows out here, cow pastures, and land." I said, "I was part of a big church that had influence around the world and all these ministry partners and all these things going on, and now look at me." And in that place, God spoke to me. God said, "If you will trust me, I will use this no-name church sitting between three cow pastures on the edge of a no-name city of the earth to affect the world for eternity." That word marked me. Like I've had only a handful of encounters like this in my entire life, and it changed everything about me. And I look at this word several times a year. This was a promise that God made to me, but He made it to us. And it was this week that one word really stood out. And all these years of looking at it, all almost 27 years of it, this first word, "if," really stood out to me. This was God's promise to us, but it wasn't going to happen automatically. God was going to do this thing in our lives if somebody shout, "if." If we had the faith to stay in step with Him, the courage. That, by the way, is true of most promises God has for our life. God makes a promise to our life, there's usually an "if" associated with it. He says, "I'm going to do this if you'll stay up with me, if you'll have courage, if you'll have faith." You go back to the Old Testament. There is a people called Israel, and Israel was given a land. We call it the promised land because God had given it to them. But there was even an "if" associated with their promise. God said to Joshua, "Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon, I have given to you." Just as I promised to Moses. So, notice, God had given it to him. They had to step, they had to battle, they had to possess. God promised Israel the land, but they had to possess what had been promised to them by faith. They had to battle with courage for the promise that God had placed into their life. Listen to me, that is true not just of Israel of old. It's not just true of churches. It's true for our lives as well. God provides, fulfills the promise as we walk, walk with Him. But there will be tests, there will be stretches along the way. Beltway Park's stretch came pretty quick. Fall of 1998, we started preparing the 1999 budget. And I asked our leaders, and I said, "Hey, where's our missions budget?" Missions is what you give away to help people. And they said, "We don't have a missions budget." I said, "Well, why don't we have a missions budget?" And they said, "Because we're broke, that's why we don't have a missions budget." And they talked about the last years and how we had struggled to pay bills and how we had struggled to do this. We had a big debt on the building and all that kind of stuff. And man, we just began to talk. And we talked it together, and we began to wonder, "Well, has the reality that we haven't given any money exacerbated the situation that we're in? Like, we're struggling financially, but maybe our struggles have been enlarged because we haven't really followed God's word to be a generous people?" You know, the scripture says over and over again, "Remember, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. But if you sow generously, you will also what? Reap generously." You need to go read 2 Corinthians 8:8-9, because He's talking about money in that situation. And we, as elders, looked up, fall of 1999, all this pressure on us, and we discovered we were sowing nothing. And we wanted to be a different kind of church. We wanted to be a different kind of people. Because earlier, 2 Corinthians chapter 8, Paul says, "Hey, just as you excel in everything." Come on, that word "excel" draws on us, doesn't it? It's like there's something within us that goes, "Yeah, that's what I want to be. I want to excel in my faith journey." He said, "It doesn't matter if you want to excel in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness, in your love for us. Do that. But see that you also excel in this grace of giving." We, as an eldership, said, "Man, we want to be a church that excels in everything God says is excellent and wonderful. We want to excel in that. We want to do it as a model for all the people that He might bring our way. We want to do it in everything, including giving." So we began to ask the Lord, "Lord, Lord, what would You have us do? Where, where could we start?" Then we had all sorts of ideas. We prayed about it over weeks, and we finally came to this thing together. Probably, probably our first big decision of faith together. He said, "We're going to step out in faith. We're going to give 10% of every undesignated gift that comes in. We're going to give 10% to missions and outreach." That felt great until you started to put it down on paper, you know what I'm saying? But we did it because we wanted to follow what God was showing us to do. But we also wanted to model for people that God has this thing called tithes and offerings, and we, as a church, wanted to model that reality. Now, I don't have time to unpack that for us today. I left you some sermons that Pastor Jeffrey and I did last year on that. I think we should all look at it. But here's what I do know. We have learned this as a church, that this thing called generosity in all areas of our lives is part of what it means for us to be like Jesus. We are never going to obtain everything God has for us without generosity. For, you know, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Well, how do I know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ? That though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor. He was generous so that through His poverty, you and I might become rich. We know the depths of God's love for us because of what He gave for us in Jesus. And when we live generously, we become like Him. God does this amazing work, and He provides above and beyond what we can fathom. Now, He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase, say, "increase." Increase your store of seed and will enlarge, say, "enlarge." So see, all of us, we love words. As Americans, man, we love increase, we love enlarge. He says He's going to increase what you can do, and He's going to enlarge your harvest of righteousness. Notice, God provides when we step in faith. He provides an abundant harvest in life, and that harvest is a harvest of righteousness, righteousness in us, but also righteousness through us. See, God will take something as temporary as money. Listen, you don't get to take it with you. There's no money in heaven. But the effects of what we do with our money will be in heaven. Some of you have heard the phrase ROI, return on investment. There is an ERI, eternal reward on investment. I want some of that as well. And God will take something that's temporary, but He's going to use it. He'll grow us to be more and more like Him. And through growing in the grace of giving, what will happen is we'll know our God better and better. By growing in our generosity, we become more and more like Him. And amazingly, it does incredible works in our life. It brings joy. The other day, I was reading some articles from, believe it or not, a health insurance company. Now, I want you to think about it. I know we all have probably struggles with insurance and all that's going on in this day and age. But health insurance companies, you know, they exist. They're a business. I have no problem with a business needing to make some money. And so they're trying to figure out how to make money. And they know the healthier we are, the less we use their product. The less we use their product, the more money they make. That's fair, to be honest with you. I want to be healthy, right? I'd rather not use my health insurance than use it. So I'm kind of reading the articles, and it's doing the normal stuff of healthy, you know, like you need to eat better, you need to eat less, you need to exercise more, all that stuff. But then I ran across one I had no expectation of seeing. It just started, "Giving to Give." "Research has shown that there is much more to be gained than there is to be lost from acts of generosity. Of course, being generous does come at a cost. It requires you to sacrifice something that you own. It can be your time, your talent, your resources, your money for the sake of someone else. That's what generosity means." Despite these losses, and I don't know if it's a loss if you gain from it. They say, "Studies have proven that giving significantly improves your physical well-being, it improves your mental health, and it strengthens your relationships with others." And then they went on to show study after study that show that giving is good for us. Almost as if God knew that, because He wired us that way, because He made us in His image. And if God is anything, He is what? He is generous. He gives. So it's probably the reason God says, "I love it when you're a cheerful giver. I love it when you join me in what you're doing because it's the way I designed you. It's the way I made you to live." We've discovered this as a church. You see, God makes us a promise. He says, "You will be made rich in every way so that on every occasion," and I think that's the occasion He calls us to, "you can be generous. And through your generosity will result in what? Thanksgiving and praise to God." Listen to me, generosity brings joy. This is the story of Beltway Park. We have discovered over the years that generosity brings joy because we see what God does in the lives of people when we follow Him courageously in this area. And what we want to do is we want to give thanks to the Almighty for the way that He would take something as temporal as a dollar, and He would turn it into a soul. He would take something as weak as our talents and our abilities, and when we sow them, He helps people grow in Him. We want to thank God for His goodness, that in our weakness, He shows Himself to be strong. We want to celebrate what God has done with us. So I want you to know, in 2024, we as a church dedicated 36% of our general income to missions and outreach. So what we've done is every year since that initial step, we've added at least a percent to our giving of missions and outreach because God has just been so faithful, and we've seen the work that He does. So this means that if your family gives a dollar, 36 cents of it goes to missions and outreach. Now, I want you to notice these two words. They are distinct words in our culture. Outreach is what we use financially to bless the Big Country and to serve the Big Country and to love the Big Country outside of our walls. So, like last week, I told you about Boots on the Ground and the work we do on people's houses. That is outreach. Told you about our food pantry and the way we help people. That is outreach. We also have an auto ministry, believe it or not, on North First, where we love on people whose cars need to be worked on. How many of you discovered public transportation is very limited in the Big Country, right? You need a vehicle, and sometimes those vehicles break down, and people struggle. We help work on them. So we worked on over 400, we worked on the vehicles of over 400 families in 2024. We did well over $100,000 worth of free labor. We bought parts, we did stuff like that. And believe it or not, you gave 13 vehicles to our auto garage. Our teams, who are all volunteers, then went and worked on those vehicles, made them as good as we could make them, and we found people, primarily single mothers, who struggle to have vehicles, and we gave those vehicles to them to step them forward. That's outreach. Can somebody give praise to God for that? That we got to be a part of? Hey, that's what I'm talking about. Last year, we opened the Beltway Ministry Center, South 23rd and Willis. If you've not driven by it, you need to go by it. It's incredible what God has allowed us to do. And in that building that used to house a church that for decades testified to the glory of God, we repurposed that same property to do the same thing, just in a different way. We house two ministries in the Beltway Ministry Center. The first is our Beltway Kids Academy. It is a daycare because the gap in our community has a priority for foster kids and families with financial needs. We opened in the middle of last year. We are already over, a little over half full right now, with a third of those kids being foster kids and families that have some financial hardship in life. And what we're praying for is for this number, believe it or not, to double. For this number to double. All we need is for some of you to fill the calling to come join us and to work with us and be a part of what God wants to do in the lives of kids that are sometimes in some very, very difficult situations. If you want to apply, you can go to BeltwayKidsAcademy.org. We need about 30 of you, to be honest with you, who will join in on the team, be a part of what God's doing in this, and we'll see God do tremendous things. The other half of the building is our Beltway Counseling Group. There is a severe shortage of professional counselors for kids and teens in our community. Beltway Counseling Group, you cannot apply for that unless you're training to be a professional counselor. But what we did in Beltway Counseling Group is we designed spaces so that kids could have the best opportunity to receive healing from the traumas that they receive in this fallen, messed-up world. How many of you know if you've got a six-year-old and something that, I don't have to tell you the stories, something happens, they need help. They're not going to sit on a couch and talk. But you put something in their hands, you give them some toys, you just say, and there's all sorts of specialized toys. It's very expensive sand, by the way, but they're specialized sand. We created spaces, we created indoor spaces, we created outdoor spaces. Right when the center first opened, again, middle of last year, um, my daughter called. My daughter's one of our counselors. And she said, "Daddy, it's going to work." I said, "What's going to work?" She said, "These spaces." She said, "I have this kid. I don't know the kid's name. I don't know the, she, I had this kid, and I took this child out into one of our spaces that were designed for healing, and we had stuff we had purchased and built. But this property has some incredible trees, and we, um, we trimmed all those trees so they would be climbable." And this kid shot straight to the tree. And my daughter let the kid climb for a moment, and then determined the kid wasn't coming down. So I said, "What'd you do?" She said, "I climbed up in the tree with him or her, and we had a counseling session in a tree." And we saw God do some tremendous things, just because He had a tree, because you had a space for that tree. Listen to me, we will never know that kid's name. I'll never know if that kid was male or female. Never know the child's name. But here's what I do know. God knows that child's name. God knows He has a destiny for that child. And the enemy came and did something horrible. I said, "I have no idea why that child's there, but he's trying to thwart that destiny." But we are going to be a place where God takes, when the enemy tries to take people off their destiny, and we bring them back to their destiny. Because every number has a name, right? Every name has a, every number has a name, every name has a destiny, every destiny matters to God. So when I tell you, at Beltway Counseling Group, already in half a year, we had 2,758 appointments, just trying to help people walk through the difficulties of life. There were 418 people that I will never know their name, you will never know their name. 276 of them already are children and teens. The reason we're doing that is because they're in situations where the enemy is trying to take them off their destiny, and God has called us as a church to say, "No, we are going to stand with Jesus and bring people back to the destiny God has for their life." So when I tell you these things that we do in the Big Country, that's outreach. Say, "Outreach." So when we say outreach, we say we're going to touch as many people as we can. So we actually try to count touches. Anytime we can show the love of Jesus, we counted 11,195 of those touch points of just saying, "Hey, we want to show the love of Jesus Christ to our community." Can somebody say thank you to God for that reality? Come on. But that's not all. Remember I told you that 36% of general dollars go to outreach and missions? Missions are our partners. Beltway Park has, believe it or not, 110 ministry partners. 22 of them are in the Big Country. 88 of them are outside the Big Country, meaning they are in the United States of America or they are in another part of the world. They're going on. And what I'd love to do is tell you about all of them, but I'm going to give you a sampling. You ready? Local partner: Pregnancy Resources of Abilene. Been one of our longtime partners. What Pregnancy Resources of Abilene does is they minister to women and men who find themselves possibly pregnant. It's usually unplanned, and they think it's a crisis. And there is a whole array of free ministry resources to them, from pregnancy tests to ultrasounds to professional counseling to spiritual counseling. They'll help with material supplies for the kids. There's all sorts of education classes on baby care and child care, etc. In 2024, um, Pregnancy Resources of Abilene ministered to 1,975 women and men who found themselves in this situation. They did it with almost 5,000 acts of service. What's incredible is this: we have women who come in, and through a series of conversations, we will know whether they are likely or very likely to want to terminate that kid through abortion. In 2024, 72 women who were likely or very, very likely to terminate their pregnancy before they came to Pregnancy Resources, changed their mind. And now 72 kids, we will never know their name, 72 kids have a chance to live out the destiny for which God placed them on planet Earth because there was a ministry called Pregnancy Resources, and we were a part of it. Like, one woman came in, I don't know her name, and she was very determined that she was going to terminate her pregnancy if she was pregnant. She found out she was pregnant, but she says, "I can't, I can't, I can't have a kid." And she just said, "I'm addicted to meth, I'm almost homeless, I'm in an abusive relationship." And our ladies just said, "Well, would you want us to pray with you about it?" But we don't ever force prayer, spiritual counseling on anyone. She said, "Yeah." And in that moment of prayer, something switched inside of her, and she just said, "I want to be different. I don't want this life anymore. I want to be different for me. I want to be different for my child." And they said, "We'll help." And so we began connecting with community resources. We do have a wonderful community in so many ways. And so we got her into an addiction recovery program. We helped her find a place to live. And what was discovered is she has remained clean and sober since that time. She's still in programs to help her become better for her and her kid, and she is living a different kind of life for her and her kids. All because of a ministry, a ministry that we got to be a part of. We who are from a no-name church on the edge of a no-name city of the earth that used to sit between three cow pastures and two locations. And God said, "I'll take you if you'll walk in faith, and I'll affect the world for eternity." By the way, He doesn't just say that to a church. He says it to you. He says it to me. "I'll take you if you think no one knows who you are, and you think you are insignificant, and you think you have no abilities whatsoever. If you'll just trust me, I'll impact more of the world than you think you will through your life." Because that's how good our God is. Another partner, and part of our 2030 vision, um, we said we wanted to plant five churches, help plant five churches in the United States of America that will help reach more people for Jesus. By the way, it's 2024, we've already helped plant five churches. So we'll go for more than that. We have a church in San Diego, California, one in Tampa, Florida, uh, one in Columbus, Ohio. Interesting, I got to tell you about Columbus, Ohio church at some point. Half of them, half the people who attend that church, over a hundred of them, profess to be atheists, but they're coming to church. Is that not cool? And so, um, we have a church in the Greater Dallas-Fort Worth area. And the one I want you to know is one in the Greater Miami, Florida area called History Makers Church. And they wanted to talk to you because this weekend, like right now, they are celebrating their third anniversary as a church.

Good day, everyone. Terence and Emma here, your favorite Aussie family, all the way down here in South Florida. History Makers Church, and we are coming to you to say thank you once again because your church has been a blessing to help us launch our church called History Makers Church. And this is just an update to let you know that God has been doing so much through you. Your generosity and your support has been huge. Your church has been a blessing to help people who are far from God meet Jesus. That's right. We are three years into regular Sunday morning services, and God has breathed on His church. We have seen exponential growth. And as a matter of fact, we actually just announced this past Sunday that we are launching a second service. September services. That's right. And we are so excited. We have, I sounded more excited than you though. Two services there. It is. And we have over 700 people coming regularly every single Sunday. Easter Sunday was amazing with almost 2,000 people walking through the doors. We've baptized over 120 people just this year. And since the start of the year, we've had over 150 people say yes to Jesus. And we are so honored that we get to do this. And we get to do this because of you and your generosity. We're so grateful for your church and so grateful for your pastor and your pastors. What a blessing they have been to pour into us. And God has been incredible, exceeded our expectations. In fact, not only Sunday services have been a blessing with people coming, but watch this. We've had just this year, 47 people go through Financial Peace University to get financially healthy. 82 people have been through our Freedom Course, which is where they can deal with their yesterdays and step into a greater tomorrow to get spiritually healthy. And drama, already, Emma, over 150 people have gone through our Destiny Steps, where they've discovered their purpose, jumped on team, and not just making an epic difference, but an eternal difference. Thanks to you. That's right. There is so much fruit from your generosity. People truly are meeting Jesus, they're growing in their faith, they're finding a church family. We're seeing relationships actually restored. And you are truly making a difference in the lives of people and families right here in South Florida. So thank you so much. We are praying that God would bless you and increase and multiply every seed that you sow here through History Makers Church. We love you. We appreciate you. God bless. Thank you. Bless. Thank you.

Come on. Is that not incredible? I, I happen to, I'm being blessed. I'm on the oversight team of that till local elders are raised up. And I looked at on the report the other day to the oversight team. They're averaging 825 people a week in services. In three years, they've baptized 447 people. In three years, I mean, they are reaching people for Jesus. It's incredible. And we're a part of that. Do you, do you grab that? We are part of these things. You, I don't know any of those people. Yeah, but God knows their name and He changed their destiny because the people had enough faith to step out and say, "We'll be a part of something like that." Um, one last partner. Beit Halel. Beit Halel means House of Praise in Hebrew. Um, is a congregation of Jewish people who exist in, um, Ashdod, Israel. Ashdod is right on the Gaza border. So they've been, as you can fathom, going through quite a lot this, um, last 500 days or so. Beit Halel in Ashdod has about 350 people attending services on any given Friday night. Which, when they have services, they started five other congregations in their area that have about 300 people total. So 650 people in a congregation in Israel is massive. Where less than 1% of the Jewish population professes any faith in Jesus whatsoever. It is an incredible thing that they are doing. And they do it like we do it. They love their community. And so they help with material needs. Israel, life in Israel's hard. Like, cost of living is about one and a half times the cost of ours. Average salary is 40% of ours. So 50% more expensive, about 60% less an average income per household. And so there's people in some real financial needs. So they help them with school supplies, they help them with basic food and stuff like that. We have immigrants coming, especially from the Ukraine, due to the war. And they have a whole immigration center where they help people get reestablished in the land of Israel. They also host outreach events for these people that are coming in. They hosted two in Ashdod, two in Ashkelon, two in Jerusalem. Had 1,500, 175 non-believing Jewish people come to these things where they showed them around the land of Israel. They talked to them a little bit about the reality of Yeshua being the Messiah of Israel and the Savior of the world. Of that 1,575, 75% raised their hand and said they would pray to see whether God would show them whether Jesus is the Messiah of Israel and the Savior of their life. That's an incredible step that deserves a round of applause of thanks from the Lord. Come on. That is great. One story. Arena, which is not her real name, came from the Ukraine recently. She was steeped in New Age religions, I mean, tarot cards, um, astrology, spiritual, you know, those kind of things, mysticisms. And she met somebody from Beit Halel in the workplace, and they did what we do. Invited them to congregation. She went, and she was struck by the presence of God, the love of the community, and the depths of the teaching. And so she went to a small group. Still doing the things she did. And that group just loved on her, shared with her about, uh, Yeshua. One day she came and said, "Jesus is the King of Everything. Is it? He's king of all spirits. He's Lord of all lords. I need to bow my knee to Him." She bowed her knee to Him and said, "I need to get rid of all this stuff." So she brought all her stuff that she practiced near, and they burned everything that they could burn. They threw away everything else they could throw away. And she became a follower of Jesus. Then two weeks after that, she was talking with someone who was in these other practices of religion, and this person was just like, like overcome with some spirit of depression. Just like, this thing dark on me. And she said, "I don't know, but I've met this one named Jesus. Let me pray for you." And she prayed over this woman. She's two weeks old in the Lord. She prayed over this woman in the name of Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus the Messiah, and this woman was delivered from a spirit of depression right there in that moment. This two-week-old, she became a follower of Jesus because of this reality. All because of faithful people that we've gotten behind, and we're a part of in the world. Listen to me, Beltway Park, can you say thank you? Thank you that we could be a part of something like that, something incredible that the Lord is doing. Thank you for not just being concerned about yourself, but concerned about the destinies of people in the Big Country, concerned about the destiny of people that we may never meet until heaven, but we are able to influence tens of thousands of them through our partners. And a handful of partners wanted to do that. They just wanted to say thank you.

Hi, it's Josiah Boyd from Krakow, Poland. And we are so honored that we get to serve the church here in Krakow, as well as beginning to plant churches around Poland. On top of that, we're serving hundreds of leaders around Europe and the world as we help train them and disciple them through the ministry of Prepare International as well. And we are just honored because we get to partner with you, and together we get to change the world and bring the gospel to people that don't know, don't have it yet. So we just want to say a massive thank you, Beltway Park.

I'm Beth Kockenberger, and I represent Back2Back Ministries in Trauma-Free World. And I just want to take this moment to thank you, to thank you for your generosity, for thinking about the needs of those that are not only in your community but around the world, for looking for partners like us who are trying our hardest to bring light to darkness, to advance the kingdom among families who are vulnerable, children who are vulnerable. We couldn't do it without your generosity, and we're so grateful for the ways that together we're making a difference.

Hey Beltway Park, it's Brian Jones. Uh, whenever I was a ninth grader at Beltway's youth group, I would have never imagined that I would be moving my family, uh, to San Diego to plant a church. But for the last five and a half years, Beltway has been so faithful, um, to be generous towards us and bring teams to help us run incredible kids camps. We planted a church called The Hills Community Church, and we carry a lot of the DNA, uh, that Beltway had taught me as a, as a student. So we love having big faith and being generous and reaching our community. We've seen 26 people, uh, get baptized. And the last, since we started in 2021, we're so grateful for your support. Thank you so much.

Hello, Beltway. My name is Zbyszek, I'm a pastor of a church for the city, Krakow, Poland. I would like to say a big thank you for all your generosity, for giving to the mission. We, as a church, have a great vision, but without people like you, we will not be able to fulfill everything what God called us to do. So thank you so much for being a blessing to us and partnering with us so we can see greater things happening in our city and our nation. In a way beyond. Thank you.

Hey Beltway, this is Josh Hardcastle. I serve as the area director for Big Country Fellowship of Christian Athletes. And I just wanted to say thank you so much for, uh, your generosity. Thank you for our partnership. Because of what you give, we're able to impact 6,000 students in our Fields of Faith. We're able to see over 300 guys and girls show up at a Weekend of Champions, the past two weekends. And we're going to have about 350 All-Stars in the summer that are going to be able to come and, uh, and play in an All-Star game, but they're going to get to hear about Jesus while they do it as well. And each year, we have, uh, multiple students and even multiple coaches give their lives to Jesus. In fact, last year we got to baptize five kids and two coaches after our football game. And so on behalf of the staff, on behalf of coaches and athletes around the Big Country, I just wanted to say thank you.

Shalom, Pastor David, Pastor Randy, the entire Beltway Park church family. Thank you so much. Pastor Chad here at King of Kings Ministries in Jerusalem. We wanted to say thank you for all of your help with our Israel war relief effort. Thank you for helping us train new leaders and plant new congregations these past two and three years. Thank you for helping us with the counseling center. There's so many things to say thank you for, we just don't have time. So I just wanted to say from our executive team and all of our pastors, thank you, Beltway.

I can't believe we get to be a part of all this. I, I wish I could just tell every one of the partners. I want to start telling you a story. There's just incredible, incredible what they're doing. God is faithful, and He will do it, just like you're seeing it in our church. Together, He's going to do it in your life. Maybe you want to look at some of these numbers. We're going to post them on our annual report. They'll be on our website this afternoon. You just need to look and thank God. Just remember, every number you see has a, what? Every name has a destiny. Every destiny matters. We also give you a report of our finances. Um, thank you for trusting our leadership to ask God how to use finances to turn into souls. That's what we want to do. I want you to know we take the stewardship of your generosity very seriously. I mean, we labor over a budget that's a lot bigger than it was in 1999. And God's allowed us to be a part of a lot more. Our elders, 70% of our elders are not on our staff. They receive extensive financials every month. They oversee, they look over every line item of the budget. They also hire an outside audit firm every year to go over our books and also our procedures to make sure we're handling things rightly. And so what you're going to see, uh, on the annual report, this is what I'm so overwhelmed by, is that all that happens here is because almost 4,000 families participated financially in what we are doing. That's why we take the time to do this, because I just want to say thank you for it. And what you do is incredible. Um, at Beltway Park in 2024, our general offerings were about 12 and a half million dollars. And I, you can say thank you for that. I know that's a big number. Um, and I used, I'll be honest, I used to be kind of like a little embarrassed by big numbers. I'm not embarrassed at all. If we double it, we'll use it for the glory of God. What the vision God has given us for what He wants to do from this little church between three cow pastures is well beyond that. There's a whole world that needs Him, and we are going to give, and we're going to celebrate that. Because this is what's incredible for you and me, is that in missions and outreach, we as a church did 6.2, almost 6.3 million in missions and outreach in 2024. That's the number that excites me. That's what's incredible. Come on. This is the 36%. This is the 36% of our general offerings, plus what people just gave themselves in their offerings. Includes 12 mission trips that we took to partner with our partners. All those kind of stuff. All these things happen because of you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thankful for the Lord and His faithfulness. Amen. Can you dare believe that what you're seeing among us, He will do in each of our lives individually? The scripture says, "Thanks be to God, He gives us the victory." Somebody shout, "Victory!" Victory! He not only gives us the victory, He will give victory to others as we dare trust Him and stay in step with Him. If you will trust me, I will take whatever your story is, whatever your weakness is, whatever your lack is, He'll take it and He'll affect the world for eternity. He's done it in us as a church. That's going to continue in the days gone by. May we have faith to trust that He will do it through each of our lives. Amen. So here's what I want you to do. I want everybody to stand. North and South Campus, we're going to give thanks to the Almighty. We're going to praise Him and honor Him for what He has done, done in days gone by, which is going to launch us in faith for the days ahead. Amen. Father, we stop at this moment. We just want to say thank you. Thank you for the work that You're doing in the lives of people, whether they be in Israel or they're in Poland. They might be in California or Florida or Ohio. There's people, Father, that You have drawn to Yourself, changed their destiny forever. Father, we are so grateful for what You have done in our lives, the victory You have brought to each one of us, the way You are working in us. But we're grateful for what You have done for us as a people. And Father, that we want to celebrate. We want to say thank you. We want to say thank you for Your provision, the way You have provided everything we need to do everything You called us to do. Let us be a people who always, always, always say thank you. And let us say thank you for not just what You've done, but let us say thank you by walking in faith with You into everything You've called us to be in the days ahead. We pray for ourselves as a church, that we would walk in courage in everything You have in the days ahead. But each one of our individual lives, may we do the same. In Jesus name, amen.