As the director of operations for a young (4 years old today) mid-sized church, one of my goals in 2011 was to position our church’s financial structure and systems in such a way that we could successfully conduct our first internal financial audit in 2012. The goal behind the goal is to be in a position to apply for ECFA membership.

Now that 2011 is over, I’m taking the steps to put together our audit team. While doing this, I found several audit guides that were helpful. For your benefit, I’ve included them here with some highlights of what I liked about them. At the end of the day, if you’re serious about performing an internal audit, you should go ahead and just read through all of them and make sure that you and your audit team are ready to do the best job possible.

ECFA Annual Audit Checklist
While this isn’t a full out audit guide, this is the best guide to start with. It is a short checklist of items that you should have in place. If these items aren’t in place, don’t even bother trying to do a full out audit. Read through the checklist, note what you currently do or have in place, then immediately work on fixing anything that is missing. After that, you should be ready for the more robust guides.

Local Church Audit Guide For Western NY Presbytery Congregations PCUSA
I love that this audit guide starts out by walking you through the terminology. In a question and answer format, you’re walked through everything form “What is an audit?” to “How do restricted assets differ from designated assets?”. However, I found that the Q&A format falls apart a little at the end as it gets confusing as to the actual steps and items people need to report and how to report them. However, there are forms to help track the audit process, as well as instructions to the forms. The addendum help everything make more sense. Also, as noted in the onset of this document, it is almost entirely take from the UMC Local Church Audit Guide.

Presbytery of the James PCUSA Internal Audit Guide
Like the above audit guide, this one borrows some content from the UMC Local Church Audit Guide. The main difference in this guide from the others is that almost no time is spent explaining anything. It does however have a very well organized checklist for your audit team to follow, as well as helpful instructions for work through each section.

UCC Connecticut Conference Audit Program for Internal Auditors
Ok, I saved the best for last. This is, in my opinion, the best actual “guide” for an internal church audit. The format is very easy to follow and walks the auditors thorough all the information they need to gather, and then asks them a lot of yes/no questions to actually perform the audit. While the other church audit guides were helpful, this (or a slightly modified version) is most likely the one we’ll be using.

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Life is busy. We all (well, at least I) have the tendency to rush through each day trying to accomplish as much as humanly possible. A day turns into a week. A week turns into a month. Then *blink* it is Christmas again. All the while, much of what we do is simply rote repetition: wash, rinse, repeat.

Below is a simple guide that I have found helpful in my life. It was written by Don Whitney and he graciously gave me permission to reprint it here.

Ten Questions to Ask at the Start of a New Year or On Your Birthday

Once, when the people of God had become careless in their relationship with Him, the Lord rebuked them through the prophet Haggai. “Consider your ways!” (Haggai 1:5) he declared, urging them to reflect on some of the things happening to them, and to evaluate their slipshod spirituality in light of what God had told them.

Even those most faithful to God occasionally need to pause and think about the direction of their lives. It’s so easy to bump along from one busy week to another without ever stopping to ponder where we’re going and where we should be going.

The beginning of a new year is an ideal time to stop, look up, and get our bearings. To that end, here are some questions to ask prayerfully in the presence of God.

1. What’s one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?
2. What’s the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?
3. What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life this year?
4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what will you do about it?
5. What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year?
6. What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church?
7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?
8. What’s the most important way you will, by God’s grace, try to make this year different from last year?
9. What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?
10. What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in ten years? In eternity?

In addition to these ten questions, here are twenty-one more to help you “Consider your ways.” Think on the entire list at one sitting, or answer one question each day for a month.

1. What’s the most important decision you need to make this year?
2. What area of your life most needs simplifying, and what’s one way you could simplify in that area?
3. What’s the most important need you feel burdened to meet this year?
4. What habit would you most like to establish this year?
5. Who is the person you most want to encourage this year?
6. What is your most important financial goal this year, and what is the most important step you can take toward achieving it?
7.  What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your work life this year?
8. What’s one new way you could be a blessing to your pastor (or to another who ministers to you) this year?
9. What’s one thing you could do this year to enrich the spiritual legacy you will leave to your children and grandchildren?
10. What book, in addition to the Bible, do you most want to read this year?
11. What one thing do you most regret about last year, and what will you do about it this year?
12. What single blessing from God do you want to seek most earnestly this year?
13. In what area of your life do you most need growth, and what will you do about it this year?
14. What’s the most important trip you want to take this year?
15. What skill do you most want to learn or improve this year?
16. To what need or ministry will you try to give an unprecedented amount this year?
17. What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your commute this year?
18. What one biblical doctrine do you most want to understand better this year, and what will you do about it?
19. If those who know you best gave you one piece of advice, what would they say? Would they be right? What will you do about it?
20. What’s the most important new item you want to buy this year?
21. In what area of your life do you most need change, and what will you do about it this year?

The value of many of these questions is not in their profundity, but in the simple fact that they bring an issue or commitment into focus. For example, just by articulating which person you most want to encourage this year is more likely to help you remember to encourage that person than if you hadn’t considered the question.

If you’ve found these questions helpful, you might want to put them someplace—in a day planner, PDA, calendar, bulletin board, etc.—where you can review them more frequently than once a year.

So let’s evaluate our lives, make plans and goals, and live this new year with biblical diligence, remembering that, “The plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage” (Proverbs 21:5). But in all things let’s also remember our dependence on our King who said, “Apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

Copyright © 2003 Donald S. Whitney. All rights reserved. For more short, reproducible pieces like this, see www.BiblicalSpirituality.org

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On November 9th, 2011, I am giving away a kidney. The left one to be precise. Seriously.

The journey to this point has been a long one. For the recipient of my kidney, the story is even longer.

Ryan (that’s his name) has a rare disease in which his body attacks his kidney. In his early 30s (like me), Ryan currently lives with about 5% kidney function and has nightly dialysis in order to remove the toxins in his body. He’s a young guy, loves Jesus, works to protect abused and neglected kids at the Washington State Department of Social & Health Services, is recently married, and won’t live long without a kidney transplant. So, I’m going to give him one.

I met Ryan a few years ago when I lived in Washington. Ryan and I attended the same church in Washington, Oikos Fellowship, and my family and I got to know him over our time there. One day a friend of ours asked Jennifer to watch her kids so that she could go down to Seattle for some medical tests. It was then that we first learned about Ryan’s condition.

After a few weeks our friend told us that she was not cleared to donate her kidney to Ryan and that they would have to begin looking for a new potential donor. She said that the search was difficult because Ryan has O+ blood which is cool to have because you can donate to anyone, but tricky because you can only receive from someone with that type. When I heard this, my very first thought was, “I have O+. I could donate.”

I picked up the phone and gave Ryan a call. The truth is, I didn’t really know Ryan that well. We were acquaintances and spoke from time to time, but that was about all. The common bond we shared was the mercy of Christ in our lives and the connection of our church.

When I got Ryan on the phone, I’m pretty sure I said something along the lines of, “Hey, I heard you need a kidney and I think I have one you can use.” We talked for a bit and I got the details of his condition and the journey he’s been on with the disease. I got the number for the transplant center from him and gave them a call, throwing my hat into the ring. That was over a year ago.

About 6 months ago I received a call from the transplant center. They let me know that 2 other recipients had been through the screening process and been rejected for various medical reasons. They wanted to know if I was still interested in being a donor. I said yes and the testing began. Over the course of several months I was poked, prodded, and asked to pee in no less that 7 containers. Then, in September I was asked to fly out to Seattle for some final testing to ensure that I was a perfect match for Ryan. Long story short, I am.

So, we set a date and on November 9th Ryan and I will enter our respective surgery rooms and they will take out my left kidney and put it into Ryan. The result, God willing, is that Ryan will gain 20+ years of normal, dialysis-free, life and I will continue to live the normal life I already have. While there are risks for both of us, the risks for Ryan are far greater. For me, there is only minimal risks which are common to any surgery, a 3-6 week recovery period where I can’t lift anything over 10 pounds, and long term, studies show that kidney donors typically live very normal lives with no adverse effects from the surgery. For Ryan, his body will have to learn to use another person’s kidney. This is no small task and will require Ryan to take anti-rejection medication for the remainder of his life.

While that is the more “technical” side of the journey, I want to share some of the personal and spiritual aspects as well. To begin with, my wife and kids are all on board with this decision. As a family, we have prayed almost every night for nearly 2 years that God would heal Ryan and give him a kidney (Philippians 4:6). As a family, we have offered up prayers that if God would so chose, I was willing to be the donor. As a family we have placed our hope and trust for Ryan and this situation fully into the hand of the Lord. So when the call came that I may be the donor, it was simply the next step for us in our trusting God’s grace and provision (Proverbs 3:5-6).

One question that I commonly get when people find out that i’m donating a kidney to someone who isn’t a super-close friend or family member, is “why?” I’ve thought about that question a lot over the past year and it really comes down to two things: He needs it and I can do it. It seems like a somewhat simplistic answer for such a big decision, but through this journey I’ve come to realize more and more that this is just the kind of guy I am. When I meet people or situations that need something, I immediately begin to think about how I, or someone I know, could help. The best I can tell, it is just the way God wired me.

As a Christian, there is no doubt that my faith and hope in Jesus has played a part in this journey. I continue to think about the great lengths by which Christ gave of himself for me. As one who was far off and undeserving of mercy, Christ died to reconcile me to God (Romans 5:6-8). When you experience the gospel, it actually helps you to understand that life is about so much more than your own self-preservation. In the gospel you are free from the fear of saving your own life, but as Christ did, you can lay down your life for others (Philippians 2:3-8). Jesus lead the way in this not only in his death and resurrection, but even before that as he, the one through who all things were created (Colossians 1:16), knelt down and washed the feet of his disciples (John 13:1-17). Not worried about self exhalation, status, or the praise of men, he humbled himself and served others. Whether washing feet or laying down our lives, the gospel empowers us to live lives to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). And, for me, that path has lead to donating a kidney. But not only that, it is the very same gospel that leads me to love my wife (Ephesians 5:25), my kids, my neighbors. The gospel radically reorients our lives and frees us to no longer simply seek our own good, but rather the good of others to the glory of God (1 Corinthian 10:31).

As we progress down this road, I would ask for your prayers. Please pray for a smooth and successful surgery. For speedy and full recovery for Ryan and myself. For the peace of Christ to guard our families (Philippians 4:6-7). And most importantly, for the glory of God to be seen in all we do.

Shortcuts save time. And, if you’re like me and spend most of your day in front of your computer, then all those extra seconds it takes to do some tasks can easily add up to minutes that, over the months, equate to literal HOURS wasted. After watching some of my friends interact with their Macs recently, I decided to share three of the simple time savers that can be easily implemented and will, in the end, save you hours! If you aren’t using these, you’re wasting time.

NOTE: Lion launched today and I’m not sure how these shortcuts and their mileage will be impacted. Likely the new multitouch gestures, mission control, and launchpad will change things a bit, but I feel that I’ll still rely pretty heavily on these.

1. Command + Tab = Quickly Switch Applications

This shortcut will allow you to quickly navigate between all open applications. While holding the Command button, each time you hit Tab you will bump to the next application. Once you release Command, it will bring the highlighted application to the forefront. You can also use your mouse while this window is open to click on the application you want to use.

2. f3 (maybe f9) = Show All Open Windows

If you have a lot of windows open, this quickly show you all of them. Then, simply click on the one you want to work with.

3. Command + f3 = Show Your Desktop

No screenshot here. This shortcut just moves all your windows off the screen so you can grab a file off your desktop. If you manually minimize windows to get to your desktop, you’re wasting MASSIVE time!

4. Command + Spacebar = Quickly Find Files

“Where is that file?” Hit Command + Spacebar and start typing. Your mac will try and find relevant matches to the keywaords you type. Then, simply click on the file and boom!

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On July 4, 2011, we welcomed the newest member of the Burns family, Calvin Robert. For those wondering about his name, I thought I’d share a little about where it comes from.

To begin with, Robert is a family name. Both Jenn’s father and grandfather are “Robert.” Her dad was the only boy out of 5 kids and he went on to have 3 girls of his own. From his 3 girls he now has 5 granddaughters and, until Calvin, only 1 grandson. That’s a lot of ladies. As a way to honor Jenn’s father and grandfather (both great men in their own right), and to carry on a bit of the Jones lineage, we wanted to have Robert in his name.

As for Calvin, this name was in our queue long before we knew we were pregnant. After our first son Asher was born, I said I wanted our next son to be Calvin. While occasionally people think it is for Calvin from the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, it isn’t. However, like the comic strip character, our Calvin is named after the 16th century theologian and reformer, John Calvin.

While there are many reasons we wanted to name our son after John Calvin, I’ll share three in particular.

First, John Calvin loved the gospel. Calvin experienced a conversion to faith, most likely in his college years. After his conversion, Calvin took every effort to help people see, hear, and savor the good news of salvation in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone–whatever the cost. The cost of this love for the gospel was great and meant banishment from his home country, a life of constant persecution, and the looming threat of martyrdom. Despite these trials and challenges, it was his love for the good news of what God offers sinful man in the person of his son Jesus that motivated him and was at the very center of who John Calvin was.

Which brings me to my second reason we wanted to name our son Calvin, namely that John Calvin used every fiber of his being to serve the gospel. By all accounts, Calvin was an extremely brilliant man and a tireless worker who gave all his energy to whatever he put his hand to (often at the expense of his own health). After his conversion, he desired nothing more than to hide away to study, read, and write. But, obedient to the call of God, Calvin gave every ounce of his being to preaching, teaching, writing, and leading people to Jesus. He did this by preaching nearly 200 sermons a year, writing thousands of pages in books, tracts, and verse-by-verse commentaries on almost the entire Bible, and establishing a school for the training of pastors.

Finally, John Calvin changed my life. In my late twenties I sat in a Bible study class and heard, likely for the first time, someone open the Bible and explain the text in such a way that my vision of God was profoundly changed. The God I worshiped and served was now bigger and more glorious than I had previously seen. The subtle shift was that I now saw the story of the Bible, and all of history itself, revolved around God, not me (duh, right?). I came to discover that much of what I was hearing and seeing through the scriptures was nothing new, but the very thing boldly proclaimed by men like Martin Luther and John Calvin (though it is found much earlier in men like Augustine and the Apostles themselves). As I read Calvin and his contemporaries, I was pierced with a love for the gospel and the God who graciously saves sinners like me.

So, we chose to name our son Calvin with the hope that, like John Calvin, he would grow up with a deep love for the gospel and that he would use whatever gifts and talents God may give him to share that good news with others, leading them to worship the great and glorious God revealed to us in the Bible.

Finally, as a side note, his name is “Calvin” not “Cal.” Just like our other kids are “Asher” not “Ash” and “Grace” not “Gracie.” You have been warned ;o)

photo credit – Ryan Burns. Don’t steal.

The other day, Desiring God tweeted a quote from John Owen about the principal duty of a pastor. The tweet alone was challenging. I decided to pull the full Owen quote up in context. It is indeed more challenging than the tweet version.

The first and principal duty of a pastor is to feed the flock by diligent preaching of the word. It is a promise relating to the new testament, that God would give unto his church “pastors according to his own heart, which should feed them with knowledge and understanding,” Jer. 3:15. This is by teaching or preaching the word, and no otherwise. This feeding is of the essence of the office of a pastor, as unto the exercise of it; so that he who doth not, or can not, or will not feed the flock is no pastor, whatever outward call or work he any have in the church. The care of preaching the gospel was committed to Peter, and in him unto all true pastors of the church, under the name of “feeding,” John 21:15–17. According to the example of the apostles, they are to free themselves from all encumbrances, that they may give themselves wholly unto the word and prayer, Acts 6:1–4. Their work is “to labour in the word and doctrine,” 1 Tim. 5:17; and thereby to “feed the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made them overseers,” Acts 20:28: and it is that which is everywhere given them in charge.

This work and duty, therefore, as was said, is essential unto the office of a pastor. A man is a pastor unto them whom he feeds by pastoral teaching, and to no more; and he that doth not so feed is no pastor. Nor is it required only that he preach now and then at his leisure, but that he lay aside all other employments, though lawful, all other duties in the church, as unto such a constant attendance on them as would divert him from this work, that he give himself unto it,—that he be in these things labouring to the utmost of his ability. Without this no man will be able to give a comfortable account of the pastoral office at the last day.

John Owen, vol. 16, The Works of John Owen., ed. William H. Goold (Edinburg: T&T Clark), 74-75.

So, pastors, what do you think?

Good Friday seems like a good time for confession. So, here it is:

The last several weeks I have worked (hard) to try and pull off something our church has never done before–have two Sunday morning services. Currently, we have about 400+/- people show up for our regular Sunday service. With Easter we decided to have two services to accommodate the anticipated number of guest that will be joining us. The preparation for this has been pretty big (I’ll spare you the details) and I’ve been hoping and planning for us to see 600-800 people join us on Easter Sunday to hear the good news of what God has done for us in his son Jesus. And here is where the problem kicks in. I find that there is a lurking fear in me that we won’t come anywhere close to 600-800 people. While the fear isn’t inherently bad, it is the root of the fear that really gets me. The root of the fear is that I somehow feel like I will have failed if it doesn’t happen.

But thanks be to God that this is Good Friday. The day that we have a gruesome reminder of how bad sin really is and the wrath we truly deserve because of it. See, I’m so worried about what other may think (or more specifically what I think of myself based on my “success”) that I forget that success isn’t measured in a flawless execution of a plan. Success is measured in the execution of God’s flawless son. See, my fear is just another reminder that I am far too concerned with my good name and fame than I am with God’s. I seek, in big and (more so) small ways, to steal the fame and glory due only to God.

So, I hope as this Good Friday continues, and we lead into Easter, that my heart will be more interested in the proclamation of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection for sinners like me, than on how well this all comes together. I hope and pray for many to hear about Jesus this Sunday (maybe even 600-800 at Redemption Hill’s Easter Service), but not so that people can be impressed with how well I can pull off an event, or that we can gather a big crowd, but so they can be hear the news that offers them forgiveness of their sins. It is the news that I cling to now, and always.

“To him be the glory forever” Romans 11:36

A friend passed this along to me this morning. Well worth 5 minutes of your time.

My good friends at Logos Bible Software are undertaking an ambitious new project that is taking them into new territory as a company. For years Logos has excelled at taking books written in English and converting them into their digital format. However, what about the hundreds, if not thousands, of great theological texts that are locked up in other languages? For example, Geerhardus Vos’ Reformed Dogmatics (5 vols.), which can only be found in German. Well, Logos thinks they have the solution: crowdsourcing.

Logos has added Geerhardus Vos’ Reformed Dogmatics (5 vols.) to their current pre-pub system and, if enough people say they will buy it once it is produced, Logos will hire out a scholar to translate the work into English and then release it for Logos Bible Software. If the program is a success, you can guarantee you’ll see Logos spearheading the charge to translate many, many more titles.

So, if you’re excited about seeing great theological works translated into English, then support this effort by pre-ordering this work. (Note: When pre-ordering through Logos your credit card will not be charged until the product actually ships. Which for this work will likely be months from now.) So, go pre-order it today and be one of the first people to have the joy of reading Voss in English.

More Info:
- Product Page
- Logos Blog Post about the effort
- Logos Pre Pub System

The next time you sit down to read your Bible, take a moment to reflect on the prayer of a pastor who, in March of 2010, held the New Testament, in his own language, for the very first time (Prayer is at minute 1:45 of the video, but watch the whole thing).

O God, O God. The plan which you had from the beginning, regarding your Kimyals which already existed in your Spirit. The month that you had set, the day that you had set, has come to pass today. Oh my Father, my Father. The promise that you gave Simeon that he would see Jesus Christ and hold his arms before he died. I also have been waiting under the same promise, O God. I have also been waiting under that same promise, O God. You looked at all the different languages and chose which ones will be put into Your Word. You thought that we should see Your Word in our own language. Today, the day you had chosen for this to be fulfilled, has come to pass. O God, Today, you have placed Your Word into my hands, just like you promised. You have placed it here in our land. And for all this, O God, I give You praise.