I just found this Word document from 6 years ago.  It was the original plan I submitted to the Phillips.  It is so interesting to see how things went better and different.  I was misguided in some areas, and in other areas I was right on.  Notice that the college was called SWT.

ENJOY:

Throughout these descriptions, when you see “Austin” that is referring to the PromiseLand in Austin.  When you see “San Marcos”, that is referring to the PromiseLand in San Marcos.

Vision

1. Mission Statement – Spread the Gospel to people in the San Marcos area, and bring each of them into an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.
2. Reach families with dynamic kids and teens programs.
   1. We will have a caring and loving nursery/preschool department second to none.  Responsibly nurturing kids will be our specialty.
   2. Children’s Church on Sundays will educate, inspire, and nurture elementary kids to love Jesus.
   3. Teenage programs will provide quality social activities as well as Spiritual guidance.
3. Reach the SWT campus with the Love of Jesus.  We will have a service geared to college kids on Sunday nights.  We are also targeting college students for our PromiseGroup meetings on Wednesday nights.
4. Support missions all over the world through projects and donations.
5. Provide 3-4 meetings a year for men’s and women’s groups
6. Support our members that are in need of prayer, clothing, finances, moral support, etc.

Goals

1. Gain 100 active/tithe paying members per year
2. Obtain 5 or more acres to build on in the San Marcos/Kyle area
3. Build first building on property within 2 years.
4. Create college ministry within one year that ministers to 250 college kids.
5. We want to send 25 kids to summer camp with Austin church in summer of ’04.
6. Support Evangelists and pastors in Brazil and Church building in Mexico

Membership

When someone wants to join the church, he or she will attend the New Members class.  This is a four-week course discussing the beliefs and customs of the PromiseLand.  After this four-week course, the ‘student’ will graduate and be able to begin their involvement in one of our ministries.  They also will be able to attend the Leadership Class. Leadership Class teaches individuals the necessary attributes of great leaders.  Once people go to the Leadership Class, and have attended PromiseLand for 3 months, they will be eligible for a leadership position.

Services

Sunday – Starting in June 2003, we will have services in San Marcos at 2pm.  This will facilitate leaders coming from Austin.  After Labor Day or in January, we will start Sunday services on Sunday morning 10:30am.

Sunday Night: In one year we would like to have a Sunday night service dedicated to reaching the SWT campus.

Wednesday – We will begin Wednesday night services after Labor Day.  The structure of the service will be a mixture of small groups and Austin’s Wednesday night format.  We will begin teaching the following content:

First 4 Weeks – New Members Class

Second 4 Weeks – Leadership Class

Third 4 Weeks – PromiseGroups

Possibly, we would convert to PromiseGroups only on Wednesdays if that were going strong.  I would also like to experiment with pre-service meals in San Marcos on Wednesdays. These nights will be a great time to pair up college kids with families.

Ministries

Our Ministries will be organized into seven Divisions.  Each Department has one Director.  That Director oversees coordinators in each area of the department.  Depending on the ministry, each coordinator may have volunteers that work under them.  For example, the Children’s ministry will have teacher volunteers under each coordinator

Pastor

I would like to phase out of my current position in the following schedule

• Education Director – July 31^st (last day of VBS)
• The Awakening – June 1^st
• Monitors – June 1^st
• PL Austin’s Website – June 1^st
• Graphic Design – Continue on an ongoing basis

I would like to continue my full salary until I am completely out of the Education Department.  After that, we can work out an agreement on compensation for the Graphic Design work.  Insurance coverage from Austin is a huge benefit for us because of Kennady.  I would like to stay on insurance until we can find adequate coverage for Kennady.

Music Minister

We are having our Sunday service at 2pm on Sundays to facilitate a music minister coming from Austin.  We are going to start training people from San Marcos to lead praise and worship (musicians and singers).   We would like our own, regular Music Minister by the time we go to a 10:30am service.  Our first Draft pick would be Jacob.  If he came to work with us, he would be able to assist Austin in any capacity as long as it does not conflict with our service times.  This would include: The Awakening, band clinics, recording and producing in PromiseLand Studios.

Pastoral Council

Our pastoral council will consist of seven members.  This will be equally balanced ethically and economically.  The pastor will select members based on prayer life, faithfulness to local church, and track history at Austin.  This council will advise pastor on FINANCE and other issues of church.

Elders

From the Pastoral Council, the pastor will select three men to become Elders of the church.  These elders along with the pastor will serve as the Board Members for the non-profit corporation.

Incorporation

We are making plans to incorporate the church in San Marcos.  The official name will be “Promiseland San Marcos, Inc.”  This will be a 501(c) 3 non-profit organization.  We are patterning our by-laws after the World of Pentecost.  We will be opening our own bank account in San Marcos.

Website

We have already secured a website: www.psmchurch.com and www.promiselandsanmarcos.com.  The design of the site is in progress.  Ernie is providing all this service for $16 per year.

Outreach

We are going to break up our targeted souls into sections.  These sections will be based on geographical and age demographics.  The following are the proposed sections:

• San Marcos
• Southwest Texas State University
• Kyle
• Buda
• Wimberley
• Neiderwald / Uhland
• Lockhart
• Luling

We will select one target per month or every 2 months.  After we select a target, we will focus all our marketing efforts and dollars in that area and try to saturate the market.  This will include: newspaper ads, flyers in neighborhoods, participation in parades or other community events, etc.  We will select areas based on time of year that that area is most active.  For example, SWT will happen right after Labor Day when the students have arrived at campus for the year.

While working in Austin with Randy Phillips, he taught me to become tenacious and never take no for an answer.  To become a ‘velociraptor’ like the dinosaur in the movie Jurassic Park.

Well, I am trying to get him to speak at our church on a Wednesday night, and I am turning the velociraptor curse back on to him!!  Lets all pound him with emails and tell him that we want him to visit our church on a First Wednesday service.  His email is:
info@promiselandwest.com

In the body of the email, just say, “Pastor Randy Phillips, we would be honored for you to speak in San Marcos on a Wednesday night.  Thanks in advance!”  signed… your name

This past Friday, I took my 5 year old son to his first Hays Rebel football game at Bob Shelton Stadium.  Wow, I have so many good memories from that place.  My terrible career at football ended after my freshman year, but I have such fond memories of attending other games, hanging with friends, and cheering my classmates.  When I went on Friday, I have to admit, I was saddened.  I realized how much tradition and relationships matter.  The game was almost empty without my friends there.  The stadium is totally different because the “home” side has been switched to the “visitor” side.  That is the epitome of change.  As, I sat in the stadium, I looked across at the old home side and it looked like a ghost town.  There were only about 75 Manor fans over there.  All the nooks where students would hang out and huddle in the cold wind were empty.  The little round concession stand was gone.  For those of you who have attended games for many years, will not understand my problems.  You have seen the incremental change over the last 16 years and probably are accustomed to it.  However, for those of us that have been away, it is a bitter pill to swallow.

Some things seem to never change, though.  The coaching staff seemed to be the exact same as my freshman year (19 years ago).  That is amazing.  Truly for them it is about ‘the kids’, and not their career advancement.  What a treat for parents and students of Hays High School to have big hearts coaching their kids.  Great leaders producing great people.  And of course, the Rebels beat the mess out of Manor. The Rebels seem to win most of the time.  Although, they started this year out really rough, it looks like they will catch a good stride and make the playoffs.  The old concession on the end is still around and completely unupdated.  I had to go over to that stand ‘for old-times sake’ and buy some nachos.  For a moment, I closed my eyes, heard Dixie and the roaring crowd, smelled the fresh popcorn and regretted that I hadn’t worn my letter jacket.  Ok, so maybe I am taking it a little too far.  I do still have my letter jacket and often wear it to take out the trash in the winter.

My son, Jude,  loved the experience.  He never knew anything was different and he immediately began to create his own version of tradition.  It just so happened that we sat right next to a girl in his kindergarten class.  During the homecoming ceremony while the royalty was being crowned, she leaned over to him and said, “I wish that you were my king.”  I thought, “Hey, we are moving a little too fast here!”  It was a great time, and I am so thankful we went to see the Rebels.  On the way out, Jude said, “When I grow up, I want to play on the Reffels team.”  I thought, “His genetics probably won’t get him past freshman year, but ‘hey how about soccer’?!”

+robin

You never know who will be sitting in the seat on Sunday.  In fact, some weeks as I drive in to church I wonder if anyone will show.  Check out this letter from a man who visited on Oct 11th.  God is doing amazing things here in San Marcos.  For that we give HIM all the honor.

Thank you so very much for baptizing me this weekend! I really do appreciate it!! You just don’t know how much!

Well, my situation is this:  I decided to have a weekend getaway encounter with God to renew my relationship with Him and get on with the tasks at hand. I am not sure if you’ve had a chance to read the “pray for me” prayer on the back of the visitor’s card. I wrote something about completing the mission God has called me to (I wrote it as soon as I sat down prior to your sermon, God has a way to speak to us!).  I felt then I was in the right place.

I have been in ministry for about 20 years preaching and teaching the Word of God everywhere I go. The Lord has opened doors for me to be able to start Bible studies at the places I’ve worked. I work now at an engineering company and God has allowed me to start a study here as well. I’ve preached at several churches in the Houston area. I love the Lord with all my heart. I grew up Methodist, but once I attended college I experienced tremendous spiritual growth. I attended a non-denominational church and it was over. The power of God filled that place like I never felt. I wanted more and more of that! In the Methodist church I attended, that did not baptize in the traditional way. I said that one day I’d do it but never did, always putting it off. This time when the opportunity presented itself, I JUMPED at the chance!! I asked one of the ushers, “Can anybody get baptized today? Anybody?” I was like OK, THIS IS MY CHANCE and I do thank you Pastor Robin!!

I feel the tug of fulltime ministry in pastoring a church.  I ask that you stand in agreement with me as the transition is made, from working for the world to working for the Master! I listened intently to your sermon and the last point you made, MY FOCUS IS JESUS and that we have an expiration date, made an imprint on my soul. I was like today, today is my day to decide to go after God’s will for my life. God does not save us to sit. I will not die with the gifts and talents God has placed inside me. Thanks for that simple sermon. I will never forget it. It spoke to everything inside me.

We, at PSM, are uniting against the flu!  There is an onslaught of the flu right now in the Central Texas Region, and it is crippling our economy, education, and recreation. It would be depressing if we were without hope.  However, with God we have hope!

Isaiah 53: 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
1 Peter 2: 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

Both of these texts are referring to the stripes that Jesus took at Calvary before He was hung on the cross.  The stripes paid the way for our healing.  Throughout the gospels, Jesus healed the physical ailments of the people, and then he commanded us to pray for one another.

James 5: 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

Steps We Are Taking As A Church Family:

1. In your private prayer time, pray AGAINST illness attacking us.  Our united,  prayerful attack against the enemy is affective!
2. If you or your family members experience flu-like symptoms, please contact Jackie in our office so that we can pray for you.  If you would like for us to pray with you personally, please let her know.
3. We want to make sure that our members attending the weekend services are protected from contagious illness.  If you have a fever, please wait until you have been fever-free for 24 hours before returning to a weekend service.  Kids will not be accepted into Children’s ministry if they have had symptoms in the last 24 hours. We have mounted waterless hand cleaner throughout our facility for your convenience.

+robin

This Sunday, October 18th, you will have a rare opportunity to hear Vasil Elenkov, a church leader from Bulgaria.  He is a modern-day Apostle Paul that has witnessed some amazing miracles.  He is currently leading over 700 churches in Bulgaria.  You will hear stories about what it is like to live in a communist country were Christians are persecuted.  He tells about a visitation from God that protected him from violence and imprisonment (all for the sake of the gospel.)  This will challenge and inspire your family.

Make sure you make plans to be with us this coming weekend at either the 9am or 11am service.  www.psmchurch.com

Article from Wall Street Journal by William McGurn

When the poet Matthew Arnold wrote of faith’s “melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,” the thought was that scientific inquiry had forever undermined claims to certitude. In hindsight we see Arnold was only half right. In place of Genesis we now have scientism—the idea that science alone can speak truth about man and his world.

In contrast to the majority of scientists whose wondrous discoveries seem to inspire humility, today’s advocates of scientism can be every bit as dogmatic as the William Jennings Bryans of yesteryear. We saw an example a week ago, when the New York Times reported that many scientists view “outspoken religious commitment as a sign of mild dementia.”

Mr. Harris’s aside about dementia, of course, is less a proposition open to debate than the kind of putdown you tell at a private cocktail party where you know everyone in the room shares your orthodoxies. In this room, there are those who hold that God cannot be reconciled with what science has discovered about the human body, the origin of the species, and the beginnings of the universe. The more honest ones do not flinch before the implications of their materialist principles on our understanding of human dignity and human rights and human freedom—as well as on religion.

In 1997, for example, an International Academy of Humanism statement in defense of human cloning—whose signatories included scientists such as E.O. Wilson, Francis Crick and Richard Dawkins—went out of its way to attack the special dignity of human beings. “Humanity’s rich repertoire of thoughts, feelings, aspirations, and hopes seems to arise from electrochemical brain processes, not from an immaterial soul that operates in ways no instrument can discover.” They concluded “it would be a tragedy if ancient theological scruples should lead to a Luddite rejection of cloning.”

Here’s the problem: Almost no one really believes this. Not, at least, when it comes to how we behave. And the dichotomy between scientific theory and human action may itself have something to tell us about truth.

That’s not to deny electrochemical brain processes and the like. It is to say that much as we may assent to the idea that we are but matter in motion, seldom do we act that way. We love. We fight. We distinguish between the good and noble and the bad and base. More than just religion, our literature and our politics and our music resonate precisely because they speak to these things.

Remember Peter Singer? Mr. Singer is the Princeton utilitarian who accepts scientism’s view that human beings are not fundamentally different from animals, just more complex. In his thinking, those who cannot reason for themselves or have lost their self-awareness have no real claim to life. Yet when Alzheimer’s struck his mother, he paid for care to prolong and sustain her life. The irony is that an act that does him credit as a son must discredit him among those whose principles about life he claims to share.

To put it another way, while we talk about the clash between God and science, in practice it often comes down to disagreements about man and morals. The boundaries are not always neat. Many Americans who are indifferent to faith will confess they find themselves challenged as they try to raise good and decent children without the religious confidence their parents had. The result may not be a return to religion but a healthy agnosticism about agnosticism itself.

I once had the opportunity to interview one of my heroes, Sidney Hook. This was a man whose commitment to his atheism and secular humanism was beyond question. One example: A doctor saved Mr. Hook’s life by going ahead with an operation against Mr. Hook’s wishes. Mr. Hook recovered—and promptly published an op-ed taking his doc to task.

It is possible, of course, to imagine a good society in the absence of a belief that man’s dignity comes from his being fashioned in God’s image. Something of the sort would have been Mr. Hook’s ideal. Yet in his writings, the Almighty in whom Mr. Hook did not believe makes an extraordinary, one might say miraculous, number of appearances. When I asked him why he was not more dismissive, Mr. Hook replied that he was never comfortable with the dogmatism of the village atheist.

Perhaps he thought it “a mild form of dementia.”

On Sunday Oct 11th, we will explore the “generosity driven by eternity” concept.  What is our deepest motive to serving others?  Are we simply a humanitarian organization or simply philanthropic?  Check out this quote from the founder of the Salvation Army:

“Not Called!” did you say?……..  “Not heard the call,”  I think you should say.  Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin.  Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help.  Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father’s house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there.  Then look Christ in the face – whose mercy you have professed to obey – and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world.  – William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army

See you on Sunday!  9am or 11am.  Or watch online www.psmchurch.com

+Robin