2004 Report to the Congregation on the Annual Men's Planning Session.

At the beginning of the meeting last year’s budget was reviewed. As you are all aware we had to make some significant cuts last year because our income was not meeting our out go. We are pleased to report that due to some of the budget cuts and our refinancing the loan, we came in under budget for the year 2003.

We have moved the web site to the advertising area from office expense. Since Brother May left no one has been really working with the web site. It has now been assigned to Jonathan Stroud, who will be assisted by his wife Tami, who designs web sites. We will now be able to use this site for advertising, general information to the community as well as the congregation. For example, we will be able to put the bulletin on the web site and update the the sick list and those in the hospital on a daily basis.

Benevolence will progress as it has been. We will probably be looking for someone to help Clyde now that Dwayne has been activated.

Building and grounds will require us to spend some money this year. We have been in this building eight years and it is beginning to show signs of wear. We have some holes that need patching. We need new door stops on nearly all the doors. There are several other little things that need to be attended to. In addition to that we need to begin to think about replacing the heating and air units (there are 4). The parking lot has got to be resurfaced or were going to have serious problems. There is also a good deal of yard work that needs to be done around the building. Some of this con be done by individuals, some of it we will have to hire done.

“Teaching More In 2004” should be our goal! That is just what the Education department plans to do. Five quarterly attendance drives are planned; Dec. 7, 2003, March 7, 2004, June 6, 2004, Sept. 5, 2004 and Dec. 5, 2004. We will also use this year’s Vacation Bible School as an outreach tool, inviting new students and encouraging those who do not attend regularly to come an join us. Every member will be encouraged to invite someone to Bible School.

This year we will go back to having regularly scheduled monthly fellowship meals. We will also have some special activities through the year.

We will have three Gospel meetings this year. May 2–6 with Frank Chesser and November 7–11 with Billy Watkins. In addition to that, this is our year to host the cooperative meeting in September. It will be Sept.12–16 with Dave Miller. This will give us ample opportunity to teach others.

We will continue to support all the mission programs that we supported last year. The local Hispanic work with Brother Galarraga is going well. We have expanded that to include a Sunday evening service at Central Church of Christ in Smyrna. Brother Martin, Brother Coalson, Truth for the World T.V. and Bible Correspondence course will continue to be supported.

We are sorry to see Scott and Cathy Bush move away. Scott has been getting men to serve the congregation for over a year now. We are happy to announce that two of our young men have agreed to fill that void: Kyle Walker and Jeremy Peters.

Our Outreach program plans to have a “friends day” where we can invite our friends to come worship with us. We are also planning to have booth at the North Georgia Fair in September to reach those who are not in the church.

We have many good works going on here at South Cobb. And we have a good number of people involved in the work. But there are still jobs that need to be done and there are still members without jobs. We can all do more in 2004.