All right, so here you can see McCutcheon Manor, right? And right now we're located at the theater, so we're over here, and then to the right over here is the approach corridor, this is yellowed out because this is the approach corridor for runway one. Down here on the bottom you can see the map where we have some of the offsprays and then over here on the left is the 53s. So this is Curtis Road coming around here, which is the main road coming in from the main gate, and then over here is Camp Geiger. As we talk about this right now, I want to talk about the northern part of the field, and we're gonna work in a counterclockwise fashion going around with all the construction updates. So as you look at this slide, anything in light blue that you see here is water. That's a collection pond or a retention pond somewhere on the base, and this is important later on. So as you look at the next three slides, I'd like to reinforce that with the collection ponds. Anything in bright red like this is a new construction facility, and anything in royal blue here is a renovation and modernization of a facility. And those are the things that I really want to talk about here as we go around. So the first thing I'm gonna talk about all the way up in the top right-hand corner here, it doesn't have any of the construction codes on it, but this is building 612. It used to be the Youth and Teen Center, and most recently it was a home of the wrestling team for the Marine Corps. That has been turned back over to New River from MCCS, and that is going to be a spiritual fitness center. This is gonna be the first one in the Marine Corps, and really it's trying to tie some of the initiatives we have with physical health, mental health, emotional health, and tying the whole Marine and whole person concept together to support. So not necessarily religious, but spirituality. And what we found in the religious ministry team and Chaplain Beasley is very much more eloquent on talking about this is that somebody who has a spiritual belief system, not necessarily religious, but a spiritual belief system is a much more resilient person. That definition is up to each individual, but having some sort of spirituality is a vast indicator in somebody's resilience and resistance to mental health issues, suicide issues, and some of the other things we see. So we see this building here in 612 as an opportunity. The skate park will stay open. The hockey rink is gonna stay open. The playground on it will not be open, but we're gonna do some small modernization on the inside, and there'll be open areas for use by residents and by Marines. We still haven't totally defined the space yet, but our hopes is we develop this and as we expand spiritual readiness, which is a Navy mission, specifically Navy Chaplain Corps, and we talk about that. It's a chief-enabled operations priority. As we start expanding that, we'll be able to use the Spiritual Fitness Center in a much more aggressive way to assist with some of our other programs we have with prevention specifically. Moving off to the immediate left of 612 right here, McCutcheon Manor. If you've been here for a while, you probably heard that we were looking at a replacement housing area for McCutcheon Manor. We put that in as a request in the POM last year for approval in the budget and it did not make the funded list. We got recognition that yes, it is a priority because of the age of the housing and the need for it, so we still have that in. We're submitting it again in this year's budget and it's in part of our request and it is one of our priorities. The problem is competition with a lot of those priorities means that with a finite pot of money, we don't always get everything funded we want and sometimes we have to wait several years before we have projects get picked up. A good example that we'll talk about later on is a fuel farm where it took us four years from our first request to get it to be actually funded and something that's on the schedule. We have another one which is the replacement HMLA hanger that we actually got approval for and programmed out but we didn't get any funds for. So we have several projects that are in the queue that we have identified as priorities that are gonna come up. So when that does, our initial proposal for that is we're looking at a roughly 200 home project for that to be done in phases so we don't have to evict all the residents at once and we can have a logical flow of construction and still provide housing for lean listed families who choose to live on New River. As that happens, we'll make sure that through AMCC and the rabs that we make sure that residents know as this comes on but if this gets approved, it'll still be several years down the road. So most of us, except for some of the civilians with legs on them, we probably won't see the end result of that just because of the cycle it takes. So I would anticipate that it's gonna be a good five or six years before we would break any ground on it if we get it approved right now and that's just the reality of how we do construction. Next, as we look at some of the projects here, down to the bottom of the screen just below housing, this is AS495, this is a new CNAT training facility in headquarters building. The Center for Naval Aviation Technical Training, this trains Osprey and 53 mechanics and crew chiefs and the basic fundamentals they have for aircraft maintenance and they have almost cut out models of Ospreys and 53s in there. If you've driven around in that area on Campbell Street to McEvoy, you've probably seen it right next to the water tower and that's where they do the initial training for Osprey and 53 mechanics. They have throughput from the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps and they're getting 21st century hangers and 21st century aircraft to train on so that they can do all of the things they'll do when they get to the fleet so we have a much more prepared cadre of Marines when they get to their first duty station. Just below that, we have these blue facilities here. So this big facility you see right here is the V-22 hanger for VMMT-204. That just had some modernization done to it and some renovations. That is complete just outside that and to the north of that, we have the tower for air traffic control. The air traffic control facility is pretty old and we're doing some renovations to that in the next couple of years, specific to the equipment that we use to run the radar and the control tower. So there's gonna be some efforts to modernize that that's gonna mean setting up a parallel facility right next to it to host some of that equipment as we do that renovation. Moving on farther to the left, you see this is another big retention pond here and if you've been out at the corner where the fuel farm is over here, you see the fuel facility. That huge retention pond by VIPs that has all the alligators and snapping turtles, that's probably the largest one on the base. As I point out all these retention ponds, it's important to know because one of the projects we have down to the Southwest is an infiltration base and then we're gonna point out but everywhere you see light blue water on here, these large areas of light blue water, these are all gonna be funneled down into an infiltration basin and we'll be able to reclaim some of that land in the next couple of years as we improve the storm surge and the capacity for water handling, storm water, rain water through the infiltration basin. Over here, this is the fuel farm. We have four fuel tanks that hold about 900,000 gallons of JP-5. Those were built in the 1970s and we have a plan to replace that facility and move that to the center of the airfield and when we get down to the southern picture, I'll show you that, but when we talk about removing and replacing the fuel facility and relocating it, that's where the fuel facility is right now and if you look at the proximity of the facility to some of the other things in the area, you can see why we'd wanna move it. So here's the facility. We have a gym here. We have Dalalia Elementary School. We have a CDC here. We have another area that's going to be a CDC. We also have marine and family programs in here and then we have the big kentomon area where most of the station headquarters people work and then right over here on this side, we have lots of barracks. So there's a whole lot of things around there that we probably shouldn't have a fuel farm next to. So being able to move it to the middle of the airfield is gonna be a big win for us. Plus we get 21st century equipment, remove some of those fuel lines from underground and make everything more resilient and better able to support the Marines on the flight line. Another huge win, if you look over here, this is AS 4000. AS 4000 is the old gym right behind the single marine program building. That just underwent an extensive renovation and it's been closed for a long time. That's opening back up hopefully next month. We've got just about everything finalized with that, just a couple more punch list items on it. It'll get turned back over to us and when it does, we're gonna have a grand opening for that and coincident with that, we've also got a project in to put 24-7 access for the gym. If you've ever been to Quantico or over to Marsoch or some of the places out in Miramar, there is 24 hour access to gyms and it's coded just like getting into a flight line or getting into a secure building. You basically register with your CAC at the gym with one of the personnel in the gym during business hours. When you do that, they'll scan your CAC and then it'll be a certain section with probably machine weights and then fitness cardio equipment that they'll be able to use with 24-7 access. That's station money that we were investing in that so that we have better access for residents all day long, so 24 hours. It'll be a small area at first and then hopefully with a lot of the Commandant's investment in 24-7 access to the gyms that he just started, that's about two years behind where we were, we should get more access to other gyms on Geiger and 4400 later on depending on demand. Okay, down here on the bottom left of this slide, two buildings in red. This first one here is a barracks. This barracks is a 300-bed barracks. It's been under construction for a couple years now and replaced several that were damaged during Hurricane Florence. It's overrun on timeline a little bit but everything has with COVID and some of our construction delays that we've had just because of workforce and supply shortages. We're forecast that's gonna open in the next couple months and when it does, that is going to give us the ability to move Marines out of two other barracks so we can demolish or renovate those. Right now, building occupancy for the barracks on New River fluctuates between about 75% to 95% depending on whether we have both muses in town or a mu deployed. So right now, we're at about 75% barracks occupancy out of our 2,600 bed spaces for enlisted Marines. This is gonna help out because we really don't have excess capacity to move people around or to surge if we have a problem with the barracks. This buys us capacity so we can demolish some of our older ones and our oldest barracks were made in 1983. So we've got 40 year old barracks that Marines are living in and we're gonna put those Marines in something that's gonna be four months old. So that's a huge win for us and gets us more barracks and better conditions. One of the other things that comes along with that is the maintenance and the quality of life for the Marines in those barracks, newer systems, modern, they're better run with technology. We're battling with some old systems that go anywhere from geothermal, heating and cooling to two pipe systems which mean you can have heat or you can have cold air but you can't have both and there's a transition time. We have old barracks that have external access rooms, more like a motel and we have newer barracks that have internal access which are like hotel rooms where you have controlled access in and out from the internal access. Easier to maintain quality of life and security, easier on the HVAC to maintain temperature control and humidity. So big win to get newer barracks with those better systems and that are gonna do better for our Marines especially as we get towards summertime here in hurricane season. Right next to that, there's another building here that is the new Naval Medical Center or Health Clinic, excuse me, for New River. That is gonna be a 21st century facility for both medical and dental. We anticipate that's gonna open the end of March or beginning of April and we're pretty excited for that. So 21st century care for the Marine sailors on New River with that system and we anticipate in the next two weeks we're gonna have that ready to go and start moving in for mandatory. Yep. Yeah, so we're in the final stages of that. They've already got the shrubs in, they've got some mulch around all the flower beds and they're pulling down a lot of the fences. So we're, I know everybody's itching to occupy that building. So that's another huge win when we look at the service we provide to Marines and sailors and even something as simple as Wi-Fi reception in the building. If you've ever been in our medical building you know it's a black hole of communications even worse than being on the flight line.  Definitely an improved flight pointer. Julie? Thanks, XO. All right, so what you're looking at here is the southwestern side of the airfield. So the picture we just looked at, the bottom of the previous slide was right up here. So you're looking at White Street and Canal Street here and then this is Douglas Road that goes out to the back gate. So same color coding here if you look at the different color slides. So working from top to bottom we just talked about the new Barrick 707 and the new Medical Center. Over here we have modernization projects on two different hangers. This is the old NALS 26 hanger and then over here this is the former HMH hanger 3905 which now hosts HMH 461 and soon to be VMM 162 and then VMM 261 when they get back from deployment. So two of those modules are complete, one more module to go and that'll be turned back over to us. Another huge win for that is if you look right across the street there's a parking garage, 600 space parking garage that was just returned to us and complete last month. That is a big deal because if you've ever driven along White Street during the day it looks like five yard sales on a flea market all combined at the same time, right? Now we have 600 parking spots that people can use. That is a huge win and it even has an elevator that works. So it's ADA compliant with handicap spots, everything you need and we're working on cleaning up the rest of White Street to make sure we have appropriate crosswalks, signs, speed limits, speed bumps because there's still a lot of construction going on because just to the south of that this huge building right here is a new MAG TAF hangar. So this will be able to host any squadron that the Marine Corps can combine for rotor wing tilt rotor. So you can put a 53K squadron in there, you can put a mu ace in there and it has the room for two complete squadrons in it and when that opens in 2025 that will greatly increase our capacity for spots on the flight line and spots in the hangar and the big reason we need this is because right down here this is the current HMLA hangar. If you've been following anything with force design you know there have been a lot of changes back and forth to aviation what we need to support the MEF and deployable units. We shrunk down from three HMLA's to one on the east coast we're expanding back to two and right now they're in this hangar which is quite possibly one of the oldest and least useful hangars that we have for a squadron of that size. So we're gonna move those squadrons into the new hangar and then we're gonna demolish that hangar and we're gonna build a new hangar specific to HMLA's that will be able to host squadrons in the 21st century. So when you think about that hangar that was built in the 70s and that hangar didn't have any preparations or any capacity to handle things like laser-guided weapons or some of the systems on the aircraft. We have a lot more high-tech equipment when we talk about things that high-level units or a MALS would need to do to support a unit we don't have the capacity to handle that in some of those older facilities. Not to mention just things like essential services plumbing, HVAC, electrical lights all those are more expensive and more time consuming to maintain so the newer facilities we can get the better off we're gonna be. That's also one of the other projects that we submitted in the budget last year that got approved what we didn't get funding for. So we're hoping that we have the funding for it this year as we come through so we can start work on that. All right, last thing I'm gonna talk about in this slide as we look over here, this big red area here that is the infiltration basin that I was talking about and all the water you saw and all the other light blue areas is gonna be funneled down through stormwater systems into that infiltration basin. Two big bonuses with that not only does it get the water out but it also gets us more area and square footage we can use for other buildings and things we need to fight the wing but it also removes birds from the airfield. Birds congregate around water and right now we have water just about every place surrounding the airfield that will draw all the bird traffic out and this area is also coincident with where we have the least amount of traffic for anything that we have going in and out of New River. So everybody that's coming in from the north comes in this way, everything coming in from the south comes in down here and comes into runway 23 and runway five. So this area right here because of some of the other things we have located around there has the least amount of traffic flying over so we're keeping all the birds or we have the least amount of airplanes. Huge win. And I do have one saved around this. Thanks, Exo. This area right here, can you go back to that? All right. This area right here is called Echo Island. That used to be grass. We're reclaiming all of that and putting concrete there so we have more tarmac space so we have more room to park all the aircraft they're gonna be here when that opens back up. Because of the larger size of all the aircraft we need about 99 to 120 feet for an average space for a 53 or a V 22. That means we have less spaces with the current parking plan. We're gonna have more apron space and more parking. All right, next slide. Perfect. So now we're gonna look at the south and eastern side of the airfield. Okay, we just finished talking about the area over here. This is the infiltration basin. This is the current HMLA hangar. So as we look down here, this is some improvements to the Kayla, the combined arms loading area that we used for ordinance operations. And you can see highlighted in yellow here are the approach paths for the runways for instrument approaches. Of note in this slide right here in the middle of the field this is where we're gonna put our new fuel farm. So it's gonna be away from everything that is populated and we're gonna have fuel pits that are coincident with that. We'll also give us more space over here where our current fuel pits are that we can use to park aircraft if needed. Next to that we have the maintenance barn for our MaxDet Marine Air Control Squadron. So the MaxDet are the ones who do mobile air traffic control for a deployed unit. They do it in a field environment where our ATC personnel do it for a garrison type thing or an air station. They have a small barn down there for some of their vehicles and their tactical equipment. That is scheduled to be finished in the next couple months as well. Okay, as we move over here to the southeast you can see right here this is the marina area. Starting in about three months we're gonna have a new bath house put in at the marina. Big win, we're gonna have new higher quality and facilities down there that are better able to handle the traffic from the new facility when we built the marina. So rebuilt the marina, didn't rebuild the bath house and now we're finally getting a new bath house there. So we're grateful for that. As we come across the water here in the new river moving up to the north, this is AS 890, the mega hanger right here and the parking garage. So in green is the parking garage and blue is the mega hanger. We call it the mega hanger because it hosts four of the 22 squadrons. Right now we have a project to renovate the air handlers and the HVAC and the lighting in all four modules of that hanger, one module at a time. We've timed it with deployments and with other moves for squadrons to have the least impact on the flight line. But over the next year to year and a half we're gonna have all of the air handling and the lighting renovated in there so that we can do all the maintenance we need to. We can cure aircraft. We have the right lighting in there so we can see to do maintenance on the aircraft. And then on the other side of it, we know that everybody over here on this side of the flight line is kind of alone and unafraid and has a 10 minute drive to get to anything. We're gonna have another warehouse over here to help with some of the supply issues and some of the things that those squadrons need for support. Moving up a little bit to the north, you can see this little blue area right here. That blue area is called the Living Shoreline Project. Working with Department of Natural Resources and getting some grants from state and federal agencies, we are going to shore up some of the New River shoreline on there to help prevent erosion and to prevent some of our equipment that we have over there for ground air communications from having to be relocated. That's a great win and a great example of an IGS, which is an Intergovernmental Agreement that is between the host community and the military to co-pay for a project that has benefits to both. So that's a great example of what we're doing, how we're working with the local community and both state and local agencies, right? Over here, the last thing we're gonna, second to last thing we're gonna talk about is the new HNHS hangar, which is gonna open this fall. When we move that up, we're gonna close down the old base ops building and we're gonna move base ops into that hanger as well and then we're gonna build a new crash fire rescue barn in the next couple of years to host that. So when this new hanger opens up, base ops will be run out of there, the C-12s will be parked there and we'll have a space to host up to a four aircraft depth for smaller aircraft where they can bring them inside the hanger and do maintenance if we're here for an extended period of time and have a better transient line, right? Then last, up here at the top, this is the All Hands Club. The All Hands Club has been closed for a couple of years. We anticipate getting that back this summer. The internal parts of it are gonna be done, completely renovated 21st century and as soon as that's done, we'll be able to open it up. Immediately following that, we have another project that's gonna happen with it to work on some of the things with the external parts of that hanger that we didn't get to do, or excuse me, of that club that we didn't get to do with the original project. Part of that is gonna be the pool. So the pool will not be open this summer as far as we can tell just because of the construction that still has to go on outside and we don't want people trying to swim over there. We might have dangerous environment with construction. So anticipate summer of 2025 will be when that pool opens back up. All right, I just threw a whole lot of stuff out at everybody for construction. It was a quick lap around the airfield. If you have questions on any of it, I can go back and I can talk a little more on it or I can bring in a lefty from the bullpen from our INE staff or for Commander Surrey from Public Works if you guys have any questions. If not, I'll move on to the next part. All right, awesome. I'm done with the slides. Thankfully I'm done with the pointer too. All right, next thing I wanna talk about is some of the things we have coming up in housing and I'm just gonna briefly touch on them if you have any questions. We do have the experts here from the housing team that can be able to talk about that with John and the team over here. But there's several things coming up. Specific to McCutcheon Manor. There's a playground on McEvoy Street that is gonna be demoed, right? We got approval for that and we're working for a timeframe in the next couple of months to get that playground demoed. We're also doing renovation of a basketball court, right? So expect that to happen in the next month or two and then we have some houses that are being worked on. From Hurricane Florence, five years ago, we had two houses that have to be demolished. Those are in the queue to be demolished soon and we also have two that are undergoing repairs which are the last two that have to be repaired from Florence. Then all of McCutcheon Manor has a project for window replacement. Vinyl windows going in in phases and you should get notices on that if you're from McCutcheon Manor but there are gonna be new vinyl windows and some of the ancillary things to support those windows that are installed in the houses in McCutcheon. Moving over to Peterfield Point, there's still one house in Peterfield Point that has damage from Hurricane Florence that we're fixing. That's on Timmerman Street and that one is currently under repairs and should be done in the next couple of months. Then we'll have one more house open for residents in Peterfield. All right, next big thing with housing that we probably really need to talk about and remind everybody and we're gonna get some whan mail out on this is the electricity usage. We suspended resident payments for electricity overages during COVID. We're gonna restart that cost sharing program. So standard electricity consumption is gonna be gauged out for every type of house in every area and it'll be broadcast out to the residents and you'll get a statement every month if you've ever been through one of these programs before that says, hey, here's what the average usage in your area is, here's what your usage is and then if you are within, I think it's a $25 window, John, is what it's recently been, but yeah, they'll have a window if you're within that plus or minus 10% or whatever the window is, grace period, nothing owed and nothing returned. If you are in excess on consumption, you'll be charged for it. If you are below the low end of the standard deviation, you'll actually get money back. So it's incentivizing residents to be good stewards of electricity and you can make some money back on it. As that program gets rolled out, you'll get notifications on it in your email and we will have stuff about it advertising when that's gonna start and what the program looks like. If you have questions, you can come see us at the end and we're happy to speak in more detail about that. All right, that's all I had on housing. Do we have anything else, John, do I hit them all? Yep, come on. So on that program, thanks, CO, that's gonna be at least a year. So what happened is we stopped the program after Florence because we couldn't track it anyway and then not long after that, the Congress with the NDAA from 2020 suspended it across the entirety of DOD. There were some accusations of improper meters and different things going on in different places. So before the program comes back online, we had to certify to Congress via OSD that every home's been checked, the meter is new and checked and only then after they agree, can we restart the program. Why does it matter? Well, it matters because if you live here, pre-Florence, we had 7,500 residents. We got down to 6,200 after Florence because of damage and people leaving and now we're back now just over 7,000 but we're still spending $1.3 million more per year on electricity with 500 less residents. So you can call it behavior modification but for everyone that lives here, that $1.3 million is your BAH going to pay electricity bills for everywhere because you pay them via AMCC. So it's important we get some of the behavior modified for those that are on the outside, for those that are good stewards of energy, they'll get a credit like the CEO said but again, I wanna state it's gonna be at least a year before that comes back into place. All right, as that comes out, we'll make sure there's plenty of roll out and lead time on it so everybody understands the program and we're gonna have another town hall, at least one more before that happens to be able to answer and feel more questions on it but it won't be a surprise when it happens and we'll make sure everybody has all the opportunity in the world to understand the program as it rolls out. All right, next couple of things I wanna talk about aren't necessarily things that are MCCS slash food service related, so not really Milcon but we do have some upgrades to the vendor facilities. The old Marine Federal Building is gonna have a Panda Express in it. It was Panda Express Hibachi San. The contract is more back and forth a couple of times due to the same issues we've had with all the other Milcon but this was really because the company who's investing in it had other projects that they were doing out in Colorado and couldn't invest in both at the same time but it has been reduced to just a Panda Express and they're in the design phase again and hopefully are gonna start construction on that so we can see that next year and that'll be in the Marine Federal Building. We're also gonna get another food vendor in the SMP building to replace where the Heavenly Brew Cafe used to be and long time ago it was a Domino's and then a little Anthony's Pizza. Can't say what the vendor is now but we're in final negotiations to get another vendor in there to open different food options in the New River area that'll be open longer than the seven day store so that'll help out. Look for that to come and that is probably going to be as soon as the summer of 2024 so in the next couple of months we could see that because there's very little that has to be done to convert that current facility and get people in there. All right, I have two more pitches and after that we'll migrate over to Q and A. The first pitch is that if you didn't know the tax center on New River is open it's in our legal building AS216 and we have Marines who have been trained and we have a certified staff that can help if you have very complex returns but we offer free returns and free service for both federal and state taxes on New River if you're interested in doing that. They do great and so Sergeant Major and I get to see every ICE comment that comes through New River for every entity and I have never seen as many positive ICE comments for any entity or any facility as I've seen for the tax center in New River. It is a terrific service and it's one of the hidden gems and I know Captain Webster isn't unhappy at all to share his building with them for a couple months out of the year just because of the traffic it brings in and the huge service it brings to the Marines and I think last year they said it was in the four or five million dollar return thing that both Lejeune and New River did to get tax returns for Marines and their families in the area. The service is free. You can go in and walk in or you can call and make an appointment either way and if you just Google New River tax center it'll give you a location with a pin and a phone number that you can call and make an appointment or you can walk in and it's located in the same building as legal AS216. Lastly, since we're coming up on hurricane season and some of the people maybe new here may not have complete access we do have a notification system that we can use and we can add anybody who is a military service member or a dependent who is registered in Dears to get messages on a cell phone or a personal email. If you have a service member who is deployed right now and you can't get access to it we can help you out in our S3 team and if you let us know afterwards we can link you up so you can get access to it but if not, we have pamphlets up here that instructs you how to do it. It's called the At-Hoc system and basically what happens is it's like an Amber Alert for anything we're doing on base. We can send out an alert to everybody who's registered in the system that says we're doing a training exercise and this street is gonna be closed for these two hours or there's an active shooter at the food line right outside the front gate and the front gate is gonna be on lockdown and we're in force protection condition Delta. So whatever it is, we can give notifications on what happens, what the incident is, where you can go for more information and when there's an all clear. You can get that on your cell phone or a personal email and the only requirement to be able to register on your own is have somebody with a CAC that can get on to a government computer. When you do, there's instructions on here to be able to open it, register yourself and register any dependents who are registered in Dears with their phone number or personal email. We have some flyers up here and if you have questions on it, happy to help and if you can't log on for any reason, I had problems trying to log my wife onto it. Our S3 at station will help you do that and be able to take care of you and make sure you have access to it should you want that. And the time to do that is now because in the next couple of months we get into hurricane season, it sucks to not have all the information right away and that's the primary means that we push information out to people who live and work on New River. Ah, one more thing, thank you Julie. I knew I had one more. Hey, we also just got notification today that starting next Monday, both unaccompanied housing and family housing, there's tenant satisfaction surveys and quality life surveys. So quality life survey, if you live in the barracks, if you live in family housing, tenant satisfaction survey. And I know AMCC is gonna be pushing this out starting on Monday, the 18th and going through May 31st, you have the ability to fill out a survey and what you put on this survey will directly impact the services and the money and the programs we get to make housing better. So Sergeant Major and I and the team are gonna have a huge campaign to kind of get out the surveys and make sure people have an opportunity to have their say. But we'd ask that you come up here at the end and you can take one of these flyers for the survey as well. And remember, the more information you put in there and the more detailed it is, the more you can help yourselves and help everybody else who lives and works on New River. All right, I talked a lot. I love a captive audience, but all important information, we're gonna do this again in the fall after we have the big summer PCS season and I'll do these town halls as long as there's a demand signal for them. So if more people wanna do them, let us know. We're happy to come out here and do as many of these town halls as people want if there's specific topics that you want us to talk about and prepare for in a town hall, we can do that. We did one about a year and a half ago, John, about a year ago for the third party inspections to talk about what the process was, the results and why we were doing them, why were there people coming through your homes? So we're happy to do it for any type of event or issue you have and if not, we're always accessible if you have any questions. You can go through your AMCC, your RAB representatives and Sergeant Major and I and RS4 and INE and all the staff are always at the RABs to as many as we can get to and you have access to us in the town hall as well. So you can go through housing to get to us, ICE comments work as well, but we'd ask you to go through housing. We're never gonna tell anybody to not put in an ICE comment, but we'd ask that you give us an opportunity to work and if you do put in an ICE comment, please leave contact information so we can follow up and make sure we reconcile and we fix whatever the concern is that you have. All right, at this point, I'm open for questions and I'll stay here as long as anybody has questions and that goes for the staff as well. And if you have no questions, thank you very much for your time. I appreciate you taking your time out of this evening to come out here and have a great night. If there are questions though, if you have a question, I'm gonna repeat it on here so we can get it on the video. So if we decide to post this online, that we'll have all the questions as well. Kenny, you got one? Ah, all right. Anything else that I missed? Ladies, John? Good, all right. Awesome, perfect. Great, so if you are a housing resident, you will get notification of those surveys in your email and whatever contact information you have from housing. In addition, we're gonna make sure we have it out at the marquees and we'll have it available at the commissary and the PX so that everybody knows. And the same will go for the unaccompanied housing as well. So if you live in the barracks, there'll be two different survey information flyers up. So make sure you get the one that's appropriate for your residents. All right, thank you all very much. I appreciate your time and have a great night.


Let's get into our study Matthew chapter 16. We're going to look at verses 5 through 12 today We're looking at a warning that Christ gives where he says to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees Now what we do here for those who are visitors is we do a Bible study That means that I'll take you verse by verse And so you may be used to something else where the minister does his his Teaching in a different way what I do is a verse by verse study That way you're able to fully approach what the scripture has to say and as you do that I give to you a lot of information that will help you understand the context and Application and the application will come as we're probably three Three-quarters into the study just preparing you so that you'll know so beginning here in Matthew 16 at verse 5 Reading to verse 12 when his disciples had come to the other side They had forgotten to take bread Then Jesus said to them take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees And they reasoned among themselves saying it's because we have taken no bread But when Jesus perceived it he said to them. Oh you of little faith Why do you reason among yourselves because you have brought no bread? Do you not yet understand or remember the five loaves of the five thousand and how many baskets you took up? Nor the seven loaves of the four thousand and how many large baskets you took up How is it you do not do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread But you should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees Then they understood that he did not tell them to beware of leaven of bread but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees Now Jesus has just had a confrontation He's had a confrontation with members of the two most influential religious groups of his day He had a confrontation with Pharisees and with Sadducees as They had come to him. They had asked him For a sign from heaven they did that as a test to him You see by now Jesus has systematically undermined their authority because he's been contradicting their teachings So that provoked the religious leaders to openly challenge him and they do this by asking him questions Because as they're asking questions, they're hoping to entrap him with his words The Bible tells us in Psalm 37 32 the wicked watches the righteous and seeks to slay him So they watched him closely. They were looking for something to make accusation of Because he had been confronting them and their doctrines.  He's actually undermining their authority You see the Bible makes it very clear that these teachers were delegated with the authority to instruct the people about God Jesus mentions that in Matthew 23 in verse 2 when he says that they they are seated in Moses's seat We'll look at that when we get into Matthew 23 But the point he was making is very simple. He's saying they have authority to teach you the law And so these were people who were delegated by God with authority to teach But what's going on is they have now inserted their traditions and their teachings that they have received from Previous generations have been infiltrated with man's kinds of teachings And so Jesus is undermining their their teachings by ignoring their traditions Because as he's ignoring their traditions. He is now challenging their authority You know, it's often true whenever someone's beliefs are challenged at the response of that person whose beliefs are being challenged can be defensive Often the person whose beliefs and teachings are challenged will ask a question of the one who's challenging him They'll say what gives you the right to do or to say this Remember with me that when Jesus cleansed the temple the second time that the Jewish authorities actually came to him And they began to question him Matthew tells us in chapter 21 verse 23 That when he came into the temple the chief priests and the elders of the people confronted him as he was teaching and said By what authority are you doing these things and who gave you this authority? And so that's common when somebody's teaching is Challenged they will ask that question what gives you the right to challenge those things that I've been saying So one of the ways to undermine someone's credibility is to ask a trick question of them It's a way of catching them in their speech. It has a design the design is to discredit Now that had happened it just had happened between Jesus and a coalition of Pharisees and Sadducees They had asked for a heavenly sign They wanted this heavenly sign in order that he might establish his credentials and he had called them on it He knew that they desired to find something wrong with them so that they could form a charge against him Now they didn't come to him for guidance. They didn't come to him for teaching. They didn't come to him for healing They didn't come for him to explain biblical truth to them They were simply hostile towards him. They had no honor for him nor respect Towards him and so Jesus saw through him and he exposed their hypocrisy and and when he did it He made it very easy to note in verse 3. He simply said you know How to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times You're able to discern the natural, but you're blind to the spiritual See these people didn't follow Christ. They didn't hear his voice They didn't listen to him as someone who was exposing to them teachings from heaven Jesus and John 10 27 said my sheep listened to my voice. I know them they follow me But they were not listening to him because they were spiritually blind Paul speaks of that to the Corinthians in 2nd Corinthians 4 verses 3 and 4 When he says even if our gospel is veiled it is veiled to those who are perishing the God of this age Has blinded the minds of unbelievers So that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God The God of this age the God of this world has blinded that there's a spiritual blindness Some of you share your faith with others and as you're sharing your faith with them You might show them scripture and as you show them scripture and quote scripture to them. They remain blind You think if I give them the right argument I can lead them into the kingdom of God, but you fail to realize that it's not logical blindness that they have It's spiritual blindness and their eyes are going to be open through the conviction of the Holy Spirit and the drawing of the Holy Spirit through the power of the Word of God Because you can win an argument and still not see someone get saved When I first got saved in the first early years of my salvation I Was one of these who would I enjoyed conversations I still do about Jesus and the Bible and that began when I first got saved and so I was three or four years old in the Lord and I enjoyed having conversations and so I began to speak to different faith groups people of What are recognized as being? Cultic non-christian belief systems I started speaking to people who were in Mormonism I started speaking to people who were Jehovah's Witnesses and and I was memorizing scripture And I would share with them and tell them this is what the word says and and in and was learning how to argue persuasively and yet seeing that none of them were coming to faith in Christ and and and it wasn't necessarily that that that I wasn't giving them truth and it certainly wasn't that the Bible isn't true It's that they were blinded and a long time ago I began to realize that that only Jesus's sheep will hear his voice and That the God of this age has blinded the minds of those who don't believe and that's a fact and that's what's taking place here These people are not his sheep. Thus, they don't hear his voice And so as all of this has been taking place in verse 4 Matthew concluded This episode with these words. He said he simply writes he left them and departed Mark 8 13 says he left them and entering into the ship again departed to the other side He did not simply physically leave them. He actually was leaving them in their unbelief But they're going to the other side So when it says in verse 5 when his disciples had come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread so When it says the other side we need to remember the geography of this for just a moment if you were looking at a map of Israel And you and we'll say israel is shaped very similarly to the state of california Israel is divided into three sections what we in california would simply say northern central and southern california The sea of gala lee is up in what we would call the northern portion or northern california if you will the sea of gala lee Has the western shore on the western shore is a a region there Magdala, which is also a city and Another place they're called dalmanuta I mentioned to you that jesus was in that series in that section So if you were looking at the sea of gala lee you'd be looking on the western shoreline about two-thirds to three-quarters of a Way up to the north on the out on the western shoreline He's in a place called Magdala. They get into a ship and they go to the northeast as they're going to the northeast They're going to a region there that is being spoken of here. It's called Bethsada Mark 822 says he went to base Bethsada now as they're on their way there It says in verse 5 they had forgotten to take bread again mark adds They did not have more than one loaf with them in the boat So this kind of oversight is under Understandable they've had a long day more than likely of ministry. They've rode across the lake. They're exhausted in so much activity They've forgotten to bring enough food supplies Now you might wonder why jesus didn't multiply the one loaf and feed them Why didn't he perform miracle? He had recently done that with with the feeding of five thousand and the feeding of four thousand He'll even bring it up in just a moment But with so much activity, they had forgotten to bring the food, but jesus does not multiply that one loaf Now here's an aside for you, but it's something that somebody may find valuable as I bring it up Miracles are not performed as matters of convenience with no purpose for performing one Miraculous works have a deeper meaning and were only performed Occasionally it would seem that he had another idea in mind and he used this as an opportunity to teach them It is not that God doesn't perform miracles Is that our faith is on something of more substance than a miracle our faith is in God's declared word There's a movement today that is putting an awful lot Of emphasis on the miraculous But jesus did not perform miracles all the time. That's what made them so wonderful He performed miracles, but here he has something that he wants to teach them and we're going to see that in just a moment So it said in verse five they had forgotten to take bread verse six and jesus spoke to them He said to them take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees Take heed and beware Now he wants to teach them something very deep Matthew records that jesus spoke of Pharisees and Sadducees But you might find this interesting for those of you who've been reading along and studying ahead mark also speaks of this But he speaks of Herod in mark 8 15 Mark said he charged them saying take heed beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod Here you have the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees But mark speaks of it as the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod now Why would he do that? Well, the Sadducees were generally Herodians the Sadducees were what were from what is called the Jewish aristocracy So that would mean that by speaking of Herod's leaven. He was referencing the Sadducees But there's something deeper being warned against He'd be warning against the chief sins that dominated their way of thinking He is warning them against their teachings or their doctrine. You see in Luke chapter 12 verse 1 We see that the leaven of the Pharisees is hypocrisy The leaven of the Sadducees is Unbelief in Acts 23 8 it said the Sadducees say there's no resurrection No angel or spirit, but the Pharisees confess both Now again the Sadducees are normally aristocrats. So Herod's leaven would be the leaven of worldliness the leaven of Pharisees self righteousness Legalism traditionalism and Jesus is giving his disciples a stern warning to be a on guard against these sins And I want you to notice something notice how he exhorts them This would pass you by if I don't Point it out. I'll say it very quickly Notice verse 6. He says take heed and beware Take heed when he says take heed keep your eyes open Recognize and perceive the word beware be on guard be on the alert pay attention Jesus is saying you have responsibility To be on guard and to pay attention You have the responsibility to keep your eyes open to recognize and to perceive what is taking place You have the responsibility to be on the alert. You have that responsibility You see sometimes when people are drawn away by false doctrines. There are others who will Just blame the teacher for giving bad doctrine. The teacher has responsibility and God holds them accountable There's no doubt about that, but Jesus also speaks to us He speaks to the church and he says you have personal responsibility to guard that which has been entrusted to you You have personal responsibility to use discernment See one of the reasons why it's important to teach the Bible and for you to be here on a Sunday to hear a Bible study Is so that you have discernment so that you're capable of hearing something and saying that does not line up with scripture Paul had said that he would not shun to declare the entire counsel of God to the Ephesian elders He said that because he wanted them to be built up in their most holy faith and they needed to understand What is true and what is not true? So when Jesus is speaking here, he is making it very clear that what you believe is what you're going to do because you always behave upon what you have believed Doctrine will always always Influence the way that I live and that's why Jesus is saying you need to be aware of this doctrine You need to take heed of this doctrine Because it's going to make you a Pharisee or it's going to make you into a Sadducee You need to understand that now he speaks of it in this way He says beware of the leaven leaven is a word that you probably haven't gone to the store looking for leaven lately Maybe you have but the word leaven is yeast and every baker in this room knows what yeast does It permeates the dough and causes it to rise it infects the entire mass. That's what it does a small portion 11 can infect entire loaf and so Jesus is saying that there is something insidious. There's something infectious. There's something wrong Even if it starts out small It can permeate an entire life Even if it's just a small thing it can permeate your entire way of thinking Be aware be on guard be perceptive Because it'll destroy your life in first Corinthians chapter 5 verse 8 Paul said let us keep the feast not with old leaven neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness But with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth Malice is the desire to injure Wickedness speaks of evil desires. We are not to have that within us So Jesus is saying beware of the influence of the Pharisees and Sadducees Because their way of thinking and their way of living does not reveal nor reflect my kingdom So the doctrines that the Pharisees Taught where the commandments and inventions of men Their teachings were permeated with traditions the tradition of the elder and Justification by works, but the doctrine of the Sadducees was the rejection of biblical doctrine and that led them to live life As if there is no afterlife Their fruit was the fruit of living for today Because there are no rewards and there are no penalties after death If there's any advantage in life to be had then it should be had right now There's no heaven There's no hell below us You know the anthem of just live for today As permeated our society and that's what In essence John Lennon's song imagine was actually saying No hell below us There's no heaven above us Just get along with each other while we're here Well that's somewhat of the doctrine of the Sadducees There is no resurrection If there's no resurrection then there's nothing to be concerned about If there's no afterlife whatsoever Then the wisest thing that I can do is grab all that I can while I'm alive And live life as I see it to the fullest In first Corinthians in chapter 15 verse 32 Paul said it like this He said if in the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus What advantages it to me If the dead do not die What advantages it to me If the dead do not rise let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die So that's led to a life that's filled with pride and greed Because again all beliefs are revealed by our behaviors And you do what you believe Your convictions will always determine your conduct And if in this life this is all we have Then it makes sense to get out of it as much as you can That's what the Sadducees did And Jesus is warning against that kind of leaven When I was a younger person There was a commercial They don't have this commercial anymore But it's the same theme You'll see the same theme in many commercials It's always interesting In the weekends you always have a hedonism You'll always have a hedonistic kind of thing Eat this crazy chicken here Or wear these clothes there Drink this beer here And you'll see that if you watch sporting events at all You have all kinds of beer commercials right And various different commercials that pertain to eating and drinking That's what you do And that's what we're told So if you're watching a game it doesn't really matter If it's a baseball game, football game, basketball It doesn't really matter There'll be commercials and they'll be telling you This is what you get out of life So there used to be a commercial that would use the word They used it, they said it like this gusto Get all the gusto that you can It's just grab life by the horns and live it now Because eat and drink for tomorrow you die And that is what people believe Many people believe today That I need to grab what I can right now So I'll pursue whatever satisfies me for the moment So if it means that I need to work hard to get This particular car Or if I have to work hard to have a little extra money So that I can wear these kinds of clothes If I work a little extra So I can go to this particular place to get my hair done Or whatever it may be It's all about what's outside Now that doesn't mean that we shouldn't have goals And that doesn't mean that we shouldn't have a life Towards achieving something Make our lives better than what we are now Of course not, I'm not speaking against that When I was growing up My mom and my dad were the kinds of parents Who encouraged me to do the best that I could With what I had And if you can do well, do well son Is the way my dad and my mom thought Get educated and find a profession Provide for your family Take care of your health Do the best you can Don't settle for second best Always go for the best And that's how my parents were It wasn't that they were teaching me materialism They were teaching me the joy of achievement To have a goal and to be able to achieve that There's a certain kind of satisfaction I have four children And when my kids were growing up Marie and I Went to do some ministry in Spain And while I was in Spain We found a shop that was in a region Where there's a story called The Man of La Mancha And some of you have heard of that The Man of La Mancha Don Quixote And while I was there I went into a shop in this particular region In La Mancha They had this little wooden figure Of Don Quixote And they had Sancho Panza And so that's his little right hand man And you all know the story Of Don Quixote Who was tilting with windmills And this and that But they took that book That was written and they made a play The Man from La Mancha And in that play They have a song And the song is Really became for me Something to keep me aware That God wants to do something In my life That is extraordinary And I have in my office I have that little figurine Of the Man from La Mancha And Sancho Panza I have a candle that I burn Before him every day Now I'm just kidding Some of you say oh really No I'm just teasing But I have it in my room Constantly That if I am dreaming Of something that I can achieve Without God's help My dreams are too small My dreams are too small If I can achieve it Without the help of God My dreams too small The dreams that God places In your heart Are to be deeper than your abilities See so forgive me I believe With all of my heart My God is the God of the impossible Shall there be anything Impossible with God I believe that I do And I live my ministry life Like that I know that my God Is able to do abundantly Above all that I can ask Or think I know that according to his riches In Christ Jesus I have not Because I ask not And there are times that I ask A miss hoping to consume it Upon my own lusts So I need the scriptures To tell me what the will of God is That I can pray according to his will And what I wanted to do with my children Is to teach them to dream The impossible dream My parents said Reach for the stars Somebody influenced me when they said To attempt To find perfection And if you seek perfection You will reach excellence So God is the God who is able And it's not that we shouldn't Desire to have an education God bless you as you go and pursue it We need Christians Who are educated and capable of ministry And of course we're to permeate And saturate the society And it's not wrong For you to have a desire To have a nicer vehicle I mean I've had cars That they would shoot smoke signals Out of the tailpipe You know that I've told you this before One of my first cars Was a 57 Volvo And it didn't have a passenger seat So my sister Madeleine Had a doll One of those doll set You know little tables where the kids Would have their tees And the chair was only Like a foot and a half tall And I took it and I put it As the passenger seat Because I didn't have a passenger seat And I took my mom for a ride And it was a stick shift And so I popped the clutch And I was changing gears Just to wash my mom Fall into the back seat And come back up See so I've had I've had those vehicles And thank God for them You know and yet I thought I'd like to have something That actually has air conditioning I'd never had air conditioning I'd like to have something That drives better I'm not saying Please don't think there's Some old hippie up here Saying you know No I'm not saying that To achieve, to work, to have goals All of that is part of the process That God couldn't use But that is not To take the place Of the spiritual satisfaction That he gives to us Through following Jesus Christ Because you will never see A hearse pulling a U-Haul You leave it all behind Like they asked About Rockefeller Who at that time Was the and is still The all time Richest man the United States Ever saw And they said How much did he leave behind And the answer was Everything See so we do not build On shaky sinking sand But we need to understand That the Sadducees Said might as well just Live for today And get out of it All that we can If this life is all there is It makes sense to get out Of it as much as you can take Now we as believers We have a hope that is built On something greater than The passing pleasures of life That's because we have A heavenly perspective In 2 Peter 3, 11 through 14 We read since everything Will be destroyed in this way What kind of people ought You to be You ought to live Holy and godly lives As you look forward To the day of God And speed it's coming That day Will bring about the destruction Of the heavens by fire And the elements Will melt in the heat But in keeping with this promises We are looking forward To a new heaven And a new earth The home of righteousness So then dear friends Since you are looking forward To this Make every effort To be found spotless Blameless And at peace With him And those who don't have This heavenly hope While they look at serving The Lord is losing A losing proposition Because there's no immediate Value to it You see unless they find Some kind of advantage For themselves Then why would I serve him At all? It's like what it says In the book of Job 2115 Where the question is asked What is the Almighty That we should serve him And what profit should we Have if we pray unto him Where do I get out of it So to simply eat and drink Because tomorrow we die Is the fruit of the Eleven of Sadducees Earthly gain without faith And God doesn't profit Anyone in the day of judgment Proverbs 10-2 says Treasures of wickedness Profit nothing But righteousness delivers From death Jesus spoke concerning That way of thinking We already saw it in Matthew 6 When he said in verses 31 Through 33 Do not worry Saying what shall we eat Or what shall we drink Or what shall we wear For after all these things The Gentiles seek For your heavenly Father Knows that you have need Of all these things But seek first the kingdom Of God and his righteousness And all of these things Shall be added to you So these doctrines That Jesus is warning against Resulted in people being Infected with unbelief And materialism People's lives were Becoming leavened Puffed up with pride Resulting in a lack of joy And a lack of hope Remember Galatians 5 9 says a little leaven Leavens the whole lump of dough So Jesus is giving them A spiritual warning How did they respond? Well, they reasoned Amongst themselves verse 7 It's because we have Taken no bread He's giving them spiritual Warning But their maturity Is still developing And they miss his point They're taking him Literally He must be upset Because we only have One loaf of bread Obviously he wasn't speaking Literally He could have created More food out of the One loaf They forgot what Jesus Had taught when he fed The 5,000 Now John records that After Jesus had fed The 5,000 That many who were fed Came looking for him And when they saw Jesus Was gone they got into Boats and came to Capernaum Seeking him So that prompted Jesus into speaking In a very direct manner To them in John 6 26 through 29 We read Jesus answered them And said Most assuredly I say to you You seek me Not because you saw The signs But because you ate Of the lobes and were Filled Do not labor For the food which Perishes But for the food Which endures To everlasting life Which some man Will give you Because God The Father has Said his seal on him Then they said to him What shall we do That we may work The works of God And Jesus answered And said to them This is the work of God That you believe in him Whom he sent Our lives are built On something deeper Than material They're built on spiritual Truth That's why in Luke 12 15 He said Watch out Be on your guard against All kinds of greed A man's life does not Consist In the abundance Of the things He possesses You are not What you wear You are not What you look like Because what We look like Changes over time I've discovered that You're more than that It isn't what you drive It isn't what you eat It isn't where you live It isn't how tall you are Or how short you are It isn't your color It isn't the color of your hair Or the lack thereof It isn't any of that It's who you are within It's who you are within I met a young woman I was one of these guys Who had in my mind The list that I gave to God I knew that God was My heavenly bellboy That he would do what I asked Because the Bible said If you ask anything In my name I will do it So I said She's got to be blonde She's got to have blue eyes She's got to be this tall I had my list So when I go to Bible studies And here comes a girl That's pretty close There she is In Jesus' name She's mine God had different ideas He brought a little Dark skinned Dark haired Dark eyed A little girl that was Kept in his oven A little longer than I thought And he said You've been looking For the outside Not that my girl isn't Beautiful indeed I believe her to be Of course But when I sat down With that girl the first time And she wasn't even saved yet And talked to her I said There's something about this one That's different Than everybody I've known before I got in my little Volkswagen I drove from Ontario back home to Norwalk And I was driving home I said I met the girl I'm going to marry Tonight I know it She wasn't saved yet I went the next day to work And I told these kids I used to coach I met the girl I'm going to marry tomorrow And they didn't care But I did Didn't say anything Other than to Marie And these kids Rather Madeleine And these kids And my sister Madeleine And short time After I believe Probably the One, two, three weeks Within three weeks My sister Madeleine Three weeks or so Sat down with this young woman named Marie And led her to faith in Christ And then she became My girlfriend And has been my wife now For a long time I learned a long time ago Just to say God, whatever your will may be I will trust it Because your will for me Is much better than anything I could design for myself And I know that Beyond a shadow of a doubt So it's not what you see On the outside It's the heart of that person And that virtuous woman Is, well, the kind of woman The proverb says Her husband's heart Does safely trust in her Beauty is fleeting But the condition of the heart Remains permanently And I have seen that And one of the things That we need to understand Is I may want this thing so bad Because I think it's going to make me What I need No, God will give you Your petitions But he will send Leanness to your soul You may gain what you thought You wanted to have But one day you wake up saying I made a poor decision on this one I shouldn't have rushed into this That's why it's so important To wait on the Lord To trust him And not pursue the material To seek God And he leads you into that life And he gives you that place You know, I walk through the valley Of the shadow of death But he takes me beside the still water I just need to know That he's taken me to that place And that's how it works In your walk with the Lord Keep your eyes on the things of the Lord And watch what God will do Because my life does not consist Of the abundance of the things That I possess So Jesus perceives in verse 8 And he speaks to them And says, oh, you of little faith Why are you reasoning? Why are you reasoning in this way? You're reasoning among yourselves Because you have brought no bread? Now, interesting, let me point this out It'll take just a moment This is the fourth time He has used the phrase, oh, you of little faith If he says it one time It must mean something He's repeated it three times before In Matthew 6 verse 30 He had spoken to them concerning Their material concerns And he had said, if God so closed The grass of the field Which today is and tomorrow Is thrown into the oven Will he not much more clothe you Oh, you of little faith In Matthew 8 verse 26 After they thought they were going to drown And Jesus calms the storm He said, why are you fearful Oh, you of little faith He arose and rebuked the winds of the sea And it was a great calm In Matthew 14 verse 31 And after Peter had walked on water It says immediately Jesus stretched out his hand And caught him Said to him, oh, you of little faith Why did you doubt? You see, if they're going to take The message of the gospel to the world They need to grow spiritually They need to be stronger in faith They've been with them They've seen what he does They've heard him as he taught But he's saying You're still thinking like those Who've never partaken in a spiritual work You're not digging deeper Into spiritual meaning of my words You're taking them literally And because of that You don't grow spiritually He intended his disciples To learn spiritual lessons So they could teach others also That's what it means to grow In the grace and knowledge Of the Lord Jesus Christ You need to grow You see, the writer of Hebrews Had something similar to say Believers in Hebrews 5 11 through 14, he said We have much to say about this It's hard to explain Because you're slow to learn In fact, though by this time You ought to be teachers You need someone to teach you The elementary truths of God's word All over again You need milk Not solid food Anyone who lives on milk Being still an infant Is not acquainted with the teaching About righteousness Solid food is for the mature Who by constant use Have trained themselves To distinguish good from evil See, it's not enough for me To have a Bible study taught to me It's important for me To put that study into practice And to dig deeper for myself So I can see the ways of God And how they unfold So he says to them You don't understand You're not remembering my works You're not remembering my words In verse 9 Do you not yet understand To remember the five lobes Of the 5,000 And how many baskets you took up Nor the 7 lobes of the 4,000 And how many large baskets you took up Have you yet to understand My teachings related to God's gracious provisions Have you not understood My miraculous ability To provide your daily bread Do you not remember the feeding Of the 5,000 Do you not remember That you took up baskets as a reminder I taught you the same kind Of lesson a second time Intending to reinforce my teachings In you Not only do you lack faith You are lacking spiritual perception If I were concerned about food I would create it myself But you're just not learning Your spiritual lessons How is it he says in verse 11 That you do not understand That I did not speak to you Concerning bread When are you going to learn You need to apply the lessons That I've been teaching you You need to go deeper Than simply the surface of the lesson That I've been teaching And I'm warning you Concerning something much deeper Than simply bringing enough supplies I'm warning you About the danger of bad teaching You know I bless the Lord Because he teaches us The same kinds of lessons Over and over again We don't always learn the first The lesson the first time He teaches that we know that But he also gives to us In these lessons An opportunity to put If you will a marker A stone of remembrance To remember how God met us In a certain place And he was faithful then And he will be faithful to us now Because God is a faithful God And our church was new We had started in a house We moved into a small building On Vine Street The name of this particular building That we were renting And we rented it for I think about a hundred dollars a month No more than a hundred and fifty The name of this place Was church of God Seventh day on Vine Street So we were in a house We moved from the house We moved to this place The place sat a hundred and twenty To us it was cavernous And we had sixty people Going to the church Sixty adults and a handful of children As we were in this particular place We celebrated an alternative To Halloween We called it a hallelujah party We only had twenty-five kids And they came And we gave them candy And we had them dress up In biblical characters And we just wanted a family kind of thing Where the family could bring their babies And that's all it was And then Christmas came And we had a Christmas play And so our children Were in the Christmas play And we sang Christmas songs And well the church That was renting us The building got angry at us And said you guys are a cult You celebrate Halloween And you celebrate Christmas And we said no It's an alternative to Halloween So the kids aren't running around On the streets dressed like little devils They can be little devils Inside of the church building And Christmas of course We celebrate the birth of our savior Jesus Christ Well we don't Well it turns out they were a cult But they were calling us to be one They said you're a cult And as a result of that They kicked us out They said you have to be out At the end of January We didn't have any place to go I only had sixty people in the church Our weekly offerings were probably About three hundred dollars or so We had enough money to pay for the rent And give me a partial A partial support Marie worked for years When our church first began To help the supply Because we just didn't have the income And at that time We didn't have the income at all To do that With sixty people it's very difficult To be able to carry on ministry And all the way that That could have been But it just wasn't happening So they said you have to leave We began looking around For a place to meet And we finally found the only place That seemed open Because we went to Upland We went into Montclair We looked around There was at that time A Calvary Chapel Chino that was here Being passed by a guy named Denny And so we didn't have any place To go and the only place That we found that we could use Was a place called the Central School Central School there on I believe it's D Street Off of Euclid But it was like fifteen hundred dollars A month We didn't have that kind of money To be able to rent that school And so we had two weeks to go We looked for everything in every place And there was nothing open to us No place for us that we could afford It was a Wednesday night And for some reason Marie And the kids were not there at the house My children were very small at that time And I remember going into the Our bedroom And laying on my face Before the Lord And weeping to him saying God We have no place to go We only have sixty people And though that doesn't seem Like much perhaps to others They are the most dear people in my life And I don't know what to do Oh Father You have to provide a place for us I have gone as far as I can I've done as much as I know to do God help us And I got up, washed my face Went and taught the Wednesday night Bible study We were holding the Bible study At the home of Dave and Connie Signs at that time And I remember walking in And as I walked in A woman named Karen walks up to me And looks at me and she says You look like death warmed over What's wrong? And I said we'll talk about it afterwards I gave the Wednesday night Bible study And I said we've been booted Out of our location We don't have the funds We can't afford the only other place That's open Can we pray? And so they prayed They prayed for me And they prayed for my assistant Dan And I went home I put my head on the pillow As God is my witness This is the truth Some of you won't believe it That's okay It's true Before the Lord And as I was putting my head on the pillow And about to go to sleep I heard the voice of the Lord Speak to my heart And he said you Will need a place That seats 200 on Easter Sunday And I remember hearing that voice Very distinctly insane Within myself That's true That's right The next day I get up And I'm preparing a Bible study John 12-24 Unless a grain of wheat Fall into the ground and die It abides alone But if it dies It'll bring forth much fruit And as I was reading that I prayed and I said Father I believe that I have died I feel dead right now Lord I don't know what to do And as I was praying The mailman walked up And left some mail In the mailbox And I had written a letter To Pastor Chuck Smith And I said I'd like to be Associated as a Calvary ministry And the voice of the Lord Spoke a second time And said your letter is here And I went and I took out the mail And I put this letter from Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa And I opened it up And it said we welcome you Into the association Of Calvary Chapel Fellowship That letter I still have that letter That letter if you've ever Gone out on the north side Of our foyer isleway there That letter is there A portion of it is there Against the wall in our timeline It's there Pastor Chuck's letter It's not the whole letter But a portion of it He said we welcome you Into the family of Calvary Ministries And so the next Sunday The next Saturday Actually was a breakfast And then what happened Is I told him We're going to change Our names to Calvary Chapel Ontario Our name is now Calvary Ontario And so within two weeks Our church began to grow And we now had about 120 As that happened The people who were kicking us Out extended us two more months And here comes Easter And we were now out of Of this small church And it was pouring rain That Easter of 1982 In Ontario And there we were at Central school Because the income came in That gave us the ability To pay the rent demand And it was pouring rain So high that the curbs Were being covered And some of you know Sultana You know the areas in Ontario How that it just floods And the rain was just flooding And I remember walking up To the pulpit On that Sunday Easter Sunday And I remember standing up Saying you don't know this But this is God's promise He said we will need a place Of 200 people on Easter Sunday And there were 200 people Sitting in front of me Who all chaired their approval Of God's will God is able to do abundantly Above all you can ask Or think That's why we are Bewearing of the leaven Of the Pharisees And the Sadducees We do not want a self-righteous Legalism And we do not want to say That God is not moving And alive amongst us now Because he is alive And Jesus said be aware of it Their teaching will infect you And will saturate you They're filled Their teachings are filled with sin They need to be rejected You see all teaching has fruit Because again what we believe Will always fuel the way that we behave And Jesus' teachings are intended To produce loving, faithful Sacrificial, generous And prayerful people But on the other hand Their doctrine produces malice Wickedness and hypocrisy So he says avoid their doctrine Cling to the teachings of Christ Be conformed to his image And remember a student Is not above his teacher But everyone who is fully trained Will be like his teacher So being trained in God's word Results in love, integrity Freedom, stability and grace Beware of the doctrine Of the Pharisees and the Sadducees And stay true to the teachings Of Jesus Christ


Over the past couple of months, the Sanford Center has been the topic of many conversations around Bemidji. Our Josh Peterson found that changes in the role of its advisory board may be made in the near future. Before the Sanford Center even opened its doors, there has always been a board of community members in place to bridge the gap between Event Center and the Bemidji City Council. While the community has grown, the Sanford Center's advisory board's original purpose remains the same. The advisory board serves in a capacity for the city to help review revenue, to help review operational concerns, also the performance of the facility. It's not uncommon for community event centers to have a committee or board that is made up from people throughout its community. It's really a way for an event center to have assistance in some of its decision-making. Serve as a sounding board both for the community and also for the executive director on types of bookings and acts. The change could be on the horizon for the Sanford Center's advisory board. Recent events with the event center's management company, VenuWorks, has open discussions about what the role of an advisory board should be and what guidelines it should follow. Revolving is to define success as well as the right members of the board, and we're still working on that. I think that's part of the conversation with the work group of the city is to make sure that the right people are on the board, the right makeup of the board. But no matter what its key purpose will always be to promote the city and collect public feedback to help make sure every aspect of the event center is a successful one. In Bemidji, I'm Josh Peterson, Lakeland News. Recently the Bemidji City Council developed a work group to look more in-depth at the Sanford Center's booking and promoting issues. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.