Port Austin Bible Campus
PO Box 474 •
Port Austin, Michigan,
Letter of
Dear fellow-brethren:
Thank you for returning your
Response Page or otherwise informing us that you want to continue receiving
Servants’ News. We will make sure that you continue to get every issue. This
letter is being mailed to all readers for whom we do
not have an e-mail address. Thank you for saving us time and money by reading
it this way.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP IN OUR TIME OF NEED
Last month, for the first time
since Servants’ News began, we sent letters to our readership directly asking
for financial help. Thank you for your prayers and offerings. The help we
received has sustained us, but we still have a few more hurdles to jump over in
order to make this project a success.
We appealed to you for help when we needed $30,000 on short notice. Our sellers had initially approved, then rejected our plan to raise this amount to pay our land contract by selling a building to Mike Zaeske. We did receive about $9,000 as a result of this request. While this was not enough to pay off the contract in its entirety, it was enough to make two more monthly payments and forestall foreclosure.
Unfortunately, time rolls on
and we are once again more than three months behind in our payments and again
in danger of foreclosure. We received 140 offerings of $15 or more since
sending the letter. An offering of $15 from each reader would have easily
raised the $30,000.
Quite a few sent $30 in order to pay for someone else. Others sent larger amounts. One person sent $100, suggesting that if 300 people could do that, we would have what we need. A few called to suggest various means of obtaining a loan, but nothing worked out.
We hope that those who did not
send anything would consider doing so now if they are able. Collectively, you
could easily take care of our current financial needs. It is noteworthy to
recognize that hundreds of people have returned their Response Page and 136
have asked for our 2005 Music Camp CD, but only a fraction have sent an
offering with their CD request or response to continue Servants’ News. Indeed,
many people have received Servants’ News for nearly a decade and never offered
to help. Some may not be able to contribute financially, but most probably
could. We want to offer these things freely as Christ instructed (Matt 10:8),
but “Even so the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should
live from the gospel” (1Cor
SERVANTS’ NEWS NEEDS
TO CONTINUE
The need to continue publishing
Servants’ News to us seems greater than
ever. Many independent Sabbatarian ministries have ceased functioning over the
past few years. Since our Jan/Feb Servants’ News issue, we have again received
a number of interesting and informative letters and articles. We hope to be
able to print many of them. We also received over 200 changes of address and
requests from dozens of new readers.
We want Servant’s News to not simply cover old “
We are working on many
interesting articles. As an example, we will have some articles on biblical
apprenticeship. This is a valuable concept that is obscured
by most Bible translations. There are a pair of Hebrew
and Greek words that mean “one who is in training”. The Hebrew
words are na’ar (male) and na‘arah (female)
and the Greek words are pais (male) paidiske (female). Most Bibles
translations say “young man”, “boy”, “servant”, “son”,
depending on the context. While those translations are true, the concept of
“one who is learning” is lost. “Apprentice” or “trainee” would be better
translations, but even those English words have a more formal connotation than
the Greek and Hebrew. A study of the hundreds of places where these words are
used teaches much about how education was carried out
in the Bible-and what we should be doing now.
We also have many news-related
articles to publish. Our article written before the war, the Hypocrisy of
Attacking Iraq, has proven largely accurate, and has received numerous
comments. The corruption in governments and big business has probably reached
an all-time high. Finding the truth about almost anything is becoming more and
more difficult. The Bible teaches that evil leaders conspire, plot and lie to
benefit not just their people, but also to benefit themselves, personally, at
the expense of their people. We should not expect anything different from
leaders today. However, sifting through the mainstream media monopoly,
and the sometimes equally biased alternative media is not an easy task.
We have saved a lot of good
information as it was brought to our attention. We
have a good article base to work from, but our output is lacking. We still need
to put our March/April issue together. And for the
first time, we may have difficulty finding the funds to print and mail it.
DEVELOPING THE PABC COMMUNITY
Admittedly, most of our time
has been spent maintaining the PABC campus, with much building maintenance,
grounds maintenance, appliance maintenance, real estate management and even
eight court cases-four of which have been resolved in our favor and four more
in progress. There were disputes about who owns certain parcels of land and who
was responsible for running the water and sewer system and other things. Developing
an internal community government based upon Matthew 18 has also taken a
significant amount of time, and has been put to
practical use. We hope to write more about this.
While some readers have
suggested that we just concentrate on the newsletter and see little need for
the PABC Christian community, we disagree. Over the past several years, it has
become clear that many of the independent Sabbatarian believers were dividing
and splitting over more and more issues-arguing more about what is truth and
working together less. There are young people in these
age groups that literally do not know anyone their age with the same beliefs as
their parents. Lastly, it has been noted that when the
leader of one of these groups dies, the leader’s work frequently dies with him
or her. PABC is intended to be a place to help defeat
these problems. While PABC and its associated ministry has no
intention of becoming a denomination, it
is our hope that we can become a repository of Sabbatarian teachings and
resources; in other words we want to be a place where biblical principles can
actually be lived out, as in the Christian communities in Acts 2 & 4; a
place for young people to meet, work, learn and study; a place where artists
can capture and distribute their Spiritual encouragement on paper and audio and
video recording; and a place where teachings can live on past the life of a single
teacher.
Our Survey of CoG Young People
was revealing about Sabbatarian young people: After they turn 19, they are more
likely to have moved out, have had a job, have been to college,
or have had a serious relationship than they are to still be a participant with
some Sabbatarian group. Indeed, there were almost as many 19-25 year-olds who were engaged to be married as were still associated with a Sabbatarian
group. Of those responding who had had at least one serious relationship, only
23% had their most recent relationship with a Sabbatarian. If we expect our
teachings and practices to continue to the next generation, we need to do more
for our young people. Why would any new family want to participate with a
religious group that
retains only a small percentage of its young people?
WE NEED MORE BELIEVERS INVOLVED
It is now over 26 months since
Norman Edwards paid $6548 in earnest money, which led to the signing of the
purchase agreement for the Port Austin property. The project was
always intended to bring together a diversity of non-denominational
Sabbatarian brethren to learn to live and work together-with tolerance for
those with differing understandings of the scriptures, but unity and harmony
through the Holy Spirit.
We believe that those here at
Port Austin have worked diligently to procure and maintain, and, in fact,
improve this property over the course of the past two years. Most of this has been accomplished on a very economical, though
labor-intensive basis; i.e. doing the work ourselves, shopping for second-hand
materials, growing and cooking much of our own food, etc. A few of us have even
spent our life savings to accomplish these things. During this time
we have been fortunate to have helped a few young people at PABC. But recently, two of our young people have chosen to leave.
One of the main reasons they chose to do this was that we were not able to
spend adequate time with them. We know of other young people that we could
possibly help here, but without the financial and personnel resources to bring
this about, we are very hesitant to ask them to come.
We have been praying and
believe that the Eternal will stir others to see what is
needed and recognize the benefits of what we are doing and help us to do
it. So much work has already been accomplished and it would
seem a waste for us not to continue. We are willing to work together with
people who have knowledge, ideas and experience that differs from ours. We are
looking for individuals who are dedicated to serving God and who are willing to
work with others who want to do the same.
We are even willing to share
leadership here at Port Austin with any who are willing to make a similar
commitment. Remember however, that anyone intending to do this will be required
to make a commitment like the one Jesus asked for in Matt 19:21,
with the difference being that this would be a commitment to educate
Sabbatarian young people in a way that is simply not being done anywhere else.
While we did not have a clearly undisputed command from God to start this
project in Port Austin, the things that have been
accomplished to date and the things we are continuing to do at Port
Austin certainly are all things that can be found in scripture.
WHY SHOULD THE PORT
We believe that the Port Austin
Bible Campus is a unique ministry that needs to be carried
forward because it is fundamentally very different from any other ministry that
we are aware of. We believe to the best of our knowledge and to the best of our
abilities that this ministry can and should continue to be
based upon a biblical foundation in all ways. Examples of this are
abundant. For instance:
1. It
is non-denominational. No one is excluded because they
are or were a member of some other group. Teaching and practice do not need to
correspond to some pre-existing doctrinal statement, but are
based on what we find in the Scripture.
2. Sabbaths,
Feast Days and clean meats are observed. There are virtually
no other nondenominational Christian communities or post-secondary education
places like this.
3. The
biblical model of apprenticeship is primarily used for
training young people, as opposed to the common classroom model. All that a person
does is considered part of their education. People are expected to produce, not simply learn.
4. Matthew
18:15-17 is the basis for handling community problems. There is a procedure
whereby anyone can take an issue to the church if they and their witnesses have not been heard. With young people involved in the
operations of church and ministry government, it is much more likely that they
will organize congregations and ministries of their own when they are older.
5. We
have a physical plant that is ready to use right now and has great potential
for expansion. We
believe continuing with the existing physical facilities can
be done at a much lower cost then it would be to start from scratch and
build something new.
6. We
have purposely not applied to the IRS for 501©(3)
exemption. Receiving this status requires an organization to follow all present
and future IRS regulations. There have been many news headlines during the last
few years where churches and ministries have been told
to stop preaching and publishing on certain subjects or they will lose their
tax-exempt status, which would result in huge tax bills for both the
organization and its donors for the previous couple of years.
7. We
are founded as a privately declared church and
ministry, as was common 100 years ago. We are not a corporation. This allows us
to avoid much of the hassle an overbearing government with its myriad of regulations
and red-tape can create. As a result, we can operate
much more efficiently, our expenses are less, and, we
like to think, improves the quality of life for most believers associated with
us. By way of a specific a example as an illustration
of this, certain regulations imposed by the State of
8. We
have already overcome many of the problems caused by the fact that governments
and businesses have forgotten how to operate with non-incorporated churches and
ministries: We have our sales tax exemption. We are
recognized as a legal entity by both the district court and circuit
court in
9. We
are dedicated to making the fruits of our learning available free of charge
through the PABC publications, library, CDs, internet sites, etc.
10. We
have the long term goal of self-sufficiency and no upfront cost to any who come
here. Of
course, we expect that they will be willing to work and, more importantly, to
learn and grow spiritually from their experience at PABC.
What we need now is a few more capable people who can work and/or provide us
with funds necessary to build upon the operational foundation that has been
laid. God has supplied our needs up to this point, but we believe He has shown
us that there are others who should now be involved.
We do prayerfully ask that God will guide us and this is why, in part, you have been presented with this letter.
NON-DENOMINATIONAL GROUPS NEED TO DO A BETTER JOB
Someone may be asking, what
makes us think that we should be the ones leading this? We have had some
helpful experience, but the main reason is, as previously
stated, nobody else is doing what we are doing. If there were to be
brethren more capable or directly chosen by God, we would gladly work for them.
That does not mean that we would be naďve enough to accept anyone who claims
such ability, but we would certainly consider accepting the leadership of
another who is thoroughly committed to accomplishing what we have described in
this letter.
Even after years of writing against
the problems of church hierarchies, it is evident that they have done much good
and we are willing to work with them if they are willing to work with us. While
God gave ancient
This observation agrees with
our experience over the years. We have known many believers who felt church
denominations were unbiblical and yet continued to attend the services of a big
church organization simply because their young people had friends there, both
young and old, who were a good influence on them. Young people usually do not struggle
much with issues of Church government, the biblical calendar or the meaning of
certain Hebrew and Greek words. They want to know how to find friends, get a
job, achieve independence, perhaps even find a mate. At this age, they are
often searching for genuine meaning to their lives. They need to decide if they
can do those things in the way that God has been presented
to them by their parents and their church group. Otherwise, they may try
looking for God elsewhere, putting God on “hold” for a while, or ignoring Him
altogether.
We recently received a very
startling article about non-denominational Sabbatarians who are seemingly
losing the seriousness of their calling. Freedom to follow God by our
understanding of the Bible has become freedom to do whatever comes easy. Many
people were actually more diligent under the hierarchical system than they are
under independence. Reality requires the reverse must be true. As Thomas Jefferson
said, “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” How many people think that
they do not have sufficient time or money for the things of God, but then end
up spending unusually large amounts of time or money for medical care, home
repairs, legal expenses, auto repairs, etc? How many feel like they do not have
time to get involved actually serving God or assisting in preaching the Gospel,
but do have time for bad habits or for pursuits with little eternal value? How
many people feel like they barely have enough for the necessities of life, yet
their homes are full of stuff that they have acquired-much of which is no
longer used or needed?
Non-denominational believers
must be totally reliant on Christ to work with them
and through them. They do not need to have a church organization to keep
pushing them along. This requires daily prayer and regular Bible study, but
more than that, it requires the WILLINGNESS to take action. The words of Edward
Everett Hale are applicable here: “I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do
the something that I can do. What I can do, I should
do. And what I should do, by the grace of God, I will do.”
MORE INFORMATION
We encourage those of you whom
God is stirring to help us with this work. Please call or visit us at the PABC
campus in Port Austin. That is the most effective way in which any questions
you might have can be answered quickly and completely.
We are willing to send you copies of our governing documents, contracts,
financial statements and other things explaining what we do. Whether you are
young and wanting to be a pioneer, or retired and still seeking accomplishment
in life, we are interested in hearing from you. We have dormitory, motel-room
and house-type accommodations available on short notice. We are also
establishing an e-mail list for individuals who would like frequent updates
about PABC. Please e-mail or write us and ask to be placed
on the PABC Updates list.
MAY GOD BLESS YOU AT THIS TIME
We wish to thank everyone for their prayers, encouragement and support. We know that many
people are struggling with illnesses, perhaps a recent death in the family,
insecure jobs, underemployment, unemployment, and
other serious financial issues. We ask that God may bless you and strengthen
you as a result of these trials. Whatever our lot in
life, we must remember Hebrews 13:5: Let your conduct be without covetousness;
be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never
leave you nor forsake you”.
In Christian Love,
Norman Scott Edwards
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