Layton, UT – UISBC Convention Attorney, Gary McKean would like to encourage pastors, church administrators, church clerks, treasurers and trustees to participate in a Finish Well Webinar offered by the Church Law & Tax division of Christianity Today Magazine. In addition to this free webinar, we encourage you to read their End of Year Checklist to find 17 tasks you should consider addressing before the calendar turns over into 2023. Many changes have taken place in recent years regarding reporting and designating end of year numbers through the IRS. You want to make sure your church is still in compliance with new regulations.
The end of the year always brings a flurry of activities to church offices – Between year-end giving, holiday bonuses, and 2023 budget plans, leaders can often feel overwhelmed.
In this free webinar, join attorney, CPA, and senior editor Richard R. Hammar from Church Law & Tax, to learn how to equip and gain the confidence needed to head into the new year.
We’ll provide key updates and reminders on a variety of fronts, including:
✔ How to correctly handle business expenses for pastors and staff;
✔ How to properly set minister housing allowances;
✔ How to document and process charitable contributions; and,
✔ How to identify and prepare the records and paperwork that ministers, staff members, and the church will need for the upcoming tax-filing season.
Don’t miss this perennially popular event!
Want Your Questions Answered Live?
Though Richard Hammar will be answering questions live, we encourage you to pre-submit questions by writing webinars@churchlawandtax.com no later than Friday, December 9th.
Ogden, UT – Semper Veritas has just completed their Bible study through the book of Galatians for the semester. This Bible study proved to be extremely fruitful and generated lots of great discussion. One Weber State faculty member saw one of our posters advertising for our Bible study and decided to attend. He said that there weren’t very many genuine Bible studies that he could attend, but this one worked with his schedule. He and I talked for a while after the Bible study. Through our conversation at the Bible study and a later lunch conversation learned that he attends a local ward, but holds mostly to orthodox confessional Christianity. The reason he hasn’t left the ward is in order to avoid conflict in his family. I am maintaining contact with him and plan to meet with him again to help him walk through some basics of what it means to follow Jesus according to the Bible.
One of our student leaders, Connor, has been engaging other students as he goes to the gym. He said that he met a student named *Stephen who is LDS, but was curious about Connor’s beliefs since he was wearing a Redemption Church shirt that said, “Bringing Hope to the Valley.” Stephen asked Connor if he had ever read the Book of Mormon. This began a long conversation between the two about the differences between the LDS faith and biblical Christianity.
Connor had a similar encounter with another LDS individual named *Mark. They engaged in the same conversation where Mark was very intrigued by what Connor had to share about biblical Christianity. Mark ended up attending a Semper Veritas Bible study and Connor is staying in touch with him.
Another student leader, John, was able to connect with an agnostic classmate named *Dennis. They discussed together evidence for the existence of God and the validity of the Bible. It was a challenging conversation for John. As he invited Dennis to attend the Bible study with him, he politely declined the invitation. John hopes to continue to engage with his classmate.
We are excited to pick up a new teaching series in January for the start of the Spring semester. There is much planning going into reaching the campus with the gospel next semester. We will have mission teams helping engage the campus, we will have a “Perspective” event with Dr. Jamie Dew, President of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, where he will give a presentation on “What happens after we die?” We are praying for God to continue moving in the hearts and lives of students at Weber State. Thank you for praying along with us and for your support. – Casey Swails
Casey is a volunteer collegiate ministry leader from Redemption Church in Ogden and leads Semper Veritas college group on the campus of Weber State University. Check out this recent report of the work being done on that campus through resources you provide through the Utah Idaho State Missions Offering. 10% of the State Mission Offering is designated to do work on our college campuses across Idaho and Utah. Thank you for supporting collegiate work through your prayers and giving through the York-Dillman State Missions Offering.
*names have been changed to protect the identity of students who are questioning their current faith traditions on our college campuses.
Utah Food Bank makes pallet drops of food four times a week to the center.
Salt Lake County – The Baptist Concern Center sits 10 minutes from downtown SLC, provides food for the needy, and so much more.
There are Bible studies, English as a Second Language classes – during which youngsters have their own Bible study – and a supportive environment where the people who come feel respected, cared about, and listened to.
It’s a ministry started 54 years ago by the Salt Lake Baptist Association. It’s also a ministry new nearly every day when people come for help who find out about it from friends, flyers, and state-supplied lists of helping entities.
“We share Jesus whenever we can,” Director Sonia Gutierrez told UI Connections. “We tell them they can have a change in their lives, and we love to see how God changes their life.”
Dora Pineda was one such person. Gutierrez has watched God change Pineda’s life. She first came for food. Gutierrez befriended her, and in time Pineda called begging for help of a different kind.
“She was going through difficult things,” Gutierrez said, diplomatic in her words despite the unvarnished testimony Pineda gave at the recent semi-annual meeting of the Salt Lake Baptist Association.
“I told Sonia, ‘Please don’t leave me alone. I don’t know how to get out of this,’” Pineda told UI Connections, as translated by Gutierrez.
Director, Sonia Gutierrez shares with clients about Spanish Language Bible study classes that are offered at the Concern Center
Together the two Spanish-speaking women prayed to God for His help as Pineda grew in her trust in God and within four months became freed from her drug addiction.
“Now she comes every day,” Gutierrez said. “She asked if she could help, and I saw she was very honest.”
Volunteers are essential to the Baptist Concern Center’s ministry: people to move boxes from the parking lot to the nearly 5,000-square-foot building; to unpack the boxes inside the storage room; to do the shopping; to talk with clients when they first arrive, and to clean up inside and out at the end of each workday. There is also a need for someone to pick up “rescue groceries” from places not on the Utah Food Bank’s routes.
Rescue Groceries are picked up from area stores and volunteers include them among the supplies they get from the Utah Food Bank and USDA
Donations of food, diapers, and home cleaning supplies also are needed, as is financial support for needed items that are not donated. This year the Baptist Concern Center served about 25,000 people.
In addition to helping shelve food as it is unloaded from a Utah Food Bank truck – Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays it’s rescue groceries and baked goods from area grocers; canned food, dried food products such as rice and beans, produce and dairy items come in on Fridays – Pineda and other volunteers shop for those who come to the Baptist Concern Center between 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays; from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays; and from 9 a.m. to noon Saturdays.
“We still need more volunteers every day, because every day we have a lot of work,” Gutierrez said.
The Concern Center’s food distribution process is simple and effective: People wanting food can come once a month (more often if there’s an emergency) to 1235 California Avenue – the lettering on the 1300 South side of the one-story white stucco and cinder block building says “Esperanza Viva” (Living Hope.)
Clients this year have come from Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Russia, Ukraine, Utah, and elsewhere.
View of the Baptist Concern Center from California Avenue
“Yes, we give food, but that’s not all,” Gutierrez said. “We are showing and sharing the love of Jesus in everything we do, every way we can.”
The clients are given a gospel message when they first come into the Baptist Concern Center. They fill out or update their application form required by the Utah Food Bank, after which they are given a ticket number. That number, along with their name and the number of people in the family, and the vehicle (which might say “bike,” “stroller” or even “walking”) is written on a square post-it note and stuck to the designated wall in the storage area.
Volunteer shoppers take the post-it notes and start filling a shopping cart with the quantity of food needed for that size family. While the shoppers are working in the storage room, the intended recipients sit on plastic chairs in the waiting room or wander around several tables on which are various brochures that might be of interest, as well as gospel tracts, and even a table of cookbooks and “healthy eating” resources.
When their name is called, if not before, the clients go back outside to their vehicle, where the shopper meets them, calling out their number while looking for the vehicle. After the client hands the shopper their number (to help make sure clients get their own order and not that of someone else with the same name) they load their vehicle while engaging in conversation with the shopper. At the Holy Spirit’s leading, those conversations turn into divine appointments.
Families receive more than food. They are encouraged by friendly volunteers that truly care about the clients they serve.
At least 70 and up to 80 or more people come to the Baptist Concern Center Monday evenings and Saturday mornings. ESL classes start at 4 p.m. every Sunday, and the Bible Study starts at 5 p.m. Sunday
“Some who come here also come to our church,” Gutierrez said, referring to Canyons Church in Salt Lake City, where her husband, Rafael Gutierrez, is the Hispanic pastor. “We have people coming here from Salt Lake City, West Valley City, West Jordan, Kearns, Midvale, and other towns in Salt Lake County.”
Pineda is one of ninewho have made a profession of faith in Jesus as their Lord and Savior through their connection with the Baptist Concern Center this year. This includes Pineda’s husband.
“Rafael led him to the Lord,” Gutierrez said of her husband and Dora Pineda’s husband. “Dora loves to study the Bible. She loves to pray. She loves to learn about Jesus.”
Again, translated by Gutierrez, Dora Pineda said, “I want to tell everybody about Jesus. Jesus changed my life.”
That change started with food freely given by the Concern Center and those who help support it.
By Karen L. Willoughby A frequent contributor to UI Connections and Baptist Press. She can be reached at karenwby@gmail.com
Utah Food Bank truck delivers pallets of food to Baptist Concern Center several times a week
Salt Lake City, UT – Ron Clement was spotted kneeling in the parking lot of First Vietnamese Baptist Church Monday afternoon, November 14.
Clement is Salt Lake Baptist Association’s Executive Director.
When asked what he was praying about, Clement said he was praying his knees would hold out. Then he chuckled as he corrected himself. “No, I’m just picking up trash.”
The Vietnamese church meets at the same location – 1235 California Avenue – as the Baptist Concern Center, a food pantry sponsored for more than 20 years by the association.
A Utah Food Bank truck delivers to the Concern Center “rescue groceries” donated by several area grocers on Mondays, and canned food, dried food, produce and dairy items on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.
The Baptist Concern Center’s clients include people who live in downtown Salt Lake City, West Valley City, West Jordan, Kearns, Cottonwood Heights, Draper and other town in Salt Lake County, including the homeless who live in rickety recreational vehicles along 1700 South.
A shrinking – because of age and/or illness – number of volunteers help unload and shelve the food as it comes in, shop for clients as they come in and help clean up inside as well as the parking lot afterward.
Your help is needed.
If you’re 6 or older, or have young knees, you could pick up scraps of paper and cardboard outside.
If you are reasonably strong, your muscles are needed to move boxes – mostly the size of rectangular banana boxes, weighing about 20-30 pounds each, up to a maximum of 50 pounds. The Utah Food Bank truck unloads pallets with a fork lift onto the parking lot. Help is needed to carry individual boxes about 50 steps into the Concern Center’s storage area.
If you can pick up a 1-lb. package of rice, box of bakery cookies, or a can of corn, you can put items from the boxes onto shelves.
If you can push a shopping cart, you can take a post-it note from the wall, walk around the room, fill the cart with items for a family of the size indicated, and take the cart out to the parking lot where the recipient will put it into their vehicle, stroller or bike basket, giving you opportunity to have a kind or spiritual conversation, as the Holy Spirit leads.
If you can type, you don’t even need to walk! You can greet the people requesting food, explain the process, help them fill out a form (requested by the Utah Food Bank for verification purposes) and as the Holy Spirit leads, share the love of Jesus with them.
BCC Director, Sonia Gutierrez encourages one of her volunteers
The people who come to the Baptist Concern Center appreciate the help they’re given. If you’re most comfortable silently arranging produce in the storage room, they still appreciate you, because you are helping them feed their family.
The ministry is open from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays; and from 9 a.m. to noon Saturdays. Client interviewing and sign-in as well as stocking and shopping cart help are needed at all these times.
Truck unloading starts about 12:30 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays; 10:30 a.m. Thursdays; and 8 a.m. Fridays. Each day the truck unloading time requirement is less than two hours. A volunteer also is needed Monday mornings to pick up donations from Chick-fil-A and Starbucks.
Handyman volunteers also are needed at the Concern Center.
“Something is always breaking down,” SLBA Dir. Clement told UI Connections. On Nov. 14, two men were onsite repairing a copier machine, and the light fixture in BCC Dir. Sonia Gutierrez’ office continually flickered.
A full article about the Baptist Concern Center is to appear in the next issue of UI Connections, but the need for help is too immediate to delay. Donations of food items – rice, dried beans, cooking oil in particular – and money to help pay for Food Bank donations, also are needed.
By Karen L. Willoughby A frequent contributor to UI Connections and Baptist Press. She can be reached at karenwby@gmail.com
Gary and Naomi McKean are recognized for 15 years of volunteer staff service by UISBC Executive Director, Rob Lee
Layton, Utah – Retired attorney Gary McKean says he plans to keep going “all the way home,” and heaven is that home.
“I’m not done until God tells me I’m done,” the legal consultant – and missions and partnerships coordinator – for the Utah Idaho Southern Baptist Convention told UI Connections.
McKean and Naomi, his wife since 1965, received an appreciation award at the recent UISBC annual meeting for 15 years of voluntary ministry service to Southern Baptists in Utah and Idaho.
“Gary’s work with our churches and legal guidance has saved our churches thousands of dollars and many headaches,” UISBC Executive Director Rob Lee said. “The State Convention is very blessed in Gary’s service as our legal counselor in helping our churches with land, building and body issues that needed legal guidance.
“Without Gary’s legal guidance our state convention of churches would not function as effectively,” Lee continued. “Gary has assisted us in having policies and procedures in place to guide our convention in supporting our churches.”
Gary and Naomi McKean have been married and served churches together for fifty-seven years
The McKeans have been active Southern Baptists since they first moved from Florida to Utah 45 years ago to work on government law, in time becoming the Cache County Attorney. Gary and Naomi McKean have been part of two church starts, Today they are members of Sojourn Church in Layton, which was planted in 2019 by Mountain View Baptist Church in Layton.
An ordained deacon, McKean has served as minister of education, Bible teacher and “I’ve done some preaching.” He also served on the SBC Executive Committee for eight years – 2006-2014 – as UISBC’s representative.
Naomi McKean, Gary’s prayer warrior, was a first grade teacher for 46 years and retired in 2007 from Layton Christian Academy. Naomi has served in children’s ministries as a teacher and leader as well as in the ministries of outreach, prayer, food bank, and wherever needed.
The couple reared three children, who have given them five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Gary with children in Sierra Leone
Together the McKeans have taken multiple international mission trips and have a particular interest in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Their involvement there is through Light of the World Ministry, which operates orphanages and constructs village water wells. Together they also are Mission Service Corps volunteer missionaries through the North American Mission Board.
“Becoming a Christian means you understand and accept the gospel message,” McKean said. “God made us; We are sinners; through God’s grace we are redeemed in Christ; and we are to share that good news with others.
“Christ said to the church, ‘Go out.’ He said that not just to the organized group, but to every Christian,” McKean continued. “Part of the individual’s life is to be sharing Christ. One of the things we’re trying to promote organizationally is that a church is to engage in missions, aware that it’s really the people who do the missions, and they do it by going.”
In his role as partnerships coordinator, McKean has developed the connection between Northwest Georgia churches and Utah-Idaho churches, now in its second year. He also works with churches in UISBC to partner with each other, strengthening each other’s churches in outreach as well as building enduring relationships, strengthening and encouraging each other while reaching still others with the message of God’s unconditional love for each individual.
“We have a lot of small churches,” McKean noted. “In Matthew 28:19-20 – but really we are told in all the gospels – we are to go out. When two or more churches work together, they can make a greater impact. So we encourage churches to join in missions together.
“If churches are going to walk the walk of following Jesus, they need to look outside of themselves,” the missions coordinator continued. “Missions is reflective of where the church is spiritually.”
McKean, an active member of Christian Legal Society, also serves UISBC as legal consultant. For the 15 years since he retired from the Davis County attorney’s office, “He has assisted churches with updating their constitutions, bylaws and legal documents in order for them to function without having issues with local, county, state and federal government,” Lee said.
“He has assisted our church plants in laying a good foundation so that good practices will benefit the new church as it grows and matures,” the executive director said. “In our society today if you ignore the legal and business side of your church you are open to many potential legal issues that would impact the church’s ability to be a light in the community.”
As stated in McKean’s report at the 2022 UISBC annual meeting, “Each church should take the time to review its governing documents (articles of incorporation, constitution/statement of beliefs, bylaws, and policies). Churches should be made aware of legal trends, developments, and concerns as these may impact the church’s ministry. There have been some church closures and dissolution. They need to be aware that the trustees have a legal responsibility to lawfully dissolve the church entity and properly dispose of any assets.”
McKean helps churches with all these issues, and leads legal seminars. Contact mckeanmsc@gmail.com or through the UISBC office for more information or to schedule an appointment.
“I encourage churches to visit the UISBC website – uisbc.org – and look at the sample legal documents and materials posted on the ‘Resources’ page and ‘Legal’ tab,” McKean said.
“As long as there have been churches there have been legal aspects, but over the last 30 to 40 years, the legal climate has been changing significantly,” the attorney said. “The essential point is that a church has two natures: spiritual and secular. Developing law affects both. Churches need to be aware of the law and take it seriously.”
McKean said he was reared in a Presbyterian home in Pennsylvania and “always trusted God would take care of me and lead me.” When his plan to go to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, was sidetracked because of flat feet, he went to Tulane University in New Orleans.
It was while working in Florida as an attorney that he and Naomi, daughter of an Assembly of God pastor, connected in 1970 with Southern Baptists. They wanted to serve together in a church, and friends led them to South Venice Baptist Church in Venice, Florida.
“The key for me is simply trusting God,” McKean said. “Your faith is reflected in what you do. In law and in life, there is always a blending of faith in what you do. faith has been foundational to my practice and what I do. Micah 6:8 has been a guide for me in law.”
By Karen L. Willoughby A frequent contributor to UI Connections and Baptist Press. She can be reached at karenwby@gmail.com
Utah Idaho Staff with Georgia Baptist pastors
Gary with his family picking out pumpkins in the Fall
Naomi serving children in one of the churches they have served
Gary with children he has served on mission in Sierra Leone
