Pastor Fauntroy's Letter To The Congregation

Dearly Beloved,
 
We praise the Lord as he continues to bless and keep us throughout 2009. This has been an unusual year with the inauguration of the 1st African-American President of the United States, President Barack Obama. Two automobile giants both General Motors and Chrysler declared bankruptcy. It's amazing that all of these things occurred within the first six months of 2009!
 
There was another event that took place that was directly related to our First Baptist Institutional Church family and other churches from around the United States. On July 1, 2009, your Pastor received an email stating these words." Vaughn Reeves and his three sons Chip, Chris and Josh have been charged with 10  counts of securities fraud, a class C Felony. Each charge carries a 2-8 year sentence. All four  men have been arrested and are in the Sullivan County jail. Bail is set at $1,500,000.00 with no 10% bond allowed."
 
Unfortunately, the Reeves family were the leaders of Alanar Inc., a bond company which was closed down by the federal government for cheating churches, bondholders and other investors by way of major financial fraud and Ponzi schemes. Because of the schemes perpetuated by this company, many churches lost their property, bond holders lost their investments and other investors lost capital and resources as well. Our church's mortgage was held by Alanar too.

However, fortunately for us, because of the findings of the Federal Government and the Alanar Rehab, Co., the church's final outstanding mortgage has been reduced from a preposterous original sum claimed by Alanar of $6,000,000.00 to $490,000.00. First Baptist that figure is a mere 8% of the amount Alanar claimed we owed! First Baptist, God is truly in the blessing business!

First Baptist, Pastor however doesn't want our church to be saddled with any mortgage. We need to pay this mortgage off immediately! We don't want the SEC involved with this church. We don't need to deal with crazy interest rates during uncertain times with Wall Street led financial institutions. No financial institutions are lending to churches and other small businesses in Michigan!

First Baptist we can do this! If we had 490 members donate, $1000 a-piece, our church would be paid in full. First church, if we had 300 members donate $1000 a-piece and 95 members donate $2000 a piece, our mortgage would be paid in full. If we had 250 members donate $1500 a piece and had 115 members donate $1000 a piece, our mortgage would be paid in full. If we had a committed family donate, $100,000 dollars and another committed family $50,000, and 340 committed members donate $1000 a piece, our mortgage would be paid in full!

First Baptist we are better together! Let's eradicate this mortgage so that we can truly demonstrate what God has blessed us to do as a Christian Community of faith, so we can inspire all of God's children to become a part of his amazing family. First Church we want to burn our mortgage by Saturday, August 22, 2009. This date is significant because it was the day of the passing of the 10th Pastor, the first Day of the Pastorate of the 11th Pastor, and it will represent the date that for 2 score years God has blessed a Fauntroy to serve as the under-shepherd of the First Baptist Institutional Church, family!

Please be blessed, and I look forward to corresponding with you directly over the next 50 days!

With Great love and affection,

Howard B.M. Fauntroy, III
Pastor
First Baptist Institutional Church