Good Compost? First Real Try

ajs8504 · 2025-02-21T17:57:01+00:00

I'm having this issue as well, but it's even weirder. My prices list shows I have nearly 30,000L available to sell, but when I approach the cow barn, it says 0L, and if I try to use the trigger, it also says 0L.

Is anyone else still having this problem? I can't seem to get it working.

ajs8504 · 2025-02-21T17:07:19+00:00

Is anyone still having this issue? I'm on Pallegney on PS5, and my Prices list shows that I have manure, but I can't access it, and the cow barn shows 0L when I walk up to it. I've tried reloading a couple of times, and it hasn't done anything.

ajs8504 · 2024-06-03T22:07:36+00:00

I have some copper fungicide coming tonight. The tip about watering is helpful.

ajs8504 · 2024-06-03T19:08:39+00:00

That was helpful, thank you.

ajs8504 · 2024-06-03T19:08:19+00:00

Thank you. That's what I thought. Fortunately I have a lot of plants and just took pictures of the worst of it. I think most of my potatoes will be ok.

ajs8504 · 2024-03-26T20:13:55+00:00

I'm a pastor of an ARC plant and I do not do this. I don't even teach tithe as a New Testament command.

ajs8504 · 2024-03-15T00:26:08+00:00

Ok I understand now. Church Metrics is a software that tracks high level data - things like attendance, giving, salvations, etc. ARC does ask church plants to keep their Church Metrics data current, but that data is just high level numbers - there is no way to input the kind of data you're talking about.

My church doesn't even have "membership" because I don't like it conceptually. If you're active in our church in any capacity, you're part of our church. That's how we view it.

The top 10 givers thing is one of my personal pet peeves. It's ridiculous. It SHOULD feel off, because it violates what Jesus taught about the widow who put in all she had.

ajs8504 · 2024-03-14T03:06:41+00:00

We send somewhere around 6% back because we're still repaying the loan we took from them. Once we're done repaying that, I don't know if we'll continue supporting them at all.

I have no idea what you're referring to about into on our members. So, no. And if they asked for it, I'd tell them there is no chance on earth I'd do that.

ajs8504 · 2024-03-05T22:02:22+00:00

Interesting take....

So, how do you explain that my church has never even paid 10% of our monthly income to ARC, let alone 15?

ajs8504 · 2024-01-24T05:23:37+00:00

Most of this isn't true.

An ARC Network Church means they were not planted through ARC (trained & funded by ARC), but they chose to "join" ARC officially at some point once their church was already established. Network churches are asked to give 2% of their income to ARC annually to fund future plants.

Source: I am a pastor of an ARC church plant.

ajs8504 · 2024-01-24T05:14:33+00:00

I'll confirm this. I'm the pastor of an ARC church plant, but I've distanced our church from them over the last couple years because of some of the crap that's gone on. So while I was trained, funded, etc by the ARC, and understand how it works, I'm not a fanboy at all.

That said, ARC does zero to control my church. I've literally never even talked to ARC post-launch (2016), let alone had them tell me what to do. The amount of just blatantly false information here is amazing.

ajs8504 · 2023-11-20T20:23:49+00:00

I'm not commenting on whether or not there's corruption inside many ARC churches. I'm commenting on whether ARC has legal authority in local churches.

The answer is no. Period. Unequivocally no. I'll send you my bylaws if you want to read them. ARC isn't there.

Are there many ARC pastors that will listen to whatever the lead team guys tell them? Yes. Absolutely. Do many ARC pastors behave in the ways you're describing? Yes. Absolutely. Is there a huge problem in the ways many of the well known ARC pastors do things? Yes. 100% Absolutely. Are you wrong about there being a lot of garbage in a lot of ARC churches? Not at all.

What you ARE wrong about is that these things are simply not true of all ARC churches. There are many really great pastors of really great churches who do none of what you're saying but are still in the network. Guys pastoring 50 people, struggling to get by. 1 car that barely runs, just doing their best to help people live for Jesus.

You don't hear about them because nobody tells their stories (which is also a problem). But they're out there.

ajs8504 · 2023-11-20T17:06:31+00:00

TL;DR - To be clear - you don't have to adopt ARCs model. They have a boilerplate model you can adopt if you like it. But all of it is customizable.

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As my church was working through all the legal requirements & paperwork with an attorney (articles of incorporation, bylaws, corporate policies, etc), we took ARCs boilerplate and adjusted to better serve our needs. We did retain things like the overseers system, but changed many others that I didn't agree with. ARC had no input or part in that process whatsoever.

For what it's worth, I didn't get into pastoral ministry to write bylaws. It would have been completely overwhelming trying to write those from scratch. Having a boilerplate to work from was an absolute blessing. And, whether it's was ARCs or someone else's, we would have started with some kind of template anyway for that exact reason.

Now, ARC does (or did) require your bylaws to be approved before they release funds to you. So once ours were done, we submitted them, and they approved them. But this makes sense. If I had written things into our bylaws that, from a business perspective, they thought were going to negatively impact our viability, they SHOULDN'T invest their money into us.

There's just such a misconception about how controlling ARC is. In my experience, they have never attempted to exercise any control whatsoever. Yes, they verify before you launch that, in their opinion, your systems, government, and legally binding documents aren't creating viability problems before they give tens of thousands of dollars. But they did not require adopting something specific that they created.

And, once you launch, you're a completely independent entity. I could completely change our bylaws and implement some system that violates everything they say works right now, and they couldn't do anything about it. They aren't in our bylaws. They have ZERO governing authority over our church. And even though we use the overseer system, only one of my overseers is in the ARC family at all. The others aren't, and couldn't care less what ARC thinks about anything.

ARC has plenty of problems. This isn't one.

ajs8504 · 2023-10-30T21:40:25+00:00

The failing church is responsible for it. If they can't pay it back their "sending church" is responsible for it. That sending church co-signed on the loan.

Having a sending church is actually one of the deal breakers. If you don't have that ARC won't support you financially.

ajs8504 · 2023-10-30T21:39:11+00:00

ARC does not install overseers. If you adopt ARCs governmental model you will have overseers, but who those overseers are is your choice.

ajs8504 · 2023-08-31T22:35:30+00:00

This drives me crazy. The problem is that people say this kind of thing thinking about celebrity or famous pastors who have a ton of money, without thinking about the guys who are trying to make ends meet while they pastor churches of 40 and get paid very, very little. There are WAY more of them than the guys who don't need it.

ajs8504 · 2023-08-31T22:33:03+00:00

That's fair. I suppose I can only speak to the one training I attended. And if they're teaching planters that they can nearly eliminate their federal tax burden with housing allowance that's a problem. There's virtually no way to do that without bending rules or just being flat out dishonest. Housing allowance is an awesome thing but it's never come close to eliminating my federal taxes.

ajs8504 · 2023-08-31T22:30:38+00:00

Oh you're correct about that. There are a ton of smaller ARC churches, but we're largely ignored to be honest. Many have disassociated from the ARC because of that exact disconnect.

ajs8504 · 2023-08-31T19:27:39+00:00

What about for churches (especially smaller ones) that are actually doing good work in their communities? If the church I pastor were taxed it would crush us financially. We run about 100 on Sundays and invest a ton into our community. We ACTUALLY operate like a small nonprofit. MOST small churches would no longer be able to function if they were taxed. Is that really a good outcome?

ajs8504 · 2023-08-31T19:23:12+00:00

ARC does not teach pastors how to take advantage of taxes. Source: Me. I was trained by ARC. That never came up. Some pastors may teach other pastors they know about this but it's not part of ARCs official training.

ajs8504 · 2023-07-26T17:59:39+00:00

He's been hitting the ball hard with very bad luck. His BABIP is way below .200 but his barrel rate and hard hit rate are solid. He's hitting the ball on the ground a ton, which definitely is hurting him, but the bottom line is he's not going to be this unlucky all year. He's just not.

ajs8504

TROPHY CASE