Dear Church Family:
In an effort to depend less on social media and more on using our own website for communications, I am going to start writing more regularly in this section of the site.
I wanted to start our communication for 2021 with a big thank you from the Weiss family to our church family. We are very grateful for the generous gift you provided us on December 20th. It was a great surprise and a needed provision for us. Shara had prayed for the funds to provide our kids with new glasses. Your gift will more than cover what we anticipate the costs to be.
We are also grateful to this church family for the way you have hung in there as a body of Christ throughout 2020. It was definitely a year of challenges. With the pandemic, the wind storm, and finally the modular fire and the economic hit that these events have caused – you have stayed strong and steady.
As reported in the service on Sunday, despite the challenges, you contributed $4,000 more to our General Fund than we had budgeted for. Accompanied with some reduced spending over the year we are beginning 2021 on a good financial foundation.
We are very thankful to those who have stepped up and stepped in to meet the needs that we have had for taking leadership roles and covering ministry areas. Rebecca Moore has taken leadership over our music and praise team. Rick Moore has done a terrific job of taking the reins as the Treasurer. Mark and Katie Sowa stepped up and took over AWANA when that need arose. Although our children have had less opportunity to meet than we had hoped, Lisa Ferguson was still able to coordinate a successful VBS and get our kids back into some Children’s Church activities. In addition, she has done a great job of providing online materials for our kids to keep learning and growing. Carl Perry has continually amazed me as he has so faithfully served our church by his presence, his faithfully visiting people, and his great encouragement to Shara and I throughout the year. Emmitt and Jessica Skeen have been equally supportive and encouraging to both of us. We have been blessed by the support from these three. I am continually thankful for Pastor Bill seeing in Emmitt the potential he has. It has been fun to have Emmitt working alongside us.
There are many others who have stepped up in various ways throughout 2020. I think of how much effort Charlie Ferguson put into the facility and the modular this past summer. Randy Baker also gave hours and hours of time to preparing the modular for our use. Both of these men deserve a heartfelt thanks from all of us! Julie Sak is a rock. Her ongoing efforts to keep AWANA details covered, her faithfully leading the Praise team singing each week, and her behind the scenes legal skills related to Board business has been a huge help to us. She has also taken on the role as our event coordinator and has successfully planned several potlucks and gatherings. Jason and Tiffany Joines have faithfully led the Youth each Sunday as well as managing the selling of the Christmas Trees every day for a month! Mark and Katie Sowa and Jeff Sak have spent a lot of time this year improving our audio and video efforts in the building. Because of those efforts we have significantly improved our livestreams as well as the quality of recordings for later posting.
The danger of starting to thank specific people is that someone always gets left out. Know that we are grateful for all of you and what you have contributed to this congregation.
With Covid-19 continuing to be a real and frustrating presence in the world, we do not know what 2021 will look like in terms of how fully we will be able to operate. We want to be careful, but we also want to be faithful to our calling to be a gathered church doing the work and ministry that God has called us to do in this community. I am constantly examining the requirements, the provisions and reading the science as much as I can to see how we should be responding. It is a confusing struggle because we are not just dealing with a medical concern. It would be much easier to respond if we were dealing with a clearly defined issue. But the political side of this pandemic and the lack of a trustworthy media to deliver honest and reliable information has made knowing how to respond much more difficult.
In addition to Covid, there are many other signs that we are heading into further darkness over our land. Regardless of your views of the political situation we are as a nation moving further and further toward a non-christian and even an anti-christian mentality. I believe the word that God wants us to focus on this year is “strength.” As followers of Christ we will need to make several moves this year.
- One, we will need to be certain of who we are and whose we are. If you are in any way unsure of what you believe, it seems paramount that now is the time to become sure.
- Two, even if you are sure, are you renewing your strength? Are you seeking daily to grow stronger in Him? Are you placing your life on the sure foundation of Jesus Christ? We can know what we believe but not be living as though we believe it. Now is the time to make sure we walk as we talk.
- Third, are you sure of the priorities operating in your life as you make daily decisions? Do you make family, financial, work, entertainment and fellowship decisions on the basis of who you are in Christ?
- Finally, are you spending significant time in prayer? It is critical in the days, weeks and months ahead that we are lifting up one another and listening to God as He directs our work.
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.” This verse out of Ephesians 6 strikes me as a key verse for us this year. We often skip over this verse because the next one takes us to the “whole armor of God” section. However, this verse starts that section. Paul is telling us that all of our ability to stand firm comes not from any strength of our own, but on the strength of our Lord. Note the double use of strength. We stand not only on the strength of the Lord Himself, but also on the power that He holds (his might). We can endure all things, yea, more than endure – we can thrive – when we work and serve under the mighty strength of our Lord and Savior.
So, I encourage us to face 2021 like a force working against the wind.
We Love You.
Pastor Rick and Shara
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.” — Ephesians 6:10