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Church UpdateA few months ago I (Arnie), talked to the congregation via our Sunday Online Service about how this pandemic has completely shattered so very many things we just took for granted as being normal. We lamented the losses and wondered what the future might hold. At that time I asked (on behalf of Council) for all of us to look around in our smaller connections and communities, around our Mini House Churches and around our families to see if there might be some things budding that this time had brought to the fore. We especially sought things that had an opportunity to bless our community, be faithful to our vision and have the potential to grow into something significant. In our most recent Council meeting of Oct 27, 2020 three such initiatives were identified and approved for further action. 1. A small group experience that Murray Moerman introduced to us in his sermon in August of this year. He has started one such group in our congregation that has now grown and is ready to multiply into 2. They are Discipleship Bible Study groups where the members (between 4 – 8 people) study the Word together, discover the nature of God, apply the word to their own lives and hold each other accountable to act upon what has been learned. Randy is using a form of this model with the youth program, Pastor Tim is putting a group together and some elders are committed to forming a group so we can be discipled in this way. Murray and Carol Moerman have committed to train and help as many groups as come forward from within our congregation whether they be online or in person. VIEW THE SERMON HERE 2. The pandemic has forced our church to move to an ever larger and more effective online presence. We discovered that we have two members on staff, Randy and Grace, who are very proficient in the online world and the council feels that this way of communicating must be enhanced even further. We were slowly headed down this road but the pandemic has shown the need and the potential of speaking this online language and how it communicates so much better and naturally to those under 35 years old. To that end Council approved extra funds in this year’s budget to allow the church to hire more help with the youth program allowing Randy (with Grace) to spend more time developing this avenue of communication to a demographic that is missing from our congregation. 3. Council also approved the sponsorship of another Refugee family. Over the summer we “debriefed” from our experience with the Assaf family and plan to implement the lessons learned with this new opportunity. The proposal is to sponsor the Sister and her family as well as the brother of Eden (and David) Weldemichael. They are presently living in Uganda as refugees. The Council approved this on the condition that the funds are secured beforehand. Stay tuned as more information becomes available and watch for ways you can become involved in this initiative.
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