August 2020 Newsletter

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August Newsletter
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​Below this is the full text of Pastor John's article

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For a long time now I've been thinking about something. Since March this thought has taken on new meaning. We've known for a long time that our church buildings aren't the only place that ministry should take place. Our struggle has been in figuring out what to do about that.

There's many reasons why this is important. One is that our buildings aren't always equipped to do what needs to be done. We will be working on some of that when we come back to our remodeling plans after a while. However, that is resource intensive and takes a lot of time.  

Another reason is that the people we want to reach are often unable, or unwilling (many times for good reason) to come into the building. That means if we want to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with them, then we can't wait for them to come to us, but we have to go to them.

The final reason is not one that I was prepared for, nor were any of us prepared for. What happens when we can't gather in our buildings for health and safety reasons? This has been our most vexing problem in the last few months. We still have a need to reach people, but the center of our strategy to do that has become the place we can't be.

In time we will be more able to fully reopen the church building, but this is our opportunity to take our church, as a community of faith, beyond the walls. We need to go into places that we haven't before, and some surprising places as well. Five years ago, or even one year ago I wouldn't have thought that a church our size would need to have an online worship service, much less develop a solid online ministry. But part of what we do is moving in that direction, and we have had an online worship service for almost five months.  We've even been able to start giving online as well!

Knowing these things, we've started developing a fall program that fits in this context. You can find out more about this program by clicking on the link below

Fall Lineup 2020

But also know that we are not limited by these things. If we take seriously that we can do all things through him who gives us strength (Phil 4:13) then we can know that the Good News cannot be held back by what we're facing, but that in response to God's call on us, we can change to overcome these obstacles.

Peace,
Pastor John