Church Restart

Last Night I presented a plan of restart to the church. It was very well received and people left excited. There is new hope being generated from the church.

The Re: start plan consists of the following:

We will move from a Traditional church to a Missional church meaning we will be a mission base in the community becoming a community center/church.

We will help those in our community realize that they matter to God because they matter to us.

Our mission is to reach people for Jesus by serving, bringing hope and offering the Good News of Jesus.

We will provide fine art classes and performing art classes to the community for free. Providing those that would never have an opportunity to participate in activities that they would never dream of precipitating in. The classes are designed to help with self esteem, discipline, and a will be a venue to proclaim the Christian faith.

The present congregation will continue to be served as in the past. I will provide the present congregation with pastoral care, Sunday morning worship, and Bible Study. The present church will continue as is.

We will re: start the church by adding new worship experiences at a different time, starting out in the church building but we are so flexible that it can be held in other locations. Presently we are trying to focus on reaching those below 35 years old. The majority of the 1330 people in our five block square are below the age of 35. Worship will be indigenous to the people we are trying to reach. I envision it to be simple, real, and experiential.

While it goes against every new service start plan we will open second service only by word of mouth. No big fanfare. However, we are going to be featured in the local newspaper as a church restart.

Every person in the church will be a missionary and look for ways to reach other people.

Our priority is not to keep the church just "open" but to do what God is calling us to be about.

In the midst of great financial difficulties and pressure we will give 10% of our offering every week to support the ministries of our Annual Conference. It will be the first check written before anything else. We are learning to trust God with our finances.

This week we will be beginning a children's ministry on Sunday night, next week we will be providing a Thanksgiving Dinner on Wednesday night an we will be delivering 50 food baskets to the very poor in our area. Last Sunday we made 118 shoe boxes for the Samaritan Purse, raising $5.00 per box for shipping, over $575.00 which is a big task. However, it came much easier when we began to tithe our income.

Please keep us in your prayers as we move forward. Jeff