WEBVTT 00:00:02.766 --> 00:00:03.488 Hey church family. 00:00:03.488 --> 00:00:04.230 It's Mark Lewis. 00:00:04.230 --> 00:00:05.133 I'm here with Grant. 00:00:05.133 --> 00:00:14.414 This is sort of an unplanned segment, but about a week ago we had sort of a state of the year type thing. 00:00:14.414 --> 00:00:16.347 Tell us exactly what happened on a Sunday night. 00:00:17.342 --> 00:00:18.486 We had a business meeting. 00:00:18.486 --> 00:00:25.474 Typically we have guest speakers come in, people that we are supporting, ministries that we are supporting, to come in. 00:00:25.474 --> 00:00:27.603 But I wanted to come in and I joked. 00:00:27.603 --> 00:00:32.880 I thought about calling it the State of the Church Address, but really I mean, that's just way too political. 00:00:32.880 --> 00:00:34.466 I wanted to stay with it. 00:00:34.466 --> 00:00:38.451 I called it a year in review, but we did more than just review this past year. 00:00:38.451 --> 00:00:48.753 We talked about this upcoming year and things that we want to do, so maybe year-end report I think that's what I wound up calling it the year-end report and I told Grant at the time. 00:00:48.813 --> 00:00:56.100 I said some of our listeners online might enjoy hearing this if they didn't get a chance to come to church Sunday night. 00:00:56.100 --> 00:00:57.664 So this is basically. 00:00:57.664 --> 00:01:01.453 We're just going to kind of go over some of what you talked about. 00:01:01.453 --> 00:01:05.090 So why don't you hit your high points and we'll go from there? 00:01:05.331 --> 00:01:08.629 Okay, well, I mean, we celebrated a couple of things. 00:01:08.629 --> 00:01:17.031 We celebrated I'm coming on a year of being the pastor, and that's been exciting. 00:01:17.031 --> 00:01:19.828 It's been challenging, but it's been good. 00:01:19.828 --> 00:01:29.451 I came down to a point where, even through some of the challenges, I'm still convinced, I believe, that this is where God has called me to be. 00:01:29.451 --> 00:01:34.171 I'm excited about it and I'm excited about many years ahead. 00:01:34.879 --> 00:01:40.852 I asked people to pray for me, to pray for wisdom, for me and for our church staff and for our church. 00:01:40.852 --> 00:01:53.590 We prayed that we would stay back and let God move, that we wouldn't do anything as a church and pray for me and pray for our church, that we wouldn't do anything that would hinder his movement. 00:01:53.590 --> 00:02:00.093 We celebrated David coming as the minister of discipleship and administration. 00:02:00.093 --> 00:02:06.007 He is already doing a great work and I'm excited about that, and so we talked about that. 00:02:06.079 --> 00:02:10.912 We did talk about, though, how his transition time is going to be gradual. 00:02:10.912 --> 00:02:18.811 The reason for that is not because he's incapable, it's because he is very capable, but we need him to do another job. 00:02:18.811 --> 00:02:33.807 We're not going to call an interim student minister, and so we really need him to keep focusing on the students while slowly, gradually, picking up some other duties and he's already picking up other duties. 00:02:33.807 --> 00:02:45.829 So we talked about him still focusing on the students while moving into that and we talked about a couple of things that people should see him doing pretty soon. 00:02:45.829 --> 00:02:58.683 He's still looking for a couple of Sunday school teachers for students, so when he can get those positions filled, he's going to stop sticking his head in and saying hey to Sunday school classes. 00:03:00.031 --> 00:03:02.819 And I want to add something for our people who are listening. 00:03:02.819 --> 00:03:14.937 You rarely see Laura or David on Sunday mornings, and it's because they are in the children and students areas pretty much all morning, like that's the reason, so sorry. 00:03:15.337 --> 00:03:17.522 No, that's good, and so they're doing that. 00:03:17.522 --> 00:03:21.161 Another thing after the first of the year we're really going to start focusing on outreach. 00:03:21.161 --> 00:03:35.515 That's going to be one of the first big transitions for him and the transition that people will start seeing is him leading out in outreach Probably won't be in January. 00:03:35.515 --> 00:03:44.359 It's still very cold and Disciple Now is a big event for our students and that happens in January and so we really need to get past that. 00:03:44.359 --> 00:03:55.217 But hopefully, starting around February, beginning of February, we'll start growing that outreach ministry back, so he'll start doing that. 00:03:55.949 --> 00:04:03.436 We did talk about the decision not to do weekly Sunday nights anymore and how that's not a decision we took lightly. 00:04:03.436 --> 00:04:05.356 We prayed about that. 00:04:05.356 --> 00:04:13.998 Staff has been I mean, that's been a discussion for years whether we would do that or not and we really just felt like it's coming time. 00:04:13.998 --> 00:04:19.021 It's not going to be necessarily easy any way, but we felt like that was the thing to do. 00:04:19.021 --> 00:04:36.000 But we did take that to the deacons and how we approached the deacons with it on one deacons meeting and then gave them time to think, pray, talk to us, ask us questions, do anything like that, and came back the next month and really just kind of made that decision. 00:04:36.810 --> 00:04:39.319 And then we talked about the change in Wednesday night format. 00:04:39.319 --> 00:04:41.978 Biggest part of that is adding some time. 00:04:41.978 --> 00:04:46.021 So instead of 6 to 7, it's 6 to 7.15. 00:04:46.021 --> 00:04:52.543 We did that so the children, they could continue scripture memory. 00:04:52.543 --> 00:04:54.536 That was their big thing. 00:04:54.536 --> 00:04:56.517 We did a Juana on Sunday nights for children. 00:04:56.517 --> 00:05:10.261 The big part of a Juana that we really wanted to keep was the scripture memory, and so adding the 15 minutes allowed them to keep doing children's choirs, graded choirs, it allowed them to do missions and it allowed them to do scripture memory. 00:05:10.610 --> 00:05:22.560 And I love that you mentioned that, because we're not bound to the Awana material anymore that everybody's learning the same verses, which means families can help their children all the way. 00:05:22.560 --> 00:05:25.432 Three and up, Absolutely Learn the verses. 00:05:25.432 --> 00:05:26.317 The same verse a week. 00:05:26.336 --> 00:05:26.437 Yes. 00:05:26.437 --> 00:05:44.124 So if you have kids and I don't anymore, but I've been through that, I've walked through that not too long ago and even in the children's ministry, if you had different books, there was a point that I think we were learning four to five different verses. 00:05:44.124 --> 00:05:56.579 Each kid had a different verse, and so what this allows you to do is you have one verse for all of your kids and so you can all work through that together and memorize that together, and that can be some family time together. 00:05:56.579 --> 00:06:06.502 So we thought that would be helpful to families and Laura and Bonnie have really done a great job thinking through that. 00:06:06.502 --> 00:06:12.954 They have these little lanyards and have milestones, so when kids hit milestones they get buttons to go on their lanyards. 00:06:12.954 --> 00:06:14.781 Oh yes, keelan loves it. 00:06:14.781 --> 00:06:22.973 Oh yeah, the kids come in on Wednesday night and I mean the boards are right there in the door, so they're putting those things on and walking around with them. 00:06:22.973 --> 00:06:35.105 And I just encourage our people and if you weren't there Sunday night and you see kids walking around with name badges on, with buttons on them, what that means is they're involved in our Scripture Memory Program and they have memorized certain. 00:06:35.105 --> 00:06:45.059 So take a moment, even if you don't know them, to encourage them and say, hey, great job, I'm so proud of you, and that just can go a long way for them. 00:06:45.059 --> 00:06:46.737 So we encourage them to do that. 00:06:47.870 --> 00:06:50.459 The added time also adds for our student ministry. 00:06:50.459 --> 00:06:53.059 It allows for some deeper small groups. 00:06:53.059 --> 00:07:06.230 For years they've done life groups but kind of been bound again by time and just not had time, but now the 15 minutes allows them to have a deeper discussion about what David has just taught about. 00:07:06.230 --> 00:07:13.392 And then also it just allows good adults that we have that are trying to mentor and disciple these kids. 00:07:13.392 --> 00:07:17.211 It allows them to make some deeper connections, and so that's been good. 00:07:17.211 --> 00:07:31.439 And for adults it just gives you a little bit more time, because sometimes those Bible studies if you're doing a video driven Bible study which we don't have any this semester, I don't think but if you're doing one, I mean those go 45 minutes and then it's time to leave. 00:07:31.670 --> 00:07:32.935 You have no time to discuss. 00:07:33.670 --> 00:07:41.978 And so it just it allows those Bible studies to have a little bit more time to to discuss and do those, and so that has been a great change for us. 00:07:41.978 --> 00:07:43.093 That's we've. 00:07:43.093 --> 00:07:45.653 I've really enjoyed that and that's been good. 00:07:45.769 --> 00:07:56.807 So we took some time just to talk about the year passed, and then you started looking forward to the year ahead yes, which we have some news about that too and starting with Wednesday nights, let's start with that one. 00:07:56.899 --> 00:07:58.062 Starting with Wednesday nights. 00:07:58.062 --> 00:08:03.990 Typically we take a break in the summer and it's for good cause. 00:08:03.990 --> 00:08:09.790 I mean, we have so many families and their own vacations and so it's just harder to do in the summer. 00:08:09.790 --> 00:08:12.610 But our student ministry really has not. 00:08:12.670 --> 00:08:28.781 Our student ministry has continued on and they've grown and have a big group on Wednesday nights, and so we flip programming in the summers to give more game time and activity time because it's so pretty outside, and I'm sure that we'll continue to do that. 00:08:28.781 --> 00:08:32.048 But the students have still met in pretty good numbers. 00:08:32.240 --> 00:08:35.745 Yeah, pretty good numbers and still have good Bible study and things like that. 00:08:35.745 --> 00:08:45.760 And so we thought, hey, let's do that churchwide, let's kind of follow that model churchwide and let the students lead us as a church. 00:08:45.760 --> 00:08:51.950 And so we're going to continue Wednesday nights in the summer. 00:08:51.950 --> 00:08:55.294 The spring semester will end April the 30th. 00:08:55.294 --> 00:08:57.207 That's the last Wednesday night in April. 00:08:57.207 --> 00:09:02.732 Our summer semester, our summer sessions, will start that first Wednesday night in May, which will be May the 2nd. 00:09:02.732 --> 00:09:08.505 We thought about taking a break there, but people are still in school and you're still kind of on your routine, so we'll continue that. 00:09:08.505 --> 00:09:20.868 We will take a break on the 28th of May because that's Memorial Day week and then June the 4th because that's Bible School week. 00:09:21.595 --> 00:09:34.471 So we will take those two weeks off and we'll meet through the rest of June and we'll take July the 2nd off because of July the 4th, but that means we're going to have meals still, we're going to have adult still. 00:09:34.471 --> 00:09:36.623 Yes, we're going to have um adult bible studies. 00:09:36.623 --> 00:09:39.192 We may not offer as many like right now. 00:09:39.192 --> 00:09:40.918 I think we have four or five going. 00:09:40.918 --> 00:09:45.475 We might only have two or three, but we'll have some small group bible studies going. 00:09:45.475 --> 00:10:03.179 Students will still have their activities and then laura and bonnie they're, they're the children's, and preschool is going to look more might not have everything, because I don't think we're going to do choir in the summer, but they're still going to continue their missions, activities and things like that through the summer as well. 00:10:03.179 --> 00:10:19.429 So I'm excited about that and just seeing what that can look like and just kind of sometimes I feel like we get in the summer and, yes, we don't have our routine and yes, things are different and we're on vacation one week and things like that. 00:10:19.429 --> 00:10:31.543 But sometimes, for me anyway, I'm looking for at least one thing in the summer that can be scheduled, and I know I have and we can do that, we can provide that, and it's also another. 00:10:31.543 --> 00:10:34.562 It's a night, you don't have to cook a meal, and so we can we can provide that. 00:10:34.562 --> 00:10:36.547 And it's also another it's a night, you don't have to cook a meal, and so we can do that as well. 00:10:36.547 --> 00:10:39.715 So that's kind of a big change that we're looking for this year. 00:10:40.679 --> 00:10:46.309 Another thing that we're looking at is this past year. 00:10:46.309 --> 00:10:50.903 I challenged our people back in January to let's read through the Bible together. 00:10:50.903 --> 00:10:59.448 Several people have talked to me how they're doing that and how that's been good, and so I want us to continue to do that. 00:10:59.448 --> 00:11:01.287 We're going to do it a little bit differently this year. 00:11:01.287 --> 00:11:05.240 There's a Bible I'm encouraging people to go through together. 00:11:05.240 --> 00:11:07.107 It's called the Daily Walk Bible. 00:11:07.107 --> 00:11:11.845 You can purchase those on Amazon if you want to want to go do that. 00:11:11.845 --> 00:11:13.386 You can purchase those on Amazon if you want to go do that. 00:11:13.407 --> 00:11:19.315 But on December, the 15th, that Sunday, we're going to have a focus on, especially in the message. 00:11:19.315 --> 00:11:26.006 That day we're going to talk about the importance of Scripture and reading through Scripture together as a church, how that is important as well. 00:11:26.006 --> 00:11:34.240 On that Sunday we'll have some of those Daily Walk Bibles available for people to purchase, but we'll also have like here's the link to the website. 00:11:34.240 --> 00:11:40.591 You can go through and purchase your own if we run out of those, because we're not going to have a whole lot of those, right, um, but we also. 00:11:40.630 --> 00:11:43.200 If you don't want to purchase a bible, um, that's fine. 00:11:43.200 --> 00:11:55.905 We're going to have some bookmarks available and that have the scripture references that if you get a daily walk bible, it's going to have show you what you can read through on that, and so we can read through that. 00:11:55.905 --> 00:12:07.331 And then also on our website, we're going to have a page on the website that tells you what you can read on that day, so we can all continue to read through that together. 00:12:07.331 --> 00:12:09.485 I'm excited about that. 00:12:09.485 --> 00:12:12.187 I think that can be good for us as a church. 00:12:12.850 --> 00:12:20.634 I love it and we'll list a link to that Bible in the show notes of this so you can go link to Amazon and buy that, yeah. 00:12:21.201 --> 00:12:27.613 And then the other thing that we talked about is this next year, I mean, we're looking for two new staff positions. 00:12:27.613 --> 00:12:31.269 Yes, minister of Music that team has already been approved. 00:12:31.269 --> 00:12:33.067 The search team has already been approved. 00:12:33.067 --> 00:12:34.331 They have met once already. 00:12:34.331 --> 00:12:35.556 Of Music that team has already been approved. 00:12:35.556 --> 00:12:36.500 The search team has already been approved. 00:12:36.500 --> 00:12:42.741 They have met once already. 00:12:42.741 --> 00:12:44.004 They have a meeting tomorrow night, and so they're working. 00:12:44.004 --> 00:12:46.893 We began to get resumes and so they're working on that already. 00:12:48.056 --> 00:12:50.763 And then we're looking for a student minister search team. 00:12:50.763 --> 00:12:52.567 That team has been proposed. 00:12:52.567 --> 00:12:57.539 We will vote on that team on December the 1st, and then they will get to work as well. 00:12:57.539 --> 00:13:08.787 So be in prayer for both of those teams, for God's discernment for them, that he'll lead them to the person that God has in store for us and we'll move on. 00:13:08.787 --> 00:13:17.264 My prayer and it's I mean, I think I know it can happen, I hope it will happen, I hope it's God's plan. 00:13:17.264 --> 00:13:27.315 I don't want to be on God's plan, but I hope His plan is, when we're sitting here next year getting ready for Christmas, that those two positions are filled. 00:13:27.315 --> 00:13:31.607 So that's a big prayer request for our church, though. 00:13:31.948 --> 00:13:33.712 Absolutely, so All right.