Our partnership with Sovereign Grace Churches provides us with many blessings. One of these is our annual conference for pastors and church leaders. Although the conference is three days, the celebration often extends for a week or more. In fact, this week Songhwan Kang and his wife are with us through Thursday, meeting church members and other leaders from churches in the area.
“We pastors are being killed by the professionalizing of the pastoral ministry . . . The more professional we long to be, the more spiritual death we will leave in our wake" (John Piper)
Your pastoral team is committed to being a band of brothers who love one another like we love our Lord. No agendas. No demands. Vulnerable, dependent, and committed.
As these men (including the Pastoral Residents and their families) continue to adapt to the complexities of a growing congregation, they met recently to talk priorities. You can read the entire document here, but these were the three...
We want to know one another.
We want to grow with one another.
We want to build our lives into one another.
Were Old Covenant saints born again?
This week at Theology on Tap the men are debating the work and role of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. Although the group is currently on a waiting-list only for the Winter/Spring, you can still follow along on Facebook and do the homework.
Every month the youth pass along the duck, from one person to the next. Each adding a personal touch. Learn more about their life together.
We are on a mission to make disciples.
Last Sunday, during a bi-annual church member meeting, we announced Dustin Smetona as our newest Pastoral Resident. He and his wife have been an integral part of our church for years and Dustin completed an internship a few years back. We believe he is called to pastoral ministry and now have officially begun the process of answering the "when and where" questions.
Our Pastoral Residency program is a ministry of the entire church, not just the pastoral team. We all get to play a part in training and equipping future leaders. You can read more about this here.
Join us in thanking God for the Smetonas. Please begin to pray and ask Him to lead us over the next year or so. Our pastoral team will keep you up to date and if Dustin is nominated to be a pastor in our church, you will have a part to play in that process too.
Junior and Senior High
What's your favorite game? Bring it and we'll play it. This is our monthly youth group meet-up where we make friends and build community. And eat ;)
The Esposito Residence
October 8th, 7-9pm
You may have already missed our Tuesday After-School Playgroup, but no worries. There's plenty more coming up this week.
Wednesday Small Groups
Thursday Youth Group
Friday Small Groups
Adult Sunday School
Sunday Service
Learn more about some of the ways we share our lives with one another here, here, and here.
Alma shared last Sunday...
Last week I attended our first-ever women’s retreat. I was so excited about this. As soon as the event was announced I rushed the registration table. I wanted to spend a weekend with a group multi-generational friends who love Jesus.
I really didn't know what to expect and quickly filled in the blanks with what I could get out of the retreat. Instruction, teaching, pampering. I was thinking resort and spa, but God had something much better planned.
We were encouraged by the teaching to reposition our hearts towards how we can serve one another. I'm always thinking bigger is better and to have big, audacious goals. Instead, I was reminded that being a wife and mother and friend was already extraordinary.
God often chooses the ordinary to show us the extraordinary.
I learned that each of our lives are a ministry. He even blesses us with uncomfortable and painful seasons and situations because he loves us. And when we seek to glorify him in all we do, even in things we did not ask for to begin with, he reminds us that he is good through it all.
The retreat wasn't everything I had hoped for. It was better.