How Christ The Way Church Attendance Tripled After COVID-19

Christ the Way Adventist Church continues to experience amazing spiritual, numerical, and financial growth since the 2020 and 2021 pandemic. Going into the pandemic in March of 2020, the church had an average attendance of 60, and now, at the beginning of 2023, the average attendance has tripled to over 190. This increase includes spectacular growth in the children’s ministries department which grew from five to 70 children, allowing us to make a gigantic leap from having no Adventurers’ Club (ages 4 - 9) to now having the largest Adventurers’ Club in the Alberta Conference. Additionally, in February 2023, Christ the Way started a new Pathfinder Club (ages 10 - 15) with 22 Pathfinders. The children at Christ the Way have a passion for spreading the love and joy of Jesus. This was demonstrated in the 2022 summer Vacation Bible School (VBS) which attracted 53 children. On July 1, 2022, the church hosted a Canada Day breakfast which attracted over 500 people from the community, all of whom enjoyed a delicious breakfast with many returning for seconds and thirds. Since Canada Day will be on a Sabbath this year, we plan to do the same thing but with an outdoor praise service for the community. With additional ministry initiatives being established, and new individuals joining the church services weekly, we expect to have a regular attendance of 300 by the end of 2023. Many have asked what has contributed to such unparalleled growth in post COVID-19 reality, and the answer is simply the anointing and leading of the Holy Spirit. For a more detailed answer, allow me to highlight seven areas in which the Holy Spirit led Christ the Way to experience such amazing post pandemic results:

1. Early morning prayer session by our team of elders and pastor once a week for the past three years to intercede for our church family and community.

2. Conducting 135 online Bible Studies on the books of Ephesians, Hebrews, Daniel, and Revelation during the lockdown to keep members growing daily in God’s Word.

3. Investing in and being trained to use a state-ofthe-art media ministry system to expand the reach of the worship services beyond the walls of this church.

4. Working on the beautification of the church building to create a more welcoming atmosphere for church members and visitors once reopened after the lockdown.

5. Establishing a fun and activity-based children’s ministries program to attract kids from the community and surrounding areas.

6. Welcoming and engaging each visitor on multiple levels before, during, and after each worship service.

7. Providing a consistent spiritual diet of Bible-based preaching, teaching, and age specific programming/activities that resonate with individuals’ needs, inspiring them to fall in love with Jesus, and enrich their relationships with each other.

Because we know that God moves progressively in human experience, we have chosen as our ministry theme for 2023 the title, “Living On A Higher Level,” believing that the best is still yet to come. I have committed myself to God to lead the congregation deeper into His eternal Word with every successive sermon, Bible study, and outreach initiative as we experience the glorious transformation He longs to effect in our lives. In 1 Corinthians 12:12 (NLT), the Apostle Paul reminds us that, “The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So, it is with the body of Christ.” The unparalleled post-pandemic growth of Christ the Way Adventist Church has been the result of the various parts of the body of Christ working together through the anointing of the Holy Spirit to build up God’s kingdom. This has truly been a team effort where each believer has faithfully served in the cause of Christ.

Pastor,

Lawel Natufe

Christ the Way Church