January 2017 A note from your Pastor: On Dec. 11th we had our annual church conference, and one of the things we do is hear the “reports of the pastor”. I thought it would be good to share as we enter in the new year. YOU all are amazing and this church is amazing…thank you for being you! Pastor’s report: Year 10 and here we are. Where does time go? The blink of an eye. So much has happened…so many babies born, so many funerals, confirmation classes, graduations and over 550 worship services when you add in all the special services for Christmas and Lent…a lot has happened in 10 years! But 2016 has been an extraordinary one. We had some cool milestones – 41 confirmands this year…41! On top of that we had 11 adults who made their first time profession of faith – more than any other year. We baptized 32 this year – 8 adults, 14 youth and 10 children. Our average worship attendance is still going up as is our Partners in Ministry numbers. But what I was most excited about just a few weeks ago was when our Adult Connections Team started talking about Church+2 – a way we will be encouraging folks to attend church regularly and find one way to be “fed” and one way to help “feed” (serve) others…when we talked about Church+2 we started to list the current ways people could be a part of a small group / study group and there were 14… 14! That blew me away. 14 ways adults can be “fed” right now… there were 15 ways where people could jump in to serve. I expected it to be less even. It was exciting… And it reminded me that this year, more than in past years, Gruene is going deeper spiritually. There are 3 Disciple Classes this years. We have had two adult confirmation classes this year. Our men’s group “the Cool Christian Dudes” are growing and getting more involved as they grow deeper together, our youth are growing and their desire to serve and move beyond themselves is greater after sending so many to ASP last year. Our women’s groups – the Beth Moore study group that is busting at the seams, the Tues. morning women’s study as well as our M&M’s comprise of 100+ combined. We also continue to serve and connect to more and more people! 5 assisted living worship services a month, we have three volunteer chaplains for local hospitals, our on-line presence is growing as we have more and more “regular attenders” on line, and Steve’s pantry is EXPLODING as well as so many touched under the bridge at Church by the River. And as we are invitational in these outreach ministries…as we seek Jesus in our small group ministries, we can see Jesus moving, loving and making disciples all around. It is a beautiful thing. So what now? I pray that in 2017 we can make a bigger dent in our debt. As we finished our three-year capital campaign (we will realize almost 100% of what was pledged three years ago when we started raising funds for Motown after you add in those who gave and didn’t pledge…which is amazing), but we still owe 4 million dollars. I hope we can find a way to reduce it by ½ in the next two or three years. (I’m still praying for the million dollar gift we can match!) I also believe we can continue to strengthen our staff. Hiring a part time bookkeeper for a $977,000 budget is a good thing! Strengthening our children’s ministry (at least to ¾ time by 2018) would be amazing. With all the technology, we still do not have a designated tech person for communication via website, internal communications, email systems or social media. I feel like 2016 was a resting / deepening year…but I feel we need to get poised in 2017. Get ready, prepare to engage in all God will call us to…we may or may not have the whole year to do that…I have a feeling, with all the growth in NB, we will need to catch up soon! God is moving…in this place and in NB. It takes every person and every gift God gives…I’m grateful you are here…and I can’t wait to see who God sends us next year!
I love being your pastor.
“Come…be you, be filled , be loved. Go…be joy, be hope, be love. Be His! ”