The Weekend Plan, September 25, 2022

Hello Church Family, 


Just a few items to share with you as we prepare for worship this weekend: 


A Psalm of Repentance- This Sunday we continue our series, Psalms- Let Us Worship Together: Relating to God in the Highs and Lows of Life. This Sunday we will look at Psalm 51. I encourage you to read it over a few times before you come on Sunday. Ask the Lord if there is any sin in your life that you need to turn from. My prayer is that our worship will be rich as we consider how Christ frees us from our sins.  





Let’s Finish Financially Strong- I am always amazed at how God provides for our needs to do His work. Through the faithfulness of the many households that make up our church, we receive almost $600,000 in contributions to the ministry budget each year to the Lord’s work! This is something special- Thank you to those who give and glory to God!


September marks the last month in our fiscal year and thus far we have received much of the amount we need to function as a church, but we are on pace to come up short of reaching our ministry budget. By the end of the month, we need $36,213.15 to fulfill our $596,741.68 annual budget. Given this potential deficit, we are also on pace to finish the year with expenses approximately $15,000 greater than income. 


Obviously, these are not the best financial projections, but we will trust the Lord to provide what we need. God has His hand on our church today as He has for the last 119 years. Our church will find its way forward, but I want my church family to know the current financial situation. 


With this knowledge comes the invitation to respond. I invite you to pray and ask the Lord about your giving. Over the years I have seen the Lord lead his people to start-up, catch-up, and step-up regarding their tithes and offerings. 

  • Start-up: The Lord may lead some of you to start giving Him the tithe (10% of our household income). 

  • Catch-up: He might lead some others to catch up on our giving. 

  • Step-up: Still others, He may inspire to step up and give extravagantly (above and beyond) for the church to do His work. 


My prayer is that we will listen to the Lord and give what He lays on our hearts to give. Who knows, maybe the Lord may see fit to have us give enough this Sunday so that we meet our annual budget? That would definitely be a reason for our church family to celebrate and worship the Lord! 


Church Picnic- Go ahead and mark your calendars for our annual church picnic on October 30 at 11:15 AM. In lieu of growth groups, we will meet in the Family Life Center (FLC) for lunch. Our picnic is also our annual chili and pie competition, so there will be plenty to eat and trophies to win! Lastly, we will have several fun recreation events and activities, so plan to stick around for the afternoon. This will be a great Sunday to invite your friends to church and have them stay for the festivities. More details will be coming soon!


For Parents- Our children and youth ministries are growing! It is very exciting to have babies in the nursery and for our church to invest in the spiritual growth of young people. One thing we want very much is for our young ones to be safe while they are on our church campus. Therefore, I have the following requests to make of parents: 


  1. Please keep your children who are younger than 12 years-old in your line-of-sight at all times unless they are under the supervision of one of our ministry leaders. Outside of formal children’s ministry times, the church family counts on you to parent your children, give correction as needed, and keep your children out of harm’s way while on campus. This includes keeping your children with you in the worship service, ushering them to the restrooms, and bringing them to check-in and picking them up. Please avoid letting them roam the building outside of your line-of-sight.


  1. Please ensure that your youth (12 years-old and older) are either with you or participating in the youth ministry activities we have scheduled for them. We appreciate you helping them be where they are supposed to be. 


Your kids are so wonderful and we want to make sure that their time at our church is always joyful and positive.


Look forward to seeing you all Sunday!


In Christ, 



Pastor Doug


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