July/August 2003

“Fasten Your Seat Belts and Fold Your Hands”

“Fasten your seat belts, we are ready to takeoff.” the garbled voice commanded, as we prepared ourselves for the flight to Alaska. You knew that the take-off will be forceful and that there might be a little motion discomfort in order to get off the ground and head for our flight altitude. We sat with anticipation as we made last minute adjustments to our seats, tore open the last stick of gum, read the safety card, and checked the location of the brightly lettered and neatly folded paper bag. We were ready to go.

With all the anticipation and activity around the community and church, there are many days when that airport scene is exactly what it seems like around here. You are just waiting for the voice to come over the loudspeaker, "Fasten your seat belts."
With a new school building taking shape and new homes "growing" in many fields. Our vision for growth and ministry expansion is not a distant future.

After three weeks into our second service our average attendance is 57 in the 8:00 service and 150 in the 10:00am service. Our building and finance committees are preparing a significant presentation for our congregational meeting in early August. Our youth ministry continues to strongly reach out with Rocky's leadership. Where will this flight take us?

It is our prayer that we will continue to be a church that glorifies God by "Encouraging new life in Christ, and spiritual growth in the lives we touch." From that mission statement we continue to move forward exploring news ways to touch our tri-county community with the life changing power and love of Jesus Christ.

Will you covenant with me to pray and, if you can, fast in an extraordinary way that God's will is done as we plan for the future. Set aside time each day to specifically pray for God's kingdom work in our community. That means, pray for our church and our sister churches that God has blessed us with in our tri-county area. Also, challenge yourself to fast one meal or ½ day or a whole day each week during the month of July. The biblical example to pray and fast encourages us to direct our hearts to God. I look forward to this new day as we seek to bring people to Jesus Christ. Let's fasten our seatbelts and fold our hands as we work together in Jesus name.


Pastor Craig