February Letter: Letter_for_February_2025
Dear Covenant Family,
Typically, the February Pastors’ Letter features the Pastors’ Report found in the Annual Report. So if this article sounds familiar, then you have read the Annual Report ☺.
Annual reports always raise questions…often questions for which it is difficult to obtain accurate answers! This year we are in particular pondering two questions: 1) How are we doing as a church and 2) Where are we going as a church?
How are we doing?
Membership numbers are very slightly on the rise. The Adult Sunday School has grown significantly in number and depth of sharing. Small groups are growing in open-heartedness, honesty and genuineness in mutual caring and supportiveness. Yet, it is harder than it used to be to fill certain lay ministry positions.
Sunday worship attendance numbers are slightly on the rise, and many sense that new and very positive things are by the Holy Spirit happening within folks during worship and afterwards from worship. Yet, it is harder than it used to be to get people out for special services, especially evening services.
Donations from all giving sources and other receipts of funds were slightly above the levels budgeted for the year, and we were financially able to sustain our church’s mission in its various dimensions. Yet, it is very hard, given the multiplicity of complex factors, to project the church’s income going forward.
Overall, however, some things about how we are doing are very clear:
-
- Covenant remains “a home away from home” for many people – a place where they feel valued and loved, and often helped by people who sincerely care about them.
- Covenant remains a launch pad from which significant services blessing the community at-large blast off.
- Covenant remains a place where God is glorified, the Bible is preached and taught, and individuals are raised who have a heart to reach out to others, to befriend them and to introduce them to the good news of Jesus – the best possible news!
Where are we going?
We are very aware that many of the old ways of “doing” church no longer work well in a rapidly changing world.
We are also very aware that it is not clear what new ways would work any better.
So, claiming the promise of Isaiah 30:18 that “blessed are all those who wait for [the Lord]”, we are waiting on the Lord to give us the manna of His leading, one day at a time, day after day.
To wait on the Lord is not to grow passive and inactive. In trial-and-error experimentation, we have tried some new things and done some old things with some innovative adaptations.
Some of our experimentation is producing some good results!
We tweaked the time of worship and Sunday School to lengthen the time of fellowship between the two. As a result, increased friendship building and mutually supportive encouragement are occurring.
Because we were still not seeing the resumption of the numbers of children and youth participating in Sunday activities that we had prior to the COVID lockdowns, but we were seeing such a resumption of numbers on weekdays, we added more Bible study opportunities to our after-school programming. As a result, a higher percentage of children and youth than ever before are on a weekly basis studying, and reflecting on, the Bible. We also began this year a mentoring program for youth, and that has expanded the amount of personal discipleship that is going on at Covenant.
We are availing of new technologies and resources to make the church more efficient and effective in its ministries. The church is saving time for “higher purposes” by becoming better organized in its procedures and protocols. We are streamlining processes. We also have been upgrading our property – for example, our AV and HVAC systems – to better serve the purposes of the Lord.
So, we work with an experimental spirit, watch with an eye peeled to discern the fruitfulness of our efforts, and wait on the Lord who “is good to those who wait for him” (Lamentations 3:25).
In the meantime, we relish every moment we have together living out our discipleship to Jesus as a family of faith.
How grateful we two are to serve this church as pastors for as many years as we have – and for however many years it is God’s will that we continue.
God bless you, Rob & Adele
Write a comment: