PASTOR'S PEN by Rev. Bill Wood

You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lamp stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. [Matthew 5:14-16]

It was a glorious day a little over a year ago—March 25, 2007, to be exact—when we flung wide the doors to our new sanctuary and joined the great processional into our newly remodeled worship space. What a day of celebration! We took a big step forward that day, completing a project that took significant investments of time, talent and money to complete. We celebrated our accomplishment, yet we never lost sight of the reasons we embarked upon the project in the first place: the creation of a more welcoming church to increase the effectiveness of our outreach to the community around us.

God has blessed these efforts abundantly!

• Compared with 2005, the average Sunday morning worship attendance in our two Sunday morning worship services combined is up from 137 to 203 (a 48% increase).

• Our First Service average attendance is up from 26 to 73 (up 280%).

• Our Second Service average attendance is up from 111 to 130 (up 17%).

• Our Children’s Ministry program has grown from 15 in 2005 to over 80 today.

• Our new Toddlers’ Program has grown from 26 to 54 children.

• Our new Arts In Action program has reached 500 people through its initial productions.

New people are appearing on our doorstep every day—people of all ages and stages in life. What is different now is that they are staying. They find their way here through our new Web site or having seen one of our attention-catching banners or ads. They hear by word of mouth that something exciting is happening here. They come and find genuinely good people welcoming them into their midst. They find variety and vitality in our worship services. They find their specific needs met in our programs for children, youth and adults.

Most important of all, they sense that God is at work here. They find not a club but a church—a body animated by the Spirit of the living Christ. They find people at many different places in their spiritual journey who are accepted wherever in that journey they may be. They find people engaged in the work of mission, reaching out with care and compassion to a world in need. They find people with open minds and compassionate hearts, who are willing to listen to a variety of different points of view yet all with the united aim of becoming better disciples of Jesus Christ and better servants of the living God.

God has blessed us abundantly with his living presence in our midst.

AND (this being the time of the year when we consider the stewardship of our time, talents and money, you knew there was going to be a giant “AND”!) we need to keep on offering ourselves in every way into the service of this living God if our vitality and growth are going to be sustained.

None of this comes without cost. Even after the generous giving of the people of the church, our remodeling effort left us with a $3.1 million loan to pay. Growing programs require growing numbers of staff people AND volunteers, neither of which a growing church can do without, but all of which have a cost.

God is blessing us with great abundance. Let us respond in kind, offering ourselves in every way with abundant generosity.

To God be the glory!