Ministry Plan for 2010:  “Be the Church”

A little over a year ago I stood in the pulpit as a pastoral candidate at Bethany.  As I looked out over the congregation, I saw a group of people that I believed was in love with Jesus Christ and ready to serve Him.  After ten months of being your pastor, I can say with confidence that I was and continue to be right about that!  The love of Christ is so evident here and, as I have said more than once, this is a serving church!

I say this with confidence because many of you have put your hearts into discipleship in 2009.  Although I was not a part of developing the “It’s Discipleship Time!” ministry plan for this year, I have been enamored with the way it draws us into transformational living through the workouts and the projects it led us into.  As the survey we took in September indicates, it has been a good year of spiritual development and growth at Bethany, and it has been my joy to be a part of it!

One of the factors that drew me as a candidate was that Bethany seemed to be a healthy church.  Actually, no church is completely healthy—there is always room for improvement, but what I saw as I looked at your recent past made me want to become a part of what God is doing here.  I looked at how you had searched the Scriptures to learn about God-honoring worship and then applied what you learned in your worship services.  I saw how you had followed God into a deeper experience in prayer and I could see first hand how that affected the leaders and the Search team.  Debbie and I were blessed as we joined them in fasting and prayer during the search process.

This year we have seen God continue to honor these commitments to worship and prayer as we have brought our needs and our dreams before him and seen him move.  I remember a Wednesday night prayer meeting when we asked God to move 20 men to go to “Iron Sharpens Iron” and he moved 23!  I remember us dedicating over 50 volunteers for Son Rock Kid’s Camp and seeing God bring over 90 kids to VBS!  I remember many great times of worship where God moved among us as we sang psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs—both contemporary and traditional with drums, organ, and everything in between.

We have also seen people enter into “It’s Discipleship Time!” by visiting shut-ins in record numbers, memorizing Scripture, participating in Bible Study training, the Back to School Bash, sharing their faith stories, and trusting God to make them generous givers and much more!  What a great year this has been at Bethany!

So where do we go from here?  I think the best answer to that question is that we keep moving forward!  We take what I believe are the next logical steps in this great journey we are on together:  so whether you look at the last 3 years or just the last year……, “Be the Church” makes sense as to what to do next.  Before I get into specifics, however, let me take a look at this from a different angle.

Over the past 3 years, God, has been doing some extensive remodeling at Bethany.  With emphases on biblical worship, prayer, and now discipleship, we have become healthier as a body of believers.  We have seen improvements in our “up-reach” (prayer and worship), as well as our “in-reach” (discipleship).  These areas are critical to the health of any church and were exactly what needed to be focused on during the pastoral transition.  I need to say, also, that I have never worked with a godlier, harder-working, or more effective group of Elders than the ones God used to make all of that happen!  It has been my absolute privilege to join that team.  And now that our work has progressed to this point, what is next?

You guessed it– It’s time to reach out!  We’ve been leading up to this in our 4^th quarter of “It’s Discipleship Time!” with our emphasis on witnessing.  “Be the Church” is simply a natural next step in our journey.

Our plan for 2010 is really a prayer:  That we will “BE THE CHURCH”, which God has designed us to be—not just on the “upside” and “inside”, but on the “outside” as well.  We need to Be the Church to our community and to our world, not just to one another!

It’s true that we have been doing outreach.  Son Rock Kid’s Camp (VBS) and Back to School Bash, were each a success.  Ping pong on Friday nights and Kid’s Club on Wednesday nights continue to attract un-churched people as well.  Still, we have more to offer.  We must accept the call that we are to be the physical representation of Jesus in all our spheres of influence.  It’s right to “complete the picture” by making outreach a regular component of what we do at Bethany, by doing it more intentionally, and more often.

Simply put, “Be the Church” means that we go outside the walls and into our community, sharing the love of Christ in tangible ways.  Also, that we not just add “outreach” to what we are already doing, but strive to have a healthy balance of up-reach, in-reach, and outreach in our existing ministry.

We want to become an authentic representation of Jesus Christ to our community.  That means we must invite Christ into the totality of our lives:

Our Heads: To understand what it means to Be the Church, both individually and as a body

Our Hearts: To gain more of Christ’s compassion for the lost

Our Hands:  To engage our community through tangible acts of generosity and service.

Here is what 2010 will look like:

Head and Heart

• A 9-week church-wide study of Acts 8-15, called “Salt & Light” in January and February.
• Regular “SnL” Sundays where we have communion, testimonies, and baptisms.
• Sermons that highlight our identity in Christ, being the presence of Christ, and living out the purposes of Christ.

Hands

• Several “Generosity Outreach” projects (GO projects), where we ALL give away something for nothing, no strings attached, showing the love of Christ in a tangible way.  These will be simple and easy to pull off, requiring only 1-2 hours of commitment.
• Two or more larger targeted projects, requiring more planning, preparation, and participation, as with VBS.
• We are scheduling for two GO Projects and VBS for the first half of 2010, and will schedule more for the second half of the year, based on how the first half goes.

Balance:  Our ministry teams will still be doing other ministry, as always, but keeping uppermost in mind the importance of planning for outreach and making room for it in our ministry schedule.  In addition, we will be having more in the way of fellowship time after church with more regularly scheduled potlucks, taco dinners, etc. to help us stay connected.

Meanwhile, the Elders and I will be working on ways to simplify our ministry structure to make sure we can do the most important things well, and make it easier for all of us to participate in ministry without overloading our personal schedules!

The most important piece of this picture, though, is prayer.  Please join me in bringing “Be the Church” before the Lord daily, so that we will see His hand move among and through us.  2 Chronicles 16:9 says, ^“The eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.…”  During the first 9 weeks of the year, you will be invited to fast and pray for our effort.  If we commit our heads, hearts, and hands to be His head, heart, and hands, the Lord will lead us to where we need to go!

Let us, your servants, see you work again;
      let our children see your glory.
 And may the Lord our God show us his approval
      and make our efforts successful.
      Yes, make our efforts successful!

Psalm 90:16-17

Prayerfully yours,

Pastor Jerry