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Pastor's Point - April 2022

Dear Church Family,

I simply have three prayer requests to bring to your attention this month.

1. EASTER WEEKEND
Please begin praying for all the different opportunities for ministry that our church will have this Easter.

Friday – April 15^th at 6:30 pm
Good Friday “Night of Worship” – This service at South Campus is a perfect opportunity to invite people to come and hear of the great display of love that God showed by sacrificing His one and only Son for undeserving humanity.

Saturday – April 16^th at 10:00 am 
Family Easter Celebration - This event at North Campus will offer something for everyone. There will be inflatables, food, and one huge Easter egg hunt that kids will not want to miss. This is a great event to invite your friends and family to come be a part of as there is something for everyone.

Sunday - April 17^th at  8:00, 9:30, and 11:00 am
Easter Services – We will offer three worship services on Easter Sunday at South Campus. People are more open at this time of the year than any other to come to a worship service in a church.  I want to encourage you to be praying for who it is that you will invite to come with you to Easter service this year.

2. WORSHIP PASTOR SEARCH 
Please make it a point of your personal prayer time to pray for our worship pastor search. God knows exactly the person that we need to lead us in this key area of our church. I am confident that as we pray and ask God to lead us that He will. Pray specifically that God would lead us to someone who is gifted to lead our church in God-focused, powerful, moving worship. I have all confidence that God will lead us to who He has for us for this season in the life of our church.

3. THE SCOTT FAMILY
I do not make it a habit to come to you and solicit your prayers for my family, but I feel I need to in the season of our lives. Sending Nick, Melissa, and Eliana off to Japan on mission was a great moment for our family!  We are so happy to see them go and serve the Lord in this way.  As I shared on Sunday, for us to feel any other way would not be right.  But it is hard to “lay down your objections” when God moves in ways that you were not expecting.  Please do not misunderstand me, we are glad they are there, but just pray for us because there will be days that we will be tempted to pick up some of those objections that we have laid down.
We know that God will take much better care of them than we ever could.  We trust Him.  But there will be times when we will miss them tremendously. Pray that when those times come that we will remain faithful and focus on His will for their lives and not our own selfish objections that we may be tempted to pick up and hang on to in that moment. Thank you for your prayers.

I love you and I love being your pastor!

Pastor's Point - March 2022

Dear Church Family,

We need to pray. We need to pray not because something is wrong. We need to pray because doing so is right. We have a lot to pray about! We have been through a lot as a church family, and God has a lot for us to walk in and accomplish in the future for His glory!

I have often used the simple little acrostic A.C.T.S. to help me prioritize and organize my prayer time. Of course, this acrostic stands for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. R.C. Sproul shares a helpful little description of these areas as he states…
“The first element of prayer should be adoration, or praise. The Psalms, which are inspired samples of godly prayer, are heavily weighted on the side of adoration. I’ve noticed over many years that as we grow in the discipline and in the delight of prayer, it seems that we naturally spend more and more of our time on this first element.
Second, prayer should include confession of our sin; as we remember who we are when we come into God’s presence, we see that we have come short of His holiness and have need of His forgiveness.
Third, when we pray, we should always give thanks, remembering the grace and mercy God has shown
toward us.
Fourth, prayer rightly includes supplication or petition, bringing our requests for the needs of others and ourselves to God.
Adoration:
Spend some time giving praise to God for who He is and for what he has done. Focus on your personal walk with the Lord, your family life, and your church life. We all have much to praise our God for.
Confession:
Spend time getting honest before the Lord. He already knows the details of your life. By your confessing you are not informing God, but you are humbling yourself and admitting to God your spiritual state. Seek restoration with your Heavenly Father. He is faithful and loving. He is the perfect father, and you can freely approach him and confess your sin and walk in right relationship with him.
Thanksgiving:
God showers us with his grace and mercy daily in our lives. There is so much to be thankful for. Take time to consider the details of your personal life. Thank God for all he has done and is doing. But also thank God for what he is doing in the life of our church family. Thank him for His faithfulness to us as a church family this past year. We have seen people come to faith in Christ, most of our ministries are back and actively
ministering to people, he has provided for us financially to exceed our yearly budget by a little over 2%, as well as exceeding our first goal of $750,000.00 in our One Family, One Mission capital campaign! His financial provision allows us to make initial improvements to North Campus, develop out our children’s and student areas at South Campus, as well as paying down the debt on the North Campus property. We have much to thank our God for!!
Supplication:
What is that you need to ask God to do in the lives of people that you know, as well as your own life? Of course, only you can answer that for yourself. But as it relates to our church family allow me to give you two things to bring to the Lord.
Our next Worship Pastor – Ask God to give us clear direction as we search. Ask God to bless Ty, Jeff, and Mat as they give leadership during this interim time. Ask God to bless and strengthen all our singers, musicians, and technical team as they all step up and faithfully serve our church family.
Our willingness to serve – God has blessed us to get most of our ministry back up and running, but we need more help to go forward. Ask God to raise up people who are willing to serve in our church. We need more people to serve on our chair set up teams. We need more people to serve in the nursey. We need more people willing to serve in our children and student ministries. We need more people to serve on our hospitality team. We need more people to serve in our local missions. And as our projects at South Campus begin, we are going to need people to help us to frame, hang dry wall, paint, and on and on it goes. Pray for a spirit of servanthood to sweep through our church family. It is time to go forward asking God to use us to serve others and reengage back into the life of our church family.

We need to pray not because something is wrong, but because it is the right thing to do. May God bless the prayers of his people!!

I love you and I love being your pastor!