Hey everyone. As the city moves towards reopening, we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what we should do going forward. I wanted to share with you all the plan we’ve come up with. We are going to start meeting in person again every Sunday starting June 13th. For the summer, it won’t be a normal looking church service; we are going to do a paired down liturgy. If you were on the Zoom Wednesday nights, you probably heard me call it “diet church” as a joke, but the official name we’ve come up with is Summer Sessions. We are going to meet at the Powell location on Sundays at 10:30am for about an hour. We will sing a song or two campfire style, just someone with a guitar leading the group. Then I’ll do a bit of teaching, but it won’t look like a normal sermon: we’ll watch videos, have a bit of Bible reading, and do a little more back and forth discussion. Hopefully, it’ll be a great summer spending time together again and growing as disciples of Jesus.
So what are we asking from you all during the summer? Since we are a small church who is just getting started, the first big ask is for you to make an effort to be there. We are really hoping to use the summer sessions to build up some momentum for a bigger relaunch on September 12th, but that’s not going to happen if all of us only show up occasionally. So I’m really asking that you make Sunday mornings a priority in the summer (when you’re in town of course).
The second big ask is for you to really take ownership of our growth plan moving forward. Remember, we are looking to grow in two areas: first, in people who are partners in the kingdom who are joining us in what we are doing. Second, and more importantly, we want to invest in people who are the mission. As we think about our church growing, our focus needs to be on loving and investing in our neighbors and friends who aren’t followers of Jesus. These Summer Sessions are going to be a great avenue to invite people from both of those groups.
That’s what Sunday will look like. What about Wednesdays? We are only going to keep doing the zoom meetings until June 9. Let’s be honest, zoom is a huge blessing and a huge curse. It’s a blessing in that it allowed us to see each other and meet during the height of the pandemic, but let’s be real, we all hate it and if we never had to look at another zoom screen, it’d be too soon. We also want to move back to our in home missional family gatherings, but we don’t have the details worked out yet. At some point in the summer, we will start hosting dinners up at our place during the week, but a lot of this depends on the city’s restrictions and how things look in a few weeks. So stay tuned for more updates (hopefully really soon).
I know it’s been a tough year to plant a church. I thank you all for your dedication and passion to keep with it. I am really looking forward to getting back together every week and plowing forward in our kingdom work together.
—Pastor Jon