Fall Focus - All Involved, All Accountable

In the book of Acts we find a young church fully committed to Christ and each other! What if this young church served as the model for you and me for the way we do life together now? Well, this fall, we are going to give it a try as God calls us ALL to become more involved and more accountable than ever before!


For the month of August I have asked each of you to be in prayer for how God might call you to Fearlessly Give to Him this Fall! We have a great oppportunity ahead as well as a great challenge before us! I have listed out and verbally addressed several of our focuses in the coming months and have specifically asked for both your prayers as well as your input! I have heard from many of you and I thank you for that and continue to ask for your prayer coverage as well!


On Sunday, August 30 we are going to launch this fall focus with a Call to All. This Call to All will be a call to commitment as a church. I have had a chance to reveiw our needs and opportunites, and I want to take a moment now to concretely present both of them to you.


First our needs: We have facility needs that must be addressed ... soon. Our primary and first goal is to meet the need of putting a new roof on our sanctuary. If we have to hire this out, our costs will run between $20k and $25k. If we can do it ourselves, we cut that cost in half. We also have some crucial sound and audio needs in the sanctuary as well as key storage and space needs to meet the growing demands of ministry.


Now for our opportunity: As we meet the needs we also have an opportunity to expand our minsitries as we look toward adding staff. My primary goal is to address worship/creative arts and outreach/easy steps (connections) that will help us grow deeper and wider as a church body. God is moving in some key ways and I am excited about what might be in our near future! Another opportunity is to provide a bucket of funds for our Benevolence Ministry that we would have to carry into 2010. As you know the economy continues to slump a bit and I want us to be as prepared as possible to live out the all involved and all accountable focus together!


Now for the challenge: In order to meet our financial goals we will need a couple of things. First of all, if we can hit our weekly budget goal then we will be well on our way toward meeting both the needs and opportunities. As I look at our finances we will certainly need to hit around $7300 per week in order to really advance these goals. Secondly, we will also need to have some larger contributions through the course of the fall.


So, here is what it will take. First, a renewed commitment to our tithe on a week-in and week-out basis. Next, we will need many of us (myself included) to be in prayer about what we can give above and beyond our tithe to get us to the figure of $1,000.00 per week for the ten week focus. The Lord may lead some of us to contribute a sum in the thousands of dollars. For others of us, he may call us to a smaller amount of $500. And yet to others it may be $100, $20, or $50 - who knows? What I do know is that God will lead us, if we will listen. It may mean advoiding eating out once or twice during these next few months or some other sacrifice that will help us get where God is calling us.


One thing is for sure - on August 30 we will launch our All Involved, All Accountable focus and my prayer is that it will truly, truly be a case of More than Before! On Sunday, November 15th we will wrap up our All Involved . . . All Accountable focus with an awesome morning of celebration during our worship services. Be praying now how you might be 'Involved and Accountable' this fall!


All Involved, All Accountable!

Pastor Biz