on purpose
Dear Family of Faith, As I write April’s pastoral letter to you, I find myself full of emotion because Easter 2010 is only days away. I’m praising God for the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection and the new life that so many have experienced by receiving His gracious salvation through faith.
Reflecting on this, I can’t help but remember our dear brother in Christ and long time member of our church, Dee Baskin. Dee left this world for Heaven last week. Though we all miss him, I am a little bit envious of the fact that this friend will be celebrating his first Easter proclaiming to Jesus Christ, face to face … My Lord and my God! WOW ! Go for it Dee.
You know, Dee had a great passion for sharing Jesus with others. His example causes me to fervently pray for us, the people of Faith, to invite our friends who don’t yet know Jesus to join us for Easter worship. Our Lord is going to be personally present here at Faith and His specific goal is to enrich the lives of all who will open their hearts to His transforming Gospel. How? By bringing eternal life to those who will accept Him as Savior and abundant life to those who will seek to follow Him as Lord. Please, join with me in praying that many who haven’t met the Savior will be here this Easter. Then go, invite these precious people to church and thereby allow God to use you as an answer to your own prayer!
To be transparent, I think I am also a bit sentimental because this will be Becky’s and my first Easter with our new church family. It means a lot to us to be here this year and be able to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection with you. The Holy Spirit has put within us both so much love for each of you. We are praying to be a pastor and wife that will be a huge blessing to this body of believers. I know from previous experience the great things the Lord will do when a ministry couple and a congregation bond together in love and unity. Please know that we desire this with you more than we have words to express.
April is an important time of year for Faith not only because of Easter, but also during this month we typically approve a new ministry budget for the fiscal year. Additionally, we also recognize those individuals we sense God has called to be part of our Leadership Team. I’d like to share a few things with you about this year’s process.
Our annual congregational ministry meeting will be held on Sunday, April 25th at 5:00 pm. The agenda will consist of a fellowship meal followed by a time of worship and communion. We will set aside significant opportunity for corporate prayer to re-dedicate ourselves to our commitment at Faith to be a church that will (as our purpose statement declares) lovingly help people everywhere become fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. The church family will then be asked to approve our 2010/2011 budget and leadership.
Truthfully, the desire of your deacons and pastoral staff is to see us move away from the old model of a “business meeting” which so often fostered quarrels, frustration, confusion, discouragement & divisiveness. Instead, your leadership believes that the Lord would have Faith move to a new model (not to mention what we feel is a more Biblical model) of an annual “ministry gathering” where the focus is on praise to God for what He has done in the previous year and a commitment on our part to what He desires to do in the coming year. Growing churches that are healthy and spiritually vibrant are all making these changes in approach and mindset. Oh, and yes, the congregation will still be asked to approve budget and leadership. The major adjustment is simply that we will seek to further implement the Lord’s direction in building at Faith the environment of “grace & trust” that I talked to you about repeatedly, privately & publicly, when you interviewed and called me to be your lead pastor.
In relation to our budget, the leadership team is almost done putting it together. We will have it available to church members shortly after Easter. You will see that the format has been simplified and streamlined. Again, we are taking an example from churches our size or larger in terms of the best means of presentation to people that clearly shows congregants the direction of our budget without getting lost in the details. The Leadership Team has scheduled a meeting on Thursday, April 15th, to present the budget and seek to answer related questions at that time, ahead of our main ministry gathering on the 25th of April.
In relation to leadership, I have a special request to ask. As you’ll remember, your invitation to me to be lead pastor of Faith involved coming to give new direction to our church in terms of leadership structure as well as improving ministry infrastructure. I’m sure you’ll agree that this is crucial to the overall spiritual health and unity of Faith which will help us more effectively reach the surrounding community for Christ. One of the very significant projects this entails is the writing of an updated constitution for Faith. In seeking to accomplish the task I have come to rely heavily upon the current group of deacons for their understanding of the congregation, spiritual wisdom and supportive friendship. Additionally, prior to my arrival, they worked together to formulate many rough draft ideas as to what shape the Lord would have the new constitution to take. Indeed, this is a group of leaders with God’s best interests for Faith always at the front. For these reasons and others that I don’t have the room to express here, I am asking you to approve a one year extension of service to the current Board of Deacons at our meeting on April 25th.
The purpose of this request is to allow us, as a team, the opportunity to complete the task of finishing a new constitution for Faith while utilizing the leaders who began the job together; who are fully up to speed with each other; who have led well and who have been a tremendous help to me in my new position. It is our thought that over the course of the next fiscal year we can complete the constitution, present it to the church for ratification and guide its initial implementation. To be honest, I can’t tell you how big of a help to me, as your pastor, this would be at this time.
Thankfully, all the brothers have agreed to stay together on this task with your approval. The one exception is Kent Barber who has felt a strong leading from the Lord to pursue other ministry opportunities with the church. So, with his endorsement, the deacons have unanimously asked Greg Plett and Gary Stanton to join us in taking Kent’s place. Both these men are very familiar with the needs, inner workings and fantastic potential of this church body. Greg was a member of the lead pastor search team. Gary has just finished his ministry with Faith as a member of our vocational ministry staff but is desirous of being part of ongoing leadership. We feel these two individuals would be tremendous additions to the deacon team.
As I close, I want to thank you for all the love you bring to our church and the financial support you are giving to this ministry. As you can joyfully see, our 2010 income exceeded our budget. Now, it is also true that our spending has exceeded our budget & income due to the acquisition of a new lead pastor and worship leader, the installation of a new sound system to replace the one that was causing significant “disharmony” and to address several other “must do” expenditures. Nevertheless, we have much to thank the Lord for in terms of His provision. Beloved, the Holy Spirit is preparing this body to be used for His glory in more ways than we ever thought possible. As He shapes us, let’s keep giving of our time, treasure and talent to serve in His work at Faith. I believe that next year our financial giving can once again top our budget and supersede our actual spending. Let’s stay flexible and invite Him to shape us. Let’s be so loving and united that no who comes to Faith could possibly miss Jesus … that all will see & adore Him! Together, let’s be Jesus to our world.
Love you,
Pastor John K. Nagle
