Dear Church Family,

The last time we had a business meeting was in January.  Then the pandemic hit and changed many things in our personal lives, professional lives and also in our church.   We missed the business meetings in March and July, so it was a relief that we were able to hold our first business meeting since that cold month of January.  I say “relief” because we had much work to do; approve the Deacon candidates, approve the 2021 budget and approve the Nominating Committee report.  I was also pleasantly surprised when, in spite of the time we had, we were able to hear the Trustees/ Property Task Force presentation and approve moving forward with their recommendation.  As I write this on Monday morning, it definitely appears that both 2021 budget and Nomination Committee report will be approved.  The vote on the Deacon candidates continues through Friday, October 30th.   We will try and have those results tabulated and make an announcement at both worship services on Sunday.

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Church Family News 

Prayer Ministry.  Daniele Cushing has been burdened to help our church grow in intercessory prayer.  Here are the opportunities to gather for prayer:

  • Sunday mornings at 9am in the Philathea room with Pastor Frank. We will be praying for our morning worship services as well as for our church.  If you cannot join us, you can call in using the number and code below.
  • Wednesday evenings at 7:30pm via phone. The phone number is:

712-432-8399 and the access code is:  279785#

Trunk or Treat.  Last year’s “Trunk or Treat” event was spectacular.  With about 16 “trunks” and dozens of volunteers, we touched and ministered to hundreds of BG and Caroline residents.  Like many other things this year, our event will look very different.  However, we still have an opportunity to reach our community, just like last year, albeit in a smaller and safer way.  With that in mind we have scheduled our Trunk or Treat event for this Saturday, October 31st, 6-8pm.  Consequently, we need donations and I mean lots of donations of candy.  Since we will be distributing the candy in small bags and not from common buckets, you are encouraged to bring your donations already stuffed in a small zip-lock type of bag.  But if you don’t have time for that, just bring the bags of candy and our team of volunteers will bag it.

A Note on the Contemporary Worship Service (CWS).

I have heard through the church “grapevine” that there is a perception that the 9:30am CWS is a permanent change to the Sunday morning schedule.  I don’t know where this perception originated but let me be clear and say this: nothing could be further from the truth.  Dear church, let me remind you of what I published in two FTP’s articles in May and what I said publicly.  When we planned for the “re-gathering” of the church, as a result of the Covid-19 restrictions being relaxed, we temporarily moved the CWS time to 9:30am from 8:45am for the following reasons:

  1. If we exceeded our capacity in the CWS at 9:30am we needed to allow for a third CWS earlier in the morning starting at 8:15. (To date we have not had to do that as we have stayed under the 60 attendee threshold)
  2. By starting at 9:30am this benefited the praise band and A/V team in that they could come in a little later and prepare for the service.

Rest assured once the Governor lifts the restrictions we are still operating under and allows 100% attendance, the Sunday morning schedule will revert back to what is was before.  Hopefully, when that occurs, we will be able to restart our children’s programs, student ministry program, Sunday School and have our Sanctuary Choir rejoin our TWS.  I for one am looking forward to that day!

Daylight Savings Time.  This Sunday, November 1st, daylight savings time ends.  This means we turn our clocks back 1 hour (“fall” back).

Happy Anniversary.  I remember when Terri and I hit our 20th anniversary “many” years ago, we thought it was hard to believe we had been married that long and now it’s been 45 years!  But that pales in comparison to TED and MARGARET LEWIS who will soon celebrate their 70th Wedding Anniversary on November 3rd!  HAPPY ANNIVERSARY YOU TWO!

 

Worship attendance (October 25):

CWS:  52

TWS:  17

Remember in prayer:

  1. Jamie Schumann’s mother who is facing several serious medical issues.
  2. April Colgan’s daughter, Katie who was in a severe car accident this past Sunday
  3. Bettie French who hit a deer driving home from church this past Sunday and received some slight injuries.
  4. Members of our church family facing surgeries and other life issues.
  5. All our frontline workers, in and out of our church, who work hard each day serving and protecting us during this pandemic.

 

I love you all,

Pastor Frank