Dear Church Family,

It’s the first of September and school has begun and summer is over.  Soon we’ll see the weather change, getting cooler, leaves changing colors (and falling).  Eventually, as time marches on, we’ll see a resolution to the Covid-19 pandemic and hopefully things will “return to normal” at church.  Time will tell.  But as I introduced last Sunday, there may be a “new normal” and church will look a little different.  Thom Rainer, wrote an article entitled; “Five Types of Church Members Who Will Not Return after the Quarantine.”  Last week I told you about the first group; The decreasing attendance members.  This week we look at two more:

  1. The disconnected church members. Rainer states that if a church member is in a small group, his or her likelihood of returning is high.  If they attended worship only, their likelihood of attendance is much lower.  I think that it is also true that if attending their small group or SS class was a priority but attending worship was not, they’ll return to their SS class but not worship.  This means that emphasizing small group bible studies AND worship is important because attendance in both reflect higher degree of commitment and therefore these individuals will “weather the storm” and return.
  2. The church is “another activity” church member.

These church members see gathered attendance as yet another activity on par, or even lower, than other activities.  They were the church members who let inclement weather keep them from church but not their children’s Sunday soccer games.  Commitment to the church was a low priority before the pandemic.  Consequently, their commitment in the post-quarantine era will also be low or non-existent.

 

Church Family News

 

Deacon Nomination begins.  We’ve had to delay this process due to the pandemic but with the church re-gathering in June and the relaxing of some restrictions we are moving ahead with this process.  Judy has posted on REALM the 2020 Deacon Nomination Form.  This document describes the biblical qualifications of Deacons and provides a timeline for this process.  Our goal is to identify suitable candidates for the church to vote on at the October 25th business meeting.  Judy also has copies available in the church office and they will be made available the next two Sundays.  Nominations will be placed in a box in the church office or in the FMC/Sanctuary on Sundays.

 

Beginnings Pre-School.  Our church pre-school begins September 14 with ten students enrolled.  Cathy Jo Gray continues as the director and Lisa Shields takes over for Kristin Bissoon temporarily as lead teacher.  Please pray for them and the Board as they navigate ministry to our pre-schoolers during this pandemic.

 

Prayer Ministry.  Daniele Cushing has been burdened to help our church grow in intercessory prayer.  During the Covid-19 pandemic she posted opportunities for corporate prayer via a conference phone call twice a week.  We are going to continue that but with a change in times to:

  • 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.  Daniele is attempting to make this time available for our off site prayer warriors so stay tuned.
  • Wednesday evenings at 7:30pm via phone. This is a change from 7pm.   The phone number remains as:

712-432-8377 and the access code is:  279785#

 

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  1. Remember in prayer:
    1. Members of our church family facing surgeries and other life issues.
    2. 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