Dear Church Family,
First, I want to say thank you to the church family for helping us exceed our financial goal to ensure that we pay off our church debt by the end of 2017!! We had the goal to raise $92,000.00 and we received monies and pledges totaling $94,000.00.!!! By exceeding our goal by $2000.00, it will allow us to use less monies on hand to pay off our debt! Thank you for your sacrificial giving!!!
Second, I pray that you were able to be in service on February 19th as I shared possibilities for the future of our church family. If you were not there I encourage you to go to our website (www.oakhillbc.org) and listen to that sermon. In it I lay out biblical and practical reasons why we as a church are taking steps to continue to reach out to the lost in our community, as well as rededicate ourselves to making disciples. One of the steps we are asking our church to take is for some of our existing 2:42 groups to consider meeting at another time other than 9:30am on Sunday morning to free up more parking for our worship services. We have 193 parking spots and by the national average you can figure two people per car which comes to a total of 386. We always are over this number every Sunday. Our current adult 2:42 groups are considering what they can do as it relates to meeting at an alternate time. Some groups have already let me know that they can meet at another time or location to help with this parking challenge. There are some groups that are not able to meet at another time and I understand and want to thank them for considering it.
We also had a question and answer time on February 22 to speak into the reasons for the need for some of these adjustments.
From that meeting, I want it to be clear that…
- No one is being forced to change the time their 2:42 group meets. We are simply asking for our groups to consider sacrificing a preference of a meeting time to help meet the practical concern of parking. Each group will make their own decision.
- It was presented that student ministry would not meet on Sunday mornings after August 13th, but that may not be the case if we find there is a need for a student group to meet for those families that may stay on Sunday mornings.
- We will be starting all new Life Groups off our campus because of the lack of parking and physical space in our building. With this will come an adjustment to our Sunday morning children’s ministry schedule. This adjustment is necessary for multiple reasons. We must create a sustainable model of ministry which uses our space and volunteer base to their greatest effectiveness.
I know it is sometimes hard to change the patterns that we are used to, but the Gospel and making disciples is so important that I believe it is worth asking us to be open to these adjustments. Also, you will find a frequently asked question/answer sheet at the welcome center about this new model of ministry to help answer questions that you may have.
Finally, I want to encourage us all to keep our eyes on Jesus during this time. Let’s walk in his love and desire above all things what he wants in this world and in our lives!! We can never go wrong by seeking out his will and displaying his love!! I am so excited about our future!!
I love you and I love being your pastor!
