Something New

December 29th, 2023

Hello church family – amid the chaos and commotion of holiday celebrations I hope you’ve been able to find some quiet moments to reflect on another lap around the sun. 2023 was a year of many ups and downs, but gratefully, for our family and for our church, more ups than downs.

As I reflect on the last 12 months in the life of our church my overwhelming emotion is that of gratitude. I thank God for leaders...humble servants who gave of their time and talents to nurture kids, disciple students, and to care for adults. I’m motivated by the stirring testimonies we witnessed as dozens and dozens of our people declared faith in Christ via baptism. I was thrilled to be able to commission new international workers from our body (Caleb and Amie), and to see an uptick in Life Group engagement. We experienced palpable energy and growth in our worship culture, retooled our digital presence, and rebranded with new statements of Purpose, Priority, and essential Practices. It’s been quite a ride!

More next week how to engage in 2024, but as 2023 ends, I’m asking one more time if you would consider a year-end financial gift to our shared ministry. Our Ministry Fund is always the priority, but in the last couple of weeks we’ve been emphasizing gifts to our Capital Fund. We’ve got some big projects on the horizon, including one to replace aging boilers which are past their service life (one original 1974 boiler is still operational). Their replacement will represent a significant step forward in reliability and energy efficiency, providing savings in operational costs, but the cost of replacing 5 boilers in 2024 is expected to be in the range of $500,000. A year-end gift to the Capital Fund will enable us to top up our maintenance fund to tackle these and other critical infrastructure projects. Thank you for making this a matter of prayer and priority.

At this weekend’s services we’re looking forward to welcoming back Jeremy Cook as our guest speaker. Jeremy will be updating us on life and ministry in Saskatchewan and will open the Scriptures with a message appropriate for this time of year. And we’re back to regular service times, Saturday @ 6 and Sunday @ 10, online and in person. 

Happy New Year!

Greg Hochhalter | Lead Pastor