December Highlights!
It’s hard to believe 2020 is over. It’s even harder to believe all that happened last year! It’s been a wild ride. We are thankful for all the personal growth and challenges that 2020 brought and for God’s hand in it all. Anyway…here’s a look back at December on our Church Plant Journey! 👇 As always, if you have any questions or want to connect, reply to this email and we’ll set up a time! 😊
Kansas City…go Chiefs!
Our first KC snow storm!
Mini-Sermons!
This is the start of our teaching schedule for 2021!
In December, we began planning sermon series and messages for the next full year. We believe that church is about so much more than what happens on a Sunday morning. That’s why we are planning in advance - so that we have more time to do the meaningful work of discipleship and outreach in our community. We also decided to begin sharing “Mini-Sermons” online. We hope these encourage you, give you a taste of what you can expect teaching to be like at our church, and, ultimately, inspire you to follow Jesus 🙌. Look for new mini-sermons every Sunday on Facebook, IGTV, and our website 👀.
Rest?
When we first started our residency program, we hit the ground running. Our mentors reminded us several times that our main responsibility was to soak in a genuine time of rest. But we’re from New York! Our blood pumps a little faster than our midwestern friends...😜In all seriousness, we know that getting this church launched in 2021 is going to take tons of work. And we want to be at our best. So we committed to a “stay-cation” for the last 2 weeks of December. We slowed down enough to forget about work, church planting, and all that’s ahead. Thank you Jesus for designing Sabbath rest to be a regular part of our life. And thank you Grace Church for giving us the opportunity to rest in this season! ❤️
We loved spending Christmas Eve with sweet Shelby!
Mike had the opportunity to host and lead communion at Grace 😊
All about the GOALS!
A few years ago, we heard the principle, “your life doesn’t get better by chance, it gets better by change.” That’s when we started getting serious about goal setting and growing as leaders. Shout out to The Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast for introducing us to many healthy practices like adding one new discipline each year, journaling with a 5-year journal, and having a set of input goals for different areas of our lives. A few of our shared goals this year are to cut back on TV, use a daily planner, and read through the bible together twice. I could go on and on about goals, but maybe that should be a topic for its own blog post…🤔
What we are working on…
When we started our residency at Grace, we were given a checklist with over 400 tasks that should be completed before we start a church. The tasks are divided into months and it gets more intense the closer we get to launch. I like to think it’s kind of like wedding planning (shout out to my mom for planning ours 😘). January is packed with a variety of tasks including establishing our governing documents, applying for 501c3, selecting our board members, and creating our marketing brand. Stay tuned - hopefully, we will have a logo and fun branding stuff to announce in our next update! 🥳
Sneak-peek at a part of our task-list 👀
We are happy to work from home most days! …and so is Amigo 🐶
Prayer Team
Did you know we have a goal to cover this new church in 1000 hours of prayer? We can’t do that alone. So if you think of it, would you CLICK HERE to let us know how many minutes you spent talking to God about us, Long Island, and this new church?
Photo-op on Long Island’s North Shore
Here are some specific things you can pray about:
- Pray that our mini-sermon series would inspire people to follow Jesus
- Join us in praying for Long Islanders to find hope and life in Jesus.
- We are praying constantly for those who will be part of our church in the coming year and for those who will join our launch team! Pray we will connect with these people and begin to lead them as soon as possible.
- For focus and clarity as we work on our task list and begin to establish foundational elements of our future church.
Answered prayers:
- A couple from Grace Church has committed to coming to Long Island on our Launch Team! 😊
- We are continuing to LOVE our time at Grace Church! We are thriving under our new mentors and enjoying all of our new relationships.
- We have made some awesome connections with people on Long Island and look forward to building these friendships further!
- We are approx. 18% funded! 🙌
Thank you for following us on our journey 🎉
We are looking forward to all that God has for us, for you, and for Long Island! 🌱
