Bye, Bye, Summer!

It’s been fun, but summer is quickly coming to a close.  Camps are now behind us and school starts in three weeks.  I am excited about some big things that are happening in the fall.  I believe that we are in store for one of the best times of our church in the nine years I have been your pastor.  We ended AWANA last year with great growth and a big turn out for awards night.  We had some of our best attendance in awhile for worship during June. Our new deacons are going through training and will add a level of foundation for our church that we have been missing in recent years.  Finances have kept up through the summer in what traditionally is a lean time.  The chapel has been remodeled and looks amazing while providing more space for us to fellowship together as a church.  The stage is set for us to have a fruitful fall.

Adding to these things is Engage Bartlesville.  The church voted to make our Sunday nights evangelistic in focus by providing a worship service on Sunday evenings called Engage Bartlesville that is focused on reaching the unchurched in our neighborhood.  A free meal will be served as we strive to reach those that have been difficult for us to reach in the past.  We will provide many opportunities for evangelism on Sunday evenings by having people volunteer to help with this service or go into our neighborhood and share the gospel. I’m excited to see how God is going to use this time.

There is one thing that is keeping us from being successful in any of these ministries, volunteers. We must have volunteers in order to be the church God wants us to be.  We are in desperate need of volunteers on Sunday morning in our preschool and children’s areas.  As of Sunday we were still 10 volunteers short in our rotation for the preschool area alone.  We need help for Worship Kid and AWANA as well.  If you can give 30 minutes on a Wednesday evening in AWANA to help children learn memory verses, let us know.  If you can give us one Sunday every month or even every other month, please let us know. 

If you would like to volunteer to help with Engage Bartlesville,  we have a place for you.  We need people willing to canvass the neighborhoods starting in August.  We need greeters, security, children teachers, small group leaders, band members, technology gurus, and many others to make these services the best they can be.  Please talk to our ministry leaders about these needs or sign up on the table in the hallway.  We are going to have a great year.  Be a part of it.