Growing Pains

At my previous church I was able to look out at the congregation on a Sunday morning and estimate with pretty good accuracy how many people we had in attendance. I have found that estimating our Sunday morning attendance here at Eastern Heights is much more challenging. In fact I am usually so far off I no longer attempt it. Before someone tries to draw the conclusion of the superiority of pews over chairs let me explain. The problem is that we continually have to add chairs to the sanctuary. As our average attendance increases, the more chairs we need in the sanctuary. Last Sunday I had many people comment on the number of empty seats in the sanctuary. I also noticed and assumed we had many people missing. However, we had an average Sunday for us. The difference being we once again added seats to the sanctuary as well as the fact that we now have a choir that stays in the choir loft for the entire service.

God continues to bless Eastern Heights. As we are faithful to reach out to our community, He is faithful to draw people to us who are searching for Him. With this growth comes continued change. We continue to start new Sunday School classes. On May 6 my wife, Tara, will be starting a new ladies Sunday School class. That will be the third class started since January and the fifth class started this Sunday School year. On May 20 we will be starting Worship Kids. This Sunday morning worship experience is for Kindergarten-3rd grade students and takes place during our worship service. It will not be a babysitting service, but a time to train our children how to worship.

I am very excited about all these new things going on at Eastern Heights. We have several more new experiences in store for the fall. Let us continue to reach out to the people of Bartlesville in the name of Jesus Christ.

Michael