aftertoughts

well it is the day after the meeting where we talk about all the things we want to do this year and discuss what we thought went well last year. everyone seemed to be pleased with the things we tried to do last year-i don't know if this is because they didn't want to basically say we disappoint ourselves or if they really felt a sense of satisfaction. i'm pretty sure they felt good about what they were able to do last year. our church for its size really did a lot to help in our community and i give god all the praise and glory for that. i was really suprised as we started naming the things that we were able to do-how many things we actually did. while i was preparing i couldn't come up with nearly as many as they did (now i cheated and looked through my calendar and some other papers to remind myself, but if i hadn't done that i wouldn't have remembered half of them). i was very encouraged as they named off the things we did do.

i also took a short survey asking questions about how people thought our church gatherings were (like if they felt like they experienced god, and if they felt like the messages were useful and challenging). it seemed that everyone thought we were doing good at these things and that they felt like our church was doing good getting out in the community to try to reach people.

then we started to talk about what we want to do this year and many good ideas were talked about-and i was even more encouraged to hear them talking about ways we could reach out in the community not just to try to invite people to church but to really try to help the people. a few years ago i think the results would have been different-the focus of the people when i had the first one of these meetings was all about having a new church building and more space and how we could attract more families-which i don't want to say that it isn't important-but i was encouraged to hear that they were really thinking more about how to minister to people and not the structures. they want to get involved in the community-and i think that is awesome.

i am really looking forward to seeing what we will do this year and how we will be able to reach more people with the good news. god is good!!