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/// SUMMER UPDATE
Baptisms On Record Pace Since November 2007 God has been moving in a mighty way as seen by the record number of baptisms we’ve had at Spring of Life. During that time we’ve had the pleasure of celebrating 234 people going public with their faith through baptism! For comparison, look at the number of baptisms we’ve averaged over the past few years: 2006 - 128 2005 - 114 2004 - 136 We’re on pace to see a passage from the book of Acts come true in our time: Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved... Acts 2:47 Wouldn’t it be awesome if we celebrated our 365th baptism by next November? Imagine averaging one precious person being baptized every day over a one year period. Who do you know that you need to invite to church? Your simple invitation can be the first step towards a whole new life. Financial Update Two thousand and seven posed some serious financial challenges here at Spring of Life. In the first four months of 2007 we averaged $41,400 in giving every week. By October, that had fallen to $34,800, a decrease of 16%. Over that same period, we were transitioning the payment of the mortgage on our new worship center from our building fund to our general fund. Our elders took several steps to ensure that as a church we practiced what we preached – that we should live within our means, maintain an emergency fund and avoid using debt to fund everyday expenses. This included budget and payroll cuts. By March of 2008 our giving had increased to $46,400/week, an increase of 33% over October! In fact, our top two financial months ever have been in the period from December 2007 to March 2008. Truly, God has provided. This has allowed us to restore some of our ministry budgets, and to cautiously begin to bring back some of the staff positions we had cut in 2007, while still maintaining a significant cash reserve. Thank you for your continued faithfulness. I can’t wait to see what God has in store for us! Family Life Ministry I’m pleased to announce the formation of a new ministry at Spring of Life – Family Life Ministry. The largest demographic represented in the newer neighborhoods closest to our church building are families. Specifically, parents aged 25-45 with kids at home. They make up 81% of the people living in these neighborhoods, which are projected to grow by over 6,000 people in the next five years. To help us reach these folks, we’ve reorganized our previously separate children’s and youth departments into a new, single team, led by our long term children’s ministry pastor, Candace Plzak, whose mission is to equip parents to be the spiritual leaders of their children. Some of the exciting developments you can expect this fall: 1. Quarterly family activities for parents and kids to do together. 2. Age appropriate family devotions you can do at home. 3. Kidstuf - A service that parents and kids attend together that uses a high energy, Nickelodeon type approach to teach a different virtue each month. 4. Parenting classes. Keep looking for rollout details as the fall approaches. Daughter Church Update - Real Life Christian Church: Lead Pastor Dan Shields Our theme for 2008 continues: “Pray as if everything depends on God and work as if everything depends on us.” (St. Augustine) That is the balance we have been shooting for. I want to tell you that I have experienced the most fun 10 day stretch of ministry in my life. It started on Palm Sunday (Mar. 16th) when we had our first annual baptism Sunday. We were so excited to see 17 people get baptized. It was so moving and encouraging to see young and old declare to God and our church that Jesus was Lord of their lives. On Good Friday we held our first Good Friday service. We were blown away to see 170 people show up for this 6:30pm service. It was very moving as one by one we literally nailed our written sins onto crosses and left in silence thinking about the importance of that Good Friday. We held our very first Easter Sunday service two days later. We told people three weeks ahead of time to pray and invite friends. We sent out postcards to our community and even rented a billboard closest to where we meet to advertise to people who normally don’t go to church on a regular basis. To add an extra incentive we also decided to do a free breakfast and an Easter egg hunt after each service. We were praying that we would be close to our opening day number of 405. We were blown away when 513 people showed up. We were even more blown away when 8 people made decisions for Jesus. We are doing our best to follow up with each and every one of these people. Our goal is to quickly get them into the engine that drives our church which is our mid-week life groups. Please pray that people make this transition quickly and that we continually are raising up enough leaders to lead these people. Meet The Pastor: Candace Plzak My name is Candace Plzak and I am currently the Children’s Pastor at Spring of Life, and will soon be the Family Life Pastor. I have been married to my husband Dennis for 20 years this past January. Dennis is an environmental engineer. He grew up Catholic and went to seminary during high school. He graduated from high school as an atheist. I grew up in a difficult home and did not have any spiritual direction or church life. Dennis and I met through a mutual friend and were married after knowing each other for ten years. Dennis and I have two sons; Denny, who is 19yrs. old and in his first year of college in Oregon and Luke who is a Junior in High School. When Denny was a year old, we began taking him to church as we both felt it would be good for him. Neither Dennis nor I were Christians at the time. Within a few months I was convicted of the need for a relationship with Jesus and was baptized. This was in 1989. My life has been consistent growth in Christ since that day. My husband became a Christian a few years later. My position at Spring of Life is Children’s Pastor. I oversee the ministry for children from birth through sixth grade. I helped plant Spring of Life ten years ago and began serving the elementary age children. As the ministry expanded so did the need for oversight and more management of people, supplies and programs and I have been blessed to grow with the ministry as it did. What I do on a daily basis now is very different than when I first started. In the beginning I was actually teaching children and in close communication with every volunteer. As the church grew my role became one of more management and working with adults rather than directly with children. My role now is mainly focused on leading staff and volunteer teams to work with children. I still enjoy the times I get to spend working directly with children but I love being part of the process of helping adults to grow and learn what they can do as well. An empowered parent said to me just recently, “I can’t thank you enough for giving me the tools to connect to my child with such spiritual intimacy”. Those moments are God’s affirmation to me and keep me energized. |