This Summer at NWH...

I love barbeques. I'll even be so bold to say I think everyone loves barbeques. Our church is going to do some barbequing this summer. In fact, we're going to barbeque every Sunday.

Why?
Two reasons, in no particular order:
First, it gives us a chance to get to know our congregation better. Similar to the "family picnic" we've done for the last couple years here on the church grounds, we get to come together after the second service, enjoy some food together and spend time talking to old friends and meeting new ones.
Second, it gives us an opportunity to reach out to our community. If we know there will be burgers and hotdogs after church each Sunday, why not invite neighbors and friends to come to a service and enjoy lunch afterward?

Who?
To make it happen, it will take some planning and some people with hearts to serve the church and our community. We hope to get people in various ministry teams within the church (e.g. Growing Families group, College ministry, Worship ministry, etc.) to commit to serving on 1 or 2 of the nine Sundays between June 28th and August 23rd. The team will need to attend the first service, and spend the second service setting up the barbeque, cooking, setting up tables, etc, and will also need to plan to clean up afterward.

How?
Some might ask if it's feasible; i.e. can we afford it and can we coordinate it? The plan is let the people in the church coordinate it, as mentioned above. We have some budget dollars alloted for summer events, and will also supplement that with a $2 charge for lunch (if you are bringing a guest, they won't be charged for lunch).

Catch the Barbeque Vision
What do you think? Would you invite someone you know to church and a barbeque? Would you enjoy having lunch with our church body after services? If our church catches this vision, would it be a successful outreach? Can we, as a team, take on at least one Sunday barbeque? I propose that we pray about this and see if we can be enthusiastic supporters of this event. We won't have our regular first-Sunday team lunches for the summer, so that opens us up to taking over at least one of the barbeques. Let me know what you think, or if you have questions.

Let's Eat !

Our next team lunch is this Sunday, March 1st. We're going to meet in the brown house again at 12:30 and enjoy a Potato Bar! These are great times to get togther, eat, talk and just hang out with others on our ministry team. Please find time to come by! Please let me know if you'll be there and we'll let you know what you can bring.

Making an Impact

Our church puts a lot of value on our Holiday Services. Instead of putting effort into a pre-Christmas "pagaent" or a pre-Easter celebration as some churches do, our leadership has found that the greatest impact for reaching people with the gospel of Jesus Christ is to focus on the "day" itself (i.e. Christmas Eve, and Easter Morning). The people who show up to pre-holiday "events" tend to be those who are already involved in the church. On the other hand, a lot of people who may not go to church will come on the actual holidays. The number of people who attend NWH weekly services during the school year is usually in the 470 to 570 range. Compare that to Christmas Eve services, which had attendance of 740 and 853 for the last two years (respectively), and Easter, which had 986 in '06, and 1080 in '07. As many of you know, we tend to put a lot of effort into Christmas Eve and Easter Morning services, and this is why. We consider this a "built-in" evangelistic opportunity. We try to put together a service that allows believers to celebrate the greatness of those days, while also delivering a clear gospel message. My reason for sharing this is to let you know that the sacrifices you've made for those services (time and effort) is well worth it. Also, I hope that you will catch the vision that leadership has for the opportunities created by those holiday services. Have you been involved in any of the holiday services? I know many (most) of you have, and I hope you have noticed the number of people - regular attenders and visitors - who have attended those services and been blessed. I hope some people have told you just how much they appreciate it. Many have told me, so I'll just pass that along to you now: you are appreciated! We may never know how many lives have been impacted directly, but be confident that your commitment to giving your best has helped the message of hope in Jesus Christ be communicated.

I'm looking forward to serving with many of you again at Easter. Our goal this year is to approach the services much like our last Christmas Eve service, with a combination of music, singing, and concise messages conveying the life-change that God offers through His son. Please add Easter to your list of things to be praying about. Consider if-and-how you'd like to be involved with your time and talents this year to make Easter an offering of our best, for His glory.

Mark your Calendars

Coming up! Plan to be part of these opportunities... they're a great way to get closer to your church family and to get motivated to become even more involved in our church vision.

Baptism Service, Feb 22, 4:30pm at the Osborn Aquatic Center
Have you been baptized? Know anyone who wants to be? There's an opportunity coming up on February 22 at the Aquatic Center. 4:30pm. Plan to come and be a part of this service, even if you're not being baptized.

ONE meeting, Mar 8, 6pm
The format for these meetings has changed to include an extended time of prayer for each other and for the various ministries at NWH. If you didn't make it to the last meeting, come and find out how great this time is. It's an opportunity for our ministry team to get to know the needs within the church and stay up-to-date with various other ministry work being done.

Congregational Meeting, Mar 15, 6pm
Another opportunity to stay in touch with church plans and proposals. You'll get more of the "business-side" of NWH updates at this meeting... a great followup to the ONE meeting the previous week.

Powerful and Effective...

We've been praying specifically for some people in our ministry and I wanted to post these links where you can get some updates. It's awesome to see how God's been answering prayer. Let me know if you have any additional updates to add to these.
Click here to get caught up on Jessi Furlo's condition.
Click here to get caught up on the birth of Houston Young

The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. James 5:16

Local Worship Conference/Concert

Worship Northwest is happening again this year; a great local conference opportunity, including a concert with Big Daddy Weave (who brought us songs like Audience of One, Christ is Come and others). Click here to get to the Worship Northwest website. Here's an excerpt about the conference:

Worship Northwest is [organized by] a multi-denominational group of Oregon worship pastors who have a heart and a passion for encouraging worship leaders and worship teams throughout the Northwest. Now in its tenth year, this conference has been attended by hundreds of worship teams from five western states, representing a wide variety of worship traditions. More than 1200 people from 233 church throughout the Northwest joined together at the 2005 conference...

I've heard from at least one person on our team who'd like to go. I'd personally love to go, but would be even more excited to see some of us get the chance to go as a team. Please let me know in the next few days if you're interested.

Christmas Eve at NWH

Hey - just want to say thanks to all who were involved in the Christmas Eve service, and to those who came to join in the worship as well. Dave Faddis, Luke Buchanan, Doug Easton, Maddie Berry, Jason and Emily DeMoe, John Dougherty and Elissa Smith did an outstanding job of creating a seamless service, allowing the Gospel to be delivered clearly. It really took an incredible amount of work for some of you, and I (and the church) really appreciate it. Since I'm mentioning it, I should remember those who've served in the past as well, in case I never extended the thanks for your huge efforts: Gretchen VanderPlas, Dave Snider, Mike Hiller, Tim Karplus, Stephen Wagner, Doug and Jane Easton, Andy and Sheri Phillips, Jim Clark, John Stanley, Linda Fox, ...and I probably have missed someone... thanks for making our Christmas Eves an awesome time of worship at NWH.

-paul