An important weekend in
the life of our church

Dear First Family, 

One thing that you can always count on is that the pastor is going to encourage you to be in worship each and every week. Gathering together to experience God, proclaiming His goodness, hearing  the scriptures read, and praying for one another is vital to our maturing in our new life with Christ. 

And yet, every once in a while, we have a weekend where our presence with one another is of even greater importance to the life we share together. 

Today, I want you to know that this is one of those weekends.  

As many of you already know, as a church we are entering an intentional season of discernment regarding the future denominational affiliation of our church. 

This coming Monday, September 12th, we will begin a 40 day prayer focus that will include the opportunity for you to pray in our main sanctuary any weekday morning from 7am to 9am. 

On September 18th, we will have our first of nine Town Hall gatherings that will be focused on providing a time of education and dialogue as we move through this season together. Since some, if not many of you, are hearing about this for the first time, these gatherings will be critical to ensuring that our entire congregation is as informed as possible as we prayerfully discern our future. 

Finally, on November 13th at 2pm we will be having a Church Conference which all are welcome to attend and every member will have the opportunity to vote on the question of disaffiliating our congregation from the United Methodist denomination. 

I want to emphasize that this is not something we have sought out. Instead, it is a challenge presented to our congregation in response to the ongoing and increased division within our wider denomination. 

As we enter this season, this weekend we will be taking a break from our second season of Real Christianity. I want to speak specifically to three things: 

• How we might let faith lead us in this shared work
• Why I believe that God has uniquely equipped our church body for this sacred task
• The source of the confidence that I have in you in this challenge

I am looking forward to sharing with you my heart for you this weekend at all three services. I hope you will be present for this important weekend in the life of our church. 

I love you and I am proud of you, 
David