Winter Newsletter

I was skeptical when I first watched The Chosen. In my past experience, Christian films and shows tend to be poorly written with a bent towards being preachy. However, with each new episode I watched, I kept growing more and more impressed by the writing, acting, and overall production of the show. 
There were many moments I liked as I watched season one, then season two. But one scene, in the final episode of season two, stood out to me and has remained fixed in my mind since first viewing it. 
In the scene, Jesus and Matthew are standing on a hill overlooking their camp where the rest of the disciples have been working to prepare for an event. The other disciples had been bickering and arguing recently and Matthew and Jesus have this exchange:

Matthew: I hope they can find a way to work together.
Jesus: What do you mean?
Matthew: They can’t seem to agree on a single thing lately . . .
Jesus: Oh, I’ve noticed. In some ways it’s to be expected.
Matthew: But not desired, surely. 
Jesus: No. But it’s what’s bound to happen when you start something that’s open to all, truly, all people… 
A Message for All People
This exchange impacted the way I looked at the church and even Christianity as a whole. 
For years, I’ve had the frustration of trying to find the right church or group of Christians who believed the “correct” doctrine and followed God the “right” way. As one might expect, I had little luck in finding a church like that. I would grow frustrated at the contradictions or differences between denominations and practices. One church believed a certain way about baptism, another had disagreements with the type of music played on sunday morning, and still another with those qualified to be in leadership. 

This scene highlighted that it’s normal that we would have disagreements on how to live the Christian life since each person comes from a unique life experience. And more importantly, it’s to be expected. God’s not looking at all our disagreements in shock that we aren’t completely unified. 

Now, I’m not saying there are no truths we can fully rest on and believe. But I am saying that many of our practices are not necessarily the “right-way” to do Christianity. We are different. We are broken. Whenever you have people who have different stories come together, there is bound to be disagreement. It’s arrogant to think we have everything figured out perfectly. 
Great News

The good news is that God was willing to risk us misinterpreting his words, he was willing to risk us fighting over how best to follow him, he was willing to risk us yelling at each other because we don’t believe exactly the same thing as each other. God was willing to risk all that because his call to follow him is for everyone. 
In today’s world, we see groups form around very narrow ideas; you have to vote a certain way to be in the group, cheer for this one team, say this specific mantra, etc. 

Jesus is different. He didn’t only call those with a religious upbringing. He didn’t exclude those who continually struggle to do the right thing. He didn’t limit his message to the first 100 people. 
He calls everyone to follow him. That includes you too. 
That’s really great news! 
So next time you feel frustrated at your friend who belongs to a different denomination, I challenge you to pause and take some time to thank God for coming for us all before you do anything else. I think it will do us all a bit of good.

--Zach Sollie

We started up monthly church work days again! Setting aside a day to work on building projects and fix things around the church. Thanks to everyone who has shown up and helped out! Work Days are every first Monday of the month from 10AM-4PM

This year's Youthwork Giving Tree was a great success. We had 74 tags on the tree, each representing homeless or hurting youth in our community and the church came together to provides gifts for all of them. Thank you for being a vital part of that this Christmas!

Christmas Stage Night concert this year was a lot of fun! Thanks to Cambria and her band for performing some holly jolly tunes.

Celebrating the new year!

We continue to give 15% of our tithes to the Neemaland Queens & Kings Orphanage in Kenya for the building of a new dormitory and provide for the children there. Here is a collaboration of videos and some building progress pictures sent to us from Grace, who runs the orphanage.

James 1:27
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

The church has been pretty chilly for the last couple of months since the heaters went out at the beginning of winter. Especially for the kid's rooms! But we're very happy to let you know that the rooftop heaters have been successfully replaced! (as pictured) Thank you to everyone who stepped up and gave to make this happen! Your warm-hearted generosity will be felt in our church home. Literally. Praise God for his faithfulness!