Tell us about a way you’ve reached out into your community:
This year the Christian Education board changed their normal schedule of events to coincide with events happening in Wanamaker. The annual Strawberry Festival at the church was aligned with Wanamaker’s annual Pioneer Days and the annual Chili Supper was aligned with Wanamaker’s Christmas in Wanamaker event.
This move proved to be beneficial to New Bethel in that we saw more people at both events and most of those people were not current members of the church. It gave us a real strong opportunity to meet, greet, and serve our community. We are blessed.
What new thing did you try in mission or ministry?
The church congregation was fortunate to have the opportunity to hear two of our ABC returning missionary couples. The church has a ‘mission festival’ that included dinner and meet/greet each missionary. Ann Borquist was with us on October 20 and shared the ministry she and her husband had just completed in Brazil. They would soon be leaving to minister throughout southeast Asia. It was inspiring.
On October 25th, our Mission Festival continued on Sunday evening as we welcomed Bill and Ann Clemmer to our indoor annual “picnic.” No one can stun us, in their humble ways, like the Clemmers. Their South Sudan mission dodges the flames of the devil like none other. When the remote hospitals, which he had built and directed, were destroyed by militants, Bill’s simple response was, “The buildings are destroyed, but we still have the people who have been trained and who can rebuild.” what FAITH!
How has the Executive Minister and/or ABCGI staff been of assistance to your church this past year?
September 27th, after a short sabbatical, we picked up the Vision process. We all realized how important it would be to the pastor search process for a new minister to have our core values identified and to know, as a congregation, where we wanted to go in the future and who we wanted to be. Jan Goodyear from ABCGI met with the new Visioning Team and provided us with packets of information to help us move forward.
Together, as one body, we started to discern New Bethel’s future. We sought God’s answer to our question, “God, what would you have us do now?” The team asked members and businesses in the community various questions to help them discern what we should be doing. Then the team took time to think about, argue about, compromise, and work together to write the vision for New Bethel. We were led every step of the way by Jan Goodyear. She prepared us and equipped us. She taught us, and she may have even despaired of us, but she stuck with us and guided us to the point where she sort of said, “You are all grown up and can complete this work on your own.” And we did complete that important work. New Bethel has a new vision, four core values, a purpose, and a hope for the future.