2024 Year In Review

December 29, 2024

Christopher C. Freeman

[Slide 1] 2024 in Review 1.) [Slide 2] The challenges of 2024 a. Sickness i. Many sicknesses throughout the year are even still floating around. ii. Bouts of whooping cough, the flu, fevers, sore throats, ear aches, and even some pesky allergies. iii. You need to be made of sterner stuff to live in MI I suppose. b. Weather i. Hurricanes Milton and Helene wreaked havoc on Florida, affecting several in our church or family of those in our church. ii. A relatively mild summer and a cold start to winter so far. c. Physical issues i. Replaced shoulders ii. We had a couple broken arms iii. Weakness for some of our aging members iv. Sore knees v. Sinus pressure vi. Poison Ivy vii. Surgeries viii. Procedures ix. And many doctor visits. d. A Floundering Economy i. Many have had to make difficult decisions about their purchases or businesses in the midst of a lagging economy. ii. Many have had to make cuts and even endure layoffs. e. Long trials i. Several have heard the word cancer uttered in their diagnosis this year. ii. Many have come through radiation or chemo or both. iii. Some among us took in special needs family members. iv. Kathy LaForest and her ongoing battle with cancer. v. Eric Beuaman’s ongoing inability to get out and around with his dizzy spells. vi. Sandy Henig and Patty Montgomery have been having issues with sleeping related to arms or legs not cooperating well. vii. The Wingate family in general has endured quite a lot. With aging sisters and saying goodbye to brothers and other family members. viii. Others of you I can’t speak about your long trial. 1. Either it was a trial of a more private nature, or one that you created for yourself, one that God taught you many painful lessons through… 2. Or still others with trials that you never told your Elders about. We’d like to pray for you and help if we can. Let us know! f. Deaths of church members, family and friends. i. Hunter Ostrand – Grandson of the Rymuts was tragically killed in January. ii. JoAnne Papple – Rod’s Mom, after a long battle with congestive heart failure, went home to be with her King in January. iii. Dale Goulette – Kristie Steary’s father, passed into glory in October after many physical ailments. iv. Helen Gilliland – Mary’s mom – went home to the Lord in early November, living many years in His service. v. Butch Miller – Corky’s cousin – died on Thanksgiving morning this year after Corky and I shared the gospel to him and his family several times. g. Lay Elders’ jobs i. We have 2 elders with jobs in flux ii. Jerry’s been without a job all year. Keep praying for him, he may have found something but isn’t sure it is the best fit for him. iii. CJ also has some uncertainty about his work. iv. Be praying for them and that the Lord would guide them well. 2.) [Slide 3] The blessings of 2024 a. Weather i. Much closer to normal weather this year ii. And a White Christmas this year! b. Numerical blessings i. Baby Levi ii. Baby Hannah c. Financial blessings i. Despite a lagging economy we have had very few if any requests from the benevolent fund from our church. ii. This could be because we are all already caring for each other. iii. It could also be because some of you are stubborn about asking the church for help. iv. Remember as a Church we exist to meet the needs of our people. Don’t hesitate to ask if you have a genuine need. d. Church property and maintenance blessings i. Electrical work at the church and the parsonage has been completed this year. ii. HVAC work at the parsonage iii. Modular has been moved, the holes filled in, and the concrete dealt with. iv. We changed lawn mowing companies this year. Now the same company who plows our snow will mow our lawns. He even gave us a great discount as new clients. e. Safety and Security blessings i. Child safety training has been set up ii. Hall monitor meeting has been completed to get ready for 2025 iii. Probably lots of other things on the horizon as Aric leads this ministry. f. Choir class blessings i. Started this year ii. 2 performances iii. Looking to continue in 2025. g. Missionary blessings i. We were able to help Barb Frost with her cataract surgery ii. Corks visited and shared the Lord’s Supper with us in May iii. Stambergs visited us in June at our church picnic iv. We housed both the Daums and the Behrendts for a time. v. And of course, have had the pleasure of having Eric and Cherie with us for the last several months. The proceeds of our Rummage sale went to help them with any expenses they may have. h. Spiritual Blessings i. 3 new professions of faith this year 1. Nathan Wegner 2. Coty Blough 3. Leland McLeod ii. 6 baptisms this year iii. 8 New Members were added iv. Due to having too many children during the Jr. church time, we have added a new intermediary class to jr. church which is set to start next week. v. We finished confessing and memorizing our Membership Covenant earlier this year. Of course we all still know it word for word an could recite it at a moment’s notice. vi. One of the things we want to be able to do as Elders is get ahead of some of the more controversial and difficult issues the church faces and come to a consensus if we can on what we think the scriptures say and how we will lead the church. This year we were able to tackle a couple of these topics – the biggest of which by far was our teaching perspective on sign gifts. i. We as a church have received the blessing of teaching – LOTS of teaching praise the Lord! i. Basics class began this year 1. Basics was a class designed to introduce us to basic theological ideas or concepts 2. We started with a very educational Islam Class 3. Later in the year we had a Defeating Darwinism class. 4. Next year we already have plans to do more studies. Stay tuned for those. ii. Wednesday Night Prayer Group 1. Wednesday night prayer group has been moved to Thursday night prayer group. 2. We meet at 6pm via the TEAMS app. 3. Most nights we pray over our congregation and our many needs and then discuss the sermon from the previous Sunday. 4. However, this year we did take a break on a few occasions to discuss a particular topic. a. We discussed what bible translations we should avoid b. We discussed why we as Christians shouldn’t watch the TV show “The Chosen” c. We discussed whether or not we as Christians ought to attend Weddings of those entering in unbiblical marriages. 5. Look for Thursday Night prayer group to have more of these one offs in 2025. iii. Youth Community changed course this year. 1. We were doing book studies through a resource known as Rooted Reservoir. A great resource for youth to study the bible and various theological topics. 2. It did become apparent that the time commitment may not have been something that we could all afford. 3. To promote systematic understanding of scripture and further accommodate our time constraints we decided to learn The Baptist Catechism together. 114 questions of doctrine. So far, we are up to question 12, but many of the kids have each of these questions down pat. That is the true goal. Not just memorization but even understanding. 4. Pray for us as we continue this on into the new year. iv. Foundations 1. We can’t seem to get past Hezekiah – but that is because during Hezekiah’s time God gave prophets to Judah to wake them up and turn them back to Him. 2. We have spent much of the year looking at Isaiah and are still there in Isaiah 53. v. Preaching 1. We have mostly only been in the book of Acts this year. 2. I have only broke from that to preach on the Sacraments or church membership. 3. Gary Montgomery was kind enough to fill in a couple weeks for me as I vacationed this year. I’m sure you’ll hear Gary preach again next year. vi. BSF 1. Although not affiliated with our church directly, Bible Study Fellowship has a long history of being a great way for people to gather and study the bible together. 2. Many members are either involved or participating in BSF this year in their study of Revelation. vii. There were several more bible studies and gatherings – most of which are a couple or few people who gather regularly to study the scriptures. j. Church finances held strong i. Even though we had several maintenance projects, and the economy being the way it is, our finances held strong this year. ii. We spent less than we budgeted. iii. Let that be an example for you and your family. iv. We were actually healthy enough to be able to give a gift to a missionary family and even make a purchase to encourage fathers to be the spiritual leaders of their families. k. We also have received the blessing of seeing some changes we made last year pan out well. i. We did our entire service at the park this year for our picnic. Although it was unseasonably cool, we will no doubt do the same again this upcoming year. ii. This year we tried having a bring your own lunch meal to two Lord’s Supper dates and then have a catered meal and taco bar for the other two. The Taco bar and Catered meal were a big hit. The bring your own lunch, not so much. So we have decided to keep the taco bar and catered meal this year and add pot lucks to the other two Lord’s Supper dates. iii. Last year we put two baptism and church membership dates on the calendar and the Lord blessed with 6 baptisms and 8 new members this year. We plan to continue this practice. As it happened, one of those baptisms occurred on the same date that we did the Lord’s Supper. It was such a blessing – we decided to do this on purpose going forward to 2025. iv. Last year we established a date to start planning the Children’s Christmas play. This was a success. The play went well. We plan to do this again next year. 3.) [Slide 4] Personal Blessings a. I again set a goal to read 24 books this year. I came SOOOO close. I am more than halfway through two books right now that are both over 500 pages long. Blessing is that I’ll get to count them on next’ year’s calendar