With the halfway point of 2005 now upon us, I thought it would be a good thing to revisit where we are with what the Lord gave us earlier this year as our word for the year. Do you remember it? PERSISTENCE is the word.

When I brought this word in January, I shared with you four key areas that I sensed the Lord would have us be especially PERSISTENT as a church family. Those four areas are as follows:

The moment we cease being a people who hunger and thirst for Jesus, we cease being a church. Let's endeavor to grow deeper and stronger in Jesus this year!

If your regular quiet time with Jesus has gone by the wayside already, let this be a gentle nudge to not give up – persist in your pursuit of Jesus. If you need a little help, pick up one of our 2005 Daily Bible Reading Calendars from the foyer and jump on board with us.

Our mission remains "Building Bigger Hearts & Better Lives". We exist as a church for specific purposes – to THANK God (worship), TEACH God's Word (discipleship), TOUCH people with God's Love (ministry), and TELL the world about God's Son (evangelism).

We will endeavor to see the strengthening of relationships with one another, through fellowship, small groups, and teaching. Look for increased opportunities for fellowship and friendship building as a church family,

For most of this year already, we've journeyed through a series of teachings on conflict called, "Living in Community Without Driving Each Other Crazy". It has been a launching point for us to discover how the Lord would have us live in loving, living, and growing relationship with one another and it applies to all kinds of relationships we all have in life.

Though we're nearing the conclusion of the series, we'll have tape and CD albums of it available in the Fall for your own personal library. Keep your eyes open for this news.

Also this Fall, I am excited about a series I am developing now called, "Emotionally Healthy Spirituality", which will be particularly freeing to how we deal with our relationship with God and others. We've by and large been trained to separate our emotional health from our spiritual maturity and I've learned that it can't be done if you want real and deep spiritual maturity in your life. How do we live with these two areas rightly intertwined? We'll discover that as we continue to PERSIST in our personal relationships

"We could potentially finally see our Sanctuary expansion come to fruition by the end of 2005!" That's what I said at the start of the year and we are still on track for this possibility! We hope to have our initial building permit in hand by the end of the Summer, along with actual bids for the project. From there, it's a matter of pulling our finances together. Thank you for giving, keep it going, and let's pray together toward fruitfulness and good stewardship of ALL the resources the Lord has given us, including our property.