“Find Your Light”
At PCN, we feel called by God to be a “beacon of hope, reviving the world through God’s love” with the Holy Spirit in the lead. We do this by “sharing the love of Jesus Christ, connecting with our neighbors, and growing together in worship, faith, and service.”
Most of you may have recognized the words in the opening paragraph. They are the vision and mission of our church. We seek to be a community, in word and deed, in life and ministry, to which people are drawn; a light in the darkness promising a message of hope as we share God’s love with all of those around us.
And the thing is, people are looking for hope. They’re looking for light in the midst of the gloom in a restless world. They’re looking to belong, to be valued, to be listened to, and to be loved. We all are. And in Jesus Christ, we have that which the doctor ordered. God promises exactly what we need and all that our heart, mind, and soul are looking for.
We have some good news to share, my friends, and we’re doing it. Over the past year, we’ve increased our visibility and activity in the community. We’ve better promoted and advertised our happenings on campus. We’ve increased our presence at the schools. We’ve worked to refresh our campus to help make it more welcoming, hospitable, and functional for ministry together. We’ve created a leadership model that challenges us to share responsibilities amongst our congregation knowing that creating less time-consuming commitments enables more volunteers to serve. We continue to support and develop relationships with a dozen non-profits that seek to meet needs in our community. We have presence at the Chamber of Commerce meetings, booths and city events and the farmer’s markets, and new banners and signs to show who we are and what we do.
We have shown our resilience and our ability to adapt to change. We embraced the opportunity to move back to one service and to combine two very different ways of approaching worship, with celebration and exuberance as well as reverence and meditation. We are, even now, working to bolster our music program, to search for a Music Program Director who will oversee our music program and work with the pastor and program staff to help align our music with our mission and vision.
We’ve seen our ways of connecting with each other increase with life groups, supper clubs, bible studies, sermon talk backs, Seekers, an increase in church receptions, and quarterly town halls.
The great news is this: we are living into our call from God. How awesome is that! Of course that doesn’t mean there isn’t room to grow, to learn, to adapt, to try new things, all in an effort to be faithful to who we are and who God calls us to be. We are a congregation that will continue to practice the spiritual discipline of faithful discernment. That is why each year your Session reflects on the previous year’s priorities, goals, and initiatives to revise them or to create new ones.
But this is not the whole story, because it’s not just about what your leaders are doing and the opportunities that are being created. It’s about you. It’s about us together in life and ministry. How are you being called to be a “beacon of hope, reviving the world through God’s love?” How are you “sharing the love of Jesus Christ, connecting with your neighbors, so that we can grow together in worship, faith, and service?”
The thing is, we are not all called to do the same things. We don’t have the same gifts and strengths. We don’t move through the same social circles. We come from different age groups and socioeconomic classes. We have different resources. But we all play a role in living out our call from God as a church.
So, my PCN family, let me ask you several questions. If you feel so inclined, please send me your responses ( ). I’d love to hear them and, if you choose, chat with you about them.
1) What do you want to see happen at PCN in 2024-2025?
2) What are the things you love that are happening at PCN right now? What are the things you are unhappy with?
3) What will you do in your life this coming program year to share the gospel of Jesus Christ outside of the church community?
4) How might you use your time, resources, gifts, and talents to jump into our life and ministry at PCN in the coming program year?
On September 8th, during and following worship, we will be hosting our first ever “LightFest.” This will be similar to our Ministry Fairs of the past only this time, we hope to make it fun, entertaining, worshipful, and full of opportunity to ‘find your light!’ We will be sharing about all the opportunities at PCN with which you might connect, as well as enjoying delicious food, hearing our ministry team representatives share about the work they do, and pray together. Worship will be unique with an abbreviated service and extended time for ministry team sharing. If you haven’t already, mark your calendars, invite your friends, and come on out on September 8th.
Let us ‘find & share our light’ together in this coming year.
With Joy & Hope,
Pastor Adam
