A Note to My Congregation

Recently, we celebrated Vision Sunday, which was a tremendous blessing to all who attended. We invited anyone who had had experienced a significant spiritual breakthrough to come forward and light a candle. Tears filled my eyes as dozens of people streamed to the front of the sanctuary. Each one represented a special story of God's redeeming grace.

God has certainly been doing significant and wonderfull things here at Hayward Wesleyan Church.

But we must never be content with "what IS". If we merely stay where we are, "What Is" will become "What Was."

Rather, our challenge is to move forward in fatih to become ALL that God wants us to be.

With this in mind, I believe God is leading us in the following direction: In the coming months, I sense that God is calling us to. . .

1) Worship Deeper:

This, of course, relates to our services on Sunday morning -- but also to our personal lives throughout the week. How can we help families worship deeper at home? How can we help people live more in step with the Holy Spirit?

2) Pray Higher:

We need to strengthen our prayer base. This is the life-blood of our congregation. We will never be any stronger than our prayers. Let's believe boldly, have faith and trust God for great things.

3) Love Stronger:

We must strengthen the bonds of love we have for each other. As our church grows, this becomes even more important. We do not want anybody to "fall through the cracks." We must make sure we are really caring for people -- just like Jesus. My prayer is that our congregation will be known as the people who love.

4) Build Bigger:

Eventually, we are going to have to expand our building. When we began planning our present facility, we hardly had one hundred people in our church. Our building was designed for 250-300 people. Today, we're bursting at the seams, with multiple services and a congregation of 650. We have space challenges with nurseries, children's ministries and youth ministries. Our adult class rooms are often jammed full. With a woeful lack of office space, we have Pastor Tim stashed away in a classroom. Pastor Heath is in the meeting room. Pastor Jeremy is sharing a closet with our intern, Brad -- and Pastor Ben is stuck in a storage room.

Obviously, something needs to be done to rememdy this situation. For several years, we have discussed the options -- but the time for action is coming soon. Our building committee has been working with a local architect to provide some possible solutions for our space challenges.

Let's pray together for God's wisdom and direction as we embark upon this journey. Of course, the congregation will be brought along and consulted before any official action is taken.

5. Reach Wider:

God is calling us to open our hearts wide and reach out to our whole community. Let's love our neighbors and friends to Jesus! Let's reach out beyond the Hayward city limits. Let's make a difference at LCO. Let's lift our eyes to the entire northwoods of Wisconsin. Let's reach our arms around the whole world! Together, we can touch the world from Hayward! Together, we can make a difference!