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Bereavement, Grief & Loss Workshop, 2018 Key Ministry Initiatives (Pastoral Emphasis for 1/28)

Please be in prayer for those are are going through bereavement.  Sis. Staci Torrence lost her mother last week and Elder Wilbur Lucas' youngest sister passed away yesterday.  Please keep them and their families in your prayers.

Yesterday, we had a great Grief and Loss Workshop.  A couple of items really stood out to me.  One was that we often associate grief and loss with death but people can experience it over the loss of health, job, relationships, and more.  Another item was the reinforcement that it's okay to pour out your emotions to God.  God had the Psalms recorded to let us know it's okay.  David vented his feeling to the Lord in the midst of his suffering but he would always end on the steadfast love of God. All kinds of suffering (including grief and loss) are intended to train us to fix our eyes on the Lord.  We praise God for Deaconess Tasha Smith who did a great job conducting the workshop.

After the service, we had our Church Family Meeting.  We reviewed the highlights of things we were able to accomplish in 2017 all by the grace of God.  And we presented a few key ministry initiatives for 2018.  Since our 2018 theme is Maturing in Christ: Growing & Reproducing Spiritually, we'll be focusing on maturing and helping members to grow and make disciples this year.  To support that we're doing the following:
  • Added 3rd Sunday for Men's & Women's Sunday School class 
  • Revamp of Sunday School 
  • Reinstated New Believers Class (on quarterly basis)
  • Theological Seminars on Urban Apologetics (specifically address Black Hebrew Israelites), How to Study the Bible 
  • Children/Youth Ministry Changes

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