The last year has been a very exciting time at St Marks….we celebrated the changes in the lives of our graduates who are moving on to a new phase in their lives. We had another awesome Praisefest where we spotlighted the many ways in which St. Marks lights our spiritual fires. 150 kids joined us for Vacation Bible School and 50 participated in Sacred Drama Camp.   46 teenagers and adults spent a week at a Work Camp in Racine, Wisconsin. St. Mark’s is a talented, active, and vibrant group and it is truly an exciting time at our church. God leads us to Share the Excitement.

 

In worship on June 19, we focused on Matthew 28:19-20 where Jesus said as he commissioned the disciples: ”Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always to the end of the age.”  

 

The message is that as followers of Christ, we are entrusted to GO forth, we cannot remain stagnant, doing what we have always done. We cannot be complacent and comfortable in our routine, instead, we must embrace change and GO and spread God’s word and God will be with us.

 

With that spirit of God guiding us to GO, the spirit of the energy of all the activities noted in the last month and the spirit of the hospitality and caring that we are known for, we ask you to pray and participate in the next stage of St Mark’s missional life as we “Share the Excitement” of St Mark’s.

 

We announced on June 26 that St Mark’s is embarking on a new all church mission to create a third Sunday morning worship service to be held in the Sanctuary. This service will be a musically driven, biblically based, non-traditional service designed to attract those outside and within our church who like to worship in a contemporary/participatory style. The specific details are not yet defined.

 

This service will be led by a musically gifted, biblically centered, spirit-filled Christian worship leader who will be involved with our congregation in the development of the service. The hiring process has begun. Our existing traditional services will remain, but logistics suggest that they should meet consecutively. The time for the new service has yet to be determined – but, most likely, will be “late” Sunday morning. Funding for this service is already in the budget.

 

The phrases “Late Sunday morning” and “in the Sanctuary” have generated the most comments so far. Why not Saturday or Sunday evening? There are several compelling answers to this but the most important is that Sunday morning is when we have the most attendees and programming to successfully welcome new people to St. Mark’s. This new service deserves our best effort and we are at our best on Sunday mornings.

 

We will seek to build upon and expand many of the strong Christian Education and Youth programs already in place. Sunday morning Christian Education is going to grow and have more options. It is a vital part of our culture, our ministry and our fellowship. We will seek to develop and expand discipleship and fellowship opportunities to welcome new attendees with the friendliness and hospitality for which we are known.

 

This is our introductory rollout announcement. We don’t have much firmed up and we, as a congregation, have a lot of work to do. We want to go into a listening and discussing phase for the next couple of months.

 

We understand that fitting a third service into our Sunday morning schedule will cause changes to occur. There will be many questions and logistical issues that we need to address and it may cause some anxiety. We want to provide each of you with a variety of opportunities to be part of the process. If you have an opinion, a talent to lend, or even a prayer, we want to give you a chance to share it.

 

In the upcoming weeks and months we will have many opportunities for you to voice your feelings and ideas about the new service and the whole Sunday morning schedule and experience. Watch for a series of small group information sessions to be scheduled. If you would be interested in hosting small group information session please contact the church office.

 

We also plan to meet with adult classes, our youth, fellowship and mission groups. We will have open forums, lunch chats and other listening and developing events. These efforts will be supported by printed materials, information on the church website, Facebook and other cutting edge venues.

 

There many opportunities for active congregational involvement such as:

· Praying with open hearts and minds

· Participating in information/feedback sessions

· Creatively helping in the service development process

· Developing new fellowship and discipleship programs

· Enhancing Christian Education/Sunday School/Youth ministries

· Fully utilizing technology/recommendations

 

We invite you to get involved in this new mission and make it special.

 

In review, we are a mission driven church and this new service is an all church mission. We have something very special and exciting here at St. Mark’s and we want to share it. Essentially this is about sharing the wonderful news of Christ with those who desire a non-traditional musically centered worship style but who still want the small church hospitality that we offer.

 

We will do this while carefully considering and including the needs, wants and desires of our existing congregation. We are good, but we want to be better. We believe that the new third service will infuse new life, energy and excitement throughout the entire church family.

 

We have purposely left much undone. Our hope is that we can have as many in our congregation as possible join in creating and authoring this next chapter in the life of St Marks. This is OUR church, this OUR Service, this is the LORD’S mission, and let’s all BE PROUD to be a part of it.

 

Let’s GO and Share the Excitement