One Hundred and Eleventy
111 is the number of people attending NorthStar Church this past Easter Sunday. Around 28 of those were children birth-sixth grade. It is the most people I've seen in our worship room in a long time. It was very encouraging. I know it was Easter and you expect big attendance on Easter, but we have been averaging 65 or 70. We weren't doing any special Easter presentations. We didn't publicize other than on the website. We didn't even put pressure on our congregation to go out and invite everyone they knew. In fact we expected our number to stay about the same since we had 10 or 15 regulars who would be out for travel or sickness. By my estimation we were about 70% above our average.
Why am I bragging about numbers? I hope you see why. Its because we didn't do it. Yes, we have been obedient to God in lifting Christ in worship, preaching the scriptures faithfully, praying for God to work, and following his urgings in some small things. But from a worldy point of view these things shouldn't have produced such results. We have not put in to place a growth strategy; we have not started a slick new program; we did hire a new preacher, but he's not even here yet. By worldly standards NorthStar should have dwindled. Our "winter surge" should already be depleting. Instead we are seeing God work at NorthStar. Steadily, methodically, relentlessly He is building his church, his way, in his time. My hope is that this is just a preparation for many years of astounding growth of numbers and more importantly Spirit. I pray (you pray too please) that God is only just laying the foundation for a congregation of people that will impact North Idaho and the world with the Gospel for many centuries to come.
Stay Informed
On our blog to the right of this post are some links begging you to subscribe to this feed using a reader or to sign up for email updates. I'd like to take a moment to encourage you to also subscribe to NorthStar's Church Update feed. This feed isn't updated as often; so it won't overwhelm your reader, but it does let you know some of the most important happenings in our church life that doesn't always make it to our personal blog. If you'd rather get church updates by email you can use the form below.
Why am I bragging about numbers? I hope you see why. Its because we didn't do it. Yes, we have been obedient to God in lifting Christ in worship, preaching the scriptures faithfully, praying for God to work, and following his urgings in some small things. But from a worldy point of view these things shouldn't have produced such results. We have not put in to place a growth strategy; we have not started a slick new program; we did hire a new preacher, but he's not even here yet. By worldly standards NorthStar should have dwindled. Our "winter surge" should already be depleting. Instead we are seeing God work at NorthStar. Steadily, methodically, relentlessly He is building his church, his way, in his time. My hope is that this is just a preparation for many years of astounding growth of numbers and more importantly Spirit. I pray (you pray too please) that God is only just laying the foundation for a congregation of people that will impact North Idaho and the world with the Gospel for many centuries to come.
Stay Informed
On our blog to the right of this post are some links begging you to subscribe to this feed using a reader or to sign up for email updates. I'd like to take a moment to encourage you to also subscribe to NorthStar's Church Update feed. This feed isn't updated as often; so it won't overwhelm your reader, but it does let you know some of the most important happenings in our church life that doesn't always make it to our personal blog. If you'd rather get church updates by email you can use the form below.
That is awesome! PTL! I don't comment very often (unless it is about Laurel, that cutie) but I'm always interested to see what God is doing up there in the Big Potato.
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