PLANT PROGRESS, CELEBRATIONS, CHALLENGES, OPPORTUNITIES as reported by lead Pastor, Wayne Ondersma.
The 1st week of this month Sue and I traveled to South Carolina and met our 8th Grandbaby. Little Kate was born in August and we are proud grandparents. I had my quarterly meeting with Immanuel CRC and talk about our partnership and the combined service that we are planning between Faith Community, Immanuel, and the PIER. It was a productive meeting.
We had our 1st meeting of our newly formed “Missions Task Force.” The PIER has decided to take 10% of our income and dedicate it toward missions. The new team consists of Chuck Uken, Curt VanHeuvelen, and Yun Suk Kang (Korean Pastor). We are setting up to meet with two people from the church who are being called by God to go out into the mission field. We are praying that God will raise us from within our midst young men and women who are called to go out locally and globally. We are setting up application process, interview process, and funding process.
The PIER was involved in the Kelloggsville Community Celebration. Over a 1000 people come out for the school and church and Dock collaborated event. I am seeing more and more graduated students coming back to the event, which opens doors Lord willing.
We introduced 30 4 3 project to the church and launched it this month. We have about 50 + names on a board that we are praying over weekly. The 27th of October we will be gathering with South Grand Rapids in hearing of the success of this campaign.
We went on a prayer walk in our neighborhood; this was the final one for the year. God opened some great doors and prayerfully we will continue to connect with our neighbors.
We had a local dance team come to one our church services and perform to a song with Christian lyrics. It was a great addition to our service and some of them stayed after for a potluck lunch.
I met with David Adams and Roger Groenboom, pastors of Immanuel CRC and Faith Community CRC to coordinate the combined service in October.
One story from our Prayer Walk:
One of the new ladies that has begun to come to our church is Darla. She is the mother of one of the students that went to the Dock and so we are excited that she is with us. Well she and a group from the PIER went out on the Prayer Walk. As they approached a family sitting on the porch, they asked if they could pray over them and if there was something specific they could pray for. Bobbi Jo answered, “No we are good.” Well the team was gracious and left. Bobbi Jo’s mother turned to her and said, “Why did you lie to them? You are having surgery tomorrow and you are half scared to death! Go and find them so they can pray over you.” Bobbi Jo started walking down the street and saw the team a long ways off. She followed them all the way to the Dock and just inside the door asked for prayer. We had about 30 people that night and we all came around her and prayed over her. The next day the surgery went well and she is on the road to recovery. I am not sure she attributes it to Jesus yet, but our God can to anything and so we are excited to see how he saves her life.
In the mean time, Darla has been following up with Bobbi Jo and we are seeing her life grow in the midst of these amazing God moments. Who knows how God is going to connect Darla and Bobbi Jo and Jesus?
