Zion E-News (11-27-2019)

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For the past several weeks, people have been posting one thing each day for which they are thankful. In a similar spirit, following are some of the things I am thankful for this year:
1. Watching my kids grow up and live into their unique personalities. Ethan’s love for the drums. Noah’s love for writing. Caleb’s ever growing circle of friends. Eliana’s crafty creativity.
2. Rachel and the joy of raising our kids together, working together, and simply sharing life with my best friend.
3. Spending another holiday season with both sets of our parents.
4. All the memories from our family trip out west this Summer.
5. My pastor group and the wisdom they offer from a combined 100+ years of pastoral experience.
6. My discipleship triad and the ways God continues to speak through his word and our time together.
7. Rob Holland and Ron Radcliff and their respective work at Lifeline Community Church and City Chapel.
8. For the “older than me” saints in our church who regularly stop in to check in and pray for me. Your prayers and support are more appreciated than you know.
9. A great staff who love Jesus, Zion, and doing ministry together. They are creative, thoughtful, risk-takers, and mission focused.
10. And of course, most importantly for the gift of Jesus and life in him.

Connect to God
“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, all around the world.” At some point during the upcoming holiday season we will almost certainly hear those familiar lyrics on the radio, on a TV special, or at the mall. For many, Christmas means thousands of shimmering lights gracing trees, bushes, front porches, and sometimes entire houses, transforming the familiar landscape of our neighborhood into a cozy fantasy kingdom. Christmas means  scented red candles, the shining eyes and flushed faces of children as they come alive to the wonder of the season, and mustering an attitude of “good cheer” as we all strive to create an aura of serenity, stillness, and peace on earth. But what do we do when Advent doesn’t feel like Christmas? When life is not all warm and aglow with the joy of the season? This week, we remember Advent is not primarily about Christmas parties, but preparing for the coming of Jesus.

If you would like a copy of the worship service, you can receive a complete copy by contacting Tom Verbrugge or you can find the weekly messages on our website.

Grow in Community
Please keep Jim and Barb Overweg in your prayers as she continues dealing with severe shortness of breath. Barb underwent a heart catheterization this morning. They ask for prayers for healing, for peace prior to surgery, and for Barb to be able to breathe well again.

Serve the World
This year our Thanksgiving offering will support Good News Nepal, Forgotten Man Ministries for their folding machine, and the deacons will be shopping for local shopping for families for Christmas gifts. We encourage you to give generously and prayerfully both to the Thanksgiving offering and our general fund.

We are in the early stages of planning a trip to Kenya in June of 2021. While there, we will see the progress on Jeremiah’s church we have been supporting, have a project planned to work on, do some visiting and touring of Mahi Mahui where Jeremiah and Mary live, and finish off this trip with a Safari. If this sounds interesting to you, please contact Pastor Rick.

Administrative Details
We have recently begun accepting donations to the General Fund and Building Fund online or via text. If you are interested in supporting the ministries of Zion financially, you can do so from our website www.zionreformed.org by clicking on “Give Online Now” or text 1-616-219-2181 using one of the commands listed below:

  • Text ‘give’ to be prompted on how much you’d like to give.
  • Text ‘update’ to change the credit card or bank account you give from or to modify recurring gifts you’ve set up by text
  • Text ’50 weekly’ to set up a weekly gift of $50. Replace 50 with the amount you’d like to give. You can also replace ‘weekly’ with ‘biweekly’, ‘monthly’ or ‘yearly’.
  • Text ’50 fundname‘ to give $50 to a specific fund. Replace ‘fundname’ with the keyword General or Building to designate to specific fund. Replace 50 with the amount you’d like to give.
  • Text ‘unlink’ to unlink your phone from the text giving service so that your phone is no longer authorized to make donations

You can also give directly from our website by clicking on the  “Give Now” button below.

We continue to thank God for his provision of all of our needs and for the generous support of our congregation with their time, talent, and treasures.

Fiscal Year to date budget: $288,387.32
Fiscal Year to date contributions: $261,487.19
Thanksgiving Offering to date:  $4,142.00

Consistory Update
1. We continue to discuss our Vision 2025 plan that includes developing leadership abilities within our members, finding new ways to reach our community with the Good News of Jesus Christ, and examining how to best use our resources to plant new churches in our community and make our own worship space more useful for the Zion family, and more welcoming for visitors. If you have questions regarding the 2025 Vision, we encourage you to talk to a staff or consistory member!

2. Consistory would like to make the congregation aware that as of Oct. 31, 2019, we are running a buffet deficit of roughly $45,000. We have received roughly 81% of our budgeted amount for expenditures year-to-date.  At this point last year (2018), Zion received $40,000 more towards the general fund than the current fiscal year. We give thanks to God for the resources we have to serve Him and we continue to strive to be good stewards.

3. Church Plant Updates – City Chapel continues to look for a new place to meet for worship, in order to save on building costs. Lifeline Community Church is doing great! They have hired a new part-time communications director and are holding conversations with a local Hispanic church to possibly use the Lifeline Community building to hold worship services. Andrew and Ellen Moore, Community Reformed of Zeeland, and Zion continue to pray over a possible church plant in Grandville using a “house-church model” and explore a possible partnership. Andrew Moore has been approved to be a church planter by the RCA.

4. Consistory continues to monitor the RCA Vision 2020 plans as it relates to the future of the RCA denomination. The Vision 2020 debate centers around a variety of theological and liturgical practice differences in our denomination including issues of human sexuality. For anyone interested in learning about the Vision 2020 plans being discussed, please reach out to Pastor Greg.