Zion E-News (9-10-2020)
Seven years ago, Randy Weener approached our Consistory asking for help. At the time, Randy was serving as the Executive of our Classis. A new church plant had just lost support from their parent congregation. They were supposed to begin worship the next Sunday and now weren’t sure they have the financial or institutional support to move forward. We met with Randy and the church planter, Rob Holland, and the Consistory decided to begin supporting Lifeline Community Church. For a while, Troy Austin served on their church board and later I took his place. It was a 20 minute conversation that started our church on a new journey.
Since that first experience, we have joined Fifth Reformed and LaGrave CRC in planting City Chapel. We have partnered with Jibit Asha in planting numerous churches in Nepal, and with the RCA European Church planting initiative based in Hungary with Doug McClintic.
When our Consistory met two years ago to dream of God’s future for Zion, we saw more work in planting churches and this led us to focus on developing leaders in our congregation (which led to in part to sending Sarah McAnally to serve as a leadership resident at Harbor Wayland) and to explore a partnership with Andrew Moore to plant a new church in Grandville. Before the pandemic in March, almost as many people gathered for worship at churches we helped plant in West Michigan as gathered at Zion each Sunday. And it all began because of a prayerful step of generosity by your Consistory.
Late last year, a large church planting organization asked me to complete a survey about our church’s church planting efforts. It was a basic assessment of the work we have been doing. It took a 1/2 an hour and I did not think about it again. Until March, when Outreach Magazine called asking to include us in their list of the 100 top reproducing churches in the country. (Honestly, I told them I wasn’t interested, my Dutch upbringing taught me to not seek attention or toot my own horn, until Randy Weener told me I should talk to them.) This past week, the latest issue of Outreach Magazine came out listing the top 100 largest churches, top 100 fastest growing churches and top 100 reproducing churches. Zion made the cut as the 100th reproducing church in the country.
I am so proud to be your pastor and excited by all the people who have reconnected with God, made first time commitments to Jesus, and have for the very first time heard about the love of God in Jesus because of you and your commitment to planting new churches both here and abroad. Thank you and congratulations on this recognition.
– Greg
Connect to God
This Sunday we will gather for worship both in person and online. We will gather by the playground for an outdoor service at 9 am. If there is a likelihood of rain, we will cancel our 9 am service. We will try to announce any change in venue by Saturday night on our Facebook page.
If you are not able to join us in person or would simply prefer to not gather in a large crowd yet, you can still join us for online worship. Our 11 am service will be live streamed and you are welcome to attend worship at 11, though the focus will be on the live stream participants. We will be live streaming our 11 am service at zionreformed.online.church and Zion’s Facebook Page. We will also rebroadcast the service on WCET at noon on Friday and 4pm next Sunday.
This week, we begin a new series entitled “Christians at Our Best,” inspired by the book Christians in an Age of Outrage by Ed Stetzer. Living in a culture addicted to anger and outrage, it is easy to begin to take on the habits and practices of a world consumed with picking sides, dividing groups, and creating scapegoats. In this series, we will think together about how we can live as Christians in a way that brings the light and hope of Jesus to a world moving from one temper tantrum to another. This week, Paul urges us in Romans 12 to not be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. How are you renewing your mind? What voices are discipling you in this age of outrage?
As we prepare to begin worshipping again inside our building, we recently sent out a survey to our congregation asking if they are planning to worship indoors or online as the fall continues. If you have not yet completed this survey, you can do so at this link.
Grow in Community
We extend our congratulations to Austin and Haley Stone in the birth of their son Brayden J. Stone born last Thursday. Mother and baby are both doing well.
We have recently started a closed Zion group on Facebook to create a place to discuss sermons, share prayer requests, and stay connected asynchronously when direct face-to-face connections are more challenging. If you want to join the group, you can request to join at this link: www.facebook.com/groups/ziongrandville/
Beginning on September 27, we will hold worship at 9 am indoors. This service will also be live-streamed. We also hope to begin holding Children’s Ministry for kids ages 3 through 5th grade during worship. We will not hold a large group gathering for children and will instead have them go immediately to their classrooms. They will be in 3 classrooms and we will practice social distancing by requiring masks for children in K-5th and attempting to keep unrelated children 6 feet apart. We intend to follow the recommendations in the MI Safe Start for Schools documentation. We hope to begin holding nursery closer to Christmas, but no firm date has yet been set.
If you are volunteering in Kid’s Ministry this year, we’re having a separate training for each class. It will include room specific children’s ministry training for teachers & helpers, new Covid guidelines, and our annual Keeping Kids Safe training, which is required for anyone 18 years old and older to be eligible to serve with children. We’re excited to open up our kid’s ministry later this month. Thank you for serving in these uncertain times! The training dates are as follows:
- Sunday, September 13 at 10:30am – Training for the K-2nd team in Room 205
- Sunday, September 20 at 10:30am – Training for the Preschool team in Room 206
- Sunday, September 20 at 4:00pm – Training for the 3rd-5th team in Room 207
Serve the World
We recently received an update from Jibit Asha about their church planting work in Nepal. It begins as follows: “In spite of Covid-19, God has blessed Kingdom work. In fact, we have been reaching out more aggressively to individuals and communities with the message of hope in Christ in order that they may know the hope to which God has called us.” They continue to provide training to planters via Zoom, develop new leaders as their planters have seen the need to train people as Covid sweeps across Nepal, translate The Heidelberg Catechism into Nepalese, and to see new people explore Christianity and others to come to faith. Please join me in thanking God for their work.
If you would like to support our Personal Care Pantry, following items (full size – not travel size) are needed and can be dropped off on a Sunday morning or during the week Monday through Thursday:
Laundry Soap
Bar Soap
Dish Soap
Disposable Razors
Shampoo
Conditioner
Toothpaste
Paper Grocery Bags
Deodorant
Tampons
Maxi Pads
Paper towels (1 or 2 pack)
Toilet paper (1-4 pack)
Donations can be placed in the box in the narthex marked €pantry donations€.
Hope Eriks, through the Girl Scouts, was distributing personal care items to people through Dégagé Ministries. Through this week, she learned many homeless people in Grand Rapids are in need of warmer clothes as the summer ends. To help meet this need, we need your help. Do you have gently used sweatshirts or t-shirts you don’t need? If so, beginning Sunday, we will have two boxes in the lobby of church to accept your clothing donations. This collection will end next week Wednesday, September 16.
If you need help, either with food, personal care items, help grocery shopping, or with financial needs, please contact Chip Harkes, our chair of deacons, and he can help connect you with the appropriate resources at Zion. His e-mail is chip@harkeslandscape.com and his phone number is 616-299-4804.
Administration
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. We are especially grateful this week for all those who have adjusted their means of giving to give online, through the mail, and via text.
Fiscal Year to Date Budget: $147,087.92
Fiscal Year to Date Contribution: $122,079.51
Giving Last Week: $6,661.00
Cash on Hand: $158,436.30
