PCC Newz

Family Chat Update. Do you remember the family chat from five weeks ago? It was January 2, Vision Sunday. In that Sunday morning message I shared with you information about the financial state of our church. Enough time has elapsed that I would now like to give you an update. That information will be shared this Sunday. It will be a written update inserted in the bulletin.

Current Series (“What Jesus Said About Eternal Life & Salvation”) Continues for February. This Sunday will be part 5 – “Jesus Seeks & Saves the Lost” – and is based upon the life of Zacchaeus the tax collector. So far we have looked at these topics:

• The Straight & Narrow Way (Part 1)
• Jesus Calls for a New Birth – Nicodemus (Part 2)
• Jesus Demands True Worship – Woman at Well (Part 3)
• Jesus Expects Repentance & Life Change – Mathew (Part 4)

New Series Begins March 6th - This series is entitled “Overcoming Hardships through Faithfulness” and is based upon the life of Joseph in the book of Genesis. It will be a verse-by-verse exposition of one of the greatest stories in the entire Bible. We’ll talk about dysfunctional families, generational curses, sexual tension in the workplace, suffering for doing good, lessons from the school of hard knocks, on-the-job integrity, reaping & sowing, forgiveness among family members, and much, much more. Some of the working titles are:

• Surviving an Imperfect Family
• Persecuted When Innocent
• Overcoming Sexual Temptation
• What to do When You’ve Been Treated Unjustly
• Where Character is Forged
• Promotion Comes from the Lord
• Healing for Emotional Wounds & Deep Hurts
• Learning to Forgive – the Ultimate Test
• Big Boys Do Cry! – Learning to Let it Out
• Seeing Purpose in Suffering

The Age-Level Ministries of PCC are being Restructured. This is the next step of a master plan we have been working on for months. Our church has been through a lot of changes in the last eight or nine months in an effort to improve ministry effectiveness as we continue growing. We have established a campus-wide security team, improved the check-in and security procedures in the children’s hallway, and implemented a background check for those working with minors. We have added new people to key positions throughout the church, and reassigned others. There has been a leadership transition in the teen ministry. Most of these changes have been behind the scenes.

The most visible have been those in the adult service. We have experimented with the offering, and made changes in the way we conclude service. The worship band now has 2-3 worship teams, with new musicians and singers added to the mix. All the positions on stage have been cross-trained with others so that an alternate is always available. Adjustments have also been made in the sound booth. After much trial and error we are finally getting into a rhythm and finding our stride.

Now we are now turning our attention to the age-level ministries of PCC. We are absolutely confident that the end product is going to be first-class. There is a great team of people in place who are highly motivated, flexible, and anxious to do great things. Some of the things we are working on are: expanding the nursery, developing a new toddler’s class, room reassignments, developing additional team members, and implementing a new curriculum.

The new curriculum is unique in that it deliberately targets the parents to be involved in the spiritual formation of their own children. We believe the home enviroment is the greatest influence in the life of a child or student. We also believe that PCC has a key role in partnering with parents to deliberately engage them in making their home a place of spiritual instruction. The reason for this is obvious: Over the course one year, a child or teen will be in a student ministry about 40-50 hours, while the parents will have the opportunity to spend up to 3,000 hours with their children. It just makes good sense to train the parents as much as we are teaching the kids, so that most of the spiritual formation will take place in the home.

This represents a paradigm shift in the way we will do ministry to children. Gene Tharp has been assigned as the head overseer of the age-level ministries. This is big.

Our Church is Going to Get a New Web Site! It’s time for a makeover for our church’s website. The new web site will offer easier navigation, a sleeker look, offers features for uploading audio sermons online, sermon notes online, a monthly calendar, and a whole bunch of other neat things. I’m certain it will be very beneficial to our church family as well as present a better appearance to the public. I’m pretty excited about this. It will take a few weeks to get this job completed.

New Times for Sunday Services. Okay. We’ve been talking about this for a while. It’s almost time to pull the trigger and just make it happen. Over the course of the last year we’ve talked about changing the service times, going back to one service, or just leaving things alone. We’ve gone back and forth on this matter time and time again. After giving it plenty time to percolate, we have decided that we are fully committed to two services. We also believe that changing our service times will help us in a lot of ways. Our decision is to move both services UP by 30 minutes EARLIER. The new service times would be 9:00 AM & 10:30 AM. Believe me, there are lot of reasons for this and I simply don’t have the time or space to explain them all.

We will make this change at the end of March, which is AFTER daylight savings time begins and the days are longer.

We’ve Implemented a New Friday Casual Dress Code for the Offices. At PCC our dress code is business casual. We think this is a good standard to maintain. When everyone is dressed sharp, in a business manner, it tends raise morale among everyone. We look like a team of experts, not a group of slobs, and performance goes up. It also helps in the way that others perceive us. Rather than looking down on us as entry-level amateurs; we are looked to for guidance, thus improving our leadership effectiveness.

Having said that, we are now changing the dress code a little, allowing for jeans on Friday. Here’s how the casual Friday & jeans dress code reads:

Jeans should be clean and pressed. While they don’t have to be new, they should not look old, baggy, or ill fitting. Do not wear ripped, torn, frayed, or tattered jeans. Go for a “put together” look. You can wear jeans and still have an appearance that looks sharp and put together.

Wearing jeans doesn’t mean looking frumpy or disheveled. Remember, you are coming to work in an office environment; not to do yard work. Men should always wear shirts with collars. No T-shirts. Always wear regular shoes with jeans; the type you normally wear with business casual outfits. Never wear sneakers or flip flops.

Unacceptable: Cutoffs, Athletic wear, gym clothes, Spandex, biker shorts, Sneakers, T-shirts, Underwear as outer wear, Beach wear, Midriff length tops, Provocative attire, Spaghetti strap tops, Shirts that expose the stomach, Exposed bra straps

Always use common sense.

Painting. The painting project in the children’s hallway and class rooms is almost complete. Nice color schemes have been selected, which is creating a better ministry “environment” for kids. Donnie Smith and John Wise have been painting here since Thanksgiving and are doing an exceptional job!

Friday Volunteers. The building is full of people right now. We just finished having breakfast togther: gravy, biscuts, omlets, grits, apple dumplings, fruit cups drizzled with honey, and hash brown potatoes. Now everyone is going back to work cleaning the building and getting ready for Sunday services. This is a great group of people and I enjoy sharing time with them. If you'd like to join us any Friday, feel free to do so. Just show up about 8:30 AM. Best breakfast in town.