Friday Six

1.  This Sunday I’m beginning a two part message series entitled Two-Gather.  It’s about belonging to a community of faith, emphasizing the importance of having the right kind of people in your life.  It’s the right message for this time of year (when people are feeling highly relational with family and friends) and also paves the way for some things we want to emphasize in 2012 (which is just twenty-nine days away.  The message this Sunday will very instructional for the PCC family and especially good for young people.  And yes, I will invite those who are far from God to turn to Christ.

2.  This Sunday we are also announcing the special Christmas Offering to be received in the month of December.  The money from this offering will be used to fund some exciting initiatives we have planned for 2012.  All the information will be provided.

3.  The state of our finances looks like this:  Year-to-date our income has increased 4% and we have cut expenses 3%.  Although it was better earlier in the year, those are still good numbers in both directions.  That’s a net gain of 7%, which means we are on tract to conclude the year pretty strong.  If we have an exceptional month in December, these numbers will be even much better.

4.  Ch-ch-ch-changes.  We are forming a new plan for 2012.  For the last several weeks we have been ruthlessly evaluating our current ministries and their effectiveness, as well as brainstorming for next year, and have arrived at some conclusions.  There’s still a lot to do, the work is unfinished, but we now have clarity about what we should emphasize and what not to emphasize.  We are calling it New Year, New Beginning.  It’s all positive.  I am as excited about this as I have been about anything in a long time.   On January 1st, the first Sunday of 2012, we will pull the trigger.  FYI, one of the changes involves our second service.

5.  So much is going on in the month of December that you probably won’t want to miss a single Sunday.  Keep yourself in the information loop.  Next week on this blog I will write in detail about some of this.

6.  We finally got new carpet down at my house.  It’s nice to not be walking on unfinished concrete.