Video Address by Pastor Frank:
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Are we “Connecting People with God’s Love?”

I think most everybody—new and long-term member of the Iona church family—knows our mission statement: “Connecting People with God’s Love (in the spirit of John 3:16).”

I think we all agree that this is a nice slogan which we adopted by congregational vote five years ago. But what does this really mean?  How are we actually putting this into practice as a church and as church family members?

There is “evidence” that we indeed practice our mission especially in the testimonies of many newcomers who say: “I felt so welcomed by the Iona church.”

Another piece of evidence that we are true to our mission is provided by the fact that every year we take in new members on “confession of faith” which means that people do find faith and salvation in Jesus Christ.  We also hear personal testimonies at times of people that share how they did find Christ or made a new commitment to Christ and how their lives changed as a result.  I also know from many a conversation that many (if not all) of you are personally reaching out to family and friends to connect them with God’s love.

I’m not saying all this to make us feel good and especially not to make us feel complacent. There is so much else we could always do and perhaps we need to talk about our mission statement more often in terms of how we can personally reach out to others and how we can do it as a church.

Speaking of the latter, the leadership of the church was recently made aware of how we as a church family need to reach out toward each other; to “connect each other with God’s love.” Our mission statement must be evident in our internal relationships as well as our outreach to others in the community.

We have listened to you in our SPRC committee via our most recent worship survey and to servant-leaders in the church in a special open meeting (concerning the same survey).

We realize that one of the drawbacks of having two services is that not everybody has a chance to know everybody and that we need to be more intentional in our efforts to promote fellowship and unity between church family members.

We have therefore agreed that for the following months the theme of fellowship and unity needs to be a special emphasis of our mission “connecting people with God’s love.”  Without giving up on our outreach, we nevertheless are also invited to do some “inreach.”

We encourage all our members to actively seek opportunities to connect to fellow church family members you don’t know or you don’t know well.  We encourage you to join a small group or a Sunday school class, to attend the upcoming events where we can mingle and to make it a point to talk to people you may have seen, but may not know too much about.  We have several opportunities to do so at several upcoming events, such as the CD Party, (April 17th), the Youth Spagetti Dinner, (April 23rd), our combined and blended Tent Service on May 16th 2nd (10:00 AM), our second Annual Car Show, May 22nd, as well as VBS, July 12-16, and the Summer Festival in August (date to be announced).

Who knows, you may actually make new friends, perhaps even friends for life. That’s what “connecting people with God’s love” is also about.

Let’s just do it….Pastor Frank

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Upcoming themes in worship 2010:

April-May —  Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations Sermon Series

Summer (June-August) --different topics

  

September – North Africa: Nestorian and Augustinian Traditions of Worship   

October – Central Europe: Traditions of the Reformation (Reformation Day)

November – North America: Traditions of the Great Awakenings

December – Christmas Traditions from Around the World.

 

I am excited about our joint spiritual journey in 2010. 

 

 Have a blessed 2010……Pastor Frank & Brigitte