By Greg Yee, Superintendent, PacNWC
I walk away from our 129th Conference Annual Meeting and Ministerial Association Annual Meeting excited and blessed! Thank you West Hills Covenant Church for lovingly and generously hosting us! Your home was a perfect space to gather, interact, and linger as we soaked in the warm beautiful sunshine God gave us. Your attention to detail and the gifts of hospitality blessed us. On behalf of the Conference – thank you!
It’s a new day for our annual meetings. We renamed it our Annual Celebration and put our focus on only essential business. We concentrated on our spiritual life together and sharing in small groups to encourage and spur each other on. We wanted to return to our roots as Mission Friends and invest in our relationship together and concentrate on our shared mission work. It was a precious time to be together.
I leave our meeting excited because we saw at least 432 people come to Christ this past year in our churches! Rob Mohrweis reminded us that we should also add the 111 students that made decisions for Christ at camp as well! I kept hearing stories of God using your Easter services to touch even more people. I can’t wait to hear about how many chose Jesus this next year! Wow!
It was also amazing to report the many ways our chaplains are ministering in settings outside our churches and how we are bringing God’s shalom through working with students, feeding and clothing people, creating space to talk about race, work with refugees and immigrants, visit prisoners, support military families, and partner with non-profits and parachurch organizations. God’s Kingdom is truly being established around and through us!
We also celebrated Iglesia Esperanza Viva, Kent, and Communitas, Spokane being voted in as member churches. And the celebration increased as we introduced three additional church plants that are being incubated: a new work in Spanaway from Esperanza Viva, Epiphany Covenant and Seattle Chinese Covenant in Bellevue. Though we have not planted any churches in two years God is now answering our prayers. I believe He is saying, “NOW, PacNWC, now…!” Wow!
What I appreciated most was our times of worship (thank you Pastor Stephen Bjorlin/Irvington Cov and Brandi Sanders!), being in Scripture, and prayer together. It was good to get back to our core. We came and sought God together.
Church, may we continue to stay watchful in prayer and as we practice the presence of God into this new year. May we see where the Spirit is leading us and boldly take steps in that direction. May we find new ways to serve and walk faithfully. May we be generous in how we share Christ with people. May we love mercy and do justice. May we plant more churches. May we step into this near year with reckless abandon. We concluded the Annual Meeting with this benediction:
Church, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Love and serve Him with your entire being. Go into all the earth and make disciples of all people and baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You are loved. Go in peace.
[Click Here] to visit our 2019 Annual Celebration Page with full report in English and Spanish, resources and more.
