MORE!

MORE AT SILVER CREEK FELLOWSHIP

I am excited about all of the good things that God is doing at Silver Creek Fellowship and also the things that are yet to be done! We have a clear calling from God to see His Kingdom advanced in Silverton, the surrounding area and to the ends of the earth. God has given us a vision for a glorious church in Silverton - a church that is spectacular in appearance; full of grace and hope; a community of believers who are overflowing in righteousness, peace and joy.

Our vision is a church where every man and woman, every boy and girl, is loving God and serving God, and loving each other and serving each other. Our vision is to see a local church in Silverton that is fully functioning with the patterns of church life that are described in the New Testament - a local church that is built on the prophetic and apostolic foundations of the Bible.

This call of God is massive! It will require faith, effort and sacrifice. Winston Churchill once said, "Big things attract big men. Little things attract little men. Little men usually cause trouble." Certainly the things that God is calling us to do would be in the category of "big things". You can see that at the very beginning Jesus called His disciples to be fishers of men - not boring, ineffective "pew-sitters".

We believe that God is moving us into a season of abundance and we have been led to pray for more people, more money, more influence, more children, more ministry, more faith ... more of everything! I thought I'd share with you the list of the things that I am praying for more of during this next year:

More People
The Elders are praying for 300 people. We currently average 150+ on a given Sunday and we want to see more - and not just for the sake of numbers. Our vision requires more people to facilitate. Jesus told us to pray for more workers (Luke 10:2) so we are.

More Weddings & Babies
In a healthy church there are lots of people in their 20s & 30s falling in love, getting married and having babies. We want to see more of this at Silver Creek Fellowship!

More Salvation & Baptisms
As well as physical births a healthy church should be seeing many people spiritually born again. We love to baptize people and hear their stories about how they have been changed by Jesus.

More Prayer
Prayer is vital to our success. We will continue with our prayer meeting every Thursday morning and we will call for concentrated times of prayer on a congregational basis several times this year.

More Healings
The New Testament records that everywhere that the Gospel was preached, signs & wonders followed-especially healing. We believe that God wants to demonstrate His power and authority through healings and miracles.

More Spiritual Gifts
The church is functioning as God intends when the Holy Spirit is manifested through every member functioning with the gifts that God has given them.

More Worship
Worship is the gateway into the presence of God. The scripture says that we enter his courts with thanksgiving and his gates with praise. We want more of God's manifest presence in all that we do and we want our lives and our meetings to be filled with the worship and praise.

More Youth
This is a year of transition for our youth group and a new leadership team is being developed. We are excited about the continuing growth of our youth ministry and we want to see many young people caught up in the mission of Jesus.

More Money Released for the Mission
Everything we do costs money, so the more money we have the more we can do! We believe that God has been lavishly generous towards us and we want to reflect this generosity in the way we give our money. We are praying that our regular giving would reach $20,000/month.

More Leaders Developing
Nothing happens without leadership. A key goal for us this year is to see more leaders being identified and released to serve the church. We will immediately add 6 administrative teams which will help carry more of the ministry load and will allow more people to use their gifts in service. These teams will include Sunday Morning, Youth, Children, Events & Hospitality, Building Maintenance, and Campus Maintenance.

More Training
We want church members to grow in their knowledge and understanding of God so we are encouraging many people to attend training courses.More Small GroupsWe believe that small Home Fellowship Groups are the key to church life at Silver Creek Fellowship. We will plant several new groups in 2009 and we will make a significant effort to encourage people to join in.

More Membership
We will introduce a new church membership system built around the values of Grace, Growth, Group, Generosity & Gifts. We are convinced that there are many benefits to church membership, here are just a few:
a. It identifies you as a genuine believer (Ephesians 2:19, Romans 12:5).
b. It provides a spiritual family to support and encourage you in your walk with Christ (Galatians 6:1-2, Hebrews 10:24-25).
c. It gives you a place to discover and use your gifts in ministry (1 Corinthians 12:4-27).
d. It places you under the spiritual protection of godly leaders (Hebrews 13:17, Acts 20:28-29).
e. It gives you the accountability you need to grow (Ephesians 5:21).