Greetings Pastors, Churches and Friends of the Northwest District of the Missionary Church!
I have a few things to share with you:
·Celebration of Gene Welliver's Wonderful Life - When: Saturday, March 3rd - which also happens to be his 80th Birthday!, Where: Valley View Evangelical Church at 1:30 p.m.’ 11501 SE Sunnyside Road, Clackamas, OR (suburb of Portland), Reception following Celebration in Church Fellowship Room, Why: To honor the faithful life of this (Grand)Father, Husband, Brother, Pastor & Friend to all, Lots of music, love & laughter, sharing of God's Goodness, In lieu of flowers, donations in Gene's honor may be sent to: (1) Northwest Missionary Church, PO Box 1949, Kingston, WA 98346 -or- (2) Pregnancy Resource Center (PRC), 7931 NE Halsey St., Ste. 100, Portland, OR 97213
·District Website – We have recently revamped our website and changed webhosting companies. We will now have more control of the website to make it user friendly for our district office staff. Stop by and take a look: www.northwestmc.org I put on several announcements that you can mark on your calendar and begin preparing for in your church. If you have any announcements that pertain to the district ministry, send it to me. Also, check the church information to make sure it is current. Send all changes to me.
·Prayer Summit – Saturday, March 17 from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm. All over our district people will be gathering to pray for the Missionary Church denomination, the Northwest District, the local churches as well as the pastors. We encourage Missionary Churches that are close to each other to gather together and pray. For those churches that are not close to another Missionary Church can gather on their own. A prayer sheet and prayer summit "help" is available on the district website under the DOWNLOAD section. This prayer sheet has a SUGGESTED schedule for the day as well as other prayer guides.
·Church Prayer Requests – Pastors and church leaders, will you take the time to send me NEW specific prayer requests. We did this last fall and it was helpful to those who pray diligently for our churches. I am only asking for maybe 4-5 condensed requests that we can put on a prayer sheet and circulate.
·District Conference 2012 - We are having our District Conference on May 31-June 1 at the Dever-Conner Community Missionary Church in Albany, Oregon. Checkout the DOWNLOADS page for information. Let me say this, the District Executive Board has batted an idea around since last District Conference. So many of you have said, “We can’t afford to spend money on gas, hotel, food and etc. associated with District Conference so that is why we don’t come!” Okay, we heard you, so this year’s conference has be reformatted. For those who cannot afford the cost of hotels and food, we have: 1) put it in a central location and 2) have made it into a one day event (Friday). We are still going to gather on Thursday night for a worship service (and personally I think this is the most important thing we can do as a district – worship together). The other thing I want to remind you of is that we need ALL…did you catch that…ALL of our credentialed pastors present…as well as ALL our churches represented!
·Proposed By-Laws – We are voting on new by-laws that will restructure our district. Download them at the district website. Look them over. Ask questions. Be ready to vote at district conference.
·Acorn Bank Breaking – Four district churches participated in the ACORN BANK breaking in 2011. Here are the totals: Faith Community Church = $101.14, Parkside Missionary Church = $1,000, Lakeview Missionary Church = $525.25 and West Valley Missionary Church = $1,286.60. Good job! Okay…for the rest of you who did not participate…I want to encourage you to give in 2012. If you need information about Acorn Banks, I can share with you what we use at our church. Drop me an email. This is a fun way to give to support the children of missionaries on the mission field!
·Bethel Coin Folders – I don’t know about you, but our church has collected a lot of quarters and sent that money to Bethel College. Our goal is to have EVERY Missionary Church in the NW District to give to Bethel College in 2012. Remember, Bethel College is OUR college. We have several former students in our district that can testify about the importance of Bethel College. They need our support….now! Pastors, circulate those con folders. Treasurers collect them and send it to Bethel (address on the back of the coin folder!) Let them know you are a supporting church from the NWD.
There you go. Thanks for your partnership in the gospel as we try and reach people for Jesus! Now, GO…and make disciples!