Greetings friends,
Yesterday was our annual congregational meeting at both Dayton & Polson churches and we talked about where we have been, where we are now, and where we are headed.
We have had a full and productive year in 2022 and we look back with gratitude to God for all of it. It is always worth remembering throughout the entire year, we lived out our mission to “renew our faith, grow our faith, and live our faith. Together, we are a community which is welcoming, supportive, renewing, and empowering.” This mission has been lived out every Sunday on which we gathered to worship and it is lived out in countless ways in the lives of our congregation. God calls us to faithfulness and through his Holy Spirit we faithfully followed Christ in our lives to the glory of God the Father.
This year marked a significant milestone in the life of the church as we gathered together at Pentecost and celebrated our new relationship as church and pastor. The congregations of both churches have responded with renewed energy and enthusiasm for the work of the church. Both churches saw new members join and we have seen increased attendance at both also. This last year has also found us gathered for baptisms in Flathead Lake, outdoor worship in the park, Thanksgiving feasts, and the remembrance of those who have passed. Another gathering which is just beginning is among the youth who have gone boating together, bowling together, and together made pizzas from scratch at the Youth Christmas Party.
We’ve made changes internally to how we operate so that we can be more effective in our message and more efficient with our time. This has included updates to the website and other places of digital presence as well as standardized contact methods. The Monday Morning News has been migrated to a new format and we’ve made many improvements behind the scenes that allow us to utilize shared digital resources rather than duplicated paper ones.
In this next year, we will continue to live out our faithfulness to God and faithfulness to the mission which he sets before us. We have opportunities for increased partnership between the Parish churches of Dayton and Polson. We also have the opportunity to apply our renewed energy to the existing ministries and connections of the church. With new members also comes new ways to join with each other in mission and ministry as we learn the gifts and passions of those who are new to our fellowship.
God has been faithful to us this past year and he will certainly be faithful in the year to come. God is good - all the time! All the time - God is good!
Peace,
