Dear Faith Baptist Family,
Well, what a year we had. The good news though: If you’re reading this right now it means you made it! You made it through a year full of change, challenge, and promise. Before we look back together at what God has done this year I need to pause and just say THANKS. Thanks to each and every one of you who stuck it out with me through my first year of ministry at FBC. Thanks to each of you who encouraged Kayli and I over the last year with your notes, words, and presence. Thanks to each of you who had the courage to offer constructive feedback about changes that were made. Thanks for partnering with our staff in doing some AMAZING outreach like Famfest and Christmas and Easter. Finally thanks for giving me the grace necessary to continue grow into all that it is to be Pastor of Faith Baptist Mill Creek. You guys rock!
As we move forward together into 2014 it’s important that we pause to reflect back on all that we saw God do in our midst last year. As I think back on the year I feel compelled to share one of my favorite verses in Scripture from Matthew 6:33. There Jesus promises His disciples,
“Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
As we look back on 2013 together I can’t think of a better verse than that one to sum up the year. While I wish I could say that last year was an easy, carefree, everything-went-the-way-it-was-supposed-to year I’d be lying if I did! Rather, last year was a year where God preserved and grew us through some incredibly challenging seasons of change and transformation. Yet at the end of it all as I look back I see that Christ’s promise has indeed been proven true. He really did provide. As we continued to seek His glory, His renown, and His Kingdom first in our church He stepped up and gave us the grace that was necessary to continue to move forward in faithfulness. God really is good, and the below are just a few of the ways I saw that goodness at work in our church family this year.
Outreach
My biggest priority for our church last year was without a doubt, outreach. Why? Because Faith Baptist family, we have been truly blessed! To have this building on this land in this location provides us with an unbelievable opportunity to be a beacon of light to Mill Creek, Batavia, Geneva, and beyond. The biggest reason I wanted outreach to be such a focus for us though was very personal. You see before I started the interviewing process at FBC Kayli and I had lived in the Mill Creek community for some 2+ years without having heard a word about the church. What was so heartbreaking about that to me was that the more I got to know all of you the more I realized what a hidden gem the church is!
In the middle of a neighborhood where people are starved for real relationships, we’re a family that’s there for each other. In the midst of a community killing itself with busyness, we’re a place they can slow down. In the heart of an area filled with people devoted to selfish pursuits that can only leave them empty, we’re a place they can learn to live for something bigger than them. That’s why we do outreach, because we know that we’ve got something to offer the world they won’t find anywhere but here!
I could write all day about our outreach efforts last year, but needless to say they were impressive! I was amazed at how well our church family responded to the call to get the word out about our Easter services as we stepped out in faith by knocking on every door in the Mill Creek community with an invitation to one of two services that Sunday. The result? We had more people worship with us on Easter Sunday this year than we’d had worship with us on any other Sunday over the past 15 years. Wow! 
Later in the summer we continued to step out in faith by hosting Famfest, an ambitious outreach event way bigger than anything our church had put on before. Again, you guys stepped up! Thanks to the volunteer efforts of 40+ members, and the dedication of a very committed planning team we were able to minister the love of Christ to 500+ people. Wow!
Another major outreach we did this year was to launch our Bright Beginnings Children’s Day Out program. The fact that we now have a functioning preschool running out of our church is truly a gift of God. I wish I could take credit for it, but the fact is that God has, from before I even started at FBC, been sovereignly positioning everything into place to make it happen. From bringing Kim to us to lead the program, to giving our Operations Board the faith necessary to step out and start it, to providing us with over 16 different families that are currently enrolled after starting with just four in September, God has shown that He believes in what we’re doing with Bright Beginnings!
Perhaps the most exciting thing about our Outreach in 2013 is that it was just the beginning. Friends it will take years, not months, for a church like ours to become known, trusted, and valued in our community. Yet because of what we started in 2013, by the grace of God we are well on our way to becoming that church of the future that is filled to the brim each Sunday with families experiencing the love of Christ together.
Institutional
Alongside the great outreach efforts of our church in 2013 were a number of very important institutional changes that we worked out together. The first of these institutional changes was a revamp of our church staff that refocused our resources away from “support” positions to ministry ones. Those changes resulted in the hiring of Aubree in March who, as her supervisor and direct report, I can say is a real gift from God to all of us here at FBC. As mentioned above we also hired Kim on as our Bright Beginnings Program Director which has allowed us to make further inroads within the Mill Creek, Batavia, and Geneva communities.
In addition to those hires we came together as a church family to deliver a much-needed update to our constitution. We spent enough time discussing the changes over a number of months that it’s not necessary to re-hash the reasons for them here, but suffice it to say that our new governance will allow us to be more effective and fluid in our decision making process than ever before. I know that the Constitution revision process was not handled perfectly and that we walked through some very difficult times together throughout, however I could not be prouder of how we all came together at the end of it to pass it through.
In conclusion, were I to document ALL the ways that I’ve seen God at work this year and reasons we have to celebrate I’d need a lot more space than these few pages! Friends God has truly blessed us this year and the best is yet to come. I count serving as Pastor of Faith Baptist Mill Creek to be among the greatest privileges of my life, and I am truly blessed to be entering into another year with you all. I can think of no better way to end than to share with you these words of Paul’s that are so true of my heart for each of you.
“[I] give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in my prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thess. 1:2-3)
Soli Deo Gloria (To God Alone Be the Glory),
Pastor Grant