Equipping Christian Leaders to Fulfill the Great Commission
8 June 2007
One-Year Report
Leadership: I was commissioned by the Illiana Presbytery of the PCA as an evangelist in 2007, and my goal over the next year is to ordain two elders here become a full-fledged church. I have been learning how to lead a steering committee, and together we have developed a vision statement, a membership covenant, and an informational website, and have started on a constitution. I plan to begin studying Biblical Eldership with them this summer.
Worship: What a lot of thought has to go
into room setup, order of worship, bulletins, music, leadership, and scheduling!
All of this has been bathed with prayer – during steering committee meetings,
before and during church, during evening Bible study, etc. A well-
developed worship atmosphere is one of the strengths of CTR.
Membership: At this point we have 3 member families, and I have baptized 2 newborns from those families! 4 singles and 1 more couple are regular visitors. One of the singles moved out of state, so we had our first send-off service. Over the next year I’d like to see 9 family units added to membership.
Orientation and community engagement: I’ve had lunch with 4 army chaplains, 3 campus ministers and 8 local pastors and attended scores of home-school events, pastors’ prayer meetings and other inter-church meetings. In addition, I’ve spoken on missions in 3 local churches and at a Christian school, and was even asked to lead prayer once at the local Community Center! Special events at Christmas, Easter, Reformation Day and 4th of July, as well as starting a family choir, guitar lessons, and a ladies’ book club have also connected us with lots of people. Praise God for how well this has gone, and pray for the city-wide worship service, church retreat and marriage seminar we’re planning for the coming year.
Teaching: Preparing a sermon each week has been a time-consuming challenge for me, but it has been so rich to study the book of Isaiah in depth and preach through it (see website for notes and audio!) Tuesday meetings for our young men have been very meaningful for them as we’ve studied Clarkian Apologetics, Mere Christianity and other hot topics. One of the two men on the steering committee has been teaching through the Heidelberg Catechism during the Sunday School hour and the other has taught through the Peacemakers book on Sunday Evenings. The Bible teaching here is delightful!
Advertising: We developed 6 street signs to advertise our out-of-the-way location, advertised in 4 newspapers, got a radio interview at the Christian music station (planning advertisement for the Christian talk station), and got into all 3 phone books as well as the Manhattan visitor’s guide. We have plans for a billboard, too!
Missions: It has been a joy to develop guidelines concerning support of missions and mercy needs and to set a budget! We are supporting 4 cross-cultural missionaries, 2 local missions, and have responded to 6 mercy requests. I’ve also remained on the board of The TentMaker Project.
Neighborhood outreach: We have gotten to know 15 neighbor families, and although several have asked about our church, none have showed up for worship yet. One has come to our ladies’ book club, though! Our boys help too, by doing good lawn care at low prices for our neighbors! We’ve held off starting a neighborhood Bible study until we sense people desire it, but we really want to see this happen soon.
Finances: An accountant in the congregation handles the finances, and the first year, the congregation paid 56% of our salary. Our support team outside Manhattan gave 100% of our target amount to supplement that partial salary! It has been an incredible blessing to enjoy financial stability like this for the first time in many years. It’s our hope that the congregation here can grow to the point of offering a 78% salary next year; please pray toward that end.
Kid’s Corner: Amos
Hi! I’ve finished my first read through the Bible and am now back in Numbers. Speaking of Numbers, Beni is teaching me Algebra – and I LOVE it! We found out about a Christian home-school debate league called NCFCA, but they don’t just do debate; they also do speech events. So I decided to enter with a humorous interpretation of the tea party in Alice in Wonderland… and placed 5th in my speech category! (I would have tried debate but I wasn’t old enough.) This summer, all of us boys are starting a lawn mowing business. Right now we have three lawns contracted! (Not including ours, which for some reason Mama and Papa expect us to do as well.) Sometimes Beni and I have push-up wars; one of us does five, then the other does ten, then the one who started does ten more, etc., ‘till we finally make 100. Then we rest for 12 or so minutes before going to eat. Check out the Purim play I wrote and the Future Freaks book I’m writing at http://home.att.net/~nathan.wilson/kids_art.htm#Writings
Praise God for the
fun and creativity Amos brings to the family, and pray for him to continue growing
in Godly maturity. Also pray that the orthotics we just bought would help his
feet stop hurting.
Pray for all of us
to choose our daily work wisely because we have an overwhelming amount of
things to do! We’d also appreciate prayer for the Federal Vision debate at the
upcoming PCA General Assembly, for a truly restful vacation with the Shetter
family this Summer and for safety in travel with two teenage drivers!
Praise God for the
delightful fellowship He has raised up at Christ the Redeemer, and pray that He
would help us be faithful to spread the Gospel and that He would raise up more
people to join our fellowship (Acts 13:47-49).
Praise God for
bringing us through the winter colds! However, our newest addition, Aletheia,
has a high palate, which has resulted in difficulty nursing and poor weight gain.
After a lot of work, she is starting to look fat and happy, but please pray
that God would cause her to start nursing properly.
Donations: Christ the Redeemer Church, POB 1007, Manhattan, KS 66505 * 785-537-9377 * www.ctrchurch-mhk.org
Nate & Paula Wilson, * www.NateWilsonFamily.Net