“The sun comes up, its a new day dawning, its time to sing your song again.” 2013 is 291 days old and counting. Have you made your days count for something?
In January 2013 we invited people at North Pointe to pick a word for the coming year that could characterize their experiences. My word was “intrepid.” Jocelyn’s was “resolute.” Kristen Fersovitch’s was “purposeful.” A sampling of others were “crave,” “yes,” “intentional,” “influence,” and mark.” The word chosen for our church family was “awaken.” It comes from the verse, “Be up and awake to what God is doing!” Romans 13:11(The Message)
We had an expectation that God would work a spiritual awakening in the lives of people through North Pointe. This Sunday at our annual congregational meeting we’ll report on what God has done. Here’s a sample:
We have already inflated over 50 red balloons on the platform, one for each person who has awakened to faith in Jesus as their Saviour. One awakening came in the life of a father whose teenage daughter died of cancer. He awakened to the hope of heaven through Jesus in the days following her death. At our water baptisms we’ve heard touching stories of people who came to North Pointe “as they were” and awakened to God’s transformative love and grace.
North Pointe is GROWing. Our vision is to see a personal relationship with Jesus grow in everyone; everyday. 2012/13 has been the 7th year in a row where God has blessed us with an increase on Sundays and in our ministries and events. Our youth ministry had their largest turnout in September. Alpha has the most participants in the 15 years we have hosted it. Our Fall Family Carnival saw over 2,000 people in attendance. Our “Kingdom Rocks” Day Camp was sold out three weeks in advance and over 40 children asked Jesus into their life as Saviour. We had to add a 3rd Easter weekend service and anticipate adding a 3rd Christmas Eve service.
Passion to reach out to the world has been awakened in many ways. Our 2nd Annual “Walk, Run, Ride of Hope” for our orphanage/school in Harare, Zimbabwe saw over 100 people of all ages involved and raised over $11,000. We are praying and planning to raise enough money this year to provide funds to build the last piece of the Village of Hope – a multi-purpose facility to be used for worship services and community activities. Pastor Sean went to Bumjumbura, Burundi to install a sound system for a church plant with Elmer and Sherry Komant. We sent a youth team to Birch Bay Ranch and to Vancouver’s inner city in the summer. We more than doubled our budgeted giving to Missions.
Our Playschool continues to be a favourite of families. We had to increase our staff and make provision for more children. We are fully booked through to September 2014.
The construction to our east will soon result in new neighbours. The landscape is changing rapidly. In October we are distributing 7,500 “WHY Books” to our nearest neighbours.
Let’s ensure that our capacity to welcome people awakening to faith will keep pace with the growth. God is up to something very good. There are still people in our community who need miracles from the Lord. Let’s press into Him and watch Him work in supernatural ways. Be awake to what He is doing!
