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October 2007 Pastoral Letter

 

Dear Members and Friends of First Church,

This is my monthly greeting from warm and sunny Bonita Springs to our friends scattered far and wide across the land. I hope that this letter reaches you as you are enjoying the fall season. All is well here in Florida, and we look forward to welcoming you back whenever your travel plans bring you south.

As usual, I would like to take a couple minutes of your time to give you a quick news update on happenings here at your church home in Bonita. The biggest news is that we have a completely redesigned church website. It is much brighter and more attractive, and has a great deal more information on it. I hope you’ll visit us at fpcbonita.org – not just once, but often. You will find updates on our events and plans, as well as recent sermons and lots of other features. I’d love to get your feedback on the website!

Our worship services lately have included a wonderful Sunday of celebration on September 23 as we welcomed the Confirmation Class. Twelve teens joined our church, after months of working closely with Director of Family Ministries Dan Oedy. It is exciting to see their commitment to the Lord and their desire to walk closely with Him. Dan and his assistant Tom Bunt are doing a terrific job with our teens. And speaking of Dan: he is pursuing at an accelerated pace his seminary studies towards a Master of Divinity degree at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. The Session is working with our Presbytery to develop a plan that will allow Dan to finish his seminary training and be ordained to the ministry as an Associate Pastor of our church. We will be keeping you informed about how this plan develops.

I am preaching a series of messages this fall entitled GREAT HUNGERS OF THE MODERN WORLD, based on passages from the New Testament Book of Acts. Though we all have enough to fill our stomachs each day, there are certain “hungers” of the soul that mere food does not satisfy, and I am talking about those. As the scripture says, “Man shall not live by bread alone.”

Our fall and winter season is shaping up to be a very busy one. Adult Sunday school and Pastor’s Studies are beginning, along with various men’s and women’s Bible studies. You will be receiving in the mail in the next few weeks detailed brochures about both the annual Concert Series and the Bonita Christian Forum (speaker series). I encourage you to consider becoming a supporting sponsor of one or both of these outreach ministries.

The church’s mortgage has been restructured and a substantial amount of our debt has been paid off, thanks to contributions received so far to our Capital Campaign. A principal payment of $800,000 was made in September, reducing our outstanding loan to $1.6 million. We expect that another substantial payment will be made by December 31, as the congregation makes year-end contributions. If you have pledged to the Capital Campaign over three years and find it possible to pay off your entire pledge early, that would help us tremendously!

We are hoping to select and hire a new Director of Children’s Ministries before the end of October. When that person joins our team we will be providing a bio and further information in our bulletin and on the website. Stay tuned for this breaking news!

I would love to hear from you at any time (an is very easy to do) – especially if you have any joys or prayer concerns to share with me and the other pastors of the church. Until I see you face-to-face in Florida, may the Lord be with you!

Yours in Christ,

Pastor Doug Pratt