This past Tuesday our staff office team had a review and evaluation time of the summer events, programs, teaching, and ministries we had as part of the life and LifeWay for the summer of 2023. It was productive for review, but far more importantly we had to ask ourselves ‘was it productive when we measure our goals. So… what was our goal? The goal was our theme for all things post Easter (May – August). The theme was Engage! Engage with God – Engage with one another – Engage in growing as a Disciple – Engage with our Community – and Engage with God’s mission. Of course we could always do better, but our basic evaluation was that it might one of the better summers we have had in a while, and compared to the previous three summers (2020, 2021, 2022) it was SO much more fulfilling and productive. Let me do a quick review with you:
- “Engage the Generations Weekends” in May – Kids Sunday and Mothers Day Sunday. Parents night out… teach your kids to fish day – A first for us to try to build bridges into kids and parents lives.
- Kids Day Camps: the first time ever to have the summer bookended with a 3 day June outreach camp, then a late August outreach day camp. (by the way – thank you so much for all the workers who put this together!!!)
- July 2nd Holiday weekend outdoor service and picnic under our tent! Very fun – very engaging – added some enjoyable and needed lunch fellowship around this American holiday.
- Engaging with the World: Do you realize how many national and foreign missionaries we have had share with our church over the summer? More than I ever remember. We had reports from our short term team who did ministry in Eastern Europe; our team that served in west Asia; our partner in New York City; our partners on the border of Asia and Europe; our friends who are moving to Japan; a team of college students headed to all parts of Asia; plus we had a few of our people serve in Mexico. We are not even finished with this one yet as we will get a chance to visit with our workers in Hungary, Russia and Ukraine plus another new friend who will be serving in a part of SE Asia.
- Youth ‘Fuge’ Camp! We saw a great group of teens go for the 2nd year in a row to join 400 other NW teens for a tremendous summer camp. There is almost nothing better than Summer Teen Camp. We will certainly be doing this again.
- Kayaking on the Yakima river with teen boys. What a blast that event was. How about the Wenatchee River next summer — or a multi day mountain backpacking trip?
- Church Family Camp at Black Lake Conference Center: A complete first for us at LifeWay – and a HUGE hit all the way around. Young and old on the ‘blob,’ kayaking, canoeing, swimming, fishing, a massive kick ball game, lots of campfire smores and camp song, plenty of board games (and extra amount of cribbage!), hanging out with others we normally don’t get to spend time with, and some tremendous teaching by Don Turner on the Spiritual Habit of Rest. Go ahead and mark your calendars now for next summer – August 9, 10, 11, 2024. We are going back.
- Desna Cup joint outdoor service at Saghalie Middle School. A great way to enjoy August and join with a few other churches at this outreach in our city.
- Church Town Hall Meetings: You may wonder why I would include this in the ‘engage’ theme for our summer. A meeting??? Well as you know we have challenges that we are facing on how to carry God’s mission for us to a community that seems less and less responsive. We have also had some real financial challenges. But at these informational meetings I found that our LifeWay family really cares and really wants to seek God’s hand on how to do His work. These meetings were uplifting and extremely helpful (especially to me!). Plus — we got to eat some of Billy’s famous chili.
- Twin Lakes school partnership has continued over the summer which includes our hosting of the teacher training day recently.
- Gardeners have been gardening big time. More and more of our people have been creating a new improved garden to be used in our community. They now have brand new picnic tables too.
- A Summer teaching plan dedicated to learning Spiritual Habits as we grow in Christ. This was our teaching and Lab events all summer long. We were taught though these 7 Spiritual Habits (Prayer; God’s Word; Gathering; Sharing our Faith; Giving; Rest; and Worship) and we had some great teachers who walked us through these:
- Scott Brewer from Redmond WA
- Alvin Lin
- Heather Althoff
- Kevin Perry
- Ron Shepard from the PSBA
- Don Turner
- and myself.
- A huge thank you to these teachers as we prayerfully helped engage our people with habits we can carry for the rest of our lives.
- (I am working now on the teaching plan for next summer!)
All of these calendar events don’t count your one on one – family by family connections you have made. With summer 2023 in the books we are on the cusps of Fall – and what a plan we have for this year. Next week I will have a layout of what that plan entails. But from the bottom of my heart, I thank you for a great summer, and most of all I pray that God might use this to grow us up to be stronger in carrying out His work in the world.
I can’t wait for Fall!
