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Pastor Josh Update

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Psalm 100:4 tells us to "Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; praise his name!" What a wonderful way to "enter" a New Year—with praise and thanksgiving to God for who he is and what he's done!

Without a doubt, God's greatest act has been accomplished through Christ as he "came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:26). Yet it is also very good and right to praise God for his many other blessings as well. 

One of the more significant blessings our church experienced this past year took place on December 10, when our three elders traveled to the offices of our closing company and officially purchased the church property we've been telling you about for several months. Praise God that we now officially own this property!

We now move on to the renovations, which will likely take about six months. Above, you can see our first church workday pictured, as folks from our church removed junk from the building and property. We plan on having several more workdays before all is said and done. And if you have expressed interest in sending a mission team, we haven't forgotten about you! We will be contacting you in the near future about the best time to take that trip (several significant structural projects need to be completed first). 

Probably the biggest prayer request for this next season is that God would help us (and our elders especially) to be focused not on building renovations but on the true building of God—the people of the church (Ephesians 2:19-22). Please pray that, as helpful of a tool as a physical meeting structure might be, it would not consume our attention but that we would be just as diligent as we've ever been about making disciples. 

One goal I have for the New Year is to start meeting with the men of our church more regularly in an effort to disciple them. I already meet with 3-4 of them individually each week, but I want to start having monthly meetings with another 5 of them individually. Please pray that God would bless these times and that they would bear great fruit in all of our lives.

In addition, one of our church members has just recently started an Evangelistic Bible Study with three guys, two of whom are non-Christians (the third is a Christian who came to faith recently through another Evangelistic Bible Study and is now being trained to hopefully do one of his own in the future). Please pray for Logan and Leo to come to faith through this study. 

In addition, we've been having two non-Christians in particular attend our church consistently (they've only missed twice in the past 2-3 months) and become significantly involved in serving in our church (attending two food bank events we've done and the church workday). Their names are John and Marlene, a husband and wife. While there have been other non-Christians who have been in and out, these are notable because they seem to be sticking around and really giving deep consideration to the gospel. Please pray that they would experience God's saving work in their hearts. 

As always, thank you for your prayers, and please know that we are praying that each of you have a wonderful and blessed year in 2021!

Serving Him,
Josh & Becky Tancordo