I was recently talking to a fellow pastor in our state and he mentioned that he was hearing “reverberations of good things” about the work of God at Prairie Flower Baptist Church. What an encouraging conversation that was to me. I grinned from ear to ear as he spoke because truly “good things” are happening here and for that we give to God great praise.
In fact, we’ve already had two new people join our church last month and two more will join this Sunday! Pastor Jon will also be conducting another baptism on Sunday, Feb. 12 as well as preaching in the morning worship service. How wonderful it is to see people saved, baptized, and added to the church. This is truly what it’s all about!
As was mentioned in our last Annual Meeting on Sunday, January 29, we are truly experiencing the overwhelming blessings of God upon our church. In addition to seeing people saved, baptized, and added to the church, we continue to balance our budget to the point that we gave a 10% raise to all of our supported missionaries! What a blessing to be a part of a church who gives so generously and joyfully.
We also mentioned that this summer we will be bringing on a Summer Intern (Lance Lewis) for 12 weeks (May 14 – Aug 6). Lance is a pastoral studies major at Faith Baptist Bible College and will need this internship to graduate from his studies. We are privileged to allow Lance to serve alongside us this summer. He will engage in the full life of pastoring while he is here (i.e. preaching, teaching, officiating ordinances, conducting meetings, making visits, counseling, etc.). Also, some of our newest members, the Yoders, have volunteered to house Lance for the entirety of his stay with us! I am truly grateful for those who step up and serve with such hospitality.
In our meeting, we also had a dynamic discussion on the possibility of our church buying land for the purposes of a new church building. As I’ve stated before (and will probably state again), we have simply outgrown our current facility and need to look into land/building that will be, not a “growth barrier”, but a “growth engine” for the cause of Christ. This is something that we have discussed for years, and are now finally putting some feet to our words.
As a Leadership Team, we have prayed, planned, and had many meetings about moving this initiative forward. And from the tone and tenor of our last meeting, I can safely say that both the Leadership Team and Congregation of Prairie Flower are ready to move forward with land/building! As one member put it, “This is exciting!” Another said, “Let’s really give to our kids the space they need to run during AWANA!” Truly there are so many possibilities that await us to serve our people (both current and future) with a new building. To be sure, this is scary-exciting, but we will continue to pray and see how the Lord leads. Again, we have no prospects yet on land/building, but would really appreciate any insights or leads that you might have on this exciting next step.
Prairie Flower, with growth comes change. And with change comes many opportunities to see people saved, baptized, and added to the church. In the end, we just want to stay true to our mission and vision “to be a strong church, that makes disciples, for the glory of God”. Will you continue to pray for your Leadership Team and church family? We simply desire to please Him as we boldly move forward.