My Dear Beloved Family of God,

I appreciate your leadership, your commitment and your financial support to this church. At the beginning of this year we did a workshop for everyone to understand how important the vision and the mission of our church is for us.

Our vision always stands to prepare people to be followers of Christ for the transformation of the world. That is the heart of the ministry that Jesus Christ wants us to do. So, we need action, not next year, not tomorrow, not next week or next month, but right now. If we take action right now, it will make a difference in our church attendance, financially, and will reach out to the community. Action means change and renewal. There are five things that are very important for our church’s renewal and change:

1. Personal Renewal—when God wants to work in a church, it always starts with the heart and it always starts with the leaders. We already have that personal renewal at our workshops, at our bible studies, worship, volunteers in non-profit organizations. That is all about personal renewal. It is when Jesus becomes real to you again and you fall in love with him all over again.

2. Relational Renewal—first you get right with God and then you get right with each other. There are two ways you know a church has had relational renewal. The singing gets better because people like each other better and they are happy in their worshiping. People stay longer after the service because they just want to hang-out and talk with each other.

3. Missional Renewal—many times churches will grow after the first two renewals but they never reach missional renewal. missional renewal is important for the purpose of our life and the church family. Once you reach the point of missional renewal, you cannot keep the church from growing.

4. Structural Renewal—As the church continues to grow, it will realize that God creates new

ideas and new things all the time.

5. Cultural Renewal—our church needs to find out what impact in the community we have made. The cultural renewal will not happen without a personal, relational, missional and structural renewal.

Last Saturday, our church had a seminar about the vision and action right now and how to energize the ‘small group’. We believe small groups are very important to the life of the church, making disciples and transforming the world in which we live. If we believe, that ‘small group’ was the beginning of Christianity, why not do it now. Our church members are spread out in Tehachapi’s geographical area--soon you will belong to one of them—4 members to 6members maximum.

Our church came though so many challenges. We’ve overcome many mountains because of your faith in Christ. The challenges make us stronger and make us reach out to the community through our making disciples for Jesus Christ. I encourage everyone, do not ignore focusing on Christ. If we shift our eyes away from Jesus, we miss the vision of our church to prepare people for the transformation of the world.

Come to worship on Sunday, look around to see if you miss one of your brothers and sisters. If they are not here, call them, visit them, tell them you miss them. Make sure to invite people to the church because if our church keeps growing all the time, it will energize everybody—it will bring joy and peace to everyone. We will have a strong financial situation, a strong youth program, Sunday School and that validates that we are doing a great job in Tehachapi. If you want to be in this vital church, stand with me and focus our eyes on Christ and others. Don’t delay, do it now.

Pastor David