Harvest Bible Chapel Directional Update

HBC desires to be the church that God wants us to be, so much so that we took the mission of the church straight from Jesus – the ultimate form of righteous plagiarism! We exist to glorify God by making disciples. To be faithful to this mission, our goal is to become both bigger and smaller. That means…

We’re going to continue to grow, because we always want lost people to meet Jesus.
We want to see Christians continue to grow, including disenfranchised or “de-churched” people return to the life of the Christian community.
We’re going to get smaller – developing, equipping, and multiplying leaders who are trained well to continue to invest in a quality of discipleship. This is life-on-life small group ministry will continue to be central.
In light of these things, there are three primary updates we want to share with you:

We’re going to two services in the fall

Why go to two services? There are several key reasons, but let me share two. One reason is that it will aid our Kids Ministry volunteers to be able to work during one service in the kids ministry, and then attend corporate worship during the other service. Another reason is that there is a well established “80% rule” – when a room is over 80% of its capacity, new people do not feel welcome and believe they cannot see themselves becoming part of the community. Goign to two services will alleviate this issue. While it may make things “thin” for a time, that just means we will be praying all the more for more folks to hear about Jesus and be involved in our community.

Budget Update

We praise God for his gracious generosity towards us, and we praise God for the generous giving of our people. We are ahead of budget, which is allowing us to pray about how God would have us prepare for the future, increasing the scope and quality of our ministries. This includes thinking about adding key staff roles, both ministry leadership roles and administrative support roles. Our budget will be increasing at the beginning of our new fiscal year (July 1), and the monthly need displayed on our Worship Guide each week will reflect this. And, speaking of money, we want you to know…

We Have a Building Fund

Harvest is here to stay, and a building is an important aspect of accomplishing the mission God has given our church. But, let’s be clear: a building is not the mission, it only serves the mission. So our goal is not getting a building… our goal is more people meeting Jesus, growing in Jesus, and serving Jesus. To that end, we are in early stages of strategically considering what type of building we may some day and inhabit and where geographically God would place us long term. You can give to the building fund specifically if you wish, either online or by writing “Building Fund” in the memo line of a check. Our building fund is currently at $90,000 and we anticipate that growing substantially as we prayerfully prepare for the future.

In summary, all of this is cause to give GOD the glory. Moving to 2 services, increasing our budget because of the faithful and generous giving of God’s people, and establishing a building fund are just some of the signs that God is at work in our midst. We serve a mighty, loving, gracious and wonderful Savior! Join us in praying for these things and for the future of Harvest. You are loved!