On Sunday, we will be talking about Zion’s 2025 Vision. In 2025, Zion will be 70 years old and we believe God has much he still wants to do in and through our community. 

While we will be talking about the vision during the worship service, as I have been finalizing the sermon, I realized I will not be able to share as much detail as I would have liked. The text is so rich and worth study that I don’t want to take away from our text for the day to talk nuts and bolts of vision and mission at our church. 

But, I, the rest of the staff, and Consistory are really excited to talk about where we believe God is calling us as a church. (My extended family may be tired of hearing me talk about our vision and all God is doing at Zion.) So, we will be having a Zion 2025 Vision discussion during the Sunday school hour in the Sanctuary. This will be time to learn some more detail, ask some questions, and pray together for God to raise up workers for his harvest. 

Join me this Sunday to dream a little about the future and seek our generous God’s blessing as we follow his Son’s command to go into all the world and make disciples, teaching them to obey everything he has commanded us.

Connect to God
This week, we join Jesus at the Samaritan well as he meets a rejected woman and sends her out as a missionary into fields ripe for the harvest. As we look at our church and community through the lens of this story, we are challenged to embrace the vision of our church to saturate our community with the gospel of Jesus Christ by developing Jesus shaped leaders to go out into the field and join the Lord of the Harvest. The fields are ripe. Are we ready or getting ready to join the harvest work?

If you would like a copy of the worship service, you can receive a complete copy by contacting Tom Verbrugge or you can find the weekly messages on our website.

Grow in Community
We express our Sympathy to Rick and Nancy Steenbergen, Mark & Kim Steenbergen, and Mike and Julie Bond and their family as they mourn the passing of their mother and grandmother, Marge Steenbergen who went to be with her Lord and Savior on Saturday, Jan. 19. Funeral services will be held on Friday, January 25, 2019, at 11 a.m. at Matthysse Kuiper DeGraaf Funeral Home in Grandville with Pastor Rick VanderWall officiating.

Throughout this fall, many people in our church have participated in a 729 Group. These groups commit to meet together for a meal once a month for three months. It is a great way to get to know some new people in church. I have heard numerous people tell me how much they have enjoyed getting to know people in their group. If you are looking to make some new connections over the winter, new to Zion, or wondering who some of these new people are, sign-up through the Connection Card on Sunday for our next round of 729 Groups.

Our next new members class will begin on February 10. This class is for anyone interested in joining Zion or who simply wants to learn more about our church and its life and ministry. You can sign-up this Sunday on the Connection Card.

Serve the World
Do you know a great way to serve others? Go shopping! Seriously. Lifeline Community Church is currently planning a mission trip to Guatemala with members from the church from June 19-26. The trip will cost an average of $2,000 per person which for many of their members is a huge cost. To help defray these costs, Benefit Twice will be holding a special sale January 23-26 and March 20-23. This will only be at the Wyoming store in Rogers Plaza, so mark your calendars and do a little shopping for a great cause and some good deals!

Administrative Details
We continue to thank God for his provision of all of our needs and for the generous support of our congregation with their time, talent, and treasures.
Fiscal Year to date budget: $369,756.80
Fiscal Year to date contributions: $361,629.23

On Monday afternoon, local church leaders gathered to both support Doug and Diane McClintic and listen to Ed Stetzer. Ed is a nationally known expert on evangelism, church planting, and the mission of the church. As the Billy Graham Chair of Evangelism at Wheaton College, he also spoke at Billy Graham’s funeral. This week, he spoke about being Christian in an age of outrage. He also writes regularly on his website and has a great post recently about balancing Gospel Proclamation (telling people about Jesus) and Gospel Demonstration (loving people in Jesus’ name). He rightly argues this is not an either/or situation, but a both/and. Both are necessary and we also need to find a proper balance between the two. You can read it here.

Ed came to speak because he is a supporter of Doug and Diane McClintic as they prepare to begin a new ministry in Europe. Doug has already been instrumental in planting the first new church in Hungary in over 500 years and now, with Diane, will be leading the Reformed Church efforts to support church planting in Europe more broadly including in the Netherlands. If you are interested in supporting this work, you can do so by following this link.

Connect to God
While Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell many of the same stories of Jesus, John tells many different stories and in the process give a unique theological view of who Jesus is and how he now calls us to live. We begin our study of John this year by studying the 7 signs of John. The second sign occurs once again in Cana after Jesus returns from celebrating the passover in Jerusalem. The crowds gather looking for signs and wonders in order to believe. But one man comes to Jesus begging for his own sons life and he takes Jesus at his word. Before he sees the sign and wonder, he believes and his boy is healed. We can often be tempted to come to Jesus because of what we can get from him, but even greater things can be done with our lives when we take him at his word.

If you would like a copy of the worship service, you can receive a complete copy by contacting Tom Verbrugge or you can find the weekly messages on our website.

Grow in Community
We extend our sympathy to Tom and Marcia Verbrugge, Tom and Rachel Verbrugge, Jr and family in the passing of their father and grandfather, Wendell Becker, who went to be with his Lord this morning. Please pray for peace and comfort for the Becker and Verbrugge families during this difficult  time. Visitation will be held from 4-7 p.m. Friday, January 18, 2019 at Cook Funeral Home in Grandville. Funeral services will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday at Hudsonville Reformed Church

Throughout this fall, many people in our church have participated in a 729 Group. These groups commit to meet together for a meal once a month for three months. It is a great way to get to know some new people in church. I have heard numerous people tell me how much they have enjoyed getting to know people in their group. If you are looking to make some new connections over the winter, new to Zion, or wondering who some of these new people are, sign-up through the connections beginning on January 6 for our next round of 729 Groups.

Serve the World
This Sunday, we welcome Activation International Ministries to share during our Moment for Mission. Activation International Ministries is committed to activating and equipping Kingdom leaders who bring forth much fruit by providing Biblically-sound, prophetically-spoken, leadership-focused training and discipleship to spur on growth, character, and influence within communities in Asia, Africa, and North America.

Do you know a great way to serve others? Go shopping! Seriously. Lifeline Community Church is currently planning a mission trip to Guatemala with members from the church from June 19-26. The trip will cost an average of $2,000 per person which for many of their members is a huge cost. To help defray these costs, Benefit Twice will be holding a special sale January 23-26 and March 20-23. This will only be at the Wyoming store in Rogers Plaza, so mark your calendars and do a little shopping for a great cause and some good deals!

Administrative Details
A huge thank you to Pastor Rick and Rick Steenbergen who spent Wednesday morning replacing all the lights in the sanctuary. The whole procedure takes several hours and lots of trips up a very high ladder. Praise God for people without a fear of heights!

We continue to thank God for his provision of all of our needs and for the generous support of our congregation with their time, talent, and treasures.
Fiscal Year to date budget: $358,881.60
Fiscal Year to date contributions: $352,433.23