We put up our Christmas decorations on Friday after Thanksgiving, even as our fridge was still packed with Thanksgiving leftovers. Even in a pandemic, days are slowly moving forward.

I’m looking forward to celebrating the birth of our Savior with our church family in our 12th annual December Nights focus of Rest. Reflect. Rejoice. Renew. beginning this Sunday, December 6.

This year has been surreal, strange, confusing, excruciating, discouraging and yet… the world has seen similar seasons of life. The first century saw numerous plagues, wars and horrible happenings. It was, according to scripture, the “fullness of time” when a star shone and a baby was born. I am eager to celebrate Jesus with my church family this Christmas.

Immeasurably More favor

In these exceedingly different days of 2020, when so much has been unpredictable, one thing that has been astonishing is that Northstar’s construction project, once begun, has not been hindered or halted by the pandemic. We have been favored.

This Christmas season, we sit on the eve of moving into our first church facility after 17 years (yes, YEARS!) of being a mobile, set-up-tear-down-every-Sunday church. What God has done in the past eight years through our land search and subsequent building campaign has been spirit-tingling. We searched for land diligently for three years (and it felt like hopelessly at times) before “discovering” our current 10 acres. We began our building campaign in the fall of 2015, and five years later, God has provided over $4 million!

I’m thankful that we based the entire process on the truth of Ephesians 3:20:

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us..”

God has done immeasurably more than we could ever dream. I want to invite you to pray diligently with me over this Christmas season.

Will you pray daily for His provision for all we need?

This special, significant moment in our church’s history requires your prayer and participation. We need about $3 million to finish this $6.5 million project. If we borrow all of that, our debt service will be about $20,000 per month. We have budgeted and are prepared for that. However, (and that’s a big however), we want to ask you:

  1. Will you please pray diligently and daily for God to provide, to guide and to give us favor so that we can move in debt-free?
  2. Will you tell your believing family and friends,  coworkers, business connections and home churches about what God has done through His church here and invite them to pray diligently and daily for us?
  3. Will you use your social media influence to please post once a week until we move in, with a brief statement or testimony of how God is working in the church to encourage you and others? (ell a story when you post a link to make it personally compelling).

That’s what I’m asking and inviting you to do:

  • pray daily
  • invite others to pray daily
  • share with others what God is doing and invite them to pray with us

The goal is to highlight what GOD is doing in and through His church. Let us all trust the Holy Spirit to motivate generosity through giving rather than us trying to craft “the perfect appeal.”

In advance, THANK YOU. This has been such an amazing journey as a church. I am thankful in these days to serve as your pastor. I am eager to see how God uses our new facility which has been creatively designed to facilitate relationships and be an inviting resource and event destination for our community.

Now. let us pray, invite, and share!

Jeff