For God so loved the world,
that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish,
but have everlasting life…”

John 3:16

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“Often we do not pray because we doubt that anything will actually happen if we pray.  Of course, we don’t admit this publicly.  But if we felt certain of visible results within sixty seconds of every prayer, there would be holes in the knees of every pair of Christian-owned pants in the world!” (Donald Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, page 65)

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Keep me from becoming talkative and possessed
      with the idea that I must express myself
      on every subject.
Release me from the craving to straighten out
      everyone’s affairs.
Keep me from the recital of endless detail.
       Give me wings to get to the point.
Seal my lips when I am inclined to tell of my
      aches and pains. They are increasing with
      the years and my love to speak of them
      grows sweeter as time goes by.
Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally
      I may be wrong.
Make me thoughtful but not nosey;
      helpful but not bossy.
With my vast store of wisdom and experience it
      does seem a pity not to use it all. But You know,
     Lord, that I want a few friends at the end. 
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God has good intentions for us.  Unfortunately, we cannot fully comprehend His mind, so we struggle to understand those good intentions.  There are some things, though, that God has been quite clear about, the sort of things we can easily grasp.  He greatly loves our worship.  More is better.  He intends that we care for each other as He cares for us.  He has said that our love must not be restricted to those who know Him as we do.  Though brief, that list will have a profound impact on our lives and our life together as it’s lived out.  They will become our most treasured values.
At various intervals over the past several years, our leadership team has honed our core values into a statement of purpose.  Words.  Words are not enough, but they can help us begin to live out our values.  If you take a look around the congregation, you should notice significant changes that have come about, following the track of that purpose statement.  You might say that our focus, by means of this statement, helps us fulfill our destiny!  Give some time to reflect on these ideas…

OUR PURPOSE
The purpose of our congregation is to glorify God by making disciples of Jesus Christ who…
    Exalt God,
Edify each other, and
Extend God’s love to all peoples.

We exalt God by      
 Worshiping him joyfully
 Praying to Him passionately
 Giving back to Him generously
 Reflecting His character consistently
 Trusting Him fully

We edify each other by     
 Loving each other biblically
 Praying for each other diligently
 Communicating God’s Word carefully
 Training each other thoroughly

We extend God’s love to all peoples by    
 Sharing the Gospel boldly
 Serving all compassionately

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Two years ago, leaders from Philpott Church, Hughson Street Baptist Church, and First Christian Reformed Church met to discuss their similar desires to live out the implications of the Gospel in our city.  Those discussions led to the formation of TrueCity (reflective of Jeremiah 29:7, ‘seek the peace of the city’).  Dave Witt and Greg Reader, local inner city workers with International Teams Canada, agreed to serve as facilitators of monthly interactions and an annual conference.  The annual conference was launch in April 2004, to bring together believers from across the city who desire to ‘seek the peace of the city.’

Key to the development of this movement of congregations was the example of Hughson Street Baptist Church, led by Dwayne Cline.  This North End congregation has invested in neighbourhood ministry for more than a decade, pushing the limits of self-giving for the sake of Christ.  Through the provision of a strategic gift, First Christian Reformed hired Tim Sheridan as an outreach coordinator.  Tim’s ministry experience came out of Manhattan’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church, pastured by Tim Keller (author of the book we used together last year, Ministries of Mercy).  Philpott began to organize our similar efforts with the hiring of Christine Vaughan as our Director of Urban Ministries.  These three quite different churches have been joined this year by Wentworth Baptist and Bethany Gospel.

The second conference is scheduled for February 24-25, 2006.  It will be held in our facilities at Philpott.  That’s a good place to begin a prayerful quest to discover how your spiritual gifts and talents might make a difference in our quest to remake Hamilton.  You can register with Christine Vaughan, at the signup table, or directly at the website (www.truecity.ca).  Student discounts are available.

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It is exciting to see people use their gifts to glorify God and serve others.  We have several new leaders that we would like you to pray for.  Five new elders have joined the board in the last year, three for the first time.  We now have chairmen for three of our main committees (Personnel – Malcolm Sears,   Missions – John Harvey, and  Properties and Facilities – James Dean).

The elders and staff held their first retreat of the new board in November and reviewed our purpose statement, ministry plan, and spent time getting to know one another and praying together.  We welcomed the new elders and spouses and decided we needed to meet together as an elder/staff community every month for the next six months to grow in unity, and to build a caring community.  Please pray for us that we will encourage one another, and become better shepherds/mentors of the congregation.

The elders would liked to discuss with the congregation the position of a pastor of adult ministries in an upcoming town hall meeting on the seventh of February.  Please pray that God will continue to provide the resources for this critical position.

We have also reviewed our need for a pastor of children’s ministry and we believe that we need to continue to move forward with this position as well. We already have money for a part time position and we wonder if we could make that a full time position in the future to increase our possibilities of finding a person for this role. Recently, we were hopeful that we had a person to take the position but unfortunately he decided not to accept it.  Please pray for our children’s workers and the children’s ministry.

We have developed some strategies for performance review, and a number of our leaders have completed the process.  They received feedback from several people, reviewed their ministry/job descriptions & set goals for the coming year.  It has been a valuable and exciting process as we have practiced the “one anothers,” helping and encouraging each other in our spiritual growth.

It is a great privilege to share ministry with such a committed, faithful and resourceful congregation that seeks to serve God with all its heart.

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