Saved People, Serve People

http://cobleskillwesleyan.org/share

This past Sunday we dove into the parable of the Good Samaritan and allowed God to challenge us with one of the most fundamental CORE VALUES for the church of Jesus... that SAVED PEOPLE SERVE PEOPLE!

And in response to the massive amounts of damage that so many of our family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers have experienced we are trying to gather information from the CWC family so that we can do our absolute best at coming along side so many that are hurting now that many agencies and organizations from outside the county will begin to return to their homes.

So for all those in the body of Christ that are connected to Cobleskill Wesleyan Church we would love to add your skills or stuff to the list...

Maybe you are good at construction...

maybe you have skills in carpentry or plumbing...

maybe you are the most amazing cook in the world and could prepare a meal for a family in need...

or maybe you have a sofa that you could give to a family who lost everything they own and didn't have the adequate insurance to cover it...

Go to our website www.cobleskillwesleyan.org and click on the "SHARE" page (or the logo "SAVED PEOPLE SERVE PEOPLE" on the homepage) for more information and to submit how you might help play a role in serving & sharing the love of Christ in a practical way!

Just One More... At Any "COST!"

Following an unbelievable week throughout Schoharie county, I have been reminded of one simple but profound truth about the world in which we live, JESUS CHRIST is the only rock solid foundation & hope! Not a bank account... not a retirement plan... not elaborate health coverage... and not a home built of wood, concrete, and steel... I am reminded that all of these "man-made" safety nets are temporary and susceptible to disappear at a moment's notice... but my SAVIOR is constant!

We are experiencing this truth in the aftermath of a violent storm that has devastated thousands of our neighbors, friends, & families.  


A severe storm that no one could have predicted or been prepared for... 


A kind of storm many believed would never affect the Northeast... 


And a costly storm that many believed they were exempt from being crippled by... 


But the outcome has been far different than anyone expected & far more heart breaking than any of us assumed it could be.

I have been incredibly encouraged by the messages I have received from many Christ followers who leapt into action even while the rain was still falling, and jumped at the opportunity to serve those in need during and after the flood waters rose.  There are so many incredible stories of love, generosity, and community that have come out of this moment in our lives, and I believe that God allows these situations that initially we call "horrible" for a number of reasons that can ultimately lead to a greater good...

=> He wants to draw people together to experience a better QUALITY of community

=> He wants to give us tangible reminders that His Son, Jesus Christ, could control the wind, the waves, and the storms

=> He seeks to remind us of His awesome power and majesty

=> He wants us to remember what really is more important that the "STUFF" we invest so much in

=> He wants to help us identify any "IDOLS" we so often allow to take over the throne of our lives

=> He wants to remind us how BLESSED we are to live in the U.S.A. because of the infrastructure that exists to come in after a crisis and offer immediate assistance with people, money, and resources... God has abundantly blessed America!!

=> He wants us to more intentionally love our neighbor as ourself

=> He wants us to look for opportunities outside of our comfort zone to serve others, and to not think more highly of ourselves than we should, but look for moments to imitate the life of our Savior.

But above all else I believe that God allows these sort of events to happen because it gives HIS BRIDE the CHURCH (the people of God, not a building) thousands of opportunities to WITNESS and TESTIFY of the SAVING LOVE of JESUS.  I have heard of more divine appointments where faith in Christ has been shared in the last week than in my entire life!

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)

God's Will is that everyone would meet His Son and discover His grace through repentance... and throughout this devastation I believe seeds are being planted all over the Northeast as we, the Bride of Christ, shift into high gear, one person at a time, to reach out and tell His story through our lives.

Many who call Cobleskill Wesleyan their home church have asked what are we doing as a church to help... and here is your answer for right now... GO GET INVOLVED!!

IN THE SHORT TERM: LIKE TODAY... LIKE RIGHT NOW!!

There are cleanup projects... there are shelters... there is food to be cooked & delivered... and there is contact information that has went out from the church office over the last week to give you the means with which to connect with a way to serve.  So in the short term, we would waste time, talents, and resources by trying to reinvent the wheel of emergency responders as an "organization", just go jump in and BE the church all throughout the county!  Don't wait for someone to ask you to help... go ASK SOMEONE else how you can help... and if you don't know where to start, grab a pair of gloves, drive down to Schoharie or Middleburgh and find someone who looks exhausted and ask them what you can do to help!!

IN THE LONG TERM:

We all understand that the National Guard, FEMA, Duracell, TIDE, the NYS government, and others here temporarily serving us will not be in our communities forever.  They are doing a great job at emergency response and we can assist them right now through volunteerism... but the day will come in the near future when another disaster or another story breaks and then the cameras, news vans, reporters, corporate non-profits, and government employees will move on to another community because this is not their home.  When that day comes that they need to leave and when what has happened here fades into their distant memories, it will still be a DAILY reality for us. It will be then that the hardest hit in our communities will need us as a church body more than ever.

As a result, we are trying to put things in place so we can meet needs together when the infrastructure we currently have been blessed with has to go somewhere else.  We are making contact with other churches throughout the country that have endured natural disasters in the past to receive wisdom and council at how best to have the maximum impact for the Glory of God.  Finding out what they did, how they served, how they coordinated with county and state agencies, etc... and if you have ideas, thoughts, input, or know of specific families that have massive needs, don't hesitate to pass them along to us through the church office... if we don't know about your ideas or contacts, we can't help and we can't function at our most effective!!

As I have been reflecting on this past week, I have been reminded of Noah.  A man who obediently built a cruise ship in the middle of a desert planning on a flood to come, and when it did start to rain I began to wonder... how many individuals outside of the ark began to look to heaven and "wonder" about God?  I believe now is a time like no other where thousands are looking up to heaven and they are "wondering" about God... to this very point the Apostle Paul reminds us...

“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!” (Romans 10:13-15)

LORD JESUS... WOULD YOU GIVE US BEAUTIFUL FEET AT A TIME LIKE THIS, SO THAT YOUR NAME WOULD BE LIFTED HIGH!

To update many who have asked about damage sustained at the church buildings on Legion Drive as a result of the storm... 

• Last Sunday @ 4:00 pm: We had between 2-5 inches of standing water in the basement of the church building and somewhere around 12 inches in the office basement... I know these are minimal amounts of water in relation to others, but it still was an issue that needed to be addressed as soon as possible.  
• Last Sunday @ 6:00 pm: Within 2 hours there were 5 electric sump pumps running because of God's grace that allowed the power to still be on in Cobleskill, and one gas powered 150 gallon per minute pump sending water out into the swamp behind the buildings.
• Last Monday @ 9:00 am: ALL of the standing water in both buildings was gone and the vacuuming began
• Last Monday @ 4:00 pm: On Sunday evening we had put the call out for anyone available to show up and assist in the "SHOP VAC" project at the church buildings either in the morning @ 10:00 am or the evening @ 5:00 pm... The turnout during the day was incredible.  Individuals brought shop vacs, carpet cleaners, one family even brought their little 1.5 gallon vacuum and were on their hands and knees sucking the carpet dry.  The incredible thing is that the evening shift wasn't even needed because the church basement carpets were completely vacuumed at least twice before 4:00 pm as a result of the turnout to accomplish the task.  All that was left was to set up fans to begin to dry up wet floors and walls.  
• There was even one couple, Arvid & Carol, that helped lead the charge at the church building on Monday, when they hadn't yet been able to cross any bridges to even make it to their own home on main street in Schoharie to see what was left... they were serving in the midst of not knowing what was left... what an example of Christ I saw in them!!

To make a long story short, by the grace of God, and the willingness of so many, no significant damage was sustained!! Just don't have your babies crawling all over the carpet just yet, its still drying out!!!

Just One More... At Any "STAFF Cost!

Another change that is a part of this journey is adding more paid staff roles to what we call the Executive Team of leaders for our church.  Specifically, we need to address some weaknesses in our church as it relates to...

(1) connecting new people to the church 

(2) better equip the current Christ Followers to mature in their walk 

So, in anticipation of this change we have started with a nationwide search to address these two weaknesses by posting job openings targeting experienced and trained pastors.  We are still seeking God’s direction at exactly how we are going to implement these two new staff positions, but we are starting with looking at individuals who have experience & training that could help us get off the ground running.

At this stage we don't know exactly what this will look like or how long this process might take, but we are joining together to pray that God’s Will would be evident throughout this process.

Just One More... At Any "NAME" Cost!

When we began to consider a LOCATION change for our Sunday morning worship gatherings, many other considerations came to the surface.  One of those was the current identity of our local church.  As we began to "shop" for potential locations and have conversations with other churches who had already taken the step that we are about to, we learned that having a singular location specifically identified in the church name becomes confusing if/when the church changes locations.

Historically, throughout our brief American tradition, churches were named because of the location in which the people who attended the church lived.  In the 1800's, within an agricultural perspective, it would have been crazy for someone living in Cobleskill to attend church in Middleburgh or Sharon Springs because the travel time would negatively have impacted their personal farms & livelihood.  But in our world today this kind of commuting happens every Sunday, everywhere across the country.

Our current name identifies the village of Cobleskill, which we know in our current culture defines the location of the church building, but the actual "CHURCH" is spread out all throughout Schoharie County and beyond. (remember that the church is the people, and the building is simply a tool for the CHURCH to utilize)

As we began to think about the dynamics of our Sunday morning worship gatherings, not knowing where they might take place 12 month from now or 3 years from now, we sensed that now was the perfect time  also for a name change.

When we began to consider this change we knew immediately that a decision like this would not impact our identity as a Wesleyan church.  A name change will not alter our affiliation and connection with the Wesleyan denomination.  The Wesleyan church has a phenomenal legacy and lineage that we will continue to be a part of with great churches, pastors, and leaders through our district in eastern New York and across New England.

So, what does this name change really mean?

our God remains the same...
our Savior remains the same...
His Spirit remains the same...
our core remains the same...
our vision remains the same...
our identify remains the same...
our mission remains the same...
our denominational connection remains the same...

It simple means that our location will change...
therefore our name needs to change as well to accompany the location shift.

So far, we have asked you to assist us in brainstorming ideas for the church name and many great church names have been submitted and we are now in the process of wrapping up the search and moving forward towards the decision of a new identifying name for our church.

To echo something that I shared one month ago in our Sunday morning worship experience... I (Fetter) don't really care what the new name ends up to be.  I am not personally invested with some awesome church name in mind.  But, I do believe that what God is guiding us to discover will more effectively describe who we are, and be much easier for us to communicate to our communities what we are all about!

I don't really care what the name ends up being, but hatever it is, the name of a church that is printed on a banner or a building DOES NOT hold a candle to the GOD at the CENTER of its worship.  Chances are, someday in the future, a couple of generations from now, the name we identify this church with in the next 60 days, will be changed again, and that is ok, because we believe that Jesus will still be the focal point of the worship then, no matter what the sign on the building reads.

If you have suggestions or ideas that you feel help to identify who we are and what our mission is, please submit them as soon as possible to the church office and we will add it to the list of names we are currently considering.  And please, please, please, please... continue to pray over our church leaders as we try to humbly and wisely navigate every "next step" of the process as God's leads.

Just One More... At Any LOCATION Cost!

This past March we invited God to AWAKEN us as a church, and we asked Him to help us identify areas of ministry or weaknesses that we needed to address in order to be wiser stewards as a church.  Through this process it was revealed to us some things we already knew and had grown lazy about... and it also revealed things to us that we had never considered.

One of the biggest barriers for all of our ministries was our current facilities.

The "church" as an entity was God's Big Idea as it was revealed through Jesus Christ.  Many times Jesus spoke of this movement... this gathering of people that would be birthed following the arrival of His Holy Spirit.  And Jesus' prediction became reality on the day of Pentecost.  The church was born.

The church wasn't for Christians on the day of Pentecost, because only a handful of Christians even existed... the first sermon ever preached by Paul on that Sunday morning, was not addressing people who were saved, rather it was addressing those who were lost, and far from God... 

The church of Jesus Christ was never meant to be a building, it was never originally conceived to be an institution, it was never designed to be defined as a location... but rather as a movement, a congregation, a gathering of people who were practicing THE WAY of Jesus in their daily lives.  The "church" was to be a collection of various people from different backgrounds, races, experiences, and traditions all coming together EVERY Sunday morning for one BIG resurrection celebration.

And every Sunday they would share the GOOD NEWS that God came to earth in the form of a man, Jesus Christ, and He gave His life so we might know His Father... then on the 3rd day He was raised from the grave conquering death.

But, as so often is the case... throughout the course of history, something about the life of the church changed:

In about the 4th century the idea of the church began to be redefined as a specific "location"... 

Later the church became a specific "location" with a recognizable "building"... 

And as time went on further, during the Middle Ages, the church became the ruling authority in the known world and many things were done in the name of Jesus and the church that are still embarrassing today.

The church will always be made up of broken people in a broken world, and most days I feel like the MOST broken individual of anyone!  As a result of this brokeness, the church... this movement, this gathering of believers, this congregation of people... is capable of inflicting a lot of harm...


However, on its best days... on the days when we "die" to ourselves, the "church" is capable of witnessing and instagating incredible miraculous acts of God!  We get to be the ordained hands and feet of a Holy God at work in our world.  And through this awakening process we learned that our "location", our "building" is the lid to our ability to see God transform this valley and beyond.


If you know our building well at all it is 40 feet wide by 80 feet long and as great as it is, there are many limitations.  We are limited in our sanctuary & children's ministry area plus we are VERY limited in our nursery space, our foyer (or lack thereof) and in parking.

As a result of all these limitations we have begun the process of submitting the paperwork to the Cobleskill-Richmondville High School to begin utilizing their auditorium and cafeteria to "gather together as the church" every single Sunday.


Our current church "building" still has a lot of life left for us to utilize during the week, but we have outgrown the limits of this building long term for Sunday mornings.  We can still utilize it for LIFEgroups, seminars, church events and outreach, as well as for our offices, but our Sunday morning worship experiences need to move to an area that has more space in every way, shape, and form… for worship, parking, for children, for nursery, and for fellowship (especially in the winter months Sep-May: LOL).

What does this mean? It means that we will need more people serving more often in order to accomplish the feat of setting up and tearing down every single Sunday.  We are going to find out how serious we are about...


"REACHING ONE MORE AT ANY COST!" 


and we will discover if that is just a catchy slogan on a wall, or if, like our SAVIOR, it is our true LIFEBLOOD and PURPOSE!


One of the benefits of this new beginning is that we will begin partnering together to build a new relationship with one of our local high schools, and you will hear about new opportunities for us to serve our local teachers & administrators.  We truly feel that this is a Divine Door that God has opened to expand our commitment to our mission and to expand our faith in our Savior, and I am asking everyone who calls Cobleskill Wesleyan Church, "HOME", to partner with me to carry this GOOD NEWS to one more person... who might come to the High School a lot faster than to a church "building."

THE "New Beginning"

Well... here we find ourselves in Schoharie County on a mid August day in 2011... and we have officially arrived at the "NEW BEGINNING" of a journey that no one could have predicted or imagined, and when we serve the God who does the impossible on a regular basis, why are we surprised by His consistent ability to surpass our imagination?

My guess is, if you are reading this post, and maybe even subscribing to get updated as more posts are shared, that is some small way you are interested in keeping tabs on what is going on at Cobleskill Wesleyan Church.  This blog is going to be a way to stay a little more connected to the church leadership as we try to navigate the future as God directs our path.  That doesn't mean that we have ANYTHING figured out, but we are taking one step at a time in faith, trying to follow God's lead in every area.

So... as we continue this journey... TOGETHER... whether in person right here every Sunday, or in spirit from down the street or around the country... I humbly ask you to pray for us and pray over us that we might fulfill God's mandate in OUR MISSION FIELD!!