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Dear Fellow Laborers in the Gospel,
We thank God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ “because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now” (Philippians 1:5). We thank you so much for the kindness and support you have shown us over the first year of Imago Dei church. We are writing to let you know how things are going now that we have been gathering for a year.
The vision of IDC is a desire to see lives changed by the gospel. By God’s grace, we are seeing that happen both among our covenant members, as they grow deeper through the gospel, and through those that are coming to believe the gospel for the first time. In just the past two weeks, there has been one young man who surrendered his life to the gospel, and he has already begun engaging a friend with the gospel. We covet your prayers as we long for The Lord to continue to “add to our number daily those who are being saved.” We have also started our sermon series through Ephesians. It is our prayer that our people, who by God’s grace love the Word, will be changed through the Scriptures by growing deeper in their affections for Christ, His Church, one another, ministry, marriage, parenting, and much more.
On September 9th, we celebrated our one-year anniversary by gathering at a local Lake for a time of worship through singing, prayer, preaching, Lord’s Supper, food, fellowship, and Baptism. In the update video, you will see some of the 6 baptisms that occurred on our one-year anniversary.
As far as numerical growth, here is where we are after a year:
• We just added a 4th Elder, Donnie Hollis, to our leadership team (you will see us praying over him in the video). Please pray for Donnie as he takes on this tremendous responsibility to “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood” (Acts 20:28).
• We have now reached a covenant membership of over 150. Please pray that the 4 Elders will shepherd this people well and that we would equip them to be missionaries and disciple makers in the city.
• We have now grown to 15 Growth Groups that meet in homes. Please pray for the leaders of each group as they carry out the responsibility of caring for their group and seeing them grow in Christ.
• Last Sunday we had our largest attendance ever (much larger than we even mention in the video) at 380 people in our small building. Please pray that God would be glorified through disciples being made as we gather to worship Him.
• Finally, we have to move to two services because of the size of our building. Our desire is to remain at one service as we seek to build community among our people. Please pray for a new building solution and the finances it will take for such a venture.
Thank you again. We want you to know what your prayer and financial support has led to in the life of IDC over our first year. We count it as an evidence of God’s Amazing Grace that we can be counted as co-laborers with you in the Gospel.
“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20-21).