Jeff Bjorgan

Spiritual Formation Pastor

Today is Priority One Sunday. Although you can designate money to go to missions at any time, once a month we take up a second offering for our missions partners. In the NCV, Luke 6:38 says:

Give, and you will receive. You will be given much. Pressed down, shaken together, and running over, it will spill into your lap. The way you give to others is the way God will give to you.

We are blessed when we give of our resources to God. Your giving makes a difference in the kingdom!

Our guest speakers today are our new partners, Joel and Brandi Reimer. We support 12 partners and the Reimers are now in the mix. Both Joel and Brandi are quite familiar with the church; Brandi grew up here. Please welcome them to Emmanuel this morning.

The Koch family is back in town and we're looking forward to having them join our staff again. They've had quite an amazing year in Thailand. And are finding it hard to say goodbye. In their latest blog posting Derek wrote:

Last week was an emotional week. We visited 40 schools to say goodbye. We also said goodbye to our Karen neighbours across the street. WE hope little two-year old Nao Mai will somehow understand why we left. We will travel 17 hours to the other side of the world, a part of the world that has been largely unaware of the crisis in Burma. In fact, before we came here, we had no idea either. but not anymore.

Missions is life changing. It pulls us out of our comfort zones, clarifies the need, and it captures our hearts. We're looking forward to hearing about what God has been doing in the lives of the Reimer and Koch families over the next couple weeks.

Jeff Bjorgan

Spiritual Formation Pastor

It’s summer and we often have a lot of guests that find their way into Emmanuel on a Sunday. A very warm welcome to all those that are visiting us today. May you find joy and peace in the presence of God this morning. Our senior Pastor, Derrick Hamre is away on holidays at this time. We are looking forward to hearing from our Next Gen pastor, Andy Gabruch, as he delivers God’s Word today.

I just want to give a call out to all those who were involved in our first work bee. Thanks for all your help yesterday! As we participate in worship this morning, you may notice a bit more of an echo to our building as the baffles have come off.  There is also a bit of a change to the ceiling and valance. We continue to move purposefully towards renovating our sanctuary into a multi-purpose gym. Thank you for your patience, and yes, we’ll need more of it when August comes! We have to first put in the electrical, to make sure we have the power in place to move the sanctuary on its side.  We then paint the sanctuary to give it a fresh look, and then put in the flooring to turn it into a gym.  Finally we install and add to our sound system and media to complete the project. Much of this will take place during the month of August.

A reminder and some clarity when it comes to giving for the gym renovation. One of the reasons we have jumped into this renovation project is because we have an outside source willing to match funds up to a certain amount. When every dollar that we raise is matched, it becomes a no brainer to move forward on making our building more conducive to the community, and more conducive to our worship priorities. We have received quite a few questions as to whether the outside funds have been given in full or not, without conditions. We want to make it clear that the funds are given only on the condition of our own fundraising. Therefore, every dollar that comes in is added to a matching dollar to form the total dollar raised. What a neat challenge: when we give, our own donation instantly doubles. We encourage you to pray about what you would be able to give to this project.

Jeff Bjorgan

Spiritual Formation Pastor

Next Saturday (July 17^th) we will be having a work bee. It’s actually the first of a few work bees that we will be having as we make our way through our gym renovation. As in all renovations there is a bit of order in doing things; at first it may not seem like much is happening as we work on behind the scenes stuff, like re-routing electrical wiring and installing conduit. However, I can assure you that the pieces are all coming together at a good pace. At this first week bee we will be working on removing the bulkhead or valance near the front of the stage. If you have any construction background or know how to use a hammer and work with drywall, it would be great to have you help. The work bee will go from 9 am to about 12 pm.

I would also like to introduce you to Tyler Kort. Tyler is a lanky, smiley guy who has experience in project management and construction. We have hired him to be our project manager, someone who can deal with all of the trades and projects that inevitably have to be managed.  You may recognize his last name: he is the grandson of Henry and Ruth Kort, members of Emmanuel. Make sure to say hi to him when you see him cruising through our hallways.

You’ll notice in the bulletin that finances are starting to trickle in for the project. Remember that every dollar that is donated is matched from an outside source. What a great time to give! Together, we can make this project happen.

In other news, we had a great first barbeque of the season down at Pritchard park on Thursday at 6 pm. Thanks to Janice and Gary Dewald for hosting. It was great to see missions friends from far off countries there. If you are looking for a relaxed way to connect with people at Emmanuel, why not come out to one of our barbeques? From now until the beginning of September we meet every Thursday, same time same place. We’re also just finishing up our Awake Youth Camp –you’ll see some pictures of the weekend at church today. We continue to thank God for what he is doing in the lives of the youth in our congregation and community.

Jeff Bjorgan

Spiritual Formation Pastor

Well, we’re beginning the renovation of our multi-purpose room. We get to re-organize the furniture in our living room, making it more conducive to the kids in some ways while making it warm and friendly for the rest of the family in other ways. Of course with every change around the house there will be ways in which family members can be involved. Let me highlight a couple:

Help with the finances. Many home-improvement projects rely on grandma’s Christmas cheque under the tree, or birthday money from mom and dad. Our renovation is no different; we rely on the whole family’s contributions to make this project happen. As outlined in Pastor Derrick’s congregational letter, we have had people from outside of Emmanuel give money for the project and we’re asking our church family to match those donations. We’ll be tracking the money coming in so that you can see our financial totals as we progress. Together we can achieve more!

Help prep the room. Like most renovations, where pictures need to be taken off walls and furniture moved out of the room, we’re going to need some muscles. Our first work B is on July 17th –that’s two Saturdays from now. We’ll be taking down baffles and removing false valances as well as the stage, and getting the room ready for painting. As the summer moves along, we will need skilled trade workers that will volunteer their time to help with removals and installations and electrical projects. And, eventually, we’ll need help ripping up the carpet and preparing whatever is underneath for our gym flooring installation.

Jeff Bjorgan

Spiritual Formation Pastor

It's Priority One Sunday, where we focus again on our number one priority: the call to go. We are a sending congregation, meaning that we encourage individuals from Emmanuel to be a part of God's Kingdom outside of the walls of the church. That may mean reaching out to your neighbours here in the Okanagan, or it may mean reaching out to your neighbours in Romania, or India, Thailand, or Africa. Matt Duffy is here as a representative of our local missions strategy. He is the church's arm extended on the campus of the University of British Columbia. Working with UCM (University Chaplaincy Ministries), Matt hangs his hat on walking alongside students, enabling them, encouraging them, appealing to them, to walk the kingdom walk in their schools and beyond. We welcome him here this morning.

We also want to highlight Gerald and Ruth Morrison. Gerald and Ruth are representative of our global missions strategy. They have been in Africa for the past four months. Although they live in West Kelowna, they have such a strong tie to Africa, having pioneered ministry there for decades. In their words, they have thoroughly enjoyed ministering "back home" again. Gerald writes,

After lecturing at MissionFest 2010 here in Pretoria and teaching at a French MET and a group of leaders from Nigeria, we were asked to help ordinate a new PAOC couple appointed to Namibia. The family flew in but Ruth and I drove in (3,856 km). I had taken the first couple in to open the work in 1982, so it was great to be back and see the work with thirty pastors and as many churches. Tomorrow Ruth and I go to Durban for about 10 days ministering in a number of churches. Then the beginning of July we go by road to Harare for a couple weeks teaching in the college and speaking in some churches. We may go on to Malawi for a number of days. I remember saying to the saints at Emmanuel this will likely be our last trip to Africa, but I think I may have to eat those words, as there are a number of invitations to return.

Gerald and Ruth are prime examples of the fact that we just can't stop the call to go. At the end of our service we'll be taking a second offering to go towards our missions partners. Please be in prayer for UCM ministries as well as the Morrisons.