Grace Abounding

At our church’s last Members Meeting, I rolled out 8 goals for Grace Church of Alexandria this year. We, the elders, ask you the congregation prayerfully to seek God’s aid in pursuing and living out these objectives for our church’ family’s maturity in 2012:

1. Implement a regular Adult Bible Class on Sundays to ground our members in the truths of Christianity;
To fulfill this goal, we just launched the class Christian Beliefs: 20 Life Transforming Truths every Sunday at 9:25 am.

2. Train and affirm new elders and deacons to serve and shepherd the growing flock;
The pastors intend to nominate new officers at our April Annual Election Meeting. 

3. Become a praying church so that we are worshiping and dependent on the Sovereign God;
The pastors are seeking to set the pace in prayer by meeting more regularly with the deacons for prayer. In addition, the Alexandria Women’s Group is focusing on this theme in 2012 by reading through and practicing the principles of A Praying Life by Paul E. Miller.

4. Initiate a missions-mindset of prayer, financial support, and partnership with missionaries;
Before the end of the year, the elders intend to recommend missionaries for GCA to begin supporting regularly. 

5. Identify GCA’s long-term real estate needs and goals to be prepared should the current meeting place ever fall through;
We’ve begun working with a realtor to explore real estate options.

6. Equip the congregation to read, study, memorize, and apply the Bible on a daily basis.
Every attender of Grace Church is encouraged to make this a priority in 2012.

7. Cultivate a culture of discipleship among the members of the church, especially among men;
Through preaching and mentoring, we intend to give greater purpose to the relationships developing in our church family. 

8. Achieve financial independence so we are a self-sustaining local church;
As a church plant, we’re on track to be financially independent of Heritage Bible Church, our sponsoring church, by this summer.

Thanks for your prayers for our church family to be more like Christ and seek his purposes!