A MESSAGE FROM
PASTOR TOMMY
These are exciting days at Northwood Baptist Church! For over fifty years God has used our church to impact many in our community and around the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Our church has always been committed to reaching people with the Gospel, and our church has always taken huge steps of faith to fulfill the mission of God.
Over the past few years, we have seen rapid growth at Northwood. The rapid growth has presented us with a great need to expand our campus. In response to that need, our plan is to double the size of our children’s ministry building as well as construct a new student ministry building over the next year. These two buildings are our most pressing needs. In both our children’s ministry area, and in our student ministry area, we are simply out of space. In the years ahead, our plan is to build a new social hall and a new multi-purpose education building to have more meeting space.
I am excited about the work God continues to do at Northwood, and I am so thankful we get to be a part of His work together. We are trusting God to provide for our facility needs. We are trusting that God would lead us to be generous as a faith family as we connect our faith to the future.
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Tommy Meador
IMPORTANT DATES
EVERY SUNDAY, 9:00AM
Weekly Prayer Gathering
Every Sunday, from October 20-November 24, at 9:00AM join us on the land where our new buildings will be built to pray over this project and ask for God’s guidance through each decision.
NOVEMBER 03 AND 09
Donuts and Coffee Campaign Q&A
Join Pastor Tommy in the gym during your Life Connection Group hour on Sunday, November 03 for a live Q&A. If you serve on Sunday mornings or cannot make it on November 03, we will also offer a make-up session on November 09.
NOVEMBER 10-16
Week of Prayer
The week of Nov 10-16 we are asking you to commit as a family to daily spending time in prayer using the prayer guide found in this book.
NOVEMBER 17
Commitment Sunday
On Sunday, November 17 we will come together to make our commitments to “Connecting Faith to the Future”.
NOVEMBER 24
Celebration Sunday
On Sunday, November 24 we will gather after our second service for a celebration lunch. During this time, we will announce the final numbers from our pledges and gifts. Please bring a side dish to share.
THE NEED
God has been good to our church! Over the last several years we have seen phenomenal growth in the life of our church. If you attend on Sunday mornings or Wednesday evenings, you will see so many people of all ages worshipping and growing with us. We have seen significant growth in our Children’s and Student Ministry areas. In our children’s building on Sunday mornings, about 150 children gather with about forty adult leaders for Life Connection Groups and children’s worship. On Wednesday evenings, 125 children and forty adult volunteers gather for Awana. Our children’s ministry building is not designed to hold that many people! In the Student Ministry area above the Family Life Center, sixty students and ten adult volunteers gather for Life Connection Groups, and on Wednesday evenings, 100 students and twenty adult volunteers gather for Aftershock student worship. That’s a lot of people in a very tight space! Our student ministry area is simply too small for the number of students and adult volunteers attending!
CONSISTENT GROWTH
Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 22:6
THE VISION
God is doing an amazing work in the lives of our children and students! We regularly see children and students come to faith in Christ, and we are seeing our children and students being discipled. We want our children and students to have adequate space to worship, learn, and grow together. We see this building project helping us to create new space that will serve us well into the future as we strive to make disciples of the next generation. As our church continues to grow, this space will help us to accomplish our mission to make disciples.
The expansion to our children’s ministry building will add an additional 6,000 square feet to our existing children’s ministry building. This expansion will include new classrooms and a large gathering room that will hold 125 children and volunteers with a full stage and audio/visual equipment!
The new Student Ministry building will be approximately 5,000 square feet and will accommodate 225 students and volunteers. This building will connect to our existing Family Life Center providing our students with access to both the new building and their current meeting space.
THE HOW
To see the vision of new facilities become a reality, we need you! Northwood is a generous church, and we are depending on your generosity to construct these new facilities! The cost of this construction project is approximately five million dollars. We can easily afford to build these buildings if everyone sacrificially gives! We’re asking for your family to make a three-year pledge to the Connecting Faith to the Future campaign. We trust that the Lord will provide through His people so that we can continue to make disciples of the next generation.
We understand that this commitment is going to look different for every family. The prayer guide that follows will lead you and your family through a week of asking God to lead you to give sacrificially. The graph to the right shows some weekly, monthly, and one-time sacrifices to consider. Some may seem small and insignificant, but over three years, your commitment to skip Starbucks on the way to church could make a big impact. Other sacrifices may seem too big, but we know God rewards those who sacrificially give with a joyful heart.
YOUR SACRIFICIAL IMPACT
USING THE PRAYER GUIDE
Use this Prayer Guide each day with your family or alone. Begin by praying to understand God’s Word. Look up and read the Scripture verse. Answer the questions through discussion, use of a journal or meditation. Close in prayer. Trust that God will speak to you through His Word.
Use the Family Conference section sometime during the week of November 10-16, as the Connecting Faith to the Future campaign draws to a close. Allow God to direct you and other family members as you determine your financial commitment. Set aside a specific time free of normal distractions to discuss, read, and pray according to the guidelines given in the Family Conference section. Ask God to reveal to you how He wants you to respond to the needs of our church.
WHERE TO BEGIN
This prayer guide is an opportunity for your whole family to pray and understand how God wants your family to be invested in the life of our church. While this campaign is encouraging you to pray about your financial investment into the life of our church, our desire is that you would also sacrificially give your time and abilities to our church as an act of worship and obedience to our Lord. As you use this prayer guide with your family, consider explaining to your family why you are committing to these seven days of prayer as a family.
Your explanation might go something like this:“We have been asked as families in our church to prepare for a time of giving and discovering God’s plan for us and our church.”For seven days, we’re going to share a daily Bible verse, questions, and a prayer as a church to help each family discern how God wants us to give of our time, talents, and treasures to our church.
Yes, it’s that simple.
The four key elements for every day are:
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Opening prayer: Through God’s enlightenment, invited in prayer, the Bible is simple enough for anyone to understand, even children. Without God’s enlightenment, the greatest mind in the universe cannot hope to understand the truth in its pages.
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Scripture: God’s Word is truth, and God’s Word is life giving. God’s Word is valuable, worth more than any words offered by man.
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Questions: God’s Word is practical and applicable to our lives and decisions. Reading the Bible is not a spectator sport, but one in which God invites you to examine what He is saying and apply it to your life.
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Closing prayer: No man has the power to change his own heart. Change takes place in our lives only by asking God to accomplish in us what He desires.
Reading the Bible and praying each day are compared in Scripture to eating daily bread. Just as you can be nourished by both a light snack and a seven-course dinner, so can God honor five minutes or an hour that you spend with Him. As you grow in Him, you will want, rather than feel forced, to spend more time with Him. Trust Him and be faithful to meet Him every day.
FAMILY CONFERENCE
The purpose of the family conference is to determine what God is leading your family to give to the Connecting Faith to the Future campaign. We encourage your family to set aside time for this special event between November 10-16. Commitments will be turned in on November 17.
Preparation:
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Participate in the preceding devotions in this guide trusting God to prepare the hearts of your family members to give sacrificially.
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Set a time for the conference, free of distraction, for the family to meet, pray, study and discuss what your financial commitment will be (approx. 30-60 min).
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Ask each family member to begin thinking of decisions that God wants the entire family to make in order to give.
Suggested Steps:
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The leader (preferably the head of the household) should begin with prayer, inviting God’s presence and leadership in the conference and asking God to give a spirit of love, unity and unselfishness.
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As a family, talk about commitments the family could make in order to give to God through the Connecting Faith to the Future campaign now and over the next three years. Be sure to include each child so that every family member has the opportunity to experience the joy of giving to God. Make a list of family ideas.
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Spend time praying as a family. Let each member pray sentence prayers:
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Thank and praise God
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Ask God for direction and help in making a family decision according to His will.
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Compare God’s principles for giving with the ideas your family has come up with. Add any other suggestions that anyone offers.
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Decide as a family what you will give and fill out your commitment card.
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Close in a prayer of commitment, asking God to provide for your family as you step out in faith, asking Him to give you joy in giving and thanking Him for what He has done and will do.