A Note from your Pastoral Staff:

As noted in this week’s bulletin, Pastor Shannon, the MVBC pastoral staff, and Deacon Council are proposing a revised Sunday morning worship schedule with Sunday School from 9:00-10:00 a.m. and one corporate worship service from 10:30-11:30 a.m.

Why do we sense God is leading us to make this change?

Unity: Current cultural and theological trends signal difficult days ahead for the Church, both in our country and around the world. More than ever, we need unity as a body to face these challenges together under the headship of Christ, and gathering together as one body each week (Heb. 10:25) is an important, tangible way to encourage unity among God’s people at MVBC and communicate that unity to our guests so they will know that Jesus is the Son of God (Jn. 17:23).

Encouragement: One service will give our entire faith community the opportunity to rejoice together at the saving work of Jesus Christ (Ps. 107:31-32). As an example, on May 3 five people openly confessed their faith and were baptized at the 8:30 a.m. service, followed by three people in the 11:00 a.m. service on May 10. Because we are currently in two services, only half of our congregation witnessed this blessing. One service means we can all experience the exciting things God will do among us on Sunday mornings! (Acts 2:42-46)

Community: God has blessed our congregation with saints of all ages and backgrounds; one worship service will help us develop stronger community by sharing our worship traditions with each other as we “teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in [our] hearts.” (Col 3:16). We will have a choir and a praise team, singing songs of our heritage and fresh new songs of our faith (the Easter Sunday service and our Deeper Life Conference meetings were good illustrations of this worship style).

Recognizing the biblical admonition that “everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way” (1 Cor. 14:40), we will have a Question & Answer session during the 6:30 p.m. evening service on May 24, 2015 for the congregation to discuss the proposed change with the pastoral staff and deacons. This matter will then be presented to the church for approval at the regularly scheduled business meeting on Wednesday May 27, 2015 at 6:15 p.m. If approved, the revised schedule will be effective Sunday, June 7, 2015.