Results of the Oregon City Vote

Dear Church,

I am writing to inform you about the results of our invitation for the Oregon City congregation to become a permanent part of New Life Church. They voted a couple hours ago and elected not to accept our invitation.

Aaron and I will continue to serve them until the first of January. We will keep you posted as things progress in the coming weeks. We will have an opportunity to talk face-to-face about this at our annual budget and elections meeting on December 6th. We definitely want to pray and talk and answer questions then.

Our elders are committed to Aaron and Amanda, who will no longer be in OC after January. They have served admirably there for this past year. We are delighted to keep them on our staff.

This might be a good time to review several of the reasons this Oregon City experience has been good for me and for NLC.

1. It has helped me understand multi-site better and know what we’ll need to adjust in order to add future sites.
2. It has increased the faith of our leaders and congregation.
3. It has grown my own skills.
4. It has helped me understand my strengths and weaknesses.
5. It has grown Aaron.
6. It has caused us to pray.
7. It has given my kids an expanded view and vision for the church.
8. It has grown our elders.
9. I have learned about church mergers.
10. It has strengthened our relationship with NWCBA.
11. It has given us vision for the Church (Big “C”).
12. I have come to know some wonderful people.

What does this mean to us? It means we are off to the next thing. We have, this past year, assisted in the closing of Canyon Creek Church in Wilsonville, taking their pastor on our staff. We are going to pursue the Lord’s leading toward starting a church in Wilsonville.

In addition, we are working on starting a very exciting young adults’ ministry that will begin after the first of the year. Not only that, our international student ministry, our involvement in transitional housing, AWANA, and our youth ministry are all gaining significant traction.

We will find this next year to be one of the most exciting our church has ever known.

With Love,

Pastor Scott