Come hear about "The Next Chapter" for the Northwest Conference at our 2011 Annual Meeting, which will take place at Crossview Covenant Church in North Mankato, MN, April 28-30.

REMINDER: The deadline to register for meals has passed, but we will still accept delegate registrations for the meetings.

Join us as we celebrate the amazing work being done in and through our churches and discuss what the future holds for our collective ministry. We are excited to celebrate the faithful work of outgoing Superintendent Rev. Jim Fretheim and look to the future as we welcome nominee Rev. Mark Stromberg.

The Northwest Conference will again debut a series of videos highlighting our three Ministry Areas at the 2011 Annual Meeting. The videos are designed to tell the stories of churches around the NWC doing unique work in the areas of Congregational Vitality, Church Planting, and Children, Youth & Family ministry.

Each church's delegates will leave the meeting with a DVD containing all the video segments, and the series will also be posted to the NWC website. Our hope is that each and every church in the conference would find opportunity to show the segments in adult education classes, during Sunday services, new member classes, or any other church meetings.

Through your support of the Northwest Conference, your church is participating in God's activity throughout our region. The Mission Friends video series is specifically tailored to inspire your church and serve as a tool to explain and strengthen conference ministry.

Lake Union Covenant Church in South Haven, MN, broke ground on a new building expansion project during a special ceremony on March 27. According to Pastor Lloyd Melvie, the project has been in preliminary stages for several years and should be completed in Fall 2011.

The church's current worship space seats 80 people, and the congregation regularly draws 75 on Sunday mornings.

"We won't be able to grow unless we get more space," Melvie said.

Lake Union will keep part of the old church building and expand to include a new worship center, a larger fellowship area, a new kitchen, and handicap accessibility throughout the space. The church raised a portion of the $400,000 project cost through the sale of one of two adjoining lakeshore lots on Union Lake. The congregation hopes to sell the second lot soon to help finance the remaining project costs.

There was a time when Covenanters making "home brew" and selling it in pint mason jars would have been frowned upon, but Brian Alnes, the executive director of Lake Beauty Bible Camp, says the money for the latest product will help fund scholarships.

He's talking about the camp's new label of maple syrup, however. The camp is selling each pint for $12 in its store.

The camp is making syrup for the first time because of a friendship the camp developed over the years with a neighbor across the lake, Butch Clark. "Butch spent most of his life in this area and has engaged in the art of maple sugaring for nearly all of it," says Alnes. "Butch does it as a labor of love." 

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