A little over two weeks ago we held the 126th Annual Meeting of our fellowship of churches. And we had a great time. I would estimate we had between 175-200 engaged in the meetings, maybe a few more with the Flood the Sound after-party on Friday night.  Bethany Baptist did a fantastic job of hosting, as we move toward 200 congregations. 

Here are videos of both Friday morning and Friday night.

• The morning session with our speaker Ivan Veldhuizen (He was excellent)
• The evening session with Darryn Scheske. He starts speaking at about the 35 minute mark, but there is good stuff before that too. I really like Darryn's message too and I know you will appreciate hearing it.

 

To move toward 200 congregations, key changes were announced at these meetings:

1. The introduction of Nate Hettinga as the Director of Church Planting Northwest. We have established CPN as the church planting arm of Converge Northwest.  Could we see 105 new churches over the next 10 years?
2. The introduction of Glen Douglas as our Eastern District Representative. We want to better serve our churches that have been traditionally underserved. Could we see more churches east of the Cascades?
3. I will devote a significant more amount of my time in strengthening churches. At Converge, we say we start and strengthen churches together worldwide. Well, we are going to take that seriously.  Can I develop a small army of trained and skilled in-district church consultants who can make sure every church is joyfully effective?
4. I announced one tool to help teach a process of moving churches on to a Joyful Effectiveness Path. This is about teaching a process to shape our culture vs. selling a product. Here is the introduction video.
5. We have shortfalls so we need to make changes in how we fund our budget. It won't look too different to most, but my approach will be different. I need to be much more deliberate in asking for support. We will need to raise $500,000 this next year.
6. We elected 3 board members: 
   • Nguyen Nguyen - Hope Vietnamese Church, Portland, OR
   • Joe Donaldson - Our Savior's Baptist, Federal Way, WA 
   • Dusty Taylor - Revive Church, Boise, ID. 
   • And Mark Rogers - Kenmore Community Church, Kenmore, WA is our Moderator for the year.