NWC Weekly Email Update

Hello Church Family,

I know what you are thinking; "Pastor Ben, you forgot to send your weekly email last week." The fact is, I did not forget, but the week slipped away from me so fast that it was almost over by the time I was ready to send it. I am sure that happens to you as well - or is it just me?

I have several things on my heart as I am writing to you today so it will probably be easier to share them in bullet points so that I don't forget anything;

1. Unity in Prayer Event - As you know, this Wednesday we are gathering together with other churches in our region to worship and pray together. This is more significant than I can share in my email. I want to personally invite and encourage you to come and participate in this event alongside your church. I want to look out and see NWC represented because we believe in prayer, we believe in unifying with the body of Christ in Federal Way and we believe that God is going to pour out His Spirit on this region. Remember, we are meeting at the Performing Arts and Event Center in downtown Federal Way at 7pm this Wednesday.

2. Youth Winter Camp - This coming weekend our Jr. High and High School students are heading off to Sequim for our annual youth retreat. I will be speaking to our youth along with our CE Team and some incredible volunteers who are taking a weekend to invest in our young people. Would you please pray for our youth and youth leaders this week and weekend? More than anything else we really need God to move in the hearts of our young people. God has a significant plan for their lives and we desire for this weekend to be a special time where they can grow in His Word, hear His voice and commit more fully to following Jesus. Please join us in prayer.

3. Church Service Structure Changes - You may have heard this last weekend that we are making some changes in the near future to our services. Some changes are minor and will make total sense while others are quite bigger in how they will affect some of us. The biggest change that I need to make sure everybody understands is this: Starting March 7/8th we need all of our parents to check their kids into their classrooms BEFORE our service starts. This means that you will no longer have your children come into service with you unless they plan to stay the entire time (which is fine of course). In the past we have checked our kids in through our system and then we have them join us in the main services for the first two songs where we pray them out and send them to their classrooms. This is a big change but I believe it will be a good change. There are two main reasons that we are doing this. First, I have found that our current structure can be harder for newer families to integrate into and as you may have noticed we have been growing quite a bit. Second, I want to deepen a culture of worship in our church along side our worship leaders and teams - this change will enable a lengthy time of worship without breaks which I believe is something we want. I am sure that many of us will miss praying out our kids but I believe all of this will be a good step with the other changes we will be making as well.

I can't tell you how I honored I am to be your Pastor and I am looking forward to BEING TOGETHER, BELIEVING TOGETHER AND BUILDING TOGETHER throughout this new year. Much love to you and your families and as always, feel free to email me back about anything - God bless you!

Pastor Ben Dixon
ben.dixon@nwcfoursquare.org
nwcfoursquare.org