GCF SWAP Newsletter
March, 2022
Spring greetings from your SWAP Team – 2022!
How quickly a month flies by…. It’s March already and I, for one, am happy to see my daffodils ready to bloom!
I’m writing this on the only day of this year where all numerals are the same number…2/22/22. And March brings us the most commanding day of the year, MARCH FOURTH!
Ok, now that I have your attention, I’ll share a few ‘happenings’ at Grace. The staff/elders are focusing on each ministry having a definate goal and purpose. This is called SWOT, which stands for Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats. It’s a process where we can identify what’s going well and what needs to change or improve. The pandemic has been a major threat the past two years and has caused many problems for all of us. This has also limited our ability for fellowshipping together so that’s one the first weaknesses we want to address.
Your SWAP Team has worked on coordinating our program to fit with the goals of other ministries at Grace. Although not all areas have been ironed out, the one objective we would like to introduce is having a place, time and purpose for any and all Seniors to meet monthly. A couple of suggestions to fulfill this objective have been a ‘Sunday School’ class (aka: Bible study time) together on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis) and a set time for a prayer meeting where all interested Seniors gather for the sole purpose of praying together. We would appreciate your input as to how you feel about this and want to know what ideas you have? You may talk to any of your SWAP Team members at church, Bible study, etc to share your thoughts. You may also email or call Keith Sherman at keithsherman153@gmail.com /541-954-2231 or email me at pdrush1962@gmail.com. We value your input.
Another goal is for all of us Seniors to develop relationships for mutual support (helping one another) and to make sure no one would stand alone. Because we haven’t been able to join together for the past two years, we need an occasional social event to meet each other and engage with one another. We would hope to do this at least quarterly.
Prayer and our prayer team will be strategic in guiding our ministry and that includes you. We have a great system for you to submit your prayer requests. However, we don’t see this being used as often as it could be. It’s hard to believe we have as few requests as we have received. Please share your concerns with us, including health, family, spiritual needs and also concerns for friends or self. This list is endless. I’ve mentioned before and will do so again the importance of praying for each other. We are all living in the most vulnerable time of our life. We need to be here to support one another. Click on SWAP (Seniors) on the GCF Website and you’ll be able to find where to access the prayer area. If you have trouble doing this or cannot due to lack of access to a computer, please let us know. We can communicate in other ways. (see Keith’s number above.)
One more thing…if you have church friends who do not have access to this newsletter please let me know (email above). We will print a hard copy and get it to them.
I’m going to go back to interviewing our staff members soon. We left off with our Senior Pastor, Steve Hill. It’s time to learn about many others. (By the way, if you missed any of the past interviews, our communication manager, Kaleea, has posted the past letters in the SWAP website.) However, because we really want to consider ideas and input from you, we’ll leave those interviews for the future.
Please know you are our first priority in our planning of the future of the seniors at GCF. We pray for you regularly. We look forward to Covid meeting restrictions being a thing of the past. We ask our Lord to guide us in ‘what’s next’ for you…for us.
Our familiar verse from Jeremiah 29:11 gives us direction once more….
“For sure I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord…to give you a future with hope.”
Until we hear from you…
Dianne Rush for your SWAP Team
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