LCBC Family and Friends,
I’m so excited to share with you a few updates related to our For The One efforts:
Back in March, we talked about our hope and vision as a church to keep reaching new people in three main areas:
- Growing our digital and online reach
- Establishing groups in new communities across the state
- Launching new campuses
Thousands of you jumped in on our For The One efforts and committed millions of dollars over a 3-year window in order to advance the mission of introducing more people to Jesus across our state. You’re following through on those commitments – thank you. I wanted to give you a quick update related to our efforts that I think you’ll be excited about.
First, related to our Digital and Online efforts:
We’ve invested in creating more Bible Reading Plans and making them easily accessible to people, and we’ve seen 195% growth in people jumping into our Bible Reading Plans this year.
We’ve seen a 94% increase in visits to our church online page year-over-year.
We’ve now hired a Church Online Campus Pastor who is able to give focus and attention to caring for the thousands of people who are a part of our Church Online community.
This year we've also written 114 articles to help provide relevant content that connects faith with everyday life which has produced 98% more reads and views on our article page year-over-year.
In fact, we even heard about a teacher who isn’t a part of our church who came across an article we wrote that just gave tips and ideas for how parents could engage with their kids while at home. This teacher found it so helpful that she printed a copy for every one of the parents of the kids in her class and sent it home. That’s what it means to show up for people as a church before they ever show up at our church.
Second, we now have a presence in multiple communities across the state where people are beginning to form Groups to watch gatherings together, grow together, and serve their communities together.
In fact, we have regular events now happening in Carlisle, State College, Johnstown, and Quakertown just to name a few. While we may not have a building in those communities, we’ve got a presence. If you want to know more about what we’re doing in those communities or other ones across the state just go to the Locations of Interest page here.
Lastly, there are a few communities in which we are working hard to launch a campus and establish a permanent presence in those regions.
We’ve been working hard to identify properties in the Willow Street area, along the 422 corridor in Leesport and Montgomery counties, and in Wilkes-Barre. We’ve been actively negotiating with some potential property owners in those communities. The real estate landscape is super competitive right now, but our hope and prayer would be for two properties to be under agreement in the upcoming months. I’d ask you to join with us in praying for that as well.
So, bottom line, there’s a lot of movement happening and your giving has opened doors for us to keep moving forward.
But here’s the really, really exciting part. One of the most meaningful experiences we had last spring was when we wrote down the names of people who we want to see know Christ. Collectively we wrote down thousands of names across our church. And just this week I heard two stories from people who let us know that the name they wrote down in March has now trusted Jesus and is now a life changed by Christ.
And THAT is why we exist – for the one – to introduce more people to Jesus and together fully follow him.
So guys, lean in right now to what God is doing here through our church. God’s up to something here. We’re going to hit the new year running hard and I’m so glad we get to run after big things together.
Jason
Click here to learn more about For The One.