By Brad King , Chairman, Leadership Board

This month I thought it might be helpful to re-cap the annual business meeting that was held on January 28, 2007. A spaghetti meal preceded the meeting and the turnout was strong. We estimated around 150 people attended the meal and meeting.

Faith and Finance

Praise God for his faithfulness as we finished this year with a surplus of $40,000 more than budget! By faith we approved a budget of $1,522,670, which represents an increase of 11% over our 2006 budget and an 8% increase over actual giving.

Charting a Higher Course

As leadership, we have used your input from Charting a Higher Course (CAHC) to help shape our decisions. Several events and decisions in 2006 supported the directives from CAHC. In regard to our pastoral staff, we said farewell to our interim Senior Pastor, Paul Murphy, who lead us in formulating CAHC and we welcomed our new Senior Pastor, Todd Olson, who leads us in fulfilling CAHC. Hiring Dave Genberg for Pastor of Ministry Development and rewriting Pastor Larry Orth’s job description to give added focus to care and outreach resulted in two staff members working with adult ministries, helping us remain inwardly strong and become more outwardly focused.

Our first annual CareFest was a great success with strong participation from Calvary and a significant impact on our community. The communications ministry team developed a new logo, created visual identity standards, and re-designed our church web site to help us communicate more effectively within the church family and to our community. With growth as one of our key objectives, it was encouraging to report that attendance on Sunday mornings has increased an average of 55 people, and it is exciting to hear that in and through Calvary’s influence, there were 159 conversions in 2006.

Plans for 2007

We thank God for His goodness towards us in 2006 and we look for His guidance in our plans for 2007. A major initiative in 2007 will be a third worship service. Pastors Todd and Dan continue to work on this. This service is set to begin on September 9, 2007, and presently is planned for Sunday evenings. The evening time has many potential benefits that fit well with other ministry initiatives. The style of the service is likely to be something different from our current services. To help shape this service, we took time during the meeting for discussion, asking for congregational input. Todd and Dan asked us to respond to the third service by praying, attending, and serving.

The second annual CareFest is planned for June 16, 2007. Reserve that day on your calendar and plan to be part of this church-wide effort to serve our city and build bridges to our community. Back on our campus, we also have a facilities work group studying how to maximize the use of our present facility. Kevin Zemanek gave an update and highlighted some facility changes that have or will occur soon. This included expansion of the parking lot, an opening up of the gathering space, and relocation of staff offices to the perimeter of the building behind the worship center. Regarding adult ministries, Pastors Todd, Larry, and Dave G. are developing plans for adult discipleship and strategies to identify and train future leaders.

Excitement and Anticipation

When observing all that has taken place and what is planned, there is a sense of excitement and expectation about what God is doing and what He is about to do in and through Calvary.