Fall 2023 Ministry Update
Greetings Pendleton First family,
I am so excited to see our church grow and expand into all that God has for us in the coming season. As the new Senior Pastors Danielle and I thought it would be advantageous to send out seasonal updates to the congregation on the progress we have been working towards over the past 6 months. Changes have been made and while that can be hard to adjust to they are all good changes and serve a purpose to strengthen and increase our ministry effectiveness moving forward.
A tremendous amount of work has been happening to enable our wonderful church to grow and become even better than ever for the glory of Jesus Christ. We want to take some time to highlight the work that has been occurring as well as future work that will be occurring so that everyone is up to date. As you know it can be difficult to share everything that happens inside of our church with so many ministries occurring throughout the week.
Since we arrived as the Senior Pastors, it has been our mission to help the church to transition to a new season. As many of you are aware we had to work to replace our Associate Pastors Wes and Carrie Sheley after their departure to Pastor in Medford, Oregon. We were blessed to have great candidates apply and believe God gave us the perfect fit with a familiar face in P. Mike Derrickson joining the team.
For those of you who are not aware, P. Mike’s role is Church Ministries Pastor. This means he oversees a host of ministries within the church including transportation, ushers/greeters, prayer team, maintenance team, worship team and others. This role is perfect for P. Mike as he has years of experience administrating, developing and deploying new initiatives to strengthen ministry.
We were also tasked with filling the Youth Pastor position. We felt it necessary to move quickly to capture momentum for our students and to have a great youth program by getting our new Youth Pastor here rapidly. After a nationwide search that lasted nearly 3 months, God directed me to P. Michael & Bridgette Miller who were leading ministry at our previous church in Sutherlin, Oregon.
P. Michael and his family have been working diligently since starting at the beginning of the summer. They have been hosting Friday night fellowship events with students, preparing vision for the student ministry, getting established in the office and they recently did a fantastic job raising funds for their ministry during our annual round- up fundraiser. Our summer season for our Youth program went well and we are now excited that our first service with our students had 24 in attendance.
Great things are on the horizon for Impact Student Ministries under Pastor Michael and Bridgette Miller and we want to encourage you that your students are our top priority. We will be investing in great ways in the coming months to build our youth ministry. Please stop by and meet P. Michael if you have not and please keep them in your prayers.
We recently finished up our Round-Up & Happy Canyon fundraising efforts and while the final numbers are not official, we believe we were able to raise about $34,000.00 to help fund various ministries in our church and community. I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who served tirelessly during the Round-Up season. We were able to connect with so many people and be a shining light on a hill during this important week for our region.
Other changes have been made recently as well to enrich and increase discipleship opportunities as follows:
Ephesians 4:11-16 11And it was He who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12to equip the saints for works of ministry and to build up the body of Christ, 13until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, as we mature to the full measure of the stature of Christ. 14Then we will no longer be infants tossed about by the waves and carried around by every wind of teaching and by the clever cunning of men in their deceitful scheming. 15Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Christ Himself, who is the head. 16From Him the whole body, fitted and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love through the work of each individual part.
In the next few months we will be working diligently on compiling a vision for the calendar years 2024-2026. Please pray for the Board and Pastoral team as they dream big for all that God wants to accomplish in Pendleton and beyond. We will launch vision 2024 at our next Annual Business Meeting early next year. I want to remind our congregation that no vision is the result of one single person but it is the intent of the leadership of Pendleton First to listen collectively to the voice of Jesus as to what His desires are for this church. It is for that reason we recently had a five day vision retreat as the Pastors and leaders of the church to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen for what He wants to accomplish in our region.
Would you like to be a part of this process? We have a church open door policy. If you would like to offer ideas or meet with any member of our pastoral team all you need to do is contact the church office and we will make a time for you on our calendar. If you need anything from any member of the staff or pastoral team please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We are servants of Jesus sent for your benefit, so please utilize our gifts as necessary.
Thank you for the privilege and honor it is to serve here in Pendleton as your Senior Pastor. God is doing wonderful things and I know through faith and patience we will see every word of promise spoken over our church come to pass. Please be diligent to pray for your leadership team, to make time in service of Jesus through the church and to be present consistently in fellowship with other believers. I want to especially appreciate this congregation for giving faithfully to the Lord. Your continued generosity has helped us to run with vision and direction for the future.
In conclusion I want to leave you with Ephesians 3:20-21 20 Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, 21to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Numbers 6:24-26 24 “The Lord bless you and keep you; 25 the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; 26 the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”
Yours in Service to Jesus Christ,
Pastor Joshua Brunette
I am so excited to see our church grow and expand into all that God has for us in the coming season. As the new Senior Pastors Danielle and I thought it would be advantageous to send out seasonal updates to the congregation on the progress we have been working towards over the past 6 months. Changes have been made and while that can be hard to adjust to they are all good changes and serve a purpose to strengthen and increase our ministry effectiveness moving forward.
A tremendous amount of work has been happening to enable our wonderful church to grow and become even better than ever for the glory of Jesus Christ. We want to take some time to highlight the work that has been occurring as well as future work that will be occurring so that everyone is up to date. As you know it can be difficult to share everything that happens inside of our church with so many ministries occurring throughout the week.
Since we arrived as the Senior Pastors, it has been our mission to help the church to transition to a new season. As many of you are aware we had to work to replace our Associate Pastors Wes and Carrie Sheley after their departure to Pastor in Medford, Oregon. We were blessed to have great candidates apply and believe God gave us the perfect fit with a familiar face in P. Mike Derrickson joining the team.
For those of you who are not aware, P. Mike’s role is Church Ministries Pastor. This means he oversees a host of ministries within the church including transportation, ushers/greeters, prayer team, maintenance team, worship team and others. This role is perfect for P. Mike as he has years of experience administrating, developing and deploying new initiatives to strengthen ministry.
We were also tasked with filling the Youth Pastor position. We felt it necessary to move quickly to capture momentum for our students and to have a great youth program by getting our new Youth Pastor here rapidly. After a nationwide search that lasted nearly 3 months, God directed me to P. Michael & Bridgette Miller who were leading ministry at our previous church in Sutherlin, Oregon.
P. Michael and his family have been working diligently since starting at the beginning of the summer. They have been hosting Friday night fellowship events with students, preparing vision for the student ministry, getting established in the office and they recently did a fantastic job raising funds for their ministry during our annual round- up fundraiser. Our summer season for our Youth program went well and we are now excited that our first service with our students had 24 in attendance.
Great things are on the horizon for Impact Student Ministries under Pastor Michael and Bridgette Miller and we want to encourage you that your students are our top priority. We will be investing in great ways in the coming months to build our youth ministry. Please stop by and meet P. Michael if you have not and please keep them in your prayers.
We recently finished up our Round-Up & Happy Canyon fundraising efforts and while the final numbers are not official, we believe we were able to raise about $34,000.00 to help fund various ministries in our church and community. I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who served tirelessly during the Round-Up season. We were able to connect with so many people and be a shining light on a hill during this important week for our region.
Other changes have been made recently as well to enrich and increase discipleship opportunities as follows:
- A small group for men has been launched bi-weekly on Wednesday nights with our Men’s ministry leadership facilitating the lessons using the 360 men’s ministry curriculum.
- With a view of future transitions on our Church Board, we successfully expanded our Church Board of Deacons to 8 members with me chairing the board for a total of 9. Star Powell and Michael Van Pelt were elected to serve. Their additional perspectives have helped in decision making and we are blessed to have their wisdom and experience to lead our church.
- The start time of our Sunday morning service was shifted to 10:30 to make time to launch our new Sunday School Life Hour training from 9:00am - 10:00am for all age groups. The goal is to expand the classes offered for adults but currently they meet in the Fellowship Hall with me leading. The kids are in Kids Place with P. Ashley Sentes. Our middle and high school students are with P. Michael Miller in the Annex. Childcare is also offered for this time slot.
- Intercessory prayer time is launching on Thursday nights at 6:30pm in the main sanctuary. I will be leading that prayer time. All are welcome to come and pray for our church, our city and our families or to just come and receive from the Lord. Light music will be playing and you can come and go as you need to.
- Our church had run though our promotional materials when I arrived so it was a good time to create new materials to represent our church in the community. We took the opportunity to update our ministry logo at the same time. We have created a host of new materials for our guests to learn about our church with Becky Derrickson leading the charge. You will notice our online presence has been updated to reflect this.
- Season of Purpose is a new ministry that was started by Tammy Moore to answer the need for vibrant ministry for our active Senior Adults. I am very excited to have this ministry launched to provide discipleship and fellowship opportunities for our seniors here at Pendleton First. Tammy is a great leader of ministry in our church, and she has the right heart & vision to see this ministry flourish. If you are in this demographic in our church, I think you will really be blessed by some of the things that are planned.
- Sound updates are being made to fix our sound issues for Sunday morning. We are aware that the sound on Sunday morning needs to be better. The good news is that God has given us the financial and technical resources to fix these problems. You may have noticed all the new sound panels in the main sanctuary, and the new speaker system. This is the beginning of investing in our sound system so that we have a higher quality sound for Sunday mornings. It is a work in progress, and we thank you for your patience as we make these important investments. For those not aware our previous sound equipment was dated 30 years so the new technology will help us with our in-house and online sound.
- The Coffee Shop will be moving to a more central and easily accessible location in the Fellowship Hall soon. The current location is hard to gain access to due to the stairs where the new location in the Fellowship Hall will make it easier for people with mobility issues to come a bit early, enjoy a cup of coffee and increase fellowship opportunities.
- Updates to the Fellowship Hall will include resealing the floor, applying a fresh coat of paint to the walls and installing sound panels to fix the echo in the room. In the future we will be updating the lighting for the youth ministry, building a new platform and adding some additional items to warm and liven up the space for our youth ministry who meet on Wednesday nights in the space.
Ephesians 4:11-16 11And it was He who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12to equip the saints for works of ministry and to build up the body of Christ, 13until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, as we mature to the full measure of the stature of Christ. 14Then we will no longer be infants tossed about by the waves and carried around by every wind of teaching and by the clever cunning of men in their deceitful scheming. 15Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Christ Himself, who is the head. 16From Him the whole body, fitted and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love through the work of each individual part.
In the next few months we will be working diligently on compiling a vision for the calendar years 2024-2026. Please pray for the Board and Pastoral team as they dream big for all that God wants to accomplish in Pendleton and beyond. We will launch vision 2024 at our next Annual Business Meeting early next year. I want to remind our congregation that no vision is the result of one single person but it is the intent of the leadership of Pendleton First to listen collectively to the voice of Jesus as to what His desires are for this church. It is for that reason we recently had a five day vision retreat as the Pastors and leaders of the church to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen for what He wants to accomplish in our region.
Would you like to be a part of this process? We have a church open door policy. If you would like to offer ideas or meet with any member of our pastoral team all you need to do is contact the church office and we will make a time for you on our calendar. If you need anything from any member of the staff or pastoral team please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We are servants of Jesus sent for your benefit, so please utilize our gifts as necessary.
Thank you for the privilege and honor it is to serve here in Pendleton as your Senior Pastor. God is doing wonderful things and I know through faith and patience we will see every word of promise spoken over our church come to pass. Please be diligent to pray for your leadership team, to make time in service of Jesus through the church and to be present consistently in fellowship with other believers. I want to especially appreciate this congregation for giving faithfully to the Lord. Your continued generosity has helped us to run with vision and direction for the future.
In conclusion I want to leave you with Ephesians 3:20-21 20 Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, 21to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Numbers 6:24-26 24 “The Lord bless you and keep you; 25 the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; 26 the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”
Yours in Service to Jesus Christ,
Pastor Joshua Brunette