Our El Salvador missions team has been working hard all week ministering to children and youth thousands of miles away. I wanted to share some pictures of their work. Thank you for praying for them! We look forward to hearing about their trip when they return. Also, our Deaf Church missions team heads to Mexico this week as well, so be praying for that team. We are excited to be a church that impacts the world!
Happy Easter! What a day we had at North Creek Church!
Our hearing campuses went MOBILE to Prairie High School, while our Deaf Church took over our Battle Ground Campus. We ended the day with 515 people in attendance and about 20 people accepting Jesus. We are PUMPED!
Our service at the school was a packed house with kids everywhere. Our volunteer team was ON POINT and it was smooth as butter! We learned a couple of lessons on the fly doing mobile church, but all in all, I was so impressed with everyone.
Thanks to Eddie for donating Stumptown coffee for the morning…so good!!! Our people might have been a little shocked not to be able to bring coffee into Prairie’s auditorium. At the Coffee Church, people REALLY like their coffee… Thank you for being good sports about it and honoring the school.
We haven’t been a mobile church in 7 years, so it was fun to go back to our roots. The majority of our launch team is still with us, so we were reminiscing as we pulled out our rolling boxes and trailer. God has been so faithful all of these years and starting a church has been a beautiful lesson in faith. I wouldn’t change this journey for anything!
We spent a lot of time praying for our friends who are pastors last week. We hope that Monday morning finds you encouraged in the Lord. We honor you, not for the number of people in your service, but for your diligent work for Jesus. He is proud of you, not for the crowd, but for your work to the “least of these.”
Our El Salvador missions team celebrated Easter in another country yesterday! They spent the weekend learning skits and lessons as they will be doing ministry all week. Add them to your prayer list! It’s very hot, they are working hard, and they are away from their family. However, we are sure they will have an amazing time in the midst of the challenges!
Well, come to church next week. Easter always reminds pastors of the power of the local church. There’s nothing more important about yesterday than every Sunday. Jesus shows up in worship and preaching week in and week out, day in and day out. If we, as the body of Christ, understand the importance of coming together often, inviting our friends, and approaching the throne with great expectations, it is then that we will see a mighty move of God in our communities. I can’t wait!
I am ending with some thank you’s today. I hope you are blessed this week! 😉
Thank you!
Pastor Mark – You are a truly remarkable mix of humility and authority. I am constantly in awe of how God crafted you to lead us all. I love you and am proud to be your wife and partner in crime…I mean ministry….
Matt and our worship team – EXCELLENT job leading us to Jesus with music. Absolutely beautiful and heartfelt from start to finish. We hope you enjoyed the whole 10 minutes of the service that you got to sit down!
Andrea and the Tiny Town/Nursery team – Mobile church is hardest for your ministry and you all knocked it out of the park. That was almost 50 toddlers to wrangle and teach about Jesus, which you did with grace and patience. Next time we will get you more walls….
Vanessa and the Kid City team – Such amazing creativity that you brought for our elementary kids this weekend! We appreciate the incredible effort you put forth, not to just talk at our kids, but to help them learn in a variety of ways!
Chris and the tech team – While everybody sees the benefits of your ministry, nobody sees the details it takes to seamlessly pull it off. The environment you created in the auditorium was remarkable. Thank you for working tirelessly to make it all happen.
Stephanie and the usher team – We added some tricky elements into our regular service and you took on the challenge with ease!
North Creek Church – Whether you were scheduled to volunteer or not, I watched you greet, serve, and give without question. Christ is your center and I see Him pour of you daily. Thank you for being imperfect people who are just willing to be the hands and feet to the Gospel. We love you!
Easter is no doubt the most joyful event on the Christian calendar. A few years ago, I collected some of the major events and themes of the Easter story and organized them into verse. My prayer is that this poem will be a source of blessing and encouragement to each one who reads it. Thanks…David
Resurrection Sunday
Long ago and far away on a mount called Calvary
He was nailed to a cross where He died for you and me
They placed Him in a tomb and soldiers blocked the entry way
But He was nowhere to be found, on the morning of the third day
The greatest day in history is the morning of the third day
God revealed a mystery on the morning of the third day
They arrived at His tomb and found the stone rolled away
He had conquered death and doom, on Resurrection Sunday
Why is it that you seek the living ‘mongst the dead
You will not find Him here, for He has risen as He said!
He preached to captive souls and set their spirits free
He ascended to God’s throne and returned victoriously
He told family and friends, peace be unto you today
For He had risen from the dead, on the morning of the third day
What a grand and glorious morn, when He rose from the grave
What a triumph over sin, which no longer could enslave
What a wondrous day for man when the Truth, the Life, the Way
So defeated Satan’s plan, on the morning of the third day
Oh the day whose magnitude shook the world’s foundation
Oh the dawn that gave new hope to every tribe and nation
Oh the morn when saints rejoiced and sinners fell to pray
When Salvation’s plan was sealed, on the morning of the third day
The greatest day in history is the morning of the third day
God revealed a mystery on the morning of the third day
They arrived at His tomb and found the stone rolled away
Jesus conquered death and doom, on resurrection Sunday!
Why is it that you seek the living ‘mongst the dead
You will not find Him here, for He is risen as He said!
D.R.H.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I’m Irish, but if you know how feisty I am, you probably already figured that out! 😉
Church was fun on Sunday. We had great attendance, great worship, and great preaching…all wrapped up in the joy of being with people we deeply love! What more could one ask for?
We also got to welcome our latest addition to our North Creek family. Congrats to Roy and Alissa on the birth of their new little girl! She surprised us by coming a bit early, but all is well! If you want to help with meals, click HERE.
We have a few more babies coming over the next several weeks, so the excitement is still to come. We love our growing families and are grateful to these young moms and dads!
We had our Annual Business Meeting on Sunday night to let everyone know how 2014 played out. It was an interesting year as we felt like our ministries thrived and our finances struggled. We are using the next 21 days to pray and prepare for how God will use that adversity to provide opportunity. We could not be more excited for the future of North Creek Church and the one thing you can do to help us is to consistently give so that we can better plan for our budget as a body.
We are doing a slight service time adjustment at Hazel Dell…drum roll please…our 11:00 am service is moving to 10:45 am as of THIS Sunday. If that is your service, please plan on getting there early next week to help our service begin strong!
We have Volunteer Training days coming up. It’s for ALL of our volunteers to come and get a clear picture of how and why we do things. Hazel Dell’s is on Saturday, March 21 at 10:00 am. Battle Ground is on Saturday, March 28 at 10:00 am. Plan to be there if you are one of our AMAZING volunteers.
We are gearing up for Easter at Prairie High School. It’s all hands on deck as we prepare, invite people, and pray for our community. Jesus changes everything. He’s so worth serving and so worth telling people about!
Sometimes you need to WAIT on God. We tend to want answers, direction, a perfect plan, and the whole picture, but what I’ve found to be more realistic are long, drawn out days of prayer and more prayer. The answers we seek are very often on the other side of convenience. So, if you are facing the desire to solve something in your life on your schedule, I hope you will consider shelving that desire and waiting for the answer that God has for you. It’s worth the wait.
Well, another week has passed and God is still allowing us to do what we love. We are blessed!
Enjoy your week and come to church on Sunday! I like seeing you!
SO many things happening this week:
Three years ago this week we began the process of merging with Maple Grove Church to create North Creek’s second campus in Battle Ground. It has been such a learning experience as we were thrown into turning around a struggling church, adding a deaf church, creating a new leadership infrastructure, starting a youth ministry, starting a worship team, etc. What a wild ride! And along the way we have been blessed with many stories of changed lives!
One year ago this week we started our Battle Ground Youth Ministry! Mat and Janel Marbrey are two of the best blessings that have come out of the last three years! And we are so very grateful for the influx of teenagers that now roam our hallways. There’s nothing better than a church full of teenagers!!!!
Our Hazel Dell Youth Pastor took a small team of people to a youth leader’s conference last week. It happened to be the same conference where God called us to plant a church…good news is that Kris didn’t get asked to do that again! 😉 I guess that’s good news…maybe more Coffee Churches would be AWESOME!
We also had an incredible Simply Worship on Friday night. God really did some deep work in the hearts and lives of people from our church. God is CHANGING people in our midst! I could not be more excited for how I see Him molding people’s hearts and circumstances. If you are stuck, frustrated, addicted, and struggling…don’t give up! He’s got a plan!
Our Annual Business Meeting is next week to go over the state of the church (Sunday, March 15, 5pm). We had a challenging year financially in 2014, so we have to solve that for 2015. On the flip side, we had a plethora of truly incredible ministry going on, so there’s a juxtaposition of emotions. One thing I know: God is good, He will guide us, and I trust Him. We have a bright future and I can’t wait to see it unfold!
Who are you inviting to Easter? I’m inviting everyone who breathes.
Well, I hope you LOVE your church, because I do. I love the people that I get to meet, I love the hearts to grow in my Growth group, I love the struggles that we have the honor of walking alongside, I love the celebrations, and I love the dreams. I love that we get to serve a God together in unity and make each other more like Him. I love singing worship songs, and I love watching our kids grow up together. I love His Word and I love how it changes the core of who we are. I love when my youth pastor calls weeping over a broken teenager because it means she LOVES them. I love when I see laughter in the foyer, and I love the coffee flowing into so many cups every Sunday. I love that my kids are a part of something greater than themselves and I love when our team fights for what they believe in. I love when we all forgive each other and I love when we mess up. I love your stories and I love those of you who serve faithfully. I love that my heart’s desire is to be at this church a really long time and I love the fact that so many of you feel the same way. I love the idea that I will grow old with you and tell stories about “Once upon a time at North Creek”… and I really love that God lets me do this with my life. WE ARE SO BLESSED to be a part of this crazy, broken thing called “Church”. Isn’t it a beautiful mess?
Be blessed this week. I know I am!