Dear First Pres,

     Fun, uplifting, informative, encouraging, engaging, and community building ... these may not be words you normally associate with congregational meetings, but these are the words I heard from folks as they described our annual meeting on Sunday. Thanks to the elders and everybody who helped make it happen (including our friends from the Pink House who took care of our kids during the meeting). We had about 340 people in attendance; that's about 57% of our members. Way to go, Church. I'm grateful for that strong attendance, and I hope we can increase it next year because talking together about where we are and where we're going is important for every member.

     One of the things that we talked about was the upcoming Church Vitality Weekend, February 26-28. We are inviting Rev. Ken Priddy, who is an expert in helping churches live into the vitality of Jesus' great vision for the Church, to lead us in a weekend of learning and envisioning. The feature presentation will be a two part seminar starting on Friday night (part A) and ending on Saturday morning (part B). Even if you feel like you have church vitality all figured out, I hope you will join us for the seminar. If you come, I believe you will be encouraged, challenged, and inspired in your own walk with Christ and in your understanding of what it means for us to be the local church together. Ken will also be preaching for us that Sunday morning, but his 30 minutes of preaching will be a poor substitute for the seminar. Our hope is that you will carve out time that weekend to attend both the Friday-Saturday seminar and the Sunday worship service. So, would you take a moment right now and mark it down on your calendar?  We will start registration for the seminar on Sunday.

     Finally, I am so grateful to the Lord for the way He is at work in our congregation during these 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting. For some of you, this was your first time to engage in a corporate (or even private) fast. I hope you've been blessed by it personally, and I'm confident that God is using it in our city.  Praise the Lord.

     Even if you didn't fast from anything, I invite you to join me at the All City Worship and Celebration service on Sunday evening at Fresno Pacific University. I think you will love the diversity of churches coming together to join in prayer and praise. The service is in the Special Events Center from 5 - 6:30 p.m.

Blessings,

PS One of the things I'm most excited about for 2016 is our Men's Mexico Build, May 12-16. If you're interested in learning more, join me at 5:30pm on Wednesday, February 3 for a quick informational meeting in The Hub.