This coming Sunday represents one year for the Daniell family being at CPC. It is a true blessing and privilege for me to serve with you. Over the past 12 months the Lord has done much in and through us. He has helped us grow downward, outward, inward, and upward. We can see it as we reflect on what has happened. We began by making our way through a topical sermon series on ‘What is the Church?’ Then, we dove into the Gospel of Mark, and after having commenced an evening service on selected Sundays, we started the book of Joshua. In these services, we had two baptisms, the first in years, and more are on the way. Last October, we hosted an outreach event through our Fall Festival, with over 200 visiting. We’ve begun a prayer meeting every Wednesday night, 7pm, where we bring our praises and petitions before God.

Our adult Sunday School class has explored missions, the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Westminster Confession of Faith chapters 1-5, and Ancient Church history. Our small groups continue to add new people, and a new group has been formed. And the same is true regarding our men’s and women’s ministries. In addition to the Matthew study, the ladies did a summer series on CS Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, and the men started a monthly unpacking of JC Ryle’s Holiness. Through all of this and more (I’ve only scratched the surface in my description), the Lord has grown us in our love for Christ, his Word, and others. And he has added to our numbers, with several more families looking to join in the months ahead. People are evangelizing and inviting others to church, and some have come. Indeed, God has blessed us. But where are we going from here? May it be in the same direction—faithfulness to God and trusting him with everything else.

What are some new things that will be happening? 1) Beginning this Sunday, there will be a slight change in the morning liturgy. The Reading of Scripture will be moved up before the Confession of Sin, to help bring variety to our confession. Furthermore, this will be what’s called a Lectio Continua reading, where we will move through books of the Bible together. 2) We will start our own 3rd Sunday evening worship service. We have been sincerely blessed to be a part of a joint evening service at Grace Canton, with Christ Covenant church. However, to get more involvement in evening worship, for our members and visitors, we are beginning our own. This will mean, we will have evening worship on the 1st, 3rd, and 5th Sundays of the month, and the option of small groups on the 2nd and 4th. However, because we want to continue to build a strong connection with other PCA churches, we will continue the monthly joint youth and young adult ministry, and from time to time, we will cancel our evening service to worship with others (Oct. 30, we will have a joint presbytery wide worship service at Midway PCA, 6pm).

3) My family will host a monthly game night on the first Friday of each month, 6pm, starting in October. This is not only an opportunity for fellowship but also outreach. Invite your friends to come. More details will be given in the weeks ahead. 4) We are pursuing two ‘outreach opportunities.’ One is October 22, where we hope to have a booth at the Great Pumpkin Feast held at Veterans Memorial Park. This is a great way for us to put ‘a face’ to our CPC name and encourage others to check us out. Along these same lines, we are developing a new website, which will give us a greater online presence, not only through Facebook, but also Sermon Audio, YouTube, and Instagram. Second, next summer, we are hoping to send a team from CPC to Tegucigalpa, Honduras for a mission trip. We will be joining with another PCA church in our presbytery and working with MTW missionary Aaron Halbert. Specifics are forthcoming.

These are just some of the ‘new things’ that we will be doing over the next several months. Obviously, not everybody can do all these things, and not everyone should. We are simply providing more opportunities to engage God’s Word, serve God’s people, and spread God’s Gospel. However, we can all pray that faithfulness to Christ would mark us each day, and that CPC would continue to grow downward, outward, inward, and upward. May we commit to doing so.

Your Servant and Friend,

Pastor Clif