[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Church family we're so glad you're here with us this morning.
[00:00:11] Speaker C: Please stand and join us in worship.
[00:00:31] Speaker A: We worship the God who was we worship the God who is we worship the God who ever more will be.
He opened the prison doors he parted the raging sea My God, he holds the victory there's joy in the house of the Lord there's joy in the house of the Lord today and we won't be quiet we shout out your praise there's joy in the house of the Lord Our God is surely in this place and we won't be quiet we shout out your praise we shout out your praise.
We sing to the God who heals we sing to the God who saves we sing to the God who always makes a way Cuz he hung up on that cross Then he rose up from that grave My God still rolling stones away there's joy in the house of the Lord there's joy in the house of the Lord today and we won't be quiet we shout out your praise there's joy in the house of the Lord Our God is surely in this place and we won't be quiet we shout out your praise.
We were the beggars and now we're royalty we were the prisoners and now we're running free we are forgiven, accepted, redeemed by his grace Let the house of the Lord sing praise Come.
Cause we were the beggars now we're royalty we were the prisoners now we're running free we are forgiven, accepted, redeemed by his grace Let the house of
[00:02:58] Speaker D: the Lord sing praise
[00:03:03] Speaker A: there's joy in the house of the Lord there's joy in the house of the Lord today and we we won't be quiet we shout out your praise there's joy in the house of the Lord Our God is surely in this place and we won't be quiet we're going to shout out your praise there's joy in the house of the Lord there's joy in the house of the Lord today We won't be quiet we shout out your praise there's joy in the house of the Lord Our God is surely in this place and we won't be quiet we shout out your praise we shout out your praise There is joy in
[00:03:57] Speaker E: his mouth today
[00:04:02] Speaker A: we shout out your praise we shout out your praise
[00:04:12] Speaker D: Amen.
[00:04:15] Speaker C: Let's give God glory.
[00:04:16] Speaker D: He's good.
[00:04:16] Speaker C: Amen.
He is good. Go ahead and grab a seat. I want to welcome you to our service this morning. If we have not had the opportunity to meet My Name is Rob Zimmerman. I'm the lead pastor here at Westgate and just excited that you've chosen to worship with us today, especially if you're here and you're a guest with us. Whether today is your first day or you've been coming for a couple weeks or maybe a few months, we know that intuitively, as people are checking out a church for the first time, that it sometimes takes a little bit of time to want to get connected, make yourself known.
But this morning, as you are considering that if you go, hey, you know what?
I love this church. I want to be a part of it and get more connected, the great first step to do so is to fill out a connection card. And so you'll see the connection card in the pew in front of you this morning if you're at home. And we want to say hello to all the people at home. If you want to take that step at home as well, you can scan the QR code that you see on your screen.
That is a way for you to get connected here at Westgate. But if you're in the room and you fill out that connection card today, can I invite you at the close of our service just to take it out to our main lobby? We have our guest center that's there. We have a host that'll collect that card from me. Would love to answer questions you might have about our church and how to get connected. But even more, they have a small gift as well they'd like to give you to say thank you for being here. And so please be sure to stop by, do that today as well. I want to remind you, if you're new here at Westgate, the best way to stay connected is to download our Westgate Chapel app. You can do so from Westgate Chapel Toledo on your app store. And there you'll find all the information that you need about what's going on here at the church. And we have got a lot going on as we move into our fall ministry season. And so many of our ministries have already kicked off. Lots of Bible studies, student ministry, kids ministry, midweek stuff. We're excited about that. But there are a few things we wanted to make you aware of this morning as well. One of those is that we're gonna be having a baptism service coming up on Sunday, November 1st. And if you've taken that step in your own relationship with the Lord, of being baptized, and you say, hey, that's the next step for me in my journey with Christ, we would love to baptize you in that service. And so I want you to mark that on your calendar. But it's also important to know that we have got a baptism classes that are gonna be starting on Sunday, October 11th. These classes, we have a class for kids, a class for students in our student ministry. We've also got class for adults. And in those classes we talk about what baptism is, what we baptism is as a church, and just prepare you well for that day. And so if you would like to be a part, you can register for those classes through the app or online. And so please be sure to check that out.
Another thing this morning is our annual Vision Sunday. And you'll hear more about that later. But we're going to be talking about our vision for this coming ministry year. And we're excited about what God is doing, how he's been moving in our church over the last four years of our five year vision initiative. And as we move into this last year, we're going to be talking about where God is leading us as a church, the vision that he is giving to us. But I want to let you know that at the very end of the service today, for those of you who are members, there is going to be a very, very short membership meeting. You'll remember that we announced a handful of weeks ago that we have shifted our fiscal calendar. And we did that. That means that our annual meeting is no longer in January, at the end of January, but it is at the beginning of the ministry year today. And so we're going to have no line.
I'm sorry, everybody boo and hiss. No luncheon. No luncheon next year.
But I promise we pulled off our meeting after first service in three minutes. Okay, we need to approve our budget for 20, 26 and 27. So if you're a member and could hang around for a few minutes at the close of the service, that would be great. Now, last thing and really important is that we have a very exciting opportunity for the women in our church that's coming up. Go ahead and turn your eyes to the screen here and watch this video,
[00:08:25] Speaker E: ladies.
It does. And it is amazing.
If we have not met before, my name is Hilary Suan and I head up the women's ministry here at Westgate. And I want you to know, ladies, each of you are personally invited to join us October 23rd through 25th. We come on Friday evening and leave by noon on Sunday. And we go up to Machindo Conference center in Hillsdale, Michigan. It's just an hour drive and if you need to find a ride, we can help you with that.
But those pictures you saw, they are not AI generated, they are real. They are from the retreats in the past year or two. It is absolutely gorgeous there in October. So we are also really excited about our featured speaker. We get to have Leah Broach join us. She was the former children's director here at Westgate. She currently still attends here, but she is working and serving out of the national office with our denomination now. So we are privileged to have her speak and share from God. Word from the Book of John, chapter 15, which talks about abiding in Christ.
We're going to explore how to remain connected to Jesus, our vine and stop striving. We want to strive so hard as women a lot of times and we are going to learn how to accept God's invitation to just remain in him.
We are going to be learning a lot, but we have a lot of other time to connect with each other, relax and have fun.
There are also some optional activities like kayaking you saw in the picture. There's miniature golf, prayer walks. We can do crafts, a photography workshop. You can play games or go to a bonfire. So many things to do. But one of my favorite parts about this retreat is that it is truly multi generational.
Last year, believe it or not, we had a woman aged 20 all the way up to a woman aged 81. So this is truly for all women of all seasons getting together, learning from one another, encouraging each other and just having fun together. Now I know some of you are out there and you're doing this, this women's retreat thing. I don't do women's retreats. Okay? And I'm gonna challenge you to go home and pray and ask the Lord if this retreat is something he's asking you to do and step out of your comfort zone and join us. Maybe you're supposed to go because you need to grow deeper in your relationship with him. Maybe you need to go to get away to just breathe and refocus.
Or maybe you just need to have a lot of fun with us cool Westgate women because we are fun.
All right. Yes. Give a little Woohoo.
All right.
Now it is important for you to know this is just for our Westgate women because the numbers and the spaces are limited. We only have 40 spots left. We are over halfway full.
So please get registered. There are multiple ways for you to get registered. You can look at the QR code on the screen. You can go to our Westgate app or our Westgate website and go ahead and register on the events pages of those places. Or you can go out into the cafe and there are physical brochures and we have somebody that's going to be out there. Our friend Melody Palmer is going to be out there answering questions and helping you if you would like to get help getting registered or anything like that. And you can take this home and pray over it and see if this is something God's calling you to. To unify with your Westgate sisters. So at this time, I would love for you to stand up, introduce yourself to your neighbors and ask what they're excited about for fall this year.
[00:12:07] Speaker D: It is good to be together in the house of the Lord today. Amen.
No matter what happened with your. Your college football team yesterday, good or bad, we still have the joy of the Lord. Amen.
Amen.
[00:12:20] Speaker F: I'm gonna.
[00:12:21] Speaker D: We're gonna continue worshiping together and I'm gonna read from Romans 5. We've done this song a bunch, but gonna read from Romans 5 starting in verse 18 and just want you to meditate on these words.
Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous.
Now the law came in to increase the trespass. But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
[00:13:11] Speaker F: Yes.
[00:13:12] Speaker D: Let's continue worshiping him.
Praise the Lord his mercy is more Sing it out.
Stronger than darkness New every morning Our sins, they are many his mercy is more Praise the Lord his mercy is more.
Stronger than darkness New every morning Our sins, they are many his mercy is more.
What love could remember no wrongs we have known Omniscient all knowing he counts not their song of pain To a sea without bottom or shore Our sins, they are many his mercy is more yes. Praise the Lord his mercy is
[00:14:46] Speaker A: more
[00:14:49] Speaker D: Stronger than darkness New every morning Our sins, they are many his mercy is more.
What patience would wait as we constantly roam what father so tender Is calling us home? He welcomes the weakest, the vilest, the
[00:15:26] Speaker A: poor
[00:15:28] Speaker D: Our sins, they are many his mercy is more Praise the Lord his mercy is more.
Stronger than darkness this New every morning Our sins, they are many his mercy is more Hallelujah.
[00:16:01] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:16:02] Speaker D: Jesus.
Of kindness he lavished on us his blood was the payment his life was the cost we stood neath A debt we could never afford.
Our sins, they are many. His mercy is more.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: Hallelujah.
[00:16:48] Speaker D: Praise the Lord.
His mercy is more.
Stronger than darkness.
New every morning.
Our sins, they are many.
His mercy is more. Every voice, Lord.
His mercy is more.
Stronger than darkness. Rest New every morning.
Our sins, they are many. His mercy is more.
Our sins, they are many.
His mercy is more.
Oh, thank you, Jesus.
Thank you for the blood.
Amen. Yes.
So I throw up my hands and praise you again and again.
Cause all that I have is a high Hallelujah.
Hallelujah. Every voice and I know it's not much.
Except for a heart singing hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
All my words fall short.
I've got nothing new.
How could I express all my gratitude?
I could sing these songs as I often do.
But every song must end and you never do.
So I throw up my hands and praise you again and again.
Cause all that I have is a hallelujah.
Hallelujah. And I know it's not much But I'm nothing else fit for a key except for a heart singing Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
I've got one response I've got just
[00:20:16] Speaker G: one move
[00:20:19] Speaker D: with my arms stretched wide.
I will worship you.
Yes.
So I throw up my hands and praise you again and again.
Cause all that I have is a Hallelujah.
Hallelujah. And I know it's not my.
Nothing else fit for a king. Oh.
Except for a heart singing Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Thank you, jesus.
Come on, my soul, don't you get shy on me. Lift up your song.
That's right, church, sing it.
Come on, my soul, don't you get shy of me.
Yes.
Cause you got a lot inside those LS get up and praise the Lord. Let the enemy hear you roar.
Oh, come on, my son. Oh, don't you get shy on me. Lift up your song Cuz you got a line inside of those LS get up and praise the Lord.
[00:22:27] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:22:28] Speaker A: Praise the lord.
[00:22:36] Speaker D: All that is within me.
We give you praise.
[00:22:42] Speaker A: We give you praise.
[00:22:56] Speaker D: So I throw up my hands and praise you.
Hallelujah.
[00:23:11] Speaker A: Hallelujah.
[00:23:15] Speaker D: And I know it's not much Hallelujah.
Yes. Amen.
Yes.
[00:23:42] Speaker C: Give glory to the Lord.
Church, would you join me in prayer? Father, we thank you for this morning.
We thank you, God, that we can gather together week in and week out and just sing praise to your name. For you are so good. You have been so faithful to us in so many different ways. And Lord, it's our joy because of your faithfulness to. In return be faithful to you in all ways.
I thank you, Father, for what you're doing in our individual lives. And I thank you, God, for how you are using us collectively together as your church. And we pray, God, that this morning, again, as we worship would really just be a reflection of hopefully, what we're doing every single moment of every single day, yielding our hearts and our lives to you, allowing you, God, to use us and to transform us so that our lives would be a living testimony to others of the goodness of your son, Jesus Christ.
Father, as we continue in our worship today, we are coming to our time of collecting our offering. And, Lord, as we do so, we do so with cheerful hearts. We acknowledge, God, that all that we have comes from you. You have been faithful to us. And so we want to faithfully participate God in the work that you are doing through this church, in this community and throughout the world so that more people would know your son. And so, Lord, we pray that you would take what we give today, this, that you would multiply it and that, Father, more people would know your son. But even more, God, as we give, would you continue to change and to transform our hearts so that, Lord, we are more wholly submitted to you. And so that, Lord, your Holy Spirit can have his way inside of us, changing us, transforming us more into the likeness of your son. We love you, God, and we worship you together. It's in Jesus name that we pray.
[00:25:32] Speaker F: Amen.
[00:25:33] Speaker C: Amen.
You may be seated. And we're going to take our morning offering. If you're here on the center aisles, you can grab one of our offering buckets and we're just going to pass them to the sides and across the room. We also have buckets in the corners of the balconies and we'll pass those in. But let's just continue to worship the Lord together as we collect our morning offering.
Well, again, it is good to be back with you after a couple weeks. Would you guys also, would you just thank Adam just for filling in and preaching so well over the last couple weeks?
I know he hates it when I do that, but I'm thankful to serve with Adam. He is a not only good friend, but I just love how he handles God's word and leads us. And so thank you, Adam, for that and allowing me to have a vacation with my wife. It's great.
I shall allow you to have one at some point, too.
But hey, this morning, as I mentioned, it is really our annual vision week where we're gonna be talking together about where God is leading us as A church in the year to come, but also reflecting back on where he has brought us. If you have been here at Westgate for some time, we have been in the middle of a five year vision initiative that is entitled Deep Roots, Broad Reach. And we have just completed year number four and are moving into the final year of this vision initiative. And I was thinking back this week about what was going on when we were praying and seeking God, about how he wanted to lead us four years ago as a church, remembering everything that was going on in my mind and my heart back in the summer of 2022.
During that time, we had just finished what we called our Unfinished Generosity initiative. It was a capital campaign that we used to do some pretty great and incredible stuff. And it was a really, really awesome season. On one hand, we were able to raise $1.5 million to pay off the debt that was on our building as well during that season. Yeah, it was great.
We were also able to raise some money towards the completion of the remodel of our worship center, which was also great, and some money for outreach. But there was another really hard part, if you remember, back in that season, because we launched into that initiative and three months later, we closed the doors of the church for this wonderful thing called a pandemic. And it was probably one of the harder seasons that I think any of us have walked through in ministry, but also in life. You know, during that season as a church, we saw God's faithfulness in so many ways, but there were so many other things that were difficult. We were learning how to do church different.
We saw, like many other churches, the population of our church decreased significantly. And I can remember that in the summer of 2020, as we really had begun to exit that pandemic time of COVID that I was left even a little bit insecure. I had only been a pastor for about a year before the pandemic hit.
Feeling my own insecurities, thinking, lord, look at how much the church has shrunk through the pandemic. I'm either gonna kill the church or you're gonna have to do something really good. And so I wrestled a lot, and I spent a lot of time in prayer saying, lord, where do we go from here?
And one of the things that I did in that season, as we prepared for this five year initiative that we find ourselves getting ready to complete, is that I looked back at something we did during the Unfinished Generosity Initiative. We spent a lot of time looking at the history of our church. If you don't know about the History of our church. It's been around for about 121 years here in the Toledo area. And it was started by the man, by a man by the name of Emerson Hasty. It was a farmer who came together and started a Sunday school class at the corner of Secor and Central for farmers in the area to come together to dive deep and have a place to dig into God's word and to worship the Lord together, but also to be inspired to reach other people with the good news of the gospel. And as I thought about that history, like starting with just a farmer in a small schoolhouse and a handful of farmers coming in from the fields to study God's word to reach other people. Could Emerson Hastie ever have imagined what God was going to do in and through this church? Over the many, many years of this church, there have been countless numbers of people who have come to faith in Jesus Christ. There have been an even number, countless number of people who were trained by up and sent out to go to other places to share the good news of the gospel, not only in our communities, but also throughout the world into the least reached corners of our world. And here's what I thought about. As I thought, could he have ever imagined that this would happen? What struck me the most was all that God had accomplished in and through Westgate over the years was accomplished through the simple and abiding faith of people that were committed to grow deeper in Christ and allow God to use them in whatever way he would choose.
It reminded me of the words that I read and that Hillary mentioned this morning in John chapter 15. You'll see it here on the screen.
John chapter 15, verse 5. I am the vine, Jesus says, and you are the branches.
Whoever abides in me and I in him, he, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing.
I want you to think about the significance of those words. I am the vine, you are the branches.
Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. This is a little bit different example that I'll share with you, but very, very similar. This is, this is a wonderful little rubber plant that my friend Julianne bought for me when I rearranged my office. Gosh, what was it, a year, year and a half ago? And I have. Why someone would give me a plant. The fact that it's still alive is amazing. Is a gift from the Lord. But this plant is very interesting to me because it kind of grew all at the same height and then all of a sudden a few Months ago, it started getting this really long shoot that was coming out just on one side. And to be honest, this isn't that shoot, though it is doing it again.
It had grown about this high compared to the rest of the plant. I'm like, this thing just looks awkward, like I need to fix it. So I grabbed some clippers and I just went snip. I know all the botanists in the room are like, what are you doing?
So I sniffed it off and I kind of laid it to the side and I just left it there. I didn't think anything about it, but when I cut it, one of the interesting things about a rubber plant is that, like, the lifeblood and SAP of this thing just started pouring out of where I had cut it. Now, I didn't know this, and then one of our wonderful botanists, Rebecca in the church, told me, don't touch that stuff, it'll burn your skin. So I didn't do that, but I did see everything coming out that was keeping that shoot alive.
And then a couple weeks later, because I. I forgot to pick it up and throw it away, it was sitting on my desk all wilted and broken. And now I have this new one again that is growing out of the same place and doing the same thing, getting really long and high.
Now, I share that with you because I think about how Jesus uses this example in John 15 that is so simple to understand.
I am the vine, you are the branches. When you abide in me, you receive everything that you need to produce fruit.
Apart from me, you can do nothing.
As I was thinking about in developing this vision for us as a church, what I realized is this truth. You can write it in your notes. All spiritual fruit comes from abiding every good thing that comes from our lives.
Every good spiritual thing that comes from our lives comes from our abiding, abiding in Christ. The surrender of our hearts to him, spending time with him, allowing His Holy Spirit to transform us from the inside out. And the spiritual fruit that is produced that the Bible talks about includes things like this one, spiritual growth in our walk with God. That spiritual fruit is things like the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. And I think of spiritual gifts that the Holy Spirit gives to us. Spiritual growth in our walk with God is part of what happens naturally within us as we abide in Christ. But not only is that fruit about our spiritual growth and our walk with God, but the fruit that is produced is also spiritual impact in the lives of Other people. In other words, as we are surrendering our hearts and our lives to God, he is producing fruit through our lives into the lives of other people, using us to impact them.
I see this truth all throughout Scripture, and it's written many similar, different analogies. I think of the psalmist David in Psalm chapter one, verses one through three. I looked at this passage as I was thinking about this vision initiative. He says, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the world wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. For he is like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. The picture and the imagery is the same that this tree, that this person that experiences blessing, it says, is like a tree planted by streams of water whose roots are running deep into the ground and being nourished by those streams. And because of that, there is this fruit that is produced in due season.
As I studied these passages in the summer of 2022, it is where the birth of our current five year vision initiative began. Deep roots and broad reach. It was the idea that as we are growing deeper roots in our relationship with Jesus Christ, abiding in him, allowing the Holy Spirit to transform us from the inside out, that the natural outcome of that would be that we would have a broader reach in reaching people with the good news of the Gospel. That's what Scripture teaches us. And so I want to walk you through this morning, our five year vision. I want us to take a look at the goals that we reset, give a little bit of an update as to where we are at, but also vision forward into this final year of the initiative so that we can understand not just where we've been and celebrate that, but even more to recenter and focus ourselves on where God is calling us and understanding as individuals our part in it and how God might want to continue growing us as we abide in Him.
So if you look at your notes, deep roots are a symbol of health, a symbol of strength, stability and presence. And one of the things that we said from the beginning is that we want everyone who attends Westgate to develop deep roots into the life of our church, but importantly into their relationship with the Lord. Because we believe that life groups and serving provide the greatest opportunities in the local church for people to connect relationally and then to grow spiritually. As we study Scripture, we see that this is the model of the church that was instituted from the very beginning of Acts that as the church came together and did life together, it was the way that God used the church to develop us as followers of Jesus Christ. And so we set a goal for us as we grow deeper roots in Christ. We set a couple of goals. The first one is this, is that we wanted to trust God for 80% plus participation in life groups. We know that in a church this size that it is hard to find connection in community and to grow the way that we are meant to grow in that community. And so we wanted to be intentional in connecting. So we wanted 80% plus of people involved in community, studying God's word, praying together, serving together, together, doing life together. I can tell you that right now, as of September 2026, we are at 65%. Now you might look at that and go, what? We're well, short. And Rob, didn't you like a year, year and a half ago tell us that we were at 78%? And I said, yes, we were.
The problem, like is not that all of you said we're piecing out of life groups. The problem is that we continue to grow as a church and that denominator continues to move. And so what we find is throughout the year is that we'll have a life group connecting event. The percentage goes up and we grow and it goes back down.
What I would simply say is this truth. We want to continue to press into this because we believe that we grow best spiritually when we are connected relationally with each other as followers of Jesus Christ. And one of the ways that you can do that is by being involved in, in a life group if you are not connected. And you say, you know what, I've been at Westgate for a little while. I'm having a hard time finding connection. Can I really encourage you this next week, Sunday, we're going to be having a life group connecting event between our services. It's going to happen in the cafe. We're going to have a bunch of life group leaders. We're going to have signup sheets. I would love for you to stop by, have some conversations, look for a way to take that step of getting connected into relationship so that you can continue to grow deeper in your relationship with the Lord.
We also said that one of our goals was to have 80% plus of people actively serving and using their gifts. Again, we've experienced some of the same shifting with this metric because of our growth as a church. But you'll see here on the Screen like serving is a great way to get connected in relationship with other people, but, but also to grow deeper with Christ because you're using the gifts that he is giving you and the experiences that you're having are deepening you as a follower of Jesus. You can serve with kids ministry, student ministry, and our adult ministries, with our various partners in the community, with our international ministry with Door Elementary. I mean, the list goes on and on and on.
As Of September of 2026, about 71% of our adult population is actively serving week in and week out. And this is such an encouragement to us. And so we want to continue to grow those numbers because we recognize that what they do is they tell us a story. And the story is, are we connecting with one another so that we can grow deeper with Christ together?
Now, as we think about the vision for growing deeper roots in Christ into this coming year, our vision for 26, 27 includes having something that we call outreach temperature checks. A tool that we want to use in our discipleship to continue to grow in what God has called us to. Let me tell you where that came from. Julianne, our former outreach and missions director and I were part of an evangelism cohort with the Christian Missionary alliance at Wheaton College for two years. And I remember when we entered into this cohort together, I thought to myself, man, I've really got the evangelism thing down. We're growing in this in our church. So you know I'm gonna be a part of it because I was asked, but I wasn't sure how much I was gonna get out of it. But let me tell you what the whole point was as they shared with us. The whole point was that we would be a church that doesn't just believe in evangelism, but that we would be a church that creates a culture where we understand our God given role in sharing God's love with other people. We read a book together and you'll see this book here on the screen. I believe it is called you'd Found Me by Rick Richardson. And as we read this book together, one of the quotes that was in it was this. The first step in helping your congregation develop missional leaders is to be one yourself. And as we talked about this in the cohort, I remember that one of the follow up questions was this to each of us, who was the last person you shared your faith with outside the church?
And that silence hit my brain as I sat there and went, I don't remember.
I share about Christ every single Sunday from a platform.
But if you were to ask me, in relationships that I have with non believers outside of the church, church, how many times had I had a spiritual conversation?
I drew a blank. And I felt very alone in that moment. But what I recognized is that leaders in all churches, across all demographics and many pastors often find themselves so caught up in the business of the church that they never actually practice it outside.
You know what was great about being in this cohort? Even though it was a stinging reality for me to take a pause and have a real check on my own life and my own heart, there was another quote, and it was this. It's very hard to lead what you aren't living.
And that struck me right between the eyes. For me, it began a journey of having my eyes open to the fact that, like, you know what, God is placing me in circles every, every day. And am I so caught up in the business of the church that I'm not seeing those opportunities and taking advantage of them myself? And so I began this process to grow in this. And one of the helpful tools they gave us was an outreach temperature check in our cohort. We would do this every time we met together. You'll see a picture of it here on the screen. It's on the back page, if you will, or third page of your sermon notes this morning. But this outreach temple check was such a blessing to do in our groups with the other pastors. We would spend time sharing monthly how we were doing when it came to praying for people in our circles that didn't know Christ, seeking to have spiritual conversations. So you begin to have a little bit of an understanding of what I've been talking about these last couple years, where it comes from.
We would pray for people together. We would think through. Through how we were being intentional and having spiritual conversations. We would utilize the blessed practices that you see there at the bottom of looking for opportunities to pray for people, or looking for opportunities to have a meal or to just keep moving the bar in those relationships so that we could share the good news of the gospel with others. But as we walked through that, I began to see that I was beginning to intentionally build relationships and have those conversations that would lead to sharing with others about Jesus. And as I grew in my own passion, what I recognized is I want this for our church leaders. Because if we're going to be a church that is passionate about the gospel and sharing it with others, it must begin with our leaders.
So I took this book you found me. We read it as elders. We read it as a Staff, we started to institute these outreach temperature checks in our staff meetings. We've instituted them in our elder meetings. We're still doing them today together in groups where we're just honest with each other. This is how I'm doing. These are the conversations I had, or I haven't had any for some time. These are the people that I'm praying for and then being encouraged by one another and being reminded that this is a journey together with the Lord of sharing the good news of Jesus with other people.
And this morning, I want to invite a couple people here on the platform with me. Would you welcome Mary Magdalene, who works with our kids ministry, and Chad Suan, who is one of our elders? Would you welcome them as they come?
You know, the thing is, if you were like me a few years ago, you would find, and you find yourself in that place of, like, discouragement. Probably one of the greatest encouragements for me was to begin having accountability, but also just a time of encouragement to grow by sharing about who God was, placing my circle, who I was praying for, and what intentional steps I was taking. And so I wanted to ask Mary, Megan and Chad just to share with you guys this morning how has been utilizing this tool and sharing with our groups how we're doing at having spiritual conversations. How has that been an encouragement to you?
[00:46:15] Speaker B: Yeah, very much like what Rob said, I sat there the first time and was like, well, I. I talk to all these kids about Jesus. I can do it all day long, but am I doing it outside the building?
And the answer was really no. And I had to think about it and really evaluate that time that I'm consuming. So I think through the conversations together at the table, you can just verbalize it. And also you have accountability to be like, hey, this is my timing that I'm using that the Lord is giving me me. I'm doing great things, but how am I using the time outside this building wisely? And when I really evaluated, I wasn't even going to the grocery store anymore. I was ordering everything online. And I know probably many of you can do the same thing where I am shortening as much time as I have in public to get home and get comfortable and be back in my own bubble. And so I had to reevaluate those patterns and try to come up with some more ways to be out in the public, outside of these walls, outside of my comfortability of my friends from church and be at the park and talk to other moms that are hanging out with their kids, or be at the grocery Store and smile and have a conversation and allow the Lord to use that time.
And one easy way for me was to just. Instead of using my day off to rest, which I do do some. I'm also using that time to be in the school, schools with my kids and getting to know their teachers and getting to know the other students where that could lead and allow conversation to happen. So just being more aware with my time, I think those conversations have been very helpful. Also realizing that I'm not alone, that many people are struggling or having that same realization that I am and just being encouraging with other people and being like, hey, hey, I noticed you have this time. What if you use that tool towards this or whatever? It's just been very encouraging. I think so. I think it's a good tool.
[00:48:16] Speaker C: Awesome. Chad, same question.
[00:48:18] Speaker H: Yeah. So the elders have been doing this for over a year now. And one of the things I really like about it is it requires us to reflect, right? So we look over the last month and we determine, have we had spiritual conversations? And kind of like Mary Megan said, you know, we have lots of spiritual conversations within the church with church friends, things like that. But like, when you really intentionally think, how many conversations have I had with people who don't know Jesus, right? And that takes a little bit more time and reflection. You have to be more intentional with it.
And so it's.
We all are very, very busy, right? There's lots of things that are on our to do list. We have family, work, friends, just time at home, the things that we have to get done, right? So for example, this past week, I had an opportunity to talk with a customer of mine who I've known for a couple years now, and I've connected with. He knows I'm a believer. And by doing this, by being intentional and constantly thinking this, I had this opportunity. And even though I had a meeting I had to get to, he started to share about how he was having some health struggles.
And so even though I was super busy, I knew, okay, just take a minute, pause, listen to his story. I got to hear some of the struggles he was having. And God gave me the opportunity to share about how someone in my family has been having a similar situation and how God has been working through that. I also got the opportunity to let him know I'd be praying for him. Things like that. So simple, quick conversation, but one that is outside of the normal realm of things.
The second thing that I really like is the accountability that comes with doing this interaction group. And so the elders, you might think like, oh, you come to the table and you don't have anything to share. Like, there might be some, you know, some, oh, man, shame, Shame. Right.
And. But what the nice thing is is that there is no judgment, right? You come, you share, and it's like, oh, it's been a really busy week or a hard week or hard month or whatever it is. And instead of judgment, you get, well, let's pray for you. Let's. Let's talk about these things. What are some opportunities that maybe are coming up in the next month that you have to share?
And then lastly, my favorite part is the encouragement that you get by hearing the other stories in this group.
You hear of unique ways that maybe some other elders or other members of the church started some unique conversations or had some actions that they took that were really unique, and you think, oh, man, I can do something like that. Or this might relate to another conversation that I've had or a connection that I've had. And so it's great to hear their stories and try to implement some of the ideas that they've been having. And it truly is like iron sharpening iron in those situations.
[00:50:58] Speaker C: That's awesome. Would you thank Mary, Megan and Chad for coming and sharing a little bit with us this morning?
You know, the truth is, guys, as I think about this, we have the best news in the world. How in the world could we keep it to our ourself?
Why would we not go out and share this with other people? Sharing our faith also is not just something that professionals do. It is what Christians do. And I want to ask you this question. Can you think of the name of the last person that you shared your faith with or that you had a spiritual conversation with, or who's the last person that you invited to church? You see, it's not about twisting arms or trying to convince people, but it's about being faithful and allowing God to do what God will do when we trust him and we participate in the mission that he's given us. If you're like me a few years ago, maybe there's no name that is coming to your mind, but that's not a reason to be discouraged. Let it be a shot in the arm to go deeper and grow deeper roots with God in this area of your life.
This year, we want to grow our roots deeper in this area of our discipleship as a whole church. We want our life groups to intentionally work these outreach temperature checks into their gatherings where we're taking time to share with each other how we're doing conversations we're having to pray for each other, to pray with each other, to pray for people that we're reaching out to. We want to integrate this into our communities, our Bible studies, into places where we're regularly serving together so that we can encourage and pray for each other and allow God to continue to develop our hearts for his mission. And that leads us truly to the second part. Because as we surrender our hearts to God and grow deep roots in him, the natural byproduct Scripture tells us is a broad reach. If you're following along in your notes, broad reach. This part of our vision is that strong, healthy trees produce a canopy of leaves that are far reaching in their ability to impact the lives of all who would draw near. As we grow deep roots and we relationship with God and each other, we believe the natural outflow will be a broad reach to our neighbors and the nations. For the sake of the gospel. And as we set out our goals for this area of our vision initiative here, what they were, the first one was this. We were trusting God for the complete funding and renovation of the worship center. This is something we began during the unfinished initiative. Although because of inflation, during COVID and all of that, the price went way, significantly more than we thought. And so we had to trust the Lord for it. And you'll see some pictures here on the screen that show kind of the progress and process of that. Look at that lovely dusty rose carpet and pews.
It worked for a time. But why was this important in our vision initiative for reaching people? Is because we want this place to be a comfortable place and a place that will last for years and years and years for more gospel ministry. And it was time to give it that update. And so it mattered. And God provided we were able to complete this project in August of 2023. God was faithful to provide everything that we needed to complete it. Another goal that we set forward in this though is that we wanted over five years to reach 250 new households of people in our community that would call Westgate Chapel home. Now I can remember when we.
For me, this was a bit intimidating. Again, I was still in that place of like, am I killing the church? God, what do you want to do? You're going to have to move, you're going to have to grow. And one of the exciting things for me is that as we sit here this morning In September of 2026, four years later, we have 257 plus new households that have connected into the church in four years. It's been awesome.
It's Been great to see you guys. So we kind of hit the go, which, I'm gonna be honest with you, I set that number low because I was faithless. But our average Sunday growth, we had 676 people on average coming out of COVID in 2022. And today we are sitting at 1,000 or just above in 2026 of average Sunday attendance. Now, let me tell you why this matters. We're not trying to be a big church or the biggest church for right around wrong. We do not put out advertisements telling people how cool our church is and how they need to be here. We don't. You know, I'm not running around trying to be the coolest pastor in town. We just simply want to be good at sharing God's love with other people. We want to be intentional in discipling people to follow Jesus. And we want to let God be the one who is going to grow his church. Because I believe that healthy churches and healthy growth come not when we exalt ourselves, but when we make God's name great. And that is when he moves and grows his church. Amen.
That is when he moves. Thus for us, the tracking of these numbers and the setting of goals was not so that we could say, hey, look at us. It's merely to ask the question, have we done our part? Are we being faithful to what God has called us to in reaching people that don't know Him? And as a byproduct of that, is he moving in blessing? And one of the things that I can tell you is it's been so incredible to see over these last four years of the initiative, how many people have been coming to faith in Christ. We set another goal of 250 baptisms and professions of faith. You've heard me say it before, had no faith when I set this goal because at the time of setting it, we would see maybe 18 people a year get baptized. One or two people in a year's time come to faith in Jesus. I felt like this was a stretching goal. And So I said 250 baptisms and professions of faith combined. That felt like we could get there. And let me tell you something. What God has taught me over these last four years is that he can do far more than I could ever think or imagine if we would just be faithful to trust him, that he is going to do that work and to be faithful in inviting people into that relationship. As of September of 2026, we have had 182 people baptized over these last four years. But even more. We have seen 275 people make a first time profession of faith in Jesus Christ. Is he not good?
God is good. We have been seeing him move in ways that honestly I was faithless to even think he could do. Blowing past the goal, if you will. But to be honest, what is the.
The goal is not a number.
The goal is to be faithful to what God has called us to do. To say, God, every day you're placing me in circles with people that don't know you and you have given me the best news that this world could ever receive about your son, Jesus Christ. Teach me God to share it with other people. Because when we're faithful to inviting people to say yes, he is the one that does the work of drawing people to himself. Part of this is that we added another goal partway through this last year which was having 4,000 meals and or spiritual conversations with people. And you know, if you see the pictures that are on the screen out in the cafe, we've got our wall that says sharing God's love with our neighbors and the nations. And with that we have been taking every time we have a spiritual conversation, we encourage you to go and to put a pen into that, just to mark that, to allow us to pray over those pins and the people that it represents that God is wanting us to reach. And as of this week I went out and painstakingly counted each one and I wrote down how many are in the L. The O is impossible to keep, so we'll figure it out later. But 1,644 spiritual conversations already in this past year, which is phenomenal and I would love to see us finish the entire 4,000 by the end of this next ministry year. But it will take us committing ourselves to saying, I'm gonna trust God to use me by just simply engaging, by asking people how I can pray for them, asking people where they're at in a relationship with God and not trying to twist arms and make people make decisions. It's about just being faithful and letting God do what God wants to do. I want to share a story with you because one of the most encouraging things to me has been the stories that people tell me about, like the conversations that they're having. It's been really cool to see people put their pins in and then share the story. But a couple weeks ago a young man that's been here growing up in our church, he is now in the workforce, met with him this past week. Jacob Hill went with crew on a mission, mission trip this past summer and he had such an incredible story to tell. I can't tell it well. So let's watch this video.
Well, good morning, church family. I am here with Jacob Hill. And Jacob, you were sharing with me just a few weeks ago at church how you had come back from a mission trip that you did this summer. Would you tell everybody a little bit about the opportunity you had to go on a mission trip?
[01:00:02] Speaker F: Yeah, I went on a mission. It was a 10 week long mission trip to Ocean City. It was a great experience. God taught me a lot. And it was just like a lot of evangelism, a lot of going out, sharing, sharing our faith to everyone.
[01:00:15] Speaker C: Yeah, you went with Campus Crusade. And when you went into the trip, like you just said you knew that it was going to be evangelism, but you said to me you didn't quite know just how much it was going to be. And maybe share with everybody a little bit bit about how did you feel when you got into those situations of going out in Ocean City, New Jersey and having those conversations? What was that like?
[01:00:38] Speaker F: It was very nerve wracking. I was like, I'm an introvert, so it's like really hard to get out of my shell to go out and like, share with those people. But like, just the community we have along the way can really help us to get there. So we went out two by two so that we had a partner to be able to go show, share with and just be able to like, share price. Yeah, with others. That's cool.
[01:01:00] Speaker C: So you went out two by two and as you did, did you lead those conversations?
[01:01:05] Speaker F: I started by not leading at all. I was. I was just watching. I was like, I'm not gonna say a word unless I'm asked a specific question.
But then towards the end, I like started realizing that I can really take that initiative now and I started leading the conversation.
I was really able to step out of my comfort zone in that way.
[01:01:24] Speaker C: How many conversations did you end up having over the 10 weeks that you were on this trip?
[01:01:31] Speaker F: For me personally, it was about 215 conversations that I had with people.
[01:01:37] Speaker C: 215 spiritual conversations.
And how did those conversations begin? Because all of us, I think, feel the nervousness when it comes to having a spiritual conversation with somebody. But how do you engage in that with people? Even people that you're just meeting on the street?
[01:01:54] Speaker F: It was. It's a lot simpler than you might think. It's just. Just going out. Like, we're just called to go. We're called to go out sharing. So it's Just as simple as, like, a compliment. Like, hey, I liked your shirt. And it's like, so where did you get that? Or just how we did it is we had a survey. So it'd be like, hey, we have a five questions survey. It's real quick survey, just about life and spirituality. And just. We just love to get your opinion on that. And that's mainly what we would use as a survey.
[01:02:20] Speaker C: Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes our biggest fear is that people are going to reject us. What did you find as you began to engage with people? Were they open? Were they closed?
[01:02:31] Speaker F: It's kind of crazy. There's so many people that are, like, open to it that you would not expect at all. Like, I remember specifically as an example, we had a worship night, and there was just a guy who looked like he did not want to be there. But then I just went up and started talking to him, and he was like, oh, yeah, I'd like to hear more about this. And it was just like, you wouldn't expect that because he's like, he looks like he was walking away. So I was like, oh, I might as well go talk to him. People are really willing if you just take the time to talk to them.
[01:03:00] Speaker C: Yeah, they're looking for something to put their hope in, aren't they?
What do you feel like God taught you this summer?
[01:03:06] Speaker F: For me, it was mainly just what God's will for my life is like. I went in and I was completely selfish. Like, what can I get out of this? Which isn't like, a bad way to think, but just what he taught me is that it's not about me, it's about him. It's how can I glorify God? How can I put him first? How can I make him the priority? And anything I do. So that was like, the biggest thing that I got or I learned when I was on the trip.
[01:03:34] Speaker G: Yeah.
[01:03:34] Speaker C: Now as you're back, back here in Toledo, what impact does this summer make on your life every day?
[01:03:40] Speaker F: Oh, it's. It's amazing. It's. It's like I'm just more happy, and it's like, it doesn't end there. Like, the 215 that I had when I was on the trip, like, it hasn't stopped. I've been. I've been putting in pins every single week. It's like, it's just new, natural now. It's just being able to go and be like, oh, I don't know what to talk about. I don't watch sports. But now it's like, oh, I have Something to talk about, like, hey, what do you think about God? Or, like, what's your view on religion?
[01:04:06] Speaker C: Yeah, that's great. Well, I'm excited for how God used you to speak to 215, 216 people. But also, you got to see two people come to faith in Christ during that time, just in your own experiences. And I hope that your testimony is an encouragement to everybody here this morning that God can use you if you're willing to step out of your comfort zone and allow him to stretch you. Hey, thanks for sharing, Jacob.
[01:04:34] Speaker F: Yeah, no, thank you.
[01:04:35] Speaker C: Isn't that awesome, Jacob?
Jacob couldn't be with us this morning as he is away on a retreat, but he was like, oh, Pastor Rob, I forgot to put something in the video. He goes, you know, like, I'm an introvert, you know, and I didn't like sharing, but now I'm, like, helping to lead the evangelism arm of crew. Like, he is so pumped up and recognizing that even as an introvert, how simple it is to have these conversations.
This is Julie Kurfis. Many of you know Julie. She's up here leading worship often with us as a church, and is also our receptionist. And, Julie, you get to work day in and day out. And yet how has God given you opportunities to have spiritual conversations, whether that's here at the church, but even how has that happened outside of the walls?
[01:05:23] Speaker I: Yeah, so you heard from the introvert, and now you get the extrovert.
I love my role here at the church because I love people and I get to talk to plenty of them here, whether that's you when you call or stop by. It's a joy and a privilege to get to pray for our church family.
But we also have a lot of people that call who don't belong to our church, who are calling for different needs. And I just appreciate the opportunity to even pray with them or point them to a local church congregation so they can get plugged in.
But one thing is very consistent here. We have a lot of delivery people that come. You can imagine in a church this size. We have lots of mail, lots of packages. And so it's been really fun to get to know our regular drivers. We've got Danny, our mail carrier, and our UPS guys, Mike, and our FedEx guys, Demetrius. And I actually wondered if he was going to be here today because he told me he would.
So he's like walking sunshine. And it's just a joy to get to know whatever they want to share. I know they have a job to do, so I Try to like dial down my golden retriever energy and not expect them to talk to me for like 20 minutes. But it's amazing what you can learn about people in just five to ten minutes a couple times a week over the course of months and months. And we had one FedEx driver for about nine months and he was a young man. And I just got to learn little bits and pieces of his story as he shared with me and would take time to take talk and I got to encourage him and learned about his goals and dreams. And it was really hard when he got moved to a different route. But I just appreciated that that sliver of time he actually invited me. They just moved out of state and he invited me to the going away party. So I got to meet his girlfriend and his family, like went by myself to this party and Extrovert, I know, but it was not even.
And just really sweet. And I just continue to pray for him like I pray for my own kids. That even in his new place, the Lord will place people who represent him well and will draw him into relationship. So as you said though, the more you are obedient to the leading of the Holy Spirit, the more boldness you can get when I'm not here at church. And so I was at a coffee shop, which is one of my favorite places to go, and there was a young woman in wearing a shirt that said love your neighbor. And so like Jacob said, I was like, hey, I really like your shirt. Where did you get it? And she told me and wrote it down and bought one really cute. But in my mind I could have stopped there and left, but I felt that little, that little nudge. And so I said, do you love Jesus?
Because it's a biblical, right? It's biblical. And she actually paused, paused and said, well, I'm kind of re. Exploring my faith. And so we talked for a few more minutes and I'm like, this might be crazy, but I'd love to give you my phone number if you ever want to get coffee and just talk, share more. I would love to hear your story.
And I think ultimately we don't know where we are where, where people are in their journey of faith when we meet them. And so my prayer is, is just that when I cross paths with them that I would have a sensitivity to the Holy Spirit and a willingness to partner with him in whatever he's already doing. And if that is a five minute phone call where I can pray with them and just get to usher them one step closer to Jesus or whether it's a nine month relationship. Getting to know the UPS guy and help helping point him to Jesus and give him a right view of him, whatever that looks like. I just want to be part of the work that he's already doing.
[01:09:29] Speaker C: That's awesome. Thank you Julie for sharing with us today.
My hope would be that you would be encouraged. And one of the things that we want to encourage you with as we move into this year to focus on being discipled in this way, and you'll see this on the very bottom of the third page, is that we're gonna be doing a 30 days of prayer initiative that is gonna start a week from tomorrow. And this 30 days of prayer is gonna be 30 days of prayer for our neighbors and the nations thinking about who are the people that God is putting in our sphere of influence that we can be praying for and asking God to give us boldness to be able to share and to have opportunity. And my hope is that you would be a part of this with us. I'm gonna send an email out to the church this week with a very easy signup link or you can use the QR code that is there in your sermon notes with your phones, but it'll take you to a very small form just to put in your name and your email address. And a week from tomorrow we're gonna start sending out kind of a weekly seven days and at the last it's nine. Cause we've gotta get to 30. But seven days of just like devotionals and guided prayer time so that as a church we are praying and asking God, God, would you shape and develop our hearts together in this area so that we can see you do even more than we could ever think or imagine. So I would encourage you to be a part of that, to sign up and to join us now as we wrap up this morning, we have one last area that I wanted to cover. And as we think about all the great ministry that has been going on and that God has is going to give us in the year to come. One of the key areas that we have to focus on is on our stewardship as a church and continuing to grow in that. As I mentioned, we changed our fiscal year as a church.
We now don't go January to December. We just changed it so that our budgets run from August through July.
And with that, today we're going to be approving a new budget. But I want to invite our treasurer, David Munn to come and share just a little bit bit about where things have been over these last seven months. And then what the budget's going to look like in the year to come. Thank you.
[01:11:37] Speaker G: Great. Thank you.
For the Treasurer's report this morning. There are three main things that I'd like to review. One, I'd like to briefly share about the financial controls we use as a church here at Westgate Chapel. Then we'll take a look at our 2026 budget and review and look ahead to the fiscal year 2027 budget here
[01:11:56] Speaker C: at the, here at the church.
[01:11:57] Speaker G: From a financial control standpoint, we have three levels of accountability and oversight. Most of the day to day heavy lifting is done by our staff and they do a fantastic job managing our finances. We also have a finance committee that meets on a monthly basis to review financial reports and make recommendations on big picture financial decisions and budgetary decisions, which then goes to the governing elders who have the final, final decision making authority on those things.
But our finance committee is a great asset to our church. And so I wanted to share briefly just who is on that committee because like I said, we do meet on a weekly basis. Our finance committee is composed of three staff members, two financial officers who are elected by the members of the church, and then two or more laypersons with financial expertise. And currently we're really blessed to have three different CPAs serving on our finance committee. That's Melissa Boyers, Andy Riggs and Ryan Avery. So these are accounting professionals who are giving of their time and expertise to provide oversight and accountability. And like I said, I believe this is a great asset for us as a church and we can have a lot of confidence as attenders, as members, as givers to know that every dollar the church receives is being stewarded widely and used for the purposes that it was intended.
Now we'll take a look at our 2026 year in review. Like Rob mentioned, we had a change to our fiscal year. We passed a budget in January that was originally intended for 12 months. But then mid year we made this change which means that our actual 2026 fiscal year ended up being only seven months long, January through July.
Now in most years we receive the greatest portion of our income during the month of December. I think most churches probably experience that the same thing through year end giving. And so that means in this fiscal year we did not have a month of December. And so we actually expected that we would end the year with a deficit. And so we budgeted for a deficit of $39,163. Our actual deficit did exceed that. Our actual deficit was 62,714, which means that we had a shortfall of $23,552, which includes a $1 rounding error just for fun there.
So that deficit is.
That shortfall is a function of two things. It's a function of income and it's a function of expenses. You can see that our actual income came in about 97,000 under what we had budgeted for.
Thankfully, our expenses also came in well under budget by $73,611. And that was in part due to seeing that our income was not tracking with where we needed it to be. And so some decisions were made as we went through the year to cut costs where possible and to keep expenses as low as possible.
But that's how we ended the year with a shortfall of 23,552.
Now let's look ahead to 2027.
Our 2027 budget is $2,326,363. Now this number is unchanged from our original 12 month 2026 budget. We thought it was appropriate that we be as conservative as possible for this next fiscal year and hold that budget line the same.
[01:15:33] Speaker A: Same.
[01:15:34] Speaker G: And that's primarily due to some, some trends that we're seeing with regard to our giving. From January through July of 2026, our one fund giving, which is our undesignated operations giving, was down about 2% from the previous year. And that's despite the fact that as Rob shared earlier, our attendance is up. Significant, significant. Secondly, there's a lot of ministry happening.
Our building is being utilized a lot. But we wanted to be as conservative as possible, not knowing what that income, what that giving number might look like over the next 12 months.
At the same time, we're also feeling some very real cost pressures, just like all of us are experiencing in our day to day lives. Expenses are higher, our utility costs are higher, especially with the winter we just had had. Our health insurance rates continue to go up, our consumables, everything that we buy, everything that we use costs more.
Additionally, it's important that we compensate our staff fairly and give them appropriate wages to compensate them for the incredible work that they do here week in and week out. And so if we're holding that top line budget constant, but we're seeing these cost pressures in different areas areas, that means in order to balance the budget, we have to cut in other areas. And so there are two main areas that we are cutting to save costs in 2027. One is through lower staffing levels and the other is through is in building repairs. But I want to be clear that the lower staffing levels are not coming through layoffs. The lower staffing levels are coming through choosing to wait to fill open positions until we have the confidence in our cash flow or the cash on hand hand to move forward with hiring for those positions.
Similarly, with building repairs, you know, with a, with an aging building, there are things that need to happen. Things break, repairs need to happen, but we are deferring much of that maintenance until again, we either have the confidence in our cash flow that's coming in on a regular basis, or we have the cash on hand to move forward with those repairs.
Second Corinthians 9, 6:8 says, Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
A friend of mine passed away several years ago, and he loves to encourage people to give, give.
And many times people would respond to him and say, well, I can't afford to give. And his response to them was always, well, I can't afford not to give. You see, he was a farmer for his entire life. That was all he knew. Just, just like the farmers who started this church many, many years ago, he knew farming. And a farmer cannot afford not to sow seed in his field. A farmer knows that if he does not plant seed in his field field, there will not be a harvest. Things will grow, there will be weeds, but it will not be anything of substance. It will not be anything of value. And we see this throughout Scripture where God says, the way that we sow seeds into the kingdom of God is by taking that step of faith to give of our financial resources. And his part, God's part, is that he will respond that he will meet our needs and he will bless us abundantly. And I'm excited to share that in 2026, God met the needs of Westgate Chapel in a way that we did not expect.
I shared earlier that we had a shortfall of $23,552. And that's true. That's what our profit and loss statement shows. But there was another transaction that occurred that only is reflected on the balance sheet. In June of this year, we had the opportunity to close on the sale of a piece of land that the church has Been wanting to sell for a long time the land. We had no practical use for it and there was a cost to own it and maintain it. And so between the net proceeds that we received on the sale of the property and the first monthly payment on the loan that we received for the month of July, our total proceeds from the sale of the property were $23,712.
Really cool.
So that means that we end the year with a cash position that is almost exactly equal to, but slightly better than what we had planned for. And we go into the new fiscal year completely reliant on God to meet our needs once again.
And I hope that's encouraging to you. Maybe you're someone who's newer to the idea of giving.
I would encourage you to see what scripture says about giving and take a step of faith to test God and see if he is faithful to do what he says he will do. Or maybe you're someone who's been giving for a long time and your giving is just very comfortable. It's not stretching your faith in any way.
Maybe it's time for you to exercise your generosity muscles to take a step of faith and ask God, what would you have me do this year? Would you have me increase my giving? Would you have me sow more seeds into the kingdom of God in 2027?
I'm going to be around during the voting portion later.
If you have questions. I'll be around to answer questions. Also, if you have other questions, you can email
[email protected] and that'll be up on the screen there. Thank you.
[01:21:12] Speaker C: Excellent. Thank you, David.
You know, I'll just close by saying these words.
The one thing that has been impressed on me as I have thought back is just how faithful God has been from the very inception of this church, throughout the 17 some odd years that I've been here at Westgate and even into the future. He consistently provides for all of our needs as we commit ourselves to be faithful to him and to follow him and to surrender to grow deep roots in him and allow him to produce spiritual fruit through us. My hope and prayer is that this morning, as we share testimony of what we've seen God do and we cast vision for the year to come, is that you yourself would see yourself as an essential part of this body of Christ and that you would striving to be striving to ask God, God, how would you have me to grow deeper in you this year so that even more will be accomplished for your kingdom through my faithfulness and our faithfulness together as a whole. Would you pray with me? God, we love you and we thank you and we praise you because you have been far more good to us than we deserve. And Lord, we recognize that every good thing that we have and that we experience comes solely from you. And so Lord, we lift up your name and we give you, you the glory alone. In Jesus name we pray.
[01:22:41] Speaker E: Amen.
[01:22:42] Speaker C: Would you stand and let's close and worship together.
[01:23:06] Speaker A: I love you, Lord.
Oh your mercy never fails me.
All my days I've been held in your hands.
From the moment that I wake up until I lay my head.
Oh I will sing of the goodness of God.
And all my life you have been faithful.
And all my life you have been so so good.
With every breath that I am making oh I will sing of the goodness of God.
I love your voice.
You have led me through the fire in darkest night.
You are close like no other.
I've known you as a father, I've known you as a friend.
And I have live in the goodness of God.
And all my life you have been faithful.
[01:24:48] Speaker D: Yes it has.
[01:24:51] Speaker A: And all my life you have been so so good.
With every breath that I am able oh I will sing of the goodness of God.
Your goodness is running after it's running after me.
Your goodness is running after it's running after me.
With my life laid down I surrender now I give you everything your goodness is running after it's running after me.
Oh your goodness is running after it's running after me your goodness is running after it's running after me.
With my life laid down I surrender now I give you everything your goodness is running after it's running after me.
And all my life you have been faithful.
[01:26:25] Speaker D: My life
[01:26:28] Speaker A: and all my life you have been so so good.
With every breath that I fai oh I will sing of the goodness of God.
I'm going to sing I'm going to sing Cuz all my life you have been faithful.
All my life and all my life you have I've been so so good.
With every breath that I am made for oh I will sing Love the goodness of God.
I will sing of the goodness of God.
[01:27:36] Speaker F: Am
[01:27:39] Speaker C: God is good. Amen.
He is church family. Thank you for worshiping. I know we went long this morning, but I thank you for hanging in with me. You guys are like, we're used to it.
[01:27:49] Speaker G: But.
[01:27:50] Speaker C: But I just want to say find your place in the story that God is writing in your life and in this church.
Consider how he wants to use you in this year to come, to grow deeper in him, to grow to deeper places of surrender, because the natural byproduct will be that he will use your life and the life of other people that will come to know him. As we close today, our our prayer team, I believe, will be coming up to the front. If there's any prayer needs that you have, we would invite you to come. We would love to pray over you this morning as well. Just a reminder that as we close, if you are a member, if you could hang around, I promise it's only two to three minutes that we're going to approve our budget for the coming year. And with that being said, God bless you. Have a great week. As you go out and you serve the Lord, make his name great with everybody that you know.
We'll talk to you soon.
