May 2015 Update
Harvest Bible Chapel is a church that is elder governed and staff led. The men who currently serve as elders are Steve Buehler, Steve Deedrick, Trevor Long, Chris Persons, and Matt Wordelman.
We meet weekly on Wednesday evenings to pray over, discuss, and resolve various issues in our church pertaining to doctrine, direction, and discipline. In addition to these meetings, we desire to make ourselves available as shepherds to pray, counsel, encourage, and serve you. If you have needs, please feel free to seek us out. We are down front after each service and we would love to know and serve you.
ELDER TERMS
Elders in our church serve for 3-year terms and may serve up to 2 consecutive terms, followed by a year off. New elders must meet the Biblical qualifications of eldership (found in 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, 1 Peter 5) and will be appointed by the current elders. We are currently in the process of praying and discerning how this team will grow going forward into the next season in the life of our church.
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
We are praying and planning for a new staff hire that will help shoulder the increasing weight of systems that keep our church running smoothly and our people healthy and growing. We are praying and moving forward on a plan to establish a deacon ministry that will strengthen key areas of the church like finance, facilities, and benevolence.
MISSIONS
We are excited that member Adam Sawatsky has stepped up to lead in the development of our outreach initiative: HERE, THERE, EVERYWHERE. Our desire is to see our church impact our city, plant churches, and go global in our outreach opportunities. We have started a partnership with St. Vincent island in the Caribbean. We are excited to see how God continues to lead in this direction as He opens doors for the gospel to go forth.
2 SERVICES
We are blown away to see all the hard work that was put in to successfully launch 2 services at Harvest. We saw over 400 people attend on Easter Sunday and have watched our attendance steadily increase in both services. We want to say THANK YOU to the staff for all their efforts in making the transition seamless. Also, we want to express our gratitude to each and every one of you who has sacrificed your time, talents, and treasure. God is using you in incredible ways and this would not be possible without you – THANK YOU! We can’t wait to see what God has in store for us next!
WE ARE PRAYING FOR…
God has placed several things on our hearts to earnestly pray for and we would love for you to join us in those prayers.
Pray for healthy relationships within our church body. That people would be growing together and standing firm to withstand the attacks of our enemy on unity within those relationships personally and in our church as a whole.
Pray that the Lord would reveal to us a plan to find a gathering place to call God’s house. We know He has the perfect place in store and we want to trust His timing and direction as we seek Him.
YOU ARE LOVED
We are joyful and grateful for all that God is doing in and through the church, and we continue to pray that we would all remain humbly dependent on Him. Please pray for us and with us as we seek to lead well.
- The Elders of Harvest Bible Chapel Rochester
*This is an update for January-April 2015