Four Years In…
Four YEARS IN
If I could sum up 2022 with just two words, they would be “uncharted” and “unwavering.” In many ways, 2021 was just a year to recover and recuperate from 2020. COVID was still all the buzz and masks and shutdowns were still commonplace. But 2022 brought with it a feeling of emergence. The world started to contain some semblance of ‘normalcy’ and our cities started looking more like 2019 than 2020. But the cultural waters were still very much uncharted — like entering into a city after the carnage of a storm. Like an athlete coming back after a severe injury, no one was totally confident in getting back to ‘full speed.’ But despite all of that, City Parish remained unwavering in seeking out the welfare of our city, to praying to the Lord on its behalf (cf. Jeremiah 29), and to being the feet that go and preach the good news (cf. Romans 10). Here are some of our highlights from 2022.
Christ continues to show his faithfulness through and through. Along with professions of faith, we’ve also commissioned 8 new members to City Parish since August! It’s been an overwhelming grace to have faithful, maturing, and humble disciples of Jesus respond to the call to plug in with our church family.
We also commissioned our first crop of Deacons this year and are getting ready to commission our first non-staff elder at the beginning of 2023. There really aren’t words to describe just how big of a deal that is for our church — It’s momentous grace!
Another strong evidence of that grace is City Parish being awarded another round of a Matching Grant — this time in the amount of $30,000! That’s the largest amount we’ve been granted yet and we are as excited as we are humbled by the task before us. Like in years past, we’re going to have to rely on the generosity of our church members and folks outside of City Parish (and maybe even outside of CA or the US) to help us meet that matching fund. We’d be honored if you’d prayerfully consider coming alongside us as we seek to raise the matching funds.
Like too many Christians these days, Kristen [rightfully] became disillusioned with churches that seemed to reflect earthly kingdoms more than King Jesus’. But by God’s grace, she has seen Christ’s church with fresh eyes through City Parish and now serves on our staff!
Mike and Hanni are no strangers to the local church. They’ve faithfully served nearly their whole adult lives. But something was missing. They found City Parish through Hanni’s copier rep (one of our members) and have never looked back.
On a personal note, our family is rocking it! Hope just turned 12 (12!!!) a few weeks ago, Kinley turned 10 in August, and Luke turned 7 in September. I’m not even sure how 12 years has flown by so fast — but we’re loving every minute of life right now. Hope has turned into quite the artist, Kinley seems to have inherited Daniel’s quick whit (and struggle to know when to use it sometimes), and Luke has more energy than Hammy from Over the Hedge drinking a Red Bull. Jess is crushing it with her bookkeeping and Daniel enjoys kayak fishing and fly fishing on his off-days.
Daniel was invited to participate in an incredibly well respected church planting residency at the beginning of this year through Fellowship Associates (FA). He traveled nearly every-other week with 3 other church planters from across the country to immerse in leadership development and soul care in order to become a better disciple, husband, father, and pastor. We are so incredibly grateful for the investment from the world-class team at FA. The Kingdom is stronger because of their faithfulness and their investment in church planter the world over.
