Calvary Church Annual Report | Page 4

2013-2014 elders Bil Azkoul, Denny Bergakker, Dane Bjork, Dan Challa, Clare DeGraaf, Steve Doren, Dick Doyle, Chad Kerr, Ross Pettinga, Sam Roth, Kent Snoeyink, Venon Spears, Tom Thurston, Allen Vanhaitsma Over the past year, Calvary’s elders have continued to be committed first and foremost to prayer. We cherish the opportunity to hold our congregation before the Lord, both generally and specifically as people share their needs with us. It is a great blessing that we often get to see God’s work in the lives of our congregation. This past year, we also spent a great deal of time seeking God’s guidance for the church as a whole, especially in two areas, our Statement of Faith and our Grace Beyond building project, and we have seen God move in both of these areas. A year ago, we voted as a congregation to provisionally adopt a document called What We Teach to be used in membership classes and other teaching contexts. We have spent this year asking for your questions and feedback on both the What We Teach document and the shorter What We Believe document, because our desire is to craft a final statement that is easy to understand and answers the most basic questions of the Christian faith. Our prayer is that not just the documents, but the entire process would be one that God uses to unify our church body and strengthen our faith. The final version of What We Believe will come to a vote at this year’s Annual Meeting, to be adopted into our official church constitution. Thank you for your participation in this process. I pray that it has given you opportunity to reflect 4 | CALVARY CHURCH 2013-2014 ANNUAL REPORT and pray and that the final result is one that enables you to better articulate not just what Calvary believes, but what YOU believe. The second area of great significance this year has been addressing the facility limitations that we consistently face. In this last year, God specifically led us away from building a significantly larger sanctuary. At the same time, however, we feel His leading toward renovation, especially to address needs in our Children’s and Student ministries, along with improving space where worshi