Pastor’s Review of the Year of 2011

We have been asking God to “teach us to pray” this year with our theme verse coming from Isaiah 56:7 “…for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people“. It is our desire to grow in our prayer life every year the Lord gives us to serve Him. We have had a busy year, yet the sweet spirit of God’s people gives evidence that we have not been too busy to pray.
We were blessed to have Dr. Benny Beckum with us for a Prayer Revival in March. The week was shortened a bit because of Bro. Beckum’s health, but we are planning on having him back for a whole week this spring. We also had a “Back to Church” revival meeting with Evangelist Darryl Zingre in May. These meetings went well with our Spring campaign “MILK (Meditation, Intercession, Love, Kindness) does a (Church) body good”.
The big construction project we completed this year was the renovation of the basement in our old building. We doubled the size of our nursery, installed three rest rooms, and left room for Jr. church area. This was a much needed improvement and was well worth all the hard work and expense in getting it done.
Summer was the usual flurry of camps and activities. The Walker family came for another great week of Bible School in July. Brother Kevin Taylor held a Teen Bible School at the same time. The Tuesday’s in August were a great blessing this year as well. Evangelist Ted Alexander was here for the first week in August for a revival meeting. Other Tuesday night preachers for the month were Paul Kingsbury (Rockford), Gary Dice (Pittsfield), Joe Kobernat (Geneseo), and Tom McMurtry (LaSalle).
Our missions conference in October brought Brother Dave & Jill Smith to us from Long Beach, California. We had seven different missionaries preach for us and present their work throughout year. There were six new missionaries taken on for monthly financial support: Jeff Davis (Canada), Joel Daku (Kiribati), Raffa Rodriguez (Panama), Cedar River Baptist Camp, Mark Sigstad (Nigeria), Tommy McMurtry (Rock Falls). Two of our supported missionaries left the field to come home this year.
 We had a seven week “trial run” of the Sparks of Grace soul winning ministry in the fall, which served as a great introduction the program. I am looking forward to launching the full scale program in the spring. Our annual “Giving Thanks Sunday” turned out to be a great day with many visitors again in November.
Our theme for this year is “Looking unto Jesus” (Heb. 12 ). We are anticipating another great year serving together with our focus on the life and ministry of Christ. Let’s keep working while we are waiting His return. Until then, Keep praying, stay in Church, and stay in your Bible.

Love,
Pastor Rocky Fritz
(1Jn. 3:1-3)