Pastoral Update 2:2025
Good Friday Morning Downtown Pres!
Over the course of this year, I’ll be writing a pastoral email ever so often to update you on some things in the life of the church, as well as share a few resources, ways for you to grow in your faith, and some things that I am enjoying. Here is how we are starting the year off:
1. Our Hope: The Next 3 Years! During the month of March we will be celebrating all that God has done for the last two years of worshipping together and looking forward to where we hope the Lord will take us. Each Sunday we will be highlighting a different part of our church’s ministry (and sending out the handouts the following week), as well as hearing a testimony from someone in our church. Make sure to join us the next 5 weeks to learn more about how we are praying for the Lord to continue to grow our church!
March 2 - People - Lay Leadership and 2025 Finances: We will praise God for so many of you who have helped to plant this church and we will roll out our next step in leadership development: elder nominations, future elections, and where we are financially in 2025.
March 9 - People - Staffing: We will highlight our recently revamped staff and also share some about future staff positions that we believe will be a blessing to our church and city and what it will take to get there.
March 16 - Place: We will praise the Lord for Wilmington, the Elia, and Azalea Station and also share ways to pray for future ministry and worship space.
March 23 - Programming: We will look back at how God has grown our ministries, talk some about our immediate needs, and look forward to what we pray the Lord will do to continue to establish in our ministry here.
March 30 - Provision: To accomplish what we hope God will do, will require us to continue to grow in a healthy way: in membership, in service, and financially. We want to give our best estimate of what this will look like over the next three years. While we can't tell the future, we can pray!
2. Preaching - Romans 12-16: I am personally excited to be jumping back into Romans during the next season of preaching at DPC. Our plan is to work through this last section of Romans now and into the Summer. In our last Pastoral Update, I shared The Gospel Coalition Bible Commentary - a free and amazing resource to help you study the Bible. As we walk through Romans in worship this could be a great way to study more deeply.
3. Anniversary Party - March 16: Make sure to sign up and join us for our Anniversary Party at Halyburton Park with BBQ from City BBQ! You can sign up HERE and don't forget to check your email after where we will send a sign up for side dishes.
4. Praying Specifically: I want you to know that I pray for you often. It is such a blessing for me to know how to pray for you. We’ve set up a simple form that you can fill out and I’ll get an email with ways that I can pray for you. As we grow in the gospel together, asking others to pray for you helps us to step more deeply into the grace of pursuing humility.
5. Some Resources/Things that I'm Enjoying:
Discipleship: ESV Scripture Journal - getting back into preparing for Romans 12-16, I'll pulled this out of my closet and started using it and it has been great. These are small paperbacks for each book of the Bible (you can get them individually or as a set) with scripture on one side and space to journal on the other. Crossway also has different versions of this (one with art that is visually beautiful, a spiral notebook version, etc).
Music: Just before Christmas I had a chance to go see Johnnyswim at UNCW with a few friends from DPC. Since then, I've really been enjoying their latest album When the War is Over.
Product: Ugmonk Analog System - for years I have used ally types of to-do lists, apps, and systems. Enter Analog. This is a simple to do system with cards for Today, Next, and Someday. For whatever reason this is the first system that works with my brain! So if you are similar to me or you want to learn a little more about how your pastor's brain works, check it out!
Cargo District: Over the next month, the Cargo Food Hall will be fully up and running. Check out Zeke's Bowls for Acai and Poke! Coming soon: BBQ, mediterranean, tacos, sushi, empanadas, and more!
Fun: Dirt by Huckberry is a docu-series released every few months and it combines a story of adventure, culture, and food of places all over the world - it also serves as advertisement for Huckberry and its products :-) - Its been fun to track with this series over the last couple of years. Adventure. Culture. Food. I'm in!
I'm grateful to be your pastor. I'm thankful for your investment in God's kingdom through the work of Downtown Pres. May the Lord grow us by his grace so that we might taste the glory that has been set before us in Christ Jesus.
We are less without each other,
Jay
