Grace Mennonite Fellowship!

So recently i have been reminded just how much i have been blessed to be at a church like grace. I decided to blog a bit tonight on just how much i love this little (but growing very quickly) church.

About eight to ten years ago, not sure exactly how many i began going to this little church hidden on a back road just outside new hamburg. the first time we went there it was a time full of surprises. right at the beginning the suprises started with a thirty minute ride to church! going from a ten minute ride this seemed long! i have now grown to love this ride. i use it to study my sunday school lesson, listen to worship music to get me in the worship mood and talk with my siblings and parents. often on the way home this gives us time to discuss the message or just get caught up on eachother's past or coming weeks. The next suprise was the friendly atmosphere i felt as soon as i got there. people of all ages both male and female talked to me...Me! a little 8 or 9 year old girl. and this hasnt stopped even after going there for ten years. i still feel the care and interest everyone has in my life. they are always wanting to know what i am up to and how i am doing. This isnt just me. i have seen my preacher almost run to catch visitors after church before they leave so he can welcome them if he didnt get a chance before the service. As the church grows it is getting harder to greet everyone but they still try their best.

Another thing i have grown to love about this church is the family feel it has. In the Bible it talks about calling our fellow Christians brothers and sisters. It talks about the church family. I truly believe i am a part of a very special church family. I have wondered why this is such a strong feeling here at grace and i have come to a few conclusions. one of them is because a lot of us live a decent distance from church and the gas prices are high so unless we have a good reason to take two vehicles from one family to church we dont. we drive to church as families even the youth who could drive themselves. another reason is because a lot of these people are used to having a small church, homeschool and small towns so they have spent a lot of time with their families as a big part of their social lives growing up. this comes with some disadvantages as well but it also contributes to the family aspect of the church. a third reason is because we are small and this means we talk to everyone and are forced to talk to people other than those are own age. the last reason i have come up with is because we do a lot together as a church. what i mean by this is we do some sort of social once a month. this can be anything. there are certain things we do every year. biking, hiking, canoeing and corn roast, camping, christmas carroling, easter carolling and brunch and many more. whatever it is we have fun doing it. one time my church had a volley ball tournement. i have always said my church can play baseball but not volleyball and even though the quality may have been lacking we had a good time trying. :)

To have a successful church you need to have good leadership. i think that this is something Grace really does have right now. the three paster we have are all very good. they are fun. they work together very well. even though they may not all agree all the time they work it out. if the congregation feels strongly about something they will listen and do their best to work through their feelings so they can work smoothly with the congregation. one thing about a small church is that everyone has a say in everything. we never make any decisions without getting everyones imput. and they will listen to everyones concerns and requests and try to do whatever is possible. an example of this is one elderly lady felt strongly we should have a cot in the church incase someone needs to lie down sometime. we ended up getting a lounge chair that we could fold up and put out of the way. this satisfied her and everyone is happy. in the past years we have made some bigger decisions in our church. decisions that could have had the potential to become a big issue. decisions that have actually split churches in the past. however they were the smoothest decisions made i could have ever imagined. no one ever raised their voice. everyone had a say and not everyone had their way but we are still happy. i also admire the older people in my church. for example, we recently installed a projecter onto our ceiling so that we could use powerpoints in messages. this seems like a no brainer to us younger crowd who have grown up listening to lectures in school and taking notes of powerpoints. to us this makes sense and makes things easier. but to some old people this could be potentially annoying and different. some people dont deal with change well and as you get  older you get more set in your ways. however the older people have actually said they like it or havnt complained at all.

Another thing about Grace is that it is full of weird people. :) everyone has come from different backrounds. i remember a guest speaker actually saying that we have a lot of different people in our church. i dont remember how he said it but basically that we are very different. we dont mind though.  this adds lots of interest and fun times to the church. everyone learns to accept others even if they are different from themselves and respect the way they think or feel about things.

When we first started going to Grace the church was actually at the point that it had to decide whether it was gonna keep going cause it was really small. people just felt it was too far out there, but God had other plans for little Grace. when my family and my uncles starting going there we added twelve people and this was an answer to their prayers. soon after that a few more people joined. we have now grown from 60 people to about 90 on a regular sunday morning.  the church went from barely any families and young couples to many families, many, many young kids running around and about a dozen youth.

The last thing that i have really appreciated about Grace is the messages give sunday morning. i get excited to go to church just to hear what they are going to  talk about this sunday. the messages are practical, well put and easy to relate to my life. they often finish with practical lessons we can use. my preachers are great at keeping our attention. they often start the message with great attention getters. whether that is a story or just an intriguing opening of some sort. my one preacher always changes his voice for different people speaking when he reads the bible out loud. it is always great when he tries to do a ladies voice. :)
Some of the messages i have recently been blessed by were:
1./ Why was Jesus born?
2./ Lessons from the titanic
3./ The written word of God
4./ Brotherhood

My church isnt perfect. Sadly there is no perfect church. I have no idea why God placed us at a little church way out in New Hamburg, but i am glad he did and have grown to love the church there with all my heart. i am going to finish by posting a few pics. i had some great videos too but they just took too long to load.  :(

this was at one of our fall hikes. it happened to be very cold so for our time of sharing after we all squished into a room. this added a very close atmosphere and is something i wont forget for a long time.

We always hike in the fall and it is usally at very beautiful places. This reminds me of the God who created the trees and the rocks and little Grace Mennonite Church. :)