Merry Christmas!
It’s hard to believe that yet another year is quickly coming to a close. Reflecting on this past year has been a very life-giving experience, we have so much to rejoice & say thanks to the Father for. We are thankful to have united leadership in place with a process for equipping and training future leaders. We have grown in both numbers and spiritual health, moved to a new location, and multiplied another missional community. We have had another great year with our refugee family, watching them grow and thrive, and we have exciting vision for the future! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the ways you have supported us, believed in us and stood with us as we have journeyed down this path of church planting. God has been so kind in pouring out grace upon grace. Merry Christmas from our family to yours!
Throughout 2018 Soma Grand Rapids Church has been on the move! At the beginning of the year, Soma met in the Goodrich home and then moved to an old church building on the West Side. We now are gathering at the Downtown YMCA. This movement to the YMCA has been in part due to growth. Our gatherings have doubled in size over the past few months.
Our worship team has also grown from the early days with Anthony leading alone on an acoustic guitar. At the last few gatherings six other people were involved in the musical worship and six more voices shared from God’s word alongside Aaron and Anthony. At each gathering we introduced an intentional liturgy, walking through the story of God (Creation, Rebellion, Redemption, New Creation) in our songs. We are so excited to see what God has in store for our Sunday gatherings in the new year!
God’s first great commission was not just talking about having babies (although that was part of it), he was also talking about multiplying disciples as we see in his second great commission. We know in order to grow we need to establish healthy missional families that multiply disciples. We have apprentice leaders in each of our MC’s and they along with some other leaders are a part of leadership huddle. We meet regularly to develop the BLESS gospel practices with our leaders. We teach them to Be prayerful, Listen, Eat, Serve and how to be Story-formed. We help them develop their gifts so they can bless others. It has been one of my favorite things within Soma. We are currently developing 12 leaders to make disciples who make disciples. Thank you for the many gifts you have given to fund and multiply Soma Grand Rapids
This fall Anthony was invited to be the head coach of the Westwood Middle School Boys’ soccer team. It was a challenging and wonderful experience as he saw firsthand what types of struggles the students must overcome on a regular basis. Over 20% of the players are refugees, including Rashad. Rashad is part of the Sulton Ahmed family which the John Ball Zoo Missional Community has adopted. The language barrier for their parents, along with the struggle to understand the legal requirements of the public-school system made normal tasks such as getting physicals, cleats, shin guards, and even socks quite difficult. Some of the students (ages 10-13) use the public transportation system to get home from school each day. This experience has allowed Soma Grand Rapids Church to develop relationships at Westwood that they hope to grow in order to serve and love the Westside of Grand Rapids with the same love we have been given in Christ.
Thank you for the many gifts you have given to fund and multiply Soma Grand Rapids Church. We still need about $2000 extra per month for our operating expenses. We are also doing some fundraising to bring on Anthony full time next fall after he graduates with his M.Div.
You Can Support Soma!
PO Box 140572
Grand Rapids, MI, 49514.
Your generosity propels our discipleship multiplication!