How have you helped people know Jesus?

The Adult Discipleship Committee plays a vital role in helping individuals know Jesus through Sunday School classes and Bible studies. Over the last year and a half, the committee has also been offering 5- to 6-week “seasonal” classes, presenting a variety of topics designed to boost engagement during the Sunday School hour. Additionally, a Women’s Bible Study, which was led by various facilitators, featured a guest speaker in the fall who attracted participants from other churches, broadening its reach and impact.

 How have you helped people grow in their faith?

The Adult Discipleship Committee has been helping people grow in their walk with Jesus by launching a recent initiative to prepare and distribute a survey to the church. This survey focuses on gauging interest in small groups, with the goal of following up as leaders are identified to help establish these groups. Additionally, a dedicated team is working to enhance the space and resources in our library, aiming to support covenant partners in deepening their relationship with Jesus.             

 How have you helped people go and tell about Jesus?

As the Adult Discipleship Committee continues to offer Sunday School classes, programs and resources to help covenant partners know Jesus and grow in their faith, we pray they will come to know, hear and embrace Jesus’ call to go and make disciples. May they become effective witnesses for Christ, sharing His love and truth in their lives and communities.

How have you helped people know Jesus?

The Evangelism Committee helped sponsor several outreach programs for the church in 2024, including Block Party in the Burg, JMU Freshman move-in, encouragement to teachers at Waterman Elementary, ALPHA and the annual Live Nativity. All of these events showed others who Jesus is.

The most influential of all these events was the ALPHA series. ALPHA was an 11-week video discussion series that was held in 9 Court Square on Wednesday evenings. The average attendance was 35. Of these participants, 14 were not members of the church. A meal was provided for each session. Each session was built upon the foundation of knowing who Jesus is.

How have you helped people grow in their faith?

The weekly College Brunch team poured into college students each week by providing food, time together and discussion about each week’s sermon. The group’s leadership and service leads to greater connections in our community. Additionally, a Young Adults group meets each Sunday at the Augst home.

How have you helped people go and tell about Jesus?

The evangelism committee also helped sponsor parachurch outreach programs like Cru and Reformed University Fellowship (RUF). This has helped some of those leaders be able to witness by conducting on-campus ministries at JMU and Bridgewater College. We also helped by sending some of those individuals to the mission field in North Africa.

What we don’t know and continue to pray about is how many of the people we reached made a heart change and have the courage to speak up and tell others about Jesus.

How have you helped people know Jesus?

Throughout 2024, the Children’s Ministry Team has organized and led events that point children to the joy of knowing Jesus and growing as a member of our church family. In Children’s Church, we are practicing a catechism that teaches the basics of the faith, with engaging methods that make learning stick. Weekly Sunday School classes have studied the New Testament, culminating in a unit of lessons looking to the promise of Jesus’ return. Summer JAM and Afternoon JAM have made Jesus known to children from our church and throughout our community. We are grateful for the volunteers that have stepped out in faith to make it all possible.

How have you helped people grow in their faith?

We have seen children and families grow in Christ as they’ve worked together to memorize scripture, sang His praises as part of worship and dug into His word through the Bible Buddies Summer Reading Program. We enjoyed intergenerational events such as Craft Sunday, Summer Art Days and a Birthday Party for Jesus that brought families and other covenant partners together to enjoy and serve one another.

Not only have the children grown, teachers and other volunteers have grown as they studied to lead classes, prayed for the Lord’s help and connected with the children.

How have you helped people go and tell about Jesus? 

We desire for the children near and far to know Jesus’ good news. First Pres Kids have participated in Operation Christmas Child Sunday, supported and written to our special Compassion International child and ministered to our neighbors and Sunnyside Retirement community through Christmas caroling. Children’s Ministry has also reached out to our local community by providing a Kid’s Play Zone alongside the Harrisonburg International Festival held downtown.

The Children’s Ministry Team is grateful for the gifts and labor that have made our new classrooms a reality. Thank you for your prayers for the children, their families, and for all of our teachers and volunteers.

Please continue to pray that the children of our church would be rooted and established in Christ’s love, to know they are an essential part of His body, and to grasp the depth of His love.

How have you helped people know Jesus this year?

GriefShare and Stephen Ministry are two programs that are biblically based to help people navigate through the loss of loved ones and to provide spiritual care to those experiencing a wide range of life difficulties. These opportunities were available to those inside and outside our church family. Pastor Scott received a note from a GriefShare participant that stated, “These classes-and all of you with your caring hearts have been so special and so life-touching, and I am so grateful.”

According to the Bible, Jesus cares for those who have lost loved ones by offering comfort, empathy and the hope of resurrection. The Service of Prayer and Remembrance demonstrated we care for those in and outside our church as we honored loved ones who have passed and supported those that remain. 

Our committee organized many funeral receptions that demonstrated love and kindness to grieving families. Following Jesus’ example, we are called to extend compassion to those around us, just as He did to those in need.

How have you helped people grow in their faith in 2024?

The Connection Class taught the core values of our church to the participants and encouraged them to make a commitment to grow in their faith and to become covenant partners.

 Fellowship, in a spiritual sense, is a way of meaningfully communing with and connecting with others in a way that supports, builds and grows faith. The  many social activities such as Ash Wednesday soup dinner, church picnic, ice cream social, chili cook-off, morning socials held between services, Table of Friends, Christmas caroling and Cookie Sunday provided fellowship opportunities across all generations for our family of faith.

We received positive feedback from  many covenant partners  that expressed their gratitude in the many opportunities to fellowship with new and old friends.

 How have you helped people go and tell about Jesus?

We served as the hands and feet of Jesus with our Take Them a Meal ministry, which provides meals to those who are ill, have lost loved ones or have been blessed with the birth of a new baby.

 The Visitation Ministry and Home Communion Team went to visit with the same compassion, kindness and care that Jesus demonstrated, actively seeking to offer support, comfort and a listening ear to those in need. Many that they visit are home-bound members who are no longer able to worship in person.

How have you helped people know Jesus?

On Sunday mornings, Youth have been learning through a curriculum called “The Gospel Project.” Six middle-school teachers and four high-school teachers rotate to help students see the big picture of scripture and the Good News of the Gospel. Oftentimes, providentially, the Sunday lessons lined up with the sermon topics for that week. We are encouraged by the Holy Spirit’s leading in showing our youth similar themes that they were hearing on Sunday morning, even when we didn’t plan it. This year’s themes have centered around Jesus as the Risen king and how we wait for His second coming.

On Sunday evenings, youth group included fellowship time, a meal and then discussions about what it means to live free in Christ and how to be a disciple of Jesus.

The Wednesday-morning small groups at Chick-fil-A have been a highlight, too, with up to 30 youth joining for breakfast and Bible study at 6:30 a.m. Much of our discussions are around what it means to find out identity in Christ. Several students have invited their friends to this time.

Confirmation is also an important time to help youth know who Jesus is and deepen in their commitment to Him. Youth who were part of Confirmation discovered more about why we believe what we do and what that means for following Jesus. As part of the process, each student received a mentor who met with the student periodically during the process. Students then wrote a profession of faith and presented it to the church elders.

How have you helped people grow in faith?

Beyond the regular weekly discipleship opportunities, youth went on several retreats to grow in their faith. Eight students went to high school Modgnik at Rockbridge and 15 middle-schoolers went to the middle-school version. The theme: how God’s kingdom is backwards from the world’s.

Students also did an in-town retreat in the Spring where 12 students and 10 mentors heard about God’s plan for sexuality and gender in a time when the world is confused about those issues.

Youth are growing in their faith, too, by serving the church now. They are engaged members of our contemporary worship team and they serve with children through Summer JAM and other opportunities. Some are also working with outside ministries such as Young Life and Young Life Capernaum.

How have you helped people go and tell about Jesus?

Nine youth and three leaders traveled to Kermit, West Virginia in July. While there, they did improvement projects and led a kids camp that included music, sports and games. The area has been hit hard by the opioid crisis, so students got to know more about this problem and how Christians can respond with Jesus’ love.

The team also served the community through landscaping projects, repair projects, small renovations and work with children at an art camp. The team also worked with food distribution and met with the local fire department and sheriff to learn more about the community.

Renew Camp, meanwhile, was another opportunity to serve, but here in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. The retreat brings together students from different local churches to serve, worship and learn more about Jesus.

Beyond our current youth, we also see youth graduates now involved in parachurch ministries and churches in the cities where they are studying. Some have gotten involved in missions in those ministries, too.

How is the church-planting team helping people know Jesus, grow in their faith and go and tell about Him?

The Church Planting Committee in 2024 focused on its mission of supporting and participating in a church plant at least once every five years. Our ECO Synod’s church-planting staff has identified three basic ways that churches can be a part of church planting:

• We can directly sponsor a church plant through raising up a church planting team from within our church and be the primary support for planting a new church.
• We can partner with another ECO church or churches in a church planting team through financial, leadership, prayer, physical or other means of support.
• We can invest in Presbytery and/or denominational church planting efforts. Investing in the efforts of others financially and prayer primarily.

At First Pres, our committee has been exploring participation in church planting on all three levels. Early in 2024, Paul and Christine Seddon led a Sunday school class on church planting which culminated in a proposal for First Pres to sponsor a church plant called Mountain Valley Fellowship to be located around the Bridgewater, Dayton and Mount Crawford area. Paul and Christine completed the ECO Church Planter assessment process and were approved to be ECO Church Planters. The church Session authorized Paul and Christine to form a leadership team to further explore the possibilities and support for such an effort. These efforts have been put on hold recently to further discern what the Lord is leading the church and the Seddons to do as we work out church staffing.

We have looked at several partnering opportunities over the past year locally and within our Presbytery. The committee had several conversations with a small local Spanish-speaking church, Esperanza Di Vida (EDV), that was interested in FPC support and a location to worship. After drafting an agreement that stipulated that EDV would eventually need to become an ECO church for financial and location support to be given, EDV decided it could not make that commitment. Another local Spanish-speaking church contacted First Pres to see if 9 Court Square were available to use as worship space but also was not willing to align with ECO tenets.

First Pres has entered into a partnership relationship with an ECO church plant in the Chesapeake, Virginia, area within our Presbytery. The Sojourners Church is now being supported by FPC Church Planting Committee into 2025 financially, agreeing to provide a Session Elder, prayer support and other possible means of connection such as sending a team to assist with a Vacation Bible School during the summer.

Investing in our denominational and Presbytery church-planting efforts, FPC has representatives on the Presbytery Church Planting Committee. We are currently making efforts to meet with other churches in our presbytery region to explore ways to partner together on a church plant in the northern Shenandoah Valley region where there are no ECO churches currently.

All in all, there has been a lot of activity focusing on fulfilling our church’s vision for making disciples and furthering God’s kingdom in our community and region.

How have you helped people know Jesus?

Global Missions continues to support and seek out  mission workers who are primarily focused on the least-reached and unreached peoples of the World. No one knows the number of indigenous people in unreached nations who heard about Jesus for the first time or how many new missionaries were raised through these efforts as we strive to participate directly in God’s Mission to reach “all the nations” (Matthew 28).

Missionaries we support may work from anywhere if the Global Missions Committee determines they have a maximal impact on unreached people. We support one resource who is a Persian/American follower of Jesus, living in a western country while broadcasting messages over a satellite connection to hundreds of thousands of Persian people in the Persian countries of the world in their heart language. We have a couple working in language, recently returned to the U.S. from about eight years in an African country who will provide language translation assistance and resources to all of Africa, not just one or two countries, utilizing state of the art technology and resources from the U.S. God has provided us with other excellent missionaries who live and work in difficult countries of the world where few know Jesus, as well as mobilizers who reside primarily in the United States and equip congregations to participate in God’s Mission to reach all the people with the knowledge of Jesus.

How have you helped people grow in their walk with Jesus?

The first to grow in their walk with Jesus are probably the members of Global Missions. We come face to face with truly worthy missionaries and mobilizers participating in God’s mission to introduce the unreached world to Jesus. The Committee works through questions of good mission practice and how to best invest God’s resources entrusted to us. Through prayer, conversation and financial support Global Missions helps equip missionaries and mobilizers who will participate directly with indigenous people groups, introducing Jesus to them.

We have tried to grow the congregation in their walk with Jesus and obedience to His call by hosting mission workers to share with covenant partners about their work around the world. Megan Sarian, Patrick and Amy Werner, Bradley Long, and Ethan Collins, Executive Director of Frontier Fellowship, all led “deeper dives” for the congregation. We also provided a means to give to missions through the monthly missions offering. We hosted the Perspectives course for our church and community, with about 8 covenant partners and 60 community members attending the 15-week course.

In the winter of 2025, Global Missions will be conducting a Sunday School class focused on God’s mission and how God has engaged us. We continually seek ways to engage the congregation in God’s Mission.

How have you helped people go and tell about Jesus?

Helping people go and tell who Jesus is in the world describes the major focus of Global Missions. Our most important work is prayer and financial support of missionaries and mobilizers who go to the Frontier (unreached people groups). Roughly half of the 13 missionary partners we support are members or children of this church. This speaks to a long and rich tradition of understanding, commitment to and participating with God in His global mission.

We also support individuals to participate in international trips providing one or more of the following: information, organization, prayer and finances. In 2024, we gave financial support to three young women going on short-term mission trips, supported three young women from CRU going to North Africa for a year, helped send Central Asians to a conference in Turkey and sponsored two students at Pars Theological Seminary.

How have you helped people know who Jesus is and grow in their faith?

First Pres’ local missions team helps people know Jesus through hands-on support. With limited resources we try to respond in a Christ-like manner and help when we can or refer people to local organizations that can assist. Usually those who contact us are desperately calling many churches. In speaking with those in need we sense that they are validated, cared for and listened to. Whether we can help or not, it is meaningful to hear from many, “You were the only ones to call back.” Often, we invite them to our church services to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ and experience His love.    

Local Missions is blessed with the responsibility to determine how to use budgeted funds to bless local charitable organizations as we serve the physical, spiritual and emotional needs of children, youth and adults and neighbors in need throughout Rockingham County. 

How have you helped people go and tell about Jesus?

Covenant partners grow in Christ, obey His call to serve and continue to experience the opportunity to share the love of Jesus through our weekly Soup Kitchen, providing meals for Open Doors (now the new permanent facility known as the Navigation Center) and identifying the various faith-based recipients for the monthly Mission Offerings.     

In 2024, covenant partners collected almost $12,000 in relief funds for those affected by Hurricane Helene in North Carolina. Hands-on expressions of Christ’s Love was shared by seven covenant partners assisting with cleanup in Hendersonville, North Carolina.

How have you helped people know Jesus, grow in their faith and go and tell others about Jesus?

In 2024, the Facilities team oversaw major renovations to the Welcome Center, commons, children’s wing and 9 Court Square to support the First Pres mission.

The updated children’s wing has provided vibrant and safer conditions for children to grow in their faith while providing their parents more comfort that their children are in a safe place. The Welcome Center provides a space for guests to feel welcomed and to get connected. The Commons gives more space for programs and provides access to the Courtyard and 9 Court Square. Those two areas are ideal for community outreach.

In addition to these major projects, the Facilities team also oversees the routine care and maintenance of the First Pres facility in its downtown location. That includes hosting a number of outside groups, opening our doors to our neighbors as we serve our community.

How have you supported the church as it helps people know Jesus, grow in faith and go and tell about Jesus?

One of the tasks of Admin was to arrange the funds needed to complete the remodeling and expansion of the children’s wing, bathrooms in the new area, the new kitchen, 9 Court Square and the Courtyard.  So we played a role in the Grow Project that has allowed our church to open our doors to the community with the Courtyard, to improve and expand the children’s education program, all helping people to know who Jesus is.               

Admin plays a role in taking the funds the covenant partners contribute, and spreading it to fund programs like soup kitchen, local and global missions, evangelism, and our worship services. A small part, but a part in telling who Jesus is.

We are grateful for the church’s financial support that helps us support our staff, maintain a clean, welcoming facility for worship and education, and live into the mission God has for us.