Our Blog

By: Pastor Berg

We’ve had specific bulletin inserts at Eastside for the past five weeks about something called The Peter Plan. My goal with this post is to summarize the goals of that plan and discuss how it will benefit us at Eastside and glorify our God.

The first goal of The Peter Plan is to make sure that people are fed with God’s Word regularly, even if the circumstances of their life prevent them from being able to attend worship. St. Peter gives instructions to “Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care (1 Peter 5:2). Shepherds find a way to feed the sheep under any circumstances.

With The Peter Plan, we will have an accurate record of someone who has missed worship for six-weeks straight. People can miss church for legitimate reasons. These individuals will not always contact the church to let us know they are going to be absent. They don’t want to be a burden. These are people we want to reach, to assure them that it is no burden to bring them a devotion and the Lord’s Supper. Maybe their work schedule has prevented them from attending worship. Maybe they’ve been recovering from knee surgery. We want to continue to serve them with the means of grace. But to do that, we need to have an accurate record of who was able to make it to worship and who wasn’t.

The second goal of The Peter Plan is illustrated by an event in Peter’s life. Peter drifted away from his Savior, even denying him three times. After, he wondered if Jesus would want anything to do with him again. In John chapter 21, Jesus pulls Peter aside, assures Peter that he’s forgiven, and tells Peter he still wants him to serve in the Church. Peter had forsaken Jesus. Jesus could have gotten very angry. But Jesus restored Peter lovingly and gently.

Sometimes, when people drift away from church, it’s not for legitimate reasons. They lose interest in hearing God’s Word. Or they have an issue with someone at church and don’t want to deal with them. So they stop coming to church. This isn’t healthy. “Faith comes from hearing the message,” Scripture says (Romans 10:17). The Peter Plan also lets us follow up on members who have been absent from worship for longer periods of time. We want to gently encourage them to return to a faithful use of the Word and sacrament. And if they refuse, the loving thing to do is let them know they are sinning, and that God is calling them to repent. To not warn people that way would be unloving.

The Peter Plan lets us do this consistently. There is no guess work. E.g. “Has Jim missed for eight weeks or eighteen weeks?” Because we keep a record, we know how long “Jim” has been gone. We can attempt to restore him gently, just like Jesus did for Peter.

The third goal of The Peter Plan has nothing to do with members, and everything to do with worship visitors. When we have worship visitors, we want to do a better job of collecting their contact information. Connection cards have been shown to be much more effective at collecting that information than other methods. With visitor contact information in hand, we are able to follow up on those visitors, to give them a gift, to invite them again, and perhaps even going to their home to tell them more about Eastside and sharing with them a more personalized Gospel message.

The bottom line is, this pleases our Savior greatly. All the goals of The Peter Plan—1) feeding our members who are absent for legitimate reasons, 2) trying to gently restore straying members, and 3) better-collecting contact information of guests so we might continue to share the gospel with them–are things that Jesus has said in his Word are functions of his Church. They fulfill his mission.  To him be the glory!

Grace and peace,

Pastor Berg