Our Blog

By: Pastor Peter Schlicht

Being a part of ministry at Eastside is exciting! There is something going on almost every day of the year. For many people church only takes place on Sunday, but there is so much more than Sunday to our ministry and our lives of faith! In an effort to connect you with the daily activity of the church and fellow believers at Eastside, we have begun an initiative called More Than Sunday.

The first step was a series of meetings where members gave us input on how we can better connect people to the ministry, their Savior, and each other. Altogether, almost 100 people participated in these More Than Sunday meetings. Below you’ll find the five common threads we extracted from the input and the direct action we will be taking based on these ideas.

One of the most mentioned suggestions was a renewal of Small Group Bible Studies or in-home Bible studies led by congregation members. These are great at facilitating friendships, strong faith, and trust among participants. While we do have a few Small Groups currently operating at Eastside, we plan to launch a congregation-wide option this coming fall based on the pastors’ sermons. This will not require any prep-time and should allow everyone to participate! We also will continue to promote our Bible Immersion Groups starting up again this October.

The second idea which came to the forefront was a Mentoring or Assimilation Program. Mentoring and assimilation in this context refers to helping new members and school families get involved and connected. We are currently looking into what this type of program might look like here at Eastside by asking other churches who have something in place. We also are going to change our Bible Information Course into revamped Bible 101 and Bible 102 classes. This will allow us to cover the first class and required understanding for membership much more quickly in the Bible 101 class (10 weeks) and then provide a natural stepping stone into deeper study and more connection through the Bible 102 class. Please consider joining us for these classes during the normal Bible Study hour at 9:15am (in between the Sunday services). I promise that you will learn a lot and your presence will be a blessing to members, new and old, who take the class with you! 

The third common encouragement we received focused on Youth Involvement in Worship. As a result, instead of one “Youth Sunday” we are going to have 2 separate youth sundays this coming year. We have also decided to place a priority on periodically including youth soloists and groups to edify our worship with music. 

The fourth idea which was stated in many different ways centered around providing Fellowship Opportunities. Three ways we hope to meet this request include: an Outdoor Service and Lunch on Sunday, July 21st; a midweek get-together at a park in August; and a Welcome Home Service and Celebration on October 27th.

The last common thread from the meetings regarded Increased Communication of Involvement Opportunities. Besides the Newsletter and bulletin announcements, we hope to optimize announcements and service opportunities for our Eastside App. We also plan to send out mass emails notifying the congregation of opportunities to get involved. We don’t want to inundate anyone, but usually we need to see things more than once before we remember or act on them. Please pray for these new initiatives and ask that God continues to bless our ministry on More Than Sunday!