Hey fam!  

This last month has held a lot for us as a community. At the end of February we started our first time waking through the season of Lent together with the help of our devotional guide from the Liturgy Team. Its been a gift to have a season in the church calendar like Lent that aims to form us around Jesus and his life together in such a meaningful way as we approach the celebration of his death and resurrection. I'm curious to know how the season of Lent is impacting you!

In financial terms, not a lot has changed. We don’t quite have the official February numbers in at the time of this writing, but we can share some highlights from January. Our expenses were $14,005 while giving was $11,026. We still obviously have a decent burn rate going, but we're still far out from any of our contingency plan targets. January savings ended at $60,000. 

Would you join the Elders in praying for the future of Emmaus? We want to be conscious of what these numbers mean for our community, even though finances aren’t the only measure of a church or church health, they still play a significant role. We are considering and weighing some options worth pursuing as an Elder group right now and we would love to share more when we have more to share, but in the meantime pray for discernment and wisdom! 

In other news, Aaron put together a blog post on why daily worship at home matters. Whatever God has in store for Emmaus one thing we can be sure of is that forming our rhythms, especially in our homes, around God and his gospel is the only way we are going to have true peace and joy whatever comes our way in life. Give it a read! 

One thing we have been grateful for so far this year has been our new rhythms as GCs. In February we had our first "Others" focused week. Two of our GCcs came together to host a Super Bowl party and Aaron made some great connections with his neighbors because of that. Pray that opportunities for the gospel would open up there! The West GC has also had opportunities to serve folks around them including Eric's grandma who recently lost her husband. It may not seem like much, but this is our mission to bring good to others being lived out in the ordinary things of life. That's worth celebrating!

I know it is really tempting to measure our success in numbers. Numbers are easy to see and give some obvious comfort too. Who doesn't like worshipping in a room that is full or operating in the black? That being said, whatever the future holds, we are always faced with the opportunity to see Emmaus and our success through God's eyes who according to 1 Samuel 16:7, "sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." Maybe that sounds cliche, but it's still true. Praying that we are able to look at each other and our community through those eyes.

Love you guys!

Ben Menge

Worship Pastor

Here are a couple of reminders for you all covering the next couple of weeks.

1. Emmaus Women has moved to the third Sunday of every month. March 19th is the first meeting with the new Study through Gentle & Lowly. They will be covering chapters 1-2.
2. Our next Prayer & Potluck is March 22th. We want to spend some extra focused time this month praying for our present moment as a church and towards the future of Emmaus.
3. Good Friday is on April 7th and we will be doing a service at Sterling. TBD on details but will probably meet at 6pm.
4. Easter is April 9th! Get your invite game strong! We will probably do a big feast again, so be on the lookout for a sign up!