“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in times of trouble.”
— Psalm 46.1
Dear Lima Community Church Family:
From day to day, life continues to change more rapidly than we can even imagine. None of us have ever seen anything like what we are currently experiencing. I hope you are taking every precaution possible to shield yourself and those you love from this virus. As frightening as these days are, they are also a tremendous opportunity for the Church to demonstrate love and truly be the Body of Christ.
In Need of Help? Able to Help?
Many of you are part of the population that is more vulnerable to this disease, and that due to your vulnerability and the recommendations of our government and health officials, you are confining yourselves to your homes. During these days, it is possible that you will have a need arise, such as buying groceries or picking up prescriptions, that you are not able to accomplish on your own. Similarly, perhaps you are one who would be able to offer help during a time such as this. If either of these applies to you, we urge you to reach out to us. There are three ways you can do so:
We’ve been reminded during these days how critical it is for us to be able to stay in contact with one another. I want to encourage you to do several things as our levels of physical isolation continue to increase:
1) Be sure to join us online at 10:45am on Sunday morning for our worship service! You can join via Facebook Live or the “Live Events” button at www.limacommunitychurch.com.
2) If you are part of a Discipleship Group or Class here at Lima Community Church, consider meeting online with a tool such as Zoom (www.zoom.us).
3) If you are not part of such a group, consider reaching out to your fellow believers and “meeting” digitally to study scripture, pray together, and encourage one another.
4) We have realized in these days that our contact information for all of you is probably not as up-to-date as it needs to be. If you have recently changed your mailing address, email address, or phone number, please send us an email at Info@limacc.com and let us know about your new information.
Please Remain Faithful
We are so incredibly grateful to the countless number of you who so generously support the Kingdom work of Lima Community Church with your faithful tithes and offerings. As you might imagine, our church has already felt the economic impact of the COVID-19 outbreak. We are cutting costs to the fullest extent that we can. Despite not holding our regular programming and weekend services, our staff is continuing to gather to pray for you and our community, and to do the important pastoral work that comes in such a time. We recognize that these are uncertain times and that our income levels may change. But to the degree that you can continue to practice your regular stewardship, we can continue to utilize our staff to reach our community in new ways. If you are not currently giving electronically, this would be a good time to initiate that. You can do so by visiting www.limacommunitychurch.com/give. Of course, you can mail your contributions to the church office or drop them off in person, if you would prefer.
While these are sure to be some of the most challenging days many of us will face, our God is not shaken. He abides with us in the midst of all this chaos, and He will not leave or forsake us. May we shine His light and His love to all the world around us!
Our Father loves you, and so do I.
Doug Boquist, Lead Pastor, Lima Community Church
Don Rodden, Church Board Secretary, Lima Community Church