Five Years In Cedar Park

Celebrating A Milestone

On October 13 we passed a significant milestone in the life of our young church. Emmanuel is now five years old! We are still a young church, but we’ve gone through a lot in the past 5 years. We’ve welcomed a lot of new folks to our family, and sadly, had to say good bye to others, on occasion even in tragedy. We have been blessed with beautiful worship, especially at Christmas, Easter, and our organization service. We have matured enough to graduate from being a site of Redeemer to being Emmanuel Presbyterian Church, a church in our own right. Like most young ones, we quickly developed a personality of our own, but now we have an identity of our own. So, I thought I would take the privilege of dwelling for a minute on who we’ve become and where I believe we are going.

Emmanuel At Five Years

First, I am so excited to see our identity as a church be very outwardly focused. As I was filling out an application to receive a donation from HEB for our Chili Cook-Off fundraiser, I had to answer the question, “Who will benefit from your event?” and I was reminded of this quote by William Temple, the Archbishop of Canterbury, “The church is the only institution that exists for the benefit of its non-members.” While this may not be true of all churches, I think we can affirm that this is true of Emmanuel. The evidence for this amounts to some of the things I am proudest of in our church. We may be relatively small, but we are already having an impact. Our efforts are making the love of Christ real to people far and near.

We’ve already sent Hannah to Mozambique, and now we’re raising funds to help young students in a Pre-School there. It was so fun to see the art our kids were making to send to those children so far away. Our reach is far, and because of Hannah it will be tangible, not just a miscellaneous drop in a bucket.

Second, we are connecting ourselves to our local community, and we are investing in it. We have already begun ministering to the staff and students at New Hope High School. What a wonderful opportunity we have to make a real difference in the life and lives of the people near to us! They already appreciate the food closet and taco breakfasts, but we have a lot more to do for them.

For example, we have our annual Chili Cook-Off coming up on Nov. 3. Previously this has been an event primarily focussed on our church community. That’s not to say there haven’t been visitors, or that it hasn’t been a wonderful thing for us in the past. It has been great fun and a very good thing for us. But now we are partnering with The Dig Pub to connect our church with the broader community of Cedar Park. We will have a great opportunity to meet and fellowship with people we would never know otherwise. Better still we are using this event as a fundraiser to buy a washer and dryer for New Hope High School. By partnering this way we are making connections in our own community. We are making others aware of the needs at New Hope. People that never knew we even existed will now know. They’ll know that we care too, that we are actively seeking “the welfare of the city” God has placed us in. (Jer. 29:7)

What an exciting time to be a part of Emmanuel! The best part of all this, is that you are driving it. These ideas are coming from you, and you are making this happen. Our Deacons and Deaconesses are doing a great job, but many of you have been investing heavily in these effort, and we will all be a part of this wonderful kingdom work going forward. Thank you all!

What do we hope will be the fruit of all this? Well to start with we will be helping a lot of people both near and far. Second, we are building important relationships in our community. I’ve often said I wanted us to be the kind of church that completely irreligious people in our community would miss if we suddenly disappeared. These are the kind of things we should be doing to make that true! Third, as we practice the gospel in our deeds, we hope this will lead to opportunities for us to proclaim it in words as well! I hope God will add to our church through this, that we will see conversions and baptisms. As we love our neighbors, we want them to be blessed physically and socially, but also spiritually too. We want them to be freed from the bondage of sin and death, from guilt and shame. Yes, we want to care for their physical needs, but we have a lot more to offer!

Emmanuel Five Years From Now?

Where will we go in the next 5 years? Honestly, I have no idea, but I like the trajectory we’re on! I’d love to see us continue to grow, not just in numbers, but in maturity and reach too. I hope we continue to reach out and serve our community. This is a great start, but we have a lot of potential! I hope we’ll add ministry staff, not so they can do everything, but so they can help me keep up with y’all! I’d love to see us have a permanent presence in Cedar Park, and yes, by that I mean a building. I’d love for us to be a part of planting more churches in the Austin area, and maybe even have a daughter church of our own.

So in conclusion as your pastor, I’d like to say thanks for a great first 5 years! Thanks for your passion for the gospel in both word and deed! It’s a joy and privilege to be a part of this ministry. Let’s keep it up!