Celebrate year one of The Next 50 Years

WELCOME
Pastor Chris Paavola:
In the story you just heard, do you think they were all grateful?
Response: Yeah.
Pastor Chris Paavola: Here they have this debilitating disease where you lose the sense of feeling that leads to infection and eventually the loss of limbs highly contagious. So they’re quarantined off in the wilderness, banished from society, never see making any contact with your loved ones ever. And I think then they see Jesus walking by. They run up to him, ask for healing, he heals them. I think they all felt grateful, but the nine they come across as ungrateful. Why? Because they don’t give thanks. Gratitude felt, but unexpressed comes across as in gratitude. The 10th leper. He comes across as grateful. Why? He came back and he spoke up.

Thank the Lord and sing his praise, tell everyone what he had done.
Psalm 105:1

Gratitude felt and expressed comes across as gratefulness. And that is 100%. What we are talking about today is we wrap up this series called Under Construction, where we have embraced this obvious mess of construction and used it as a metaphor to kind of describe and the process of becoming like Jesus and to use it and to see what we can learn from the construction process and how it sheds light onto the process of becoming like Jesus.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION
And we’ve talked about a blueprint. We’ve talked about a demolition, we’ve talked about setbacks, we’ve talked about consistency. But today we need to talk about celebration. And we don’t usually use that word for construction, but that’s really what it is. When you have these milestone moments in construction, you have these moments where everything’s going, and then you get to this moment where you reach this milestone, this thing happened and now we can proceed with all of this, but we had to wait on this.
And it’s called a milestone. And you celebrate in essence what has been accomplished. And we have milestones in all sorts of things, not just construction kids. You have progress reports that came out this week, sorry, right? In fitness. We tighten our belt to that other hole and we’re like, we celebrate an accomplishment, a benchmark. When you’re hiking, there’s mile markers because what does a celebration do? It encourages you so you don’t become discouraged like, oh, look at how much has really happened. It prevents you from having burnouts because you’re overwhelmed by how much it needs to be done, but you’re suddenly, you’re energized for the task at hand and it prevents amnesia. You forget that you’re a part of a bigger thing just in the day-to-day operation of hammering a nail. And so it provides perspective. So when you celebrate, you get energized, you get encouraged, and you get perspective.
And that happens in any kind of milestone or accomplishment. And it’s true in construction, it’s true in fitness, and it’s true in the Christian life. And today what we’re going to do is give you, we’re going to end by giving you an opportunity to celebrate what God has done in your life by first celebrating what God has done as a church. Today we’re going to be as a ministry, the 10th leper. We are going to thank the Lord, sing his praise and tell everybody what he has done. We’re going to tell everyone what he’s done. And I guess the 10th leper people in the village could have been like, okay, quit bragging, bro. We heard you the first 20 times. But he couldn’t keep it in. Because gratitude unexpressed comes across as in gratitude. Gratitude express comes Across as gratefulness. And so we’re going to talk about what we do as a ministry, but eventually we’re going to turn to give you an opportunity to give thanks and tell people what God has done in your life. And really the reason we’re celebrating today and why we chose today to do this is because we kind of worked backwards.

A CAMPAIGN BEGINS
Today is the one-year anniversary when you guys came forward and gave your pledges after weeks of talking about the vision of the next 50 years. And today is, this is the weekend where you guys one year ago came forward and gave your pledges to the next 50 years. Actually at this point, it’s now the next 49 years, but we had a basket up here and you dropped your pledges and you guys, we’ve raised and received in pledges from you for $2.1 million. And that is unbelievable. It allowed. I know, right? Yeah.
And that allows us to do things like renovate this, lower the step on this altar for safety to build 50 seats up there and update our tech booth to build a brand-new cafe and lobby and make a mess of a parking lot and eventually have a really nice one. And then update our multi-purpose room, our shared space with our world for children. All of that is possible because of that $2.1 million. And not only did we collect pledge, those pledges from you, but you guys were faithful to them. We’ve tracked along pretty much at exactly one third to date, we have received over $680,000 in pledges. It’s amazing. Unbelievable. And then what we, so that allowed us to then look at construction and how do you budget for all of this? And on August 7th, and we put a pile of dirt in a parking lot and we had our groundbreaking and little did we know that the parking lot was just getting dirty.
Two months later, it’s still a mess. We had all those setbacks, we talked about that. But then we are tracking along to be done with the base code on that in November. And you can see our updated timeline down at the expo, which we just wanted to have a flashback to middle school and science fair boards. So we just thought we would have all the ministry or different ministries is put up, just different things that we can celebrate that have happened in the last year. So make sure you stop by and get that and visit those booths. But you’ll see the construction timeline. And again, we are tracking along to be done around April sometime. So we’re ping God for that. And so because scripture commands it today, we celebrate what God has done and we don’t want it to be unexpressed. So I invite you to say the words from Psalm 105 with me that we heard earlier, thank the Lord and sing his praise.
Tell everyone what he has done. Now what’s so cool is we were doing all of this construction stuff and capital campaign stuff, and it is incredibly busy, but we did not let it loose. Focus for our mission. We continued to lay down our lives so as many as possible experience Jesus. And by the way, if you want a t-shirt, you can grab one down in the expo as well. So please get you some St. Mark schwag. So yeah, we have t-shirts today that just to celebrate again what got us done, but we did not lose sight of the mission. The mission was guiding us all along the way because you can look at the other numbers and go, yep, they stayed focused. The ministry kept advancing. We didn’t just maintain things. And everyone, when they’re talking about what are the measurables and ministry, the two that everyone thinks about is attendance and giving pastors, we say budgets and butts, right?

WORSHIP
Attendance and giving. And so in the last year though, we’ve continued to grow. You didn’t lose focus. We didn’t lose focus from that mission. So in our attendance, actually in the last three and a half years, we’ve tracked along in about a 12 to 15% growth rate. And last year it was a 13% growth rate. And I love that we didn’t have just this bottle rocket growth all of a sudden where you don’t have the infrastructure to support it. You’ve been to cities like that and nobody likes driving around in that town. We’ve just been the slow, steady churn of living out this mission and that consistency that we talked about last week. We praise God for that. And it’s just this slow, steady growth. And it’s a 13% growth year over year, month to month. In fact, in the month of September, as you can see, we averaged over 400 people in worship, you guys in the month of September. Praise God for that. Yeah.
Now, every number, like I say all the time, every number has a name, every name has a story, and every story matters to God. And so those numbers matter because people matter. And underneath those numbers are some incredible stories and there’s more numbers of attendance that we can look at. For instance, our online views. Last year we had an average of 142 people tune in every week to watch our live streams. That number has gone up to 179 people every week tuning in to watch. And it’s people who are unable to join. Like Marvin, good morning, Marvin. He is unable to be here, but he’s watching right now. And we are so grateful to be with you today, Marvin, thank you so much for tuning in. But every Sunday, every Sunday, somebody is tuning in from a hospital room, a hotel room, or listening while they commute on their truck routes or whatever it might be.
And we praise God for that. Every number has a name. In fact, some of the names end up coming not only to visit every Sunday we say is someone’s first Sunday. We say every Sunday is someone’s second Sunday. That’s an awesome thing. And we praise God for that. But then we have a newcomers lunch once a month, and those people who are new or newer to St Mark’s step forward to come to Newcomers Lunch. Here are just a few of the folks that came to Newcomers lunch in the last year. In fact, we needed two slides. So go back. Yeah, we needed two slides. You can go to the other one. There you go. So that’s one group of people, and these are people who come once a month. And then some of you guys might be seeing your own face on there. And then we have another slide.
We couldn’t fit them all on one picture, which is an awesome problem to have. And you can go see all of these photos down at our photo booth or at the expo as well. But these are people who God is doing something in their life. People like Melinda or Sarah or Libby or Logan. It is just like people who God is like. Yeah. And that’s just people in the last 12 months, my friends, every number has a name, every name has a story, and every story matters to God. And we celebrate that. So, we say together.

All: Give thanks to the Lord and sing his praise. Tell everyone what he has done and amen.

Pastor Chris Paavola: And then those numbers, those names, they translate into other things like giving, right? So, it’s buts and budgets, right?

GIVING
So, budgets, the big question when you do a capital is how is that going to affect your general giving?
And we praise God that our general giving, because again, the pledge was supposed to be above and beyond your regular offering that you make to the church, right above and beyond. And so the big question is, okay, once you start collecting your funds in October there, how is that going to affect our overall giving? Praise God, you guys, our giving has tracked right where we hoped it would be and where we budgeted for it to be. You kept on giving as you have been giving. Now, we did have a really rough January and February, as you can see in 24, 25. So that was in the beginning of the year. That was where we had eight straight Saturdays of snow. And I was so angry at God. I’m like, what are you doing? No one’s coming to church.
And that’s where we really emphasize just the importance of recurring giving, online giving so you can stay faithful. And you guys helped us recover as you can see, and we are tracking along wonderfully, and we praise God for that. And every number has a name though. My favorite story of this giving is that on top of this regular giving, you can add our pledges that started. So let’s just take the year starting in January, our median, our average is about $30,000 a month received in campaign funds. So in campaign funds, on top of our regular giving, we can add another $30,000 a month. That means in 2025, for the first time ever in St Mark history, we will receive over $1 million in gifts. That is unbelievable. And I am so excited about that because the ministry moves forward at the speed of your generosity. We are not able to do anything that we are doing all of this construction.
We’re not able to do any of it unless you guys are as generous and sacrificial as you are. So thank you. Every number has a name though. My favorite story in all of this is this young girl. She’s a high schooler, we’ll call her Elizabeth. And Elizabeth works a minimum wage job. Elizabeth gets a paycheck once a month for her minimum wage job, and she made a pledge of 10% of her paycheck every month for the next three years. So she gets this paycheck, she moves the decimal over, she wants to learn what a tithe is, and every month we get a paycheck from a high schooler giving and investing in the next 50 years. Every number has a name. And we celebrate what God is doing. And so we say together, thank the Lord, and sing his praise. Tell everyone what he has done. And those numbers translate guys, not just butts, but also into baptisms where people come to the waters of baptism and are baptized and receive his forgiveness, his life and all of his promises.

BAPTISMS
Last year we celebrated 35, 35 baptisms here at St A. I don’t know how you say that number and not get excited. It’s people like Tracy, right? Every number has a name. It’s names like Tracy and Grace and Lila and Megan and Robert, and just the names go on and on of people where God is doing something in their lives and they come to him in the waters of baptism and they experience Jesus. That’s awesome, Tommy, Megan, just unbelievable stories. I’m seeing more baptisms out there. I’m looking at you guys, and I just want to say all your names. It’s just awesome. But it’s not just baptisms. And by the way, because of all these baptisms, we should give thanks and celebrate. So let us right there you go.

All: Thank the Lord and sing his praise. Tell everyone what he has done, amen and amen.

OTHERS
And then there’s other ministries like we have new people serving on the altar team. We have new people serving with the lawn mowing team or new people serving on hospitality team. And by the way, if you want to sign up for any of that, we’ve got sign up out of the expo as well.
Just put your name down, we’ll get in touch with you and figure out how you can start serving as well. But the ministry that is the tip and oh yeah, people joining small groups for the first time, there’s so many other numbers.

KIDS MINISTRY
But if there’s a ministry that really just highlights what God is doing, and it’s the tip of our spirit, it’s our youth and family ministry and everything that happens with kids last year from October to October, we’ve averaged 54 kids in Sunday morning in kids’ ministry in 2025, that number were projected to be around 65 kids in 2025 down the hall experiencing Jesus in an age appropriate way, the volunteers who make that happen. And just the unbelievable amount of work it takes, but just how rewarding it is because that consistency on Sunday morning translates to other numbers. Like 243 kids that are Easter egg extravaganza, or we also had, I don’t have all the numbers memorized, Brian, there you go.
250 kids and 65 volunteers at VBS or like 43 teenagers at our fall kickoff and the Color Clash, or 45 Bibles given away at the Great Bible giveaway, and we celebrate all of those numbers, but every number has a name. Every name is so cute, but it’s names like this young man who got a Bible right here at the Great Bible giveaway. And then he took me up on that where I told him, you can get out of bedtime if you ask mom and dad at bedtime to read a Bible story. They can’t say no. And so it’s awesome. And so they did that since August. They’ve been doing that every night at bedtime. And Jacob, after they got through the bible, Jacob now knows the stories. And so Jacob wanted to read the Bible, wanted to read the story of creation from his brand new Bible to his little brother. They sent me this video, take a look. It’s super cute.

All: And so, we thank the Lord and sing his praise. Tell everyone what he has done.

Pastor Chris Paavola: You ever go to a wedding and you see the bride and groom dance and you tear up, or you go to a retirement party and they give a toast and you tear up. And sometimes it might be you’re crying for them, but the reason you tear up is you’re internalizing it. You’re starting to think about yourself and your own marriage or your own legacy or whatever it might be.

BE THE TENTH LEPER
My hope today is that as you see these numbers and you hear these names, you see what God is doing
Through you and among you at St. Mark and around you at St. Mark that you begin to think about what God is doing in you. And as you think about what God is doing in you, I want to give you an opportunity to be the 10th Leper because gratitude felt, but unexpressed comes across as ungratefulness this morning. I want to give you an opportunity to express your gratitude. So what has God done for you this year?

WHAT HAS GOD DONE FOR YOU THIS YEAR

I knew if I just said, by the way, I put some qualifiers on there, if I just said, why are you thankful 90% of you would put my family, my grandkids, or right? You would just go instantly low hanging fruit. My family, I love them, my family, my kids. I love it, right? And you would go family. But I wanted to put some nuance on this this year. As you think about the process of becoming like Christ, what has God done in your life this year distinct from years past? What milestone have you reached? What mile benchmark moments have you had with God where God did something in your life? What was it? In the rack cards in front of you, there’s a index card in front of the prayer request cards. Take it out. Everybody grab the index card. And what I want you to do is just write one thing.
Don’t try to out, do everybody and be like, I’m writing in the margins and I’m writing on the back as well. And I’m going to use three cards now. Okay, just one card. If you were going to write down one thing, what has God done for you this year? Put that on the card. What has God done for you this year? And then what we’re going to do is we’re going to collect it. When you give an offering today, you’re going to put this in the offering basket as well as your gift. You’re going to give thanks for something in your life that has happened this year, and then we’re going to collect all of them, and we’re going to make a little collage and put it on Facebook so you can thank the Lord, sing his praise and tell everyone what he has done. And so we’re going to have a collage of just how much we have to be grateful for so we can be the 10th lepers together. So X’s going to play some music. I’m going to give you guys an opportunity to write just what has God done in your life this year.

PRAYER
We pray, heavenly Father, forgive us for gratitude. Unexpressed, you truly have done so much in our lives and in this moment, we acknowledge and confess that we have fallen short on that, and we are sorry. So forgive us, oh Lord, and thank you, God. In spite of our ungratefulness, you continue to open your hand and pour out so many blessings that we don’t have room for. And even just this year, God, you have blessed us. We are richly blessed, and so we fall down with the cleansed leper and say, thank you, God, for what you’ve done in our lives, and thank you, God, for what you’ve done in this ministry here at St. Mark in just one year. We thank you for these numbers, but it doesn’t mean stop. We just pray God, that our best days are still in front of us, and that you will do, as your word says, even greater things than these, that next year again, we come back and celebrate all that you have done. We thank you and we sing your praise, and we can tell everyone what you’ve accomplished in among and through us here at St. Mark.
And we pray now the prayer your son taught us to pray that is full of gratitude and appreciation for what you’ve done. As we say together, our father who arts in heaven, hall it be thy name, thy kingdom come and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us nod into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.