Northeast Oklahoma District Church of the Nazarene

Dear NEO Family,


Happy Veteran’s Day! How grateful we are for the service and sacrifice of the men and women of the armed services.

Last Sunday Gloria and I had the chance to worship with Pastor Angie Bentley and the Bristow Nazarenes. It was great to see Pastor Angie able to be at church and making steady recovery from her recent surgery. And the church is alive and growing. They are praying fervently for God to provide a way for them to construct a new building on the land they own.

On Sunday evening over 200 youth and sponsors gathered for “Like Totally 80’s” event which included roller skating, food, fellowship and worship. Thanks, Nate Burns, Ryan Amey and our NYI Council for putting together a great event.

USA/Canada Regional Director, Bob Broadbooks, reports: We just received the preliminary statistics for the church year recently completed and have discovered some very good news. As the research department puts all of our 80 districts together, we see that our 4,993 churches in the United States and Canada have been experiencing productive days. During the last 12 months 64,647 people found Christ in our churches. Praise the Lord! That is an increase of almost 5,000 people over last year. Of these new believers, over 30,000 became members. God is helping us to be evangelistic and our pastors and people are serious about “making Christlike disciples in the nations.” 79 new churches have been started and 27 new churches were organized. We have 431 churches in the pipeline, many of them moving toward organization. This year we have a net loss of 15 churches but that is an improvement over last year when we had a net loss of 24. Research tells me that this declining number is slowing. This year we have seen an increase of 1,850 in membership and a decrease in worship attendance of 1,158.

Study Reveals Strong Giving to Religious Causes During the Recession
While the dominant headlines during the recession have focused on the decrease in giving to nonprofits, this is not the entire story. The first Annual State of Giving Report released today by the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) reveals that the change in giving to its members was imperceptible during the recession. Pre-recession giving compared to two years later was $12.11 billion in 2007 and $12.10 billion in 2009. Large churches fared slightly better than parachurch organizations between 2007 and 2009. Cash giving to churches was up 0.2%. "It is very significant that this segment of the giving world was resilient and maintained itself during a difficult economic time," according to Dan Busby, ECFA's President. "The study suggests a strong commitment of givers to the Christian faith and the generosity of God's people."

The Board of General Superintendents is calling for a special Challenge 2010 World Evangelism Fund (WEF PLUS) Offering. We are asking that each member/regular attendee of the churches on your district be encouraged to give $10 to this special offering. This would be over and above Faith Promise and/or any other Thanksgiving Offering they might have committed to give.

We need every pastor to prayerfully lead their church to give generously and sacrificially in WEF PLUS. Again, this offering is in addition to Faith Promise and planned Thanksgiving Offerings, and it will provide immediate funding to Nazarene mission fields globally.

You are loved!

Dave McKellips