September 2018 Branches

Session Update
5
The Session invites you to be praying with us for the
ongoing development of biblical community in our
congregation this fall. While we are excited about new
small groups forming, Connect Communities starting,
Jobs for Life class getting underway, and much more,
we also know that no amount of planning or strategy
will be what controls our “success” as a church on God’s
mission in this community. For that, we are utterly
dependent upon the work of God’s Spirit among us,
so please pray with us that we will lock arms with each
other firmly and love our neighbors deeply.
As part of our prayerful and intentional development
of biblical community, please join with us in a Connect
Community starting September 9. One of the reasons
we as a Session are particularly looking forward to
these communities is that they will be places where we
can connect with you more consistently and shepherd
you more faithfully. There are multiple elders on the
leadership team of each community for that very
purpose, and we are eager to get to know each of you
better as we share life together around God’s Word.
Don’t forget that when these Connect Communities
begin on September 9, we will also adjust our Sunday
morning schedule so that our prayer gathering is at
8:45am, our worship service is at 9:30, and our Connect
Hour is at 11:00. Worship is a great need for each of
us personally and a high priority for us as a church, so
please make plans to be prepared at 9:30 on Sundays
and let us know if we can help as you and your family
make adjustments for this schedule. If you have any
questions about these plans, please contact any of us
personally or all of us at elders@southwood.org. If this
is the first you are hearing about plans for this fall, you
can read more in the letter and Q&A document posted
at southwood.org.
Diaconate Update
The Deacons of Southwood led a work day on August 25
to complete several small projects around the grounds
of the church property. It was a small affair with maybe
20 folks coming together to spend a morning working
together. We pressure washed around the Lodge and
courtyard near the Guest Center, removed several
bushes from the beds, repainted curbs in handicapped
parking spaces, and stained (some of) the fence around
the playground. If you look around the building the next
time you are here, you will definitely notice the places
that look better.
You will also notice that the fence staining is not
completely finished. It turns out that staining a fence
is a bigger job than we anticipated so that didn’t quite
get completed. There is a large section of fence that still
needs staining. These are all things the church could
have paid for and accomplished professionally, but that
would have missed the point of the work day. The point
of the work day was seen in conversations between
new and old friends over a bucket of paint, or siblings
taking a break from arguing to rake leaves together, or
folks praying together over a job to be done. When we
exercise the muscle of service in small ways like this, we
are not merely helping to care for the gifts that the Lord
has entrusted to us (though that is a good thing to do);
we are also teaching ourselves be “on mission” together.
The experience of laboring as a group and the
relationships we build at these events help us learn to
work shoulder to shoulder together and see the needs
of a world around us so that we can be prepared to go
together on missions beyond the property at 1000 Carl
T. Jones Drive. The Deacons hope to make these small
work days a regular part of our life together as a church
so that when the Lord puts a big mission in front us –
like a hurricane, fire, tornado, or hurting community – we
will have exercised that muscle together and be ready
to go together. The fence staining project will get done
at one of these work days, too, but it was never really
about the fence.