2022 Adult Ministries Report

2022 Adult Ministries Report

(Part of the 2022 Annual Report for Lanse Evangelical Free Church. Submitted by Pastor Matt, Judy Carlson, and Abraham Skacel)

In 2022, we continued to offer a variety of ministries to make disciples of adults in our church family and also to develop and deploy a few new strategies.

Continuing Ministries

On a weekly basis we continued to offer a Prayer Meeting on Wednesday nights primarily led by Joel Michaels and Pastor Matt. We also continued to supply “Explore the Bible” study guides for adults to utilize at home and a growing collection of helpful discipleship resources in the church library.

During Family Bible Week Dave Catanzaro taught an adult class that corresponded with the 2022 FBW theme of being the artwork of God (Ephesians 2:10). We also provided a copy of Praying the Bible by Donald Whitney as this year’s LEFC Book Club.

New Ministries

Ladies’ Fellowship Hour – Judy Carlson

This year in October was the first meeting of the Ladies Fellowship Hour. The purpose is for the women of our church to get to know one another and to share their needs and concerns. The women encourage and pray for one another.  They also have a time of sharing God's Word. We are averaging about 10 ladies each week, and they say that they are really enjoying getting to know one another and being comfortable sharing with others and the support they receive. The response has been much better than Ruth Murray and I anticipated when we thought of the idea. We thought that many weeks it might be just the two or three of us praying together, which would have been good as well. To see so many who are faithfully attending and so happy to be a part of the group is wonderful. Interestingly, among those regularly attending five of us have been attending LEFC for 40 years and three have attended for less than 3 years!

Pop Up Classes – Abraham Skacel

In 2022, we tried something new for adult discipleship. Rather than ongoing Sunday School classes, we introduced intermittent "pop-up" classes. The goal was to offer low commitment, high quality classes focused on practical equipping for discipleship and ministry. We had a three week class in August on evangelism. In October, Greg Strand taught on the history of the EFCA. In November, Caleb Lucien shared about the state of ministry in Haiti with VOHM. At the very beginning of 2023, we had a one week class on praying Scripture. 

Looking ahead into 2023, we hope to offer more classes on a variety of topics that will be beneficial to the spiritual needs of our congregation (let Abe know if you have ideas!). In addition to offering more pop-up classes, we hope to tap into the giftings of other members of the church family to help teach. With God's leading and blessing, we pray that this ministry will serve to "equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ," (Ephesians 4:12).