December 2022
Dear Burke Community Church Family,
As 2022 comes to a close and 2023 stands at the door, the Elders would like to wish you a Happy New Year and thank you for being part of life at Burke Community Church. 2022 gave us many more stones to add to our memorial to remember what God did (Joshua 4). From our first GO Missions Conference, to the groundbreaking of the Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS) satellite campus basement project, to the first Digging Deeper apologetics conference, to over 1500 kids and adults attending the Fall Festival, God has given us so much to be thankful for in 2022 and excited for in 2023.
Thank you for your part in serving God, helping us and others know Christ and make Him known. You served in so many ways, such as:
- Teaching our youth and adults across the Children’s, Student’s, Men’s, Women’s, Missions and many other ministries.
- Giving sacrificially and graciously to fund BCC’s budget, highlighted recently by your answer to the call to help close the gap between giving and our budget.
- Persevering through the many construction and audio/visual/lighting (AVL) projects intended to better support the various events and outreach opportunities held at BCC.
- Donating regularly to the Care Center initiatives in support of the Lorton Community Action Center (LCAC), Gogo Grandmothers, The 25th Project, EHO, The Lamb Center, and so much more.
- Praying continually for others through our prayer team, daily men’s prayer call, and personal relationships
- Leading and participating in worship, volunteering on the tech team, providing a secure and safe environment by serving on the safety and parking teams
- Connecting through over 40 life groups, community groups, and Discover Community/Jesus/Membership classes
- Meeting the challenge of “Gather, Grow, Go”, going locally, regionally, and globally to reach others for Christ, including locally to Greene Hills Estate to tutor students and teach ESL to adults, regionally to West Virginia to help meet the physical and spiritual needs of their community, and globally to Kenya and supporting missionaries all over the world.
There are so many more things that have gone on at BCC and are planned for the future that we cannot list them all here. For those of you that were able to attend the last Congregational Meeting in November, we provided an update on each ministry along with voting on three business items:
- Elected the 2023 Elder Nominating Committee (ENC)
- Elected Dallas Shaw to the Elder Council for Bob Ashton that ended his 2ndconsecutive term
- Approved the 2023 budget
We were encouraged to see such a great turnout (35% of our members attended). For those of you that were not able to attend, the slides are posted for you to see what was discussed.
Finally, the elders would like to announce that Richard Dick has accepted our invitation to serve temporarily (6 months) on the Elder Council for the vacancy resulting from George Lare stepping down. The Elder Nominating Committee has begun the process to fill this role with a permanent candidate to be presented at the congregational meeting in May.
The Elders are honored to serve God in this capacity at BCC and have been encouraged, spiritually refreshed, and humbled by your involvement and servant spirit and servant heart. Please feel free to contact us with any questions, prayer requests, or other items you may have. We ask that you continue to pray for our church as we strive together to know God’s will and be obedient to His calling.
May God bless you and your families in 2023!
The Elder Council
(Pastor Marty Baker, Richard Dick, Jim Hassett, Gordon Kesting, Steve Knight, Jay Santiago, Paul Schmidt, Dallas Shaw)
