I wanted to take some time and share my favorite 217church moments of 2011…

• Personally baptizing my two children, Lilly and Titus, changed my life forever. I cried like a baby. The 217church family celebrated 52 baptisms of restored lives this year. That makes 80 total! Simply awesome!

• I’ll never forget cutting the ribbon at the 217church youth center grand opening. We had 55 217youth at our last gathering!

• At Easter celebrating our largest gathering ever, 431 people, then watching over a thousand kids make a dash for eggs at the Easter Eggstravaganza.

• Celebrating the physical and emotional healing of so many during our “Healing Life’s Hurts” series in the Spring was really humbling.  I’m continually blessed by the way the church loves each other and has such deep commitment after only existing for 22 months.

• Giving our sister church Element Church $22,000 and watching them launch in October with over 300 people!  We exist to plant other churches and now we have a sister! Our vision is 10K people /1K groups /100 churches!  It can happen.

• When I found out just last week we surpassed the $350,000 goal for the Next Generation Vision Offering I was blown away! Yes this is a VERY generous church.  If you don’t give, you are missing out big time.  You can still make a year end gift at http://217church.com/give

• And finally, our Thanksgiving basket delivery and Christmas Toyland. We handed out 100 baskets full of food and over 400 toys to kids at Christmas. Simply amazing!

I love 217church.  You are my family and you have been such an inspiration in 2011. 2012 marks a brand new chapter in our history. We will never be the same. On January 15th we will celebrate our 100th worship service together.  The next 5 weeks we will explore How God is going to move with more Momentum on our behalf.  What was your favorite moment of 2011? Post it on our 217church FB page

2012 is upon us. Let’s do this,

Josh