Warm Greetings to Our New Family at Christ Community,

Susan and I would like to thank you for how you have already made us feel welcome through the pastoral search process and the congregational meet and greet and vote on Sunday. We feel humbled and blessed to get the opportunity to join the Christ Community family in what God is doing for His glory in the Kennesaw/Acworth area. We are excited to join you in Trinitarian worship and working out how to love our neighbors in missional service.

I want to share with you again the big picture vision for how I see the Lord leading as I begin as lead pastor at Christ Community. The first 6 months or so will be focused primarily on priestly activities. I want to see the staff, elders, and deacons supported and built up in terms of what God has called them to at CCC so they can flourish. This will be my primary focus for the first 3 months outside of worship on Sundays. I also want to immediately focus on our children’s and youth ministries ensuring that it is serving our kids and church by training them up in the admonition of the Lord. As a suburban church blessed with many children and in an area where there are many families with children, we must be strong in this area. As the leaders are getting healthy, I want to shift my focus more to the needs and health of the congregation at large. To be clear, this will be happening all along the way, however, the focus will be even more intentional and broad in the 4-6 month time frame. This will include ministering to your weariness and woundedness as well as helping you to discover your spiritual gift(s) and how they can be used for the building up of the body of Christ.

Once the overall health of the church is strong, I want us all to get creative at being missional to our various neighbors in Kennesaw, Acworth, and beyond. I want us to see the redemptive truths that are preached, sung, prayed, and witnessed in the sacraments every Sunday to come to life and bear fruit for the glory of God! I want our church to be accused of being foolishly generous and hospitable, ridiculously missional, and unreasonably expectant of what God will avail through the righteous prayers of His saints!

I do long for us to transition into a more permanent space for the sake of being able to do more and not have the burden of set-up and tear down every Sunday. However, please remember that this is not the end goal of Christ Community. A building will not solve all of our problems nor is it the point of our journey. Our perpetual calling until Christ’s return regardless of location and circumstance is to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, and mind and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. A more permanent space will hopefully help us do these things even better than is currently possible! We are praying for you. There are several things for which you can be praying for us:

1. Our friends Greg and Wendy Wood are planning to buy our house once their house sells. They will rent our house in the interim if necessary. Pray that their house sells quickly!

2. Susan is working very hard to pack our stuff and prepare the house for the Wood family. As a result, she has not been sleeping well. Pray that the Lord would grant her rest and daily restoration and refreshment.

3. Our daughter Kimberly is flying to Valencia, Spain in late August to begin a semester abroad through Florida State University. Pray for her safety and wisdom as she transitions across the pond into a new culture.

4. I am seeking to finish well at OrthoGeorgia as August 15th will be my last day and conclude my service as interim pastor at Four Corners Church in Newnan on August 31st. I will have a meeting with the Candidates and Credentialing Committee on Tuesday, August 12th, and should go before the Northwest Georgia Presbytery Saturday, August 30th, to be approved as the pastor of CCC. Pray that I would depend on my union with Christ glorifying him in the midst of the whirlwind of the next few weeks!

5. We will move to the Kennesaw area on Monday, August 18th. We have hired a moving company to do the heavy lifting as a grace to those we love and to ourselves! Pray for safe travels on that day.

6. Strong Tower Fellowship in Macon is working hard to find someone to fill my previous position. There are some excellent men who are praying about the position. Pray that God will provide someone soon.

I am thankful to God for all of the prayers that He has already answered and look forward to celebrating how He will answer the above requests!

I would love to hear your thoughts. I have a new email address: cameron@christcommunitycobb.org.

Feel free to email or call me at (478) 718-7957.

In Christ, Cameron and Susan