May 2026 NewsLetter
Hey church family,
I've been thinking a lot lately about the best ways to keep our church family connected and up-to-date on goings on. I don't know if a newsletter type communication is the best tool, but I'm gonna try it for a bit and see if it helps. : )
Heading into May, we do have some updates and upcoming events to keep on your radar!
Current Sermon Series:
We are currently in an Identity sermon series that will continue for the rest of this month. If you missed the first two sermons in the series, I would encourage you to go back and give it a listen. You can always find previous sermons on YouTube or any podcast distributer like Apple podcasts or Spotify.
I've been saying this the last few weeks, but I think this is a timely discussion. Our culture is increasingly struggling with finding meaningful identity and the mental and emotional health of our nation shows it. Praise be to God that the solution to a meaningful life is decidedly answered by Christ himself. My hope is that this short series is an encouragement to our church body, but also that it helps empower you to speak confidently about these ideas in your own spheres of influence.
After this short series we'll be back in 1 Samuel for the rest of the summer. After finishing out our "New Days" series, we'll have two more sub-series within 1 Samuel looking at our relationship with earthly authority and suffering and trials.
Some Dates to Remember:
Our next Explore Immanuel Class will be Sunday, May 3, at 6:00 p.m. If you have never attended one of these, this is a great way to find out more about our church and begin the membership process. Dinner will be provided for those who attend. Sign up at the welcome table. Please reach out to me direclty with any questions. This always an encouraging time.
The National Day of Prayer is Thursday, May 7. I will be leading the prayer gathering for the city of Ellisville. It is open to our whole community and hopefully we'll have some leaders from other like minded churches in our area, but you are all invited! If your schedule allows, we will be meeting at Ellisville City Hall at noon to take time to pray together. This meeting will last about an hour and we'll take time to pray for our community and nation.
Mother's Day will be Sunday May, 10th and we'll be honoring the women in our church that day in the gathering.
Also, remember that May is the time of year when our GC's wind down alongside the school year. We'll be launching up Summer Discipleship Groups again this year. If you weren't a part of one last year, please consider signing up this year. These small, gender specific, groups are focused on spiritual discipline and development. We'll have level 1 groups for folk just starting out and level 2 groups for folk who completed level 1 last summer. If you're interested in leading one of these groups please reach out to me! Otherwise, keep an eye out for sign ups.
Redemption Hill Church Plant:
Pastor Jim shared several updates with us a couple of weeks ago about our St. Charles County church plant, Redemption Hill Church. We want to make sure the church body is being kept up to date on this exciting new chapter in our church's life. I'll put a few of Jim's updates below, but we'll also be focusing on Redemption Hill almost every week for the next month or so as our primary missioal prayer. This will hopefully help us all feel unified and build our excitement leading to launching them out this summer!
A few concrete updates:
Jim and Lisa passed the NAMB assessment and we will begin receiving direct funding from the North American Mission Board early next month. NAMB will walk with us and Redemption Hill for the next several years with direct financial and relational support!
Passing this assessment also triggers direct financial support from our local baptist association. SLMBA will provide direct financial and relational support for three years.
Bethesda Baptist has agreed to allow Redemption Hill to use their building rent free. We're still finalizing a formal usage agreement, but this church has been very gracious and supportive of the new work!
We'll have a formal sending Sunday early in June.
RHC will begin meeting on Wednesday nights this June planning for their formal launch in August.
Saturday June 27th we'll have a joint prayer walk with the RHC core team in the neighborhoods they are targeting ahead of their launch. We'll have sign ups for this at the welcome table in the coming weeks.
There are sheets you can grab from the welcome table with all prayer updates and requests for RHC.
I think thats all for now. There are great things happening in our little faith family. I am so honored to be your pastor and I am genuinely so excited to see what God will do in his kingdom with our collective yes.
love you all,
Sam and the IFC Elders
