We hope you had a wonderful Easter! On Friday we had a great time with neighbors at Summer Park, visiting and bringing joy to the kids. We're praying those connections continue to grow.  And, it was truly a blessing to spend Easter Sunday praising God and celebrating the Risen Savior together. Each of our congregations were blessed to see friends, family, and neighbors join us and our children’s ministry was busting at the seams with kids. Let’s continue to pray that our faith and church family will continue to grow!  

This month we are welcoming Terry & Debra Brensinger into the interim pastoral role for our Faith Community congregation. While they have been part of Butler for several years now, Pastor Terry officially began his work at the beginning of February. As a church we will pray over them this Sunday during the combined service for this 6 month season of ministry. 

Pastor Jim officially retired at the end of January 2024 and a special celebration took place on January 28 to honor this milestone with Jim and Shirley Holm. The event was hosted by Faith Community, the Butler congregation which Jim pastored, and attended by family and friends from the area. We bless Jim and Shirley as they spend time in travel and with projects at the MCC thrift store and Mennonite Disaster Service.

Pastor Jim writes: "January 6th is a day of celebration for Christians all across the world, but also a day of special importance to the Mennonite Brethren Church, of which Butler is a part.
To understand this takes a bit of background. About one thousand years ago, the Christian church divided into two sections, The East and The West. The divisions were over doctrine and the way in which worship was conducted. The “Western Church” came to be called the Roman Catholic Church and from it the Protestant Reformation sprang and from that the Mennonite Church in all its branches. The Western Church observes January 6th as Epiphany... 

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve with worship services in the morning, and our Asian Grace congregation had a fellowship lunch. In the evening was our annual Christmas Eve Candlelight Service, with scripture readings and songs in multiple languages, from each our congregations. Our children sang and heard the Christmas story, and there was special music with dance. We ended in the evening with carols outdoor by candlelight, and then had a fellowship time with "tutes" (treat bags), hot chocolate, and champurrado. 

The service was also livestreamed and is available on YouTube here.

What a GREAT service, offering, and lunch we had on Missions Sunday as one church family! Thank you to all who had a part in the special morning. Our missions offering goal was set at $21,800 for 2024, which will support our missionaries and short term opportunities in the coming year. We’re excited that the offering goal has been met and surpassed! It was a joy to participate in giving and prayer together, and has already been a great encouragement to our missionaries. Please continue to pray for our current and future missionaries. You can find current prayer requests and STM opportunities on our Missions page here.

Our Church Council meets monthly, generally on the third Thursday of the month. Coming up for 2024 we have several council roles open:

• Moderator, Assistant Moderator, Secretary

• Congregational representatives (for Faith Community and Common Ground) 

Council nominees should be a person who has joined in membership, and able to serve Butler Church as a whole. 

Thanks for joining us in prayer as we together discern leadership for the coming year. Click here for more info. 

We had a full room for our Community Meal on August 27; even more people attended than we expected! Special thanks to our kitchen crew who served up chili burgers and bacon wrapped hotdogs. After dinner, the kids and youth (there were over 30 of them!) had a great time in their own activities. The adults had fun conversations around the table over M&Ms, and Loteria led by Jim & Yami Rodriguez complete with prizes. Afterward we all had dessert together, celebrating upcoming birthdays with a cake donated by Rosita Colin. Our prayer is that many of the connections that were made during this event will continue to grow...and that future opportunities like this will do the same. Our Butler Church Cultural Celebration night is coming up on September 24!  - August 2023

We give you all the teachers and staff who work there,

We give you all the students who study there.

We pray our schools would be places of great discovery, adventure and creativity. May they be places where students love to learn and where they learn to love, A place where every one is respected and all are deeply valued. (More....)

. 

All of our Butler congregations join together for a combined service on specific Sundays during the year. It's a wonderful opportunity to worship together across languages and cultures! For back-to-school our combined service included prayer over children, teachers, and administrators returning to the classroom. We sang in multiple languages, heard an update on the tutoring ministry, and enjoyed a cultural dance by the Asian Grace dancers. Pastor Scott shared "The Answer to the Tests!"   - August 2023

Vision Night lived up to its name as our 4 Butler congregations gathered for an evening filled with great food, talents, and fellowship as a church family! Pastor Scott shared a message from Hebrews 10:23-25 and challenged us to move forward as a church with Confident Hope, Consistent Connection and Creative Engagement. We highlighted three exciting new initiatives taking place this fall: Shared youth ministry with People’s Church Southeast, Community Clean Up monthly opportunities, and the sending of a team to the Mosaix Multiethnic Church conference in November! We are excited for these three initiatives and for more to come! We encourage every Butler member to consider how they too will move forward with Confident Hope!

We had a great time at our Meal and More event for May! So many good things…amazing volunteers, awesome tacos, laughter and fellowship for all ages, and great encouragement in Christ. 

We got some great feedback about continuing this event with activities for each specific age group. So, stay tuned for info on a future Meal & More date. Hope to see you next time!   - May 2022

Earlier in January, Alma had shared an urgent prayer request for baby Maxymus - when he was just one month old, their family was fighting covid and he had a high fever. Praise God he recovered quickly and is healthy today!

The Saturday men's day hike this month was a great time together! Pastor Scott writes: “We had fun exploring a new place (to most of us) and connecting together. Shout out to Mike Acosta for instigating this adventure to Stevenson Falls!” Stay tuned for info on future men’s events.  

Butler hosted one of the nightly gatherings for the city-wide 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting on January 17. It was a powerful time of worship and prayer together with believers from across the city! There were times of prayer for repentance and revival of the Church, and prayer for each other, and for the generations of our community. If you missed the service online, you can find it here as well as info on the nightly gatherings this month at 7:00pm.  - January 2022