2024 End of Year Letter
God is at work at Mobberly Baptist Church! As this calendar year draws to a close, I am excited to share with you some of the ways the Lord has used your faithful giving over the past year as well as some ways you can look forward and participate in what He will do this next year. Let me begin by saying, “Thank you!” It’s through the Lord’s faithful presence and your faithful partnership that we are experiencing such blessing at Mobberly. The Lord is bringing so many to our church family who are experiencing God’s love and the love of God’s people. Our desire is to help people grow in Christ as they come to know, love, and obey him more. Here are a few highlights from this past year:
- From September 2023 to August 2024, we witnessed over 180 new believers get baptized.
- Average weekly worship attendance this year has grown to over 2,200 people. Online attendance has averaged 860.
- We met and exceeded our budget this past fiscal year for the first time in several years.
- We spent $241,555 to meet community needs as part of our benevolence ministry. We were able to serve 879 families and 129 people came to faith in Christ as part of that ministry.
- Hope Road, our wonderful counseling ministry, was able to minister to 1,581 people, having over 9,500 sessions in the last year. We also began construction on the new Hope Road building and look forward to its completion before the end of this calendar year, which will be completed debt-free, Lord-willing.
- We gave away $717,753 to missions this year and over 200 Mobberly members participated in a mission trip somewhere in the United States or around the world.
- Over 400 people took one of the classes offered in our Christian Formation Course.
- We began building the new Oasis ministry, installing Gregg Zackary and Analisa Hood as leaders of this ministry and acquiring a house on Tryon Road that we will use to host pastors, ministers, and missionaries as part of the retreat center. We expect to host guests beginning in March 2025.
- Through this year’s “Neighborhood Initiative,” we served several hundred people at our annual “Hamburgers & Haircuts” event. We hosted 8 “Light the Night” block parties on October 31. We provided evangelism training churchwide and had dozens of families participate in three “Prayer Hubs” in homes all across East Texas as we prayed for our neighbors. We fed 200 families a Thanksgiving meal as part of “ThanksLiving” on November 24 and we’ll host several hundred children from J.L. Everhart Elementary School as part of our Sounds of the Season Christmas program.
Next year, our churchwide focus will be on reaching the nations for Jesus. We will launch a campaign called “Love the Nations!” where we will pray, give, go, and send like never before. We will be adopting mission projects on three continents, taking approximately 20 mission trips, raising a $500,000 “Love the Nations” offering for missions in addition to our budgeted missions giving, and mobilizing people to be involved in local, national, and international missions throughout the year. Alongside these exciting opportunities, we will have a few special Sundays throughout the year, including “Compassion Sunday,” where we will host Wes Stafford, the former president of Compassion International, a Sunday where we partner with Feed My Starving Children to provide 100,000 meals to people in need, and a Sunday with Bryant Wright, the president of Send Relief, as he draws attention to Southern Baptist disaster and hunger relief efforts and helps us raise funds for our Love the Nations offering. You will hear more about this in the weeks to come.
Here’s how you can be involved. First, pray. Begin to pray now about how God wants you to be part of what He’s doing among the nations. Second, participate. Engage with the churchwide opportunities to pray, give, and go. I want to encourage you to get your passport and sign up for a mission trip. Look for other ways to participate with us this year. Third, partner financially. Ask God how He wants you to give so that exciting ministry can take place. You can give an additional year-end gift to our annual budget. You can give a special gift to help finish the construction of the Hope Road building. You can give to the $500,000 “Love the Nations” offering which will support local, national, and international missions. You can give to our pastor retreat center, Oasis in the Pines, or sponsor a couple to come as guests. As you consider your end of year charitable giving, let me encourage you to give generously and sacrificially. The Lord will use your gift to impact eternity! It’s a joy to be your pastor and to be part of what God’s doing in East Texas.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Andrew
