First Year Highlights

While 2020 has been a hard year for everyone, 2020 is also the year that God ordained to replant our church.

Our pastor, Scott Stewart, began preaching here in February 2020, but COVID-19 threw a monkey wrench in his plans. However, even though some initial plans weren't possible, the Lord has been gracious to give us an amazing year amidst struggle.

Website and Logo

Considering the request of the Oregon governor to cancel in-person gatherings in March 2020, one of the first things that we needed to do was to capture a digital presence. In order for that to happen, we needed a modern website and some consistent branding.

By May 2020, we had settled on a logo and launched our website. In about a year, we had almost 1,000 visitors, and we're now averaging 165 unique visitors per month.

Internet across our Whole Building

Many new replants struggle because they have zero comforts of the modern age. Fortunately, our replant was already connected to the internet, but still needed some necessary improvements.

The first issue was only half of our main building had Wi-Fi. We weren't wired, like most modern buildings, to have access points, so we had to brainstorm some cost-effective systems. We decided on a temporary fix of what's known as "Powerline Ethernet," and using a Wi-Fi extender and many tests and tweaks, we got coverage for our entire building.

The initial goal was to open our building for students in our area to do homework. While this plan didn't come to fruition, having internet access across the entire building has brough quality of life improvements and allowed us to host Bible studies more easily.

Our Parsonage and Hospitality

The church parsonage is a manufactured home built in the early 1990's. As with most manufactured homes, there were certain quality cuts and shortcuts made in the manufacturing process.

One such issue was that the lock on the front door was cracking and falling apart, so we replaced the lock. The ducts were also quite dirty, so we got them cleaned. The roof was covered with moss, so we got it de-mossed. The backyard was overgrown with a hedge, so we cut and cleared it. The front yard flooded whenever it rained, so we dug a water trench along the road to avert the water flow.

We have done much more throughout the year, trying to steward the resource of a parsonage. There's still much work to be done, but doing all these things has allowed us to connect with neighbors and both entertain and house people who have alienated themselves from the church over the years.

Because of the parsonage, we housed a student at the beginning of the school year in 2020, hosted Bible Studies, celebrated holidays with our neighbors, counseled struggling marriages, took in kids in the area for overnighters and play dates, and much, much more.

Missions Team

In the summer of 2020, we were blessed to have a Missions Team from Immanuel Baptist Church in Highland, CA visit and help us do various cleanups on the church property.

We have an attic that stretches the length of our building (minus the sanctuary) and it was full of old and broken stuff. They spent days in our attic removing rotting toys, broken projectors, damaged doors, and various outdated construction materials. They took several full truckloads to the local dump for us, and now we can actually walk up there.

They also helped patch the roof of our annex, repair the deck of the parsonage, and helped us canvas the town and hand out flyers to invite children to our Candy Drive-Thru on Halloween night.

Housing Echo Mountain Fire Evacuees

In September 2020, a fire broke out just outside Lincoln City, OR that caused all of Lincoln City and Otis to evacuate their homes. This sent almost 10,000 people scattering, and most of them came south toward Newport, OR.

In God's good providence, one family contacted some in our church and asked for housing. They didn't have room, but we opened up our church building in response to this family's need. That grew to another family, then another, and another… We eventually had 28 people staying on our property, including one family that parked an RV on our lawn.

Some local authorities became aware, which connected us with various governmental groups and private citizens, and that brought us a flood of support from people in Toledo. We received donations of clothes, food, and even some funds, along with support from our local fire department and police.

It really was an incredible grace that God gave us in this moment to not only be visible in the community, but to express a love for our neighbors even if they lived 40 miles away.

Candy Drive-Thru

Because of outdoor COVID-19 restrictions, it was rumored and prepared that none of Toledo's normal festivities for candy on Halloween were not going to happen. Our town is small, and many residents have dogs that aren't the most friendly. This means door-to-door options aren't the safest option for children.

Therefore, we wanted to love the kids in our area by hosting a COVID-friendly event where we could do just that. And it was a big success!

We had 115 families come through our Drive-Thru, and most of them had 3-5 kids in the car. We conservatively estimated 320 kids got candy from us, and we're looking forward to doing it again this year.

Christmas Eve Service

One sad thing about being in a declining congregation is old traditions, like Christmas Eve Service, simply can't happen anymore. This last Christmas was our church's first Christmas Eve Service in over 5 years, and it was wonderful.

Our pastor made a big pot of Wassail, we sang some Christmas hymns, and read the true story of Christmas. Some old traditions need resurrecting, and this was a major highlight of 2020.

All-Church Book-Read: I Am A Church Member

Most normative size churches (20-80 members) struggle to handle the various jobs necessary for a church to function. Because of that, our pastor suggested we have an All-Church Book-Read, so many of us read I Am A Church Member by Thom Rainer in order to look at God's imperative for us as church members.

It was a great book with lots of challenges for us as church members, and it reinvigorated many of us to step up and serve our congregation better.

Egg Hunt

While our Egg Hunt was planned on the Saturday before Resurrection Sunday, some of our families were exposed to COVID and had to quarantine. The Egg Hunt had to be postponed for a few weeks, but it finally happened on Sunday, April 18th, 2021.

We had about 30 kids attend, laid out about 800 eggs, and the kids made out with a wonderful haul.

Vacation Bible School

VBS is a staple ministry for most churches, but ours hasn't been able to have one in 6-8 years (we can't quite remember). In a wonderful blessing, the Missions team from Immanuel Baptist Church granted us another Missions Team to help us organize and implement one.

It was a fantastic time. We had 1 little girl give her life to Jesus, though it wasn't apparently the first time, got to connect with some neighbor kids, and had a celebration with 72 kids at the end of week.