February 2024
Together In Mission
Monthly Reflections from BCC
Overcoming Spiritual Amnesia
By Phil Rushton
Lead Pastor
Over the past couple of weeks I have found myself in a reflective space. Our staff participated in a prayer retreat at Westminster Abbey in Mission, BC. During our time together we participated in a group examen prayer, where we looked back over the past year of ministry to notice where we have seen God at work, and then looked ahead to the new year to listen for what God is leading us into. As we paused to reflect and listen, I realized how quickly I tend to forget what God has been up to in our life. The biblical narrative reminds us that we often suffer from spiritual amnesia. We forget the ways God has provided and intervened in our lives.
This week I was reading Psalm 103, where we read:
Praise the Lord, my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.Praise the Lord, my soul,
and forget not all his benefits—
The psalmist goes on to remember all the things God has done. He praises God for God’s provision, grace, forgiveness, healing, redemption, and justice.
The antidote to spiritual amnesia is to regularly practice reflection and gratitude. This is a practice we can do personally, but it is also something that we need to do corporately. In fact, most of the psalms are meant to be corporate prayers of worship and praise. We can help counteract our forgetfulness of God’s goodness by remembering and praising God together!
To facilitate this corporate time of reflection and praise, we host an annual meeting during the month of February each year. This year it will be happening after the service on February 11. This isn’t just a business meeting, it is a time to celebrate what God has been up to in our life together this year and look ahead to the new ministry year together. In anticipation of this meeting all of our staff and ministry leaders have written an annual reflection. I’d encourage you to pick up our annual report this Sunday, or check it out on our website this weekend.
As I have looked back on 2023, I have been reminded again of God’s faithfulness to our congregation. God has been at work at BCC providing healing, grace, growth, provision, and good news to those in need. May God’s provision in the past give us courage and hope as we step into the unknowns of the future! May we join in the psalmist’s call:
Praise the Lord, my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.Praise the Lord, my soul,
and forget not all his benefits
In Christ,
Pastor Phil
BCC Youth High School Summer Trip
Unite 2024 (July 15-19)
By Jeff Grosskopf
Youth Pastor
At Bellingham Covenant Church, we're all about making faith hands-on for our students. That means diving into weekly community meet-ups, service projects, retreats, and awesome summer trips. These trips are designed to break us out of the usual routine and throw us into fresh environments – places where our connection with Christ can take on new and unexpected dimensions.
The main goal of each summer expedition? To journey with our students, exploring how Christ is making an impact across the world – and, of course, extending an invitation for them to be a part of this transformative work in their lives.
Yes, this trip will be fun! But it will also give some needed relief to students who feel like they’re drowning in pressure. Trying to be the absolute best in everything. For those who find themselves pushing harder, working longer, and never catching a break.
This trip is for those who have ever sat there wondering what in the world they’re going to do with the rest of their life.
All that hustle to keep up, stand out, and impress – it can leave a person feeling wiped out, burned out, and just plain exhausted.
Here’s some encouragement from Jesus: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."
So high schoolers, how about hanging out with us this summer at UNITE? Let Jesus give you up with the rest you need – not just for the summer, but for the long haul. Time to take a breather and figure out what this whole "rest of your life" thing is all about.
Can You Help Welcome Our New Neighbors?
By Charity Garza
Bellingham Covenant Church has been deeply involved with the launch of our local World Relief refugee resettlement office in Bellingham. What began as a couple of volunteers working from an extra children’s classroom in BCC’s education wing is now a full-fledged office expecting to resettle 175 refugees across Whatcom and Skagit counties this year!
World Relief staff are deeply appreciative of the many ways that BCC has supported this work over the last two years, and they would love to further strengthen this partnership by establishing an ongoing ministry of service and hospitality to newly-arrived families.
One of the most important services that World Relief offers to new families is Cultural Orientation (CO) classes. These classes are taught by a World Relief contracted instructor and cover a range of topics important to people beginning a new life in the United States. Just as important, the classes offer a means for recently-arrived individuals and families to begin building positive connections with one another and with community members.
We would love for Bellingham Covenant to become a primary site for these ongoing classes, and for the congregation to take this on as a church-wide ministry opportunity. With the current pace of arrivals, World Relief is planning to hold a series of CO classes once every other month at BCC. The next round of classes will occur in March and will consist of four, three-hour classes. Volunteer needs include hospitality (greeting, setting up snacks/drinks, clean-up), childcare and transportation.
Ideally, we would have a pool of interested volunteers to draw on each time CO is scheduled. Volunteers would receive orientation to World Relief and go through a background and driving check (if applicable). They would be contacted prior to each round of CO to determine scheduling and availability. If you would be interested in joining this volunteer pool, please contact Pastor Adria.
We are so thankful for BCC’s continued investment in this ministry as we strive to love the sojourner among us (Deuteronomy 10:19)!
~Charity
BCC Parking Lot Lights Looking Greener
By Mike Merchant
If you want to see Grady Henderson light up, just ask him about the energy savings Bellingham Covenant Church is enjoying after converting to energy-efficient, outdoor LEDs.
Grady, Facilities Manager at BCC, couldn’t be more pleased with the new LED parking lot lights recently installed with the help of church member and electrician Jeremy Chatelain.
“Jeremy did a very professional job getting 30 feet in the air to install the new lights,” said Grady. Together Grady and Jeremy changed out over 30 sodium vapor light fixtures for LEDs.
For churches and many businesses, lighting can account for over 40% of total energy use. And savings from this simple switchover to LEDs will have long-term benefits, not only for the church budget but for the environment as well.
“The outdoor lights are on ‘dusk to dawn’ every day of the year,” Grady said. According to Puget Sound Energy (PSE), the transition should save the church $5000 a year, paying for itself in less than a year.
According to PSE, “LED bulbs use around 80% less energy than incandescent bulbs and around 20% less than CFL bulbs.” For this reason, the utility company often provides help and incentives for small businesses to make the transition.
Grady recalls the day after replacing all the parking lot fixtures he got a call from a PSE representative asking, “What have you done at your building?” After hearing that the church had changed all its outdoor lights, he said, “We are already seeing a 25% reduction in your energy usage.” And then… “So when are you going to do the inside?”
Although the church was interested in improving indoor light efficiency, the process was more complicated, says Grady. For one thing, we have a lot of indoor lights—and they are different kinds. And estimates for replacing indoor lights were more expensive than outdoor light replacement. Government incentives for energy conservation are available to many small businesses, but there were no programs to help churches—which are not generally big energy users.
The lead team at BCC had decided to go ahead with lighting improvement anyway when Grady reached out to PSE one more time to see if there were any new programs specifically for churches to help cover the cost of LED retrofitting (estimated to cost $23,000).
“It was a godsend,” says Henderson. PSE had just changed its eligibility guidelines to include churches with daycares or pre-schools. “After hearing this, we immediately had a PSE representative out to inspect the building. He told us we qualified to have the materials and labor to replace all the indoor lights in the church building at no cost to the church.” This included 632 four ft-long fluorescent bulbs, 47 can lights, and 16 giant metal halide lights (in the multipurpose room).
The utility estimates the church will save 67K kWh per year by replacing the indoor lights. Together with the savings from outdoors, the annual savings should come to 112,000 kWh in annual savings. This is equivalent to the amount of energy needed to power 10 detached residential homes, based on average estimated home-energy use provided by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. “Even the PSE rep was elated when they learned that BCC was ready to proceed with the upgrade,” he said.
Ultimately, the church could save approximately $12,000 per year once both indoor and outdoor lights are replaced (at $0.11 per kWh). “The indoor phase of the project should be completed sometime this winter,” Grady says. “And we’ve taken care to make sure the lights are of compatible brightness and temperature to the existing lights. So no one should really notice a difference.”
Anyone interested in incentives for energy conservation projects should check out the Small Business Energy Assessment web site. What you find there may just brighten your day.
New LED light fixtures in the BCC parking lot are saving money while reducing the church’s carbon footprint.
Grady Henderson, Facilities Manager for BCC, credits the Lead Team and persistent church members for supporting the transition to energy efficient LEDs.
*The Creation Care Team at BCC is thrilled to announce the newly updated Creation Care section of the BCC website AND a blog relating to God and His creation, called “Not Our World." Going forward, the blog will have environment-related news for Bellingham and our region, as well as practical ways we can all be better stewards of God's world.
Up Next…
Group Facilitators Gathering
Sunday, February 4
10:45 am - 11:45 AM in the Dining Room
*This gathering is open to those who are facilitating groups now, who have done so in the past, or who are open to doing so in the future. The goal is to encourage and learn from one another
Vespers Service
Sunday, February 4
6:00 PM in the Sanctuary
*Vespers is a contemplative worship and prayer service
Second Cup of Coffee
Saturday, February 10
10:00 AM in Cafe Fika
*Ladies, join us for coffee and fellowship! If you are new to BCC, this is a great way to get to know other ladies in our church!
BCC Annual Meeting
Sunday, February 11
10:45-11:45 AM in the sanctuary
*Join us at our Annual Celebration where we look back on 2023, vote on our new budget, and celebrate all that God has done!
Baptism Orientation
Sunday, February 25
Noon in the Dining Room
RSVP to phil@bellinghamcov.org
*For those interested in being baptized or simply want to learn more about baptism. Please RSVP to Pastor Phil
SAVE THE DATE!
All Church Camp Out, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, June 21st-23rd