Family and friends,
We can’t say thank you enough for your continued support of our church and our family during this unique time. We appreciate you more than words can say and have seen the fruit of answered prayers in the past several months. Please continue to lift our church in prayer as we determine best next steps for the church as a whole. Read below for details on celebrations we are excited for, some challenges we are facing, and even a personal update on Kiana’s adoption.
Celebration: One Year Anniversary and Outdoor Gathering
This Sunday, we celebrate City on a Hill Church Brighton’s ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY! Can you believe that we are already a year in? We praise God for His faithfulness over the last year in bringing many people to become a regular part of our church and for the numerous gospel-sharing opportunities we’ve had in our community. Our church is home to approximately 100 people with 30 of those as members and many others looking to become members once we begin membership classes after COVID. Our average attendance on a usual Sunday morning is between 75-80 people and we have almost 20 children in our congregation!
Due to COVID, we have been unable to meet in our usual location at Brighton High School’s auditorium and have had a difficult time finding a location willing to open their doors to an external organization during this time. However, we were given city approval to meet outdoors at a park in our area and will meet this Sunday in-person outdoors for the first time in six months! We can’t wait to gather with our church again and will use the time together to sing songs, take the Lord’s Supper, hear God’s Word preached, and more, all while following necessary social distancing protocols. Our church is looking forward to being with one another again, so much so that we have to have two services to accommodate the city’s limitations on outdoor gatherings! We are beyond grateful to celebrate the church’s one year anniversary this Sunday and to see the Lord’s continued goodness in the year to come. Please continue to pray for fruitful and effective ministry in the months to come.
Challenge:
With winter approaching quickly (as it always seems to do in New England), we are eager to find an indoor meeting location for our church. As mentioned above, though, this has been a difficult time to find a new rental location that would allow our church to meet indoors. Please continue to fervently pray that an indoor location would become available to us for a reasonable price. This has been a difficult season for our church to be meeting largely online for so many months and we hope to incorporate safe in-person gatherings soon for the spiritual health of our congregation. Pray for our church as we seek to cautiously and wisely take steps forward towards safe in-person gatherings in our community.
Personal Update:
We wanted to thank each and every one of you for your continued encouragement, support, and prayers throughout our adoption process. Emily and I are beyond overjoyed to share that we finalized Kiana’s adoption on Emily’s 30th birthday, July 16. We’d like to officially introduce you to our daughter, Kiana Grace Ysabella Peters! Thank you for celebrating along with us in this wonderful news and pray for our family as we continue being Massachusetts foster/pre-adoptive parents for any future children God chooses to bring to our family.