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This week's eNote
september 29, 2025 by pastor chip freed
At the beginning of the final quarter of each year, I prepare a “Pastor’s Report” for our annual meeting with our denomination. Each year, I share this summary with all of you. You can read it below. As we now begin our fourth and final quarter of 2025, we have much planned for children, teens, adults and families in this busiest quarter of the year! Please also begin praying about your end-of-year giving and our Christmas Offering. We receive up to 35% of our operating income for the year after Thanksgiving each year. You all came through in a powerful way last year. We are counting on it again in 2025 during these disruptive times. Please take advantage of all the ways to celebrate the good news of the season these next three months at Garfield Memorial Church!
“2025 has been a year of transition at Garfield Memorial Church. On the first Sunday of January, we commenced a new teaching series entitled: “Don’t Just Pick Up Where You Left Off” from the stories of Creation in Genesis. We felt that with the disruption of the past five years, God’s calling was for us to clean the slate and start fresh in this new season. To go and start a new beginning, we went back to THE Beginning (the lessons of Genesis 1-4); and we ended (or should I say began?) that series with an amazing Baptism Sunday with our new Bishop, Hee-Soo Jung. On that same First Sunday of January, Pastor Terry McHugh announced that she would be retiring on July 1, 2025. We had been working on this transition for years, but it was still arresting to hear it out loud. In February, it was announced that Pastor Joe Burkhardt would be coming to join our team.
Pastor Terry, Pastor Joe, our lay leadership teams and I began a six-month working plan for healthy transition. At the end of June, we celebrated Pastor Terry’s 22 years of incredible ministry; and on July1st , Pastor Joe officially entered his position as Executive & Teaching Pastor here at Garfield Memorial Church. The health of this church has been demonstrated in how seamlessly we have navigated the simultaneous railroad tracks of tears and joy. I know of many churches that have been irreparably disrupted by such weighty transitions. Garfield Memorial Church has not been -- and has clearly heard God’s call through the eternal words: “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up” (Isaiah 43:19).
2025 also brought in a new stirring for life together in small groups. Our theme for the year was: “Outwardly Focused / Inwardly Connected.” Garfield Memorial remains one of the most outwardly focused churches I have ever been a part of. We reject the temptation that some churches succumb to in becoming an “us-centered club;” and instead we focus on our mission “Widen the Circle” and bring “joy to the city” (Acts 8:8) In these troubling and divisive times, we also want to strengthen the “tie that binds us together:” building on our connectedness and strengthening our unity in diversity, as one of America’s most diverse congregations. Our 40-Days of Community teaching series and small groups during Lent and Easter saw somewhere between 35-40% of the number of people in worship each week also meeting in small groups that week! We are carrying that momentum into 2026!
As we end this year in our crucial 4th quarter, we face the challenge to fuel our mission financially as at least 35% of our operating income comes in each year from Thanksgiving on through December 31st. A new 40 Day flight of small groups and teaching around the theme of The Miracle of Mercy begins the week of October 13th through the week prior to Thanksgiving. Then, our Advent & Christmas teaching series will be called “Christmas Offstage,” examining some of the main characters of Christmas that never make it into our Nativity Sets. We have a wonderful Children’s Christmas Production scheduled for Sunday, December 7th called “Gloria’s Christmas.” On Sunday, December 14th , we will have two special Christmas musical concerts: during our Heritage Service on Sunday morning, “Be the Light that Shines,” led by our Heritage Choir and on Sunday evening the 3rd edition of “Holiday Joy” led by Dre and Leah Bracey that evening.
God has great plans for Garfield Memorial Church in 2026 and beyond. After the great proclamation from Isaiah about God’s moving in new ways, God asks an important question: “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; Do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43:19). As God does this new thing after a year of transition, it is our job to “Perceive it, to Participate in it, to Pay for it, and to Pray for it!” In this way we will end 2025 strong and seek to enter into 2026 ready to do this holy work together!”