COVID 19 Church Updates

As a church, we are doing our best to be smart, timely, and flexible about responding to our changing circumstances. And it's important to us that you know what's going on. Read below for Furnace Brook's latest news and updates.

1. We will be changing locations.
Ever since our initial three year lease ran out we have been trying to make a more permanent arrangement for our church. It has felt as though all of our efforts to get a long term lease or a purchase agreement for our current location or for another property have been thwarted and that's been very frustrating. Leasing month to month has made us feel insecure; but now it looks providential. The lease we have been paying is much higher than we can afford to pay for a building we can't meet in or than what we would expect to pay on the other end of this crisis. And we are not locked into it. So we will be moved out of our current location at 67 Gecha Lane by April 30th.

What this means:

• We will be saving $2500 a month in lease, to say nothing of electricity, fuel, insurance, and other related expenses, money that can go toward our mission and, potentially, relief during this period.
• We have begun looking for an office to rent at modest expense that would give us a physical address and a place from which to work.
• We will go on streaming our services on Sunday mornings, and working to edify and connect the people of Furnace Brook through small groups meeting electronically. 
• When the current restrictions are relaxed to allow meetings of small groups again, we will look at combining meetings in homes with our streamed Sunday service.
• And when, on the other side of this, we are able to meet again as one people in one place we will do that! It may mean worshiping in a mobile location for a time, and we may even end up back at 67 Gecha Lane, but there will almost certainly be options available to us then that are not available now. 
• We will need help to move our things out of the building into the 20' storage containers we will be using. And if anyone has a place where we could store those storage containers once they've been filled please let us know. 
• God works in situations that are volatile to bring about His glory. We should live and worship with an expectation of his provision.
• Now more than ever it is pivotal that we are a group of believers who are driven towards making more and better disciples.

2. Pastor Joel Tate is going to be Furnace Brook's only paid staff person for now.

• Mary's contract expires at the end of April and the board made the budgetary decision earlier this spring to not renew the contract. It was a difficult decision and the board made it very reluctantly. Mary's professional abilities and her remarkable personal qualities account for much of Furnace Brook's success during her years of service. But even before the pandemic and its economic impacts we were on a budgetary path that required significant reductions. 
• Joel will pick up some of the things that Mary had been doing and we will be looking for volunteer assistance to cover others.
• Abbey will go on serving as our pastoral intern, but we will not be able to make the contributions to her seminary expenses that we had been making before.
• Pastor Joel is committed to our mission, and available to pray, counsel and talk with you. You can contact him at pastor@furnacebrook.org or by calling him at 483-3002 (google number) or 499-8126 (home phone.) He is not too busy for you! If he can't talk to you at the time that you call he will arrange for a time to talk. 

3. Our Annual Meeting, scheduled for May 17th, is indefinitely postponed.

• The Northeast District of the Wesleyan Church has given all the churches in the district permission to forego the annual meeting that the Discipline (our church constitution) requires.
• With so much going on and so many important decisions to make we are reluctant to completely cancel that meeting, and are hopeful that we might be able to hold an annual church meeting some time this summer or fall

4.  Expect phone calls.

• We have designated some leaders in the church to help Joel with the important work of connecting with everyone who considers Furnace Brook his or her church. 
• You might get a phone call or an email from someone on behalf of the church to check in on you. We want to know how you are doing physically, mentally, and spiritually. And we want to know how your livelihood is being affected, and if there is anything that you need. You can share as much or as little as you would like. Just know that we are eager to love you. 

Our mission is to make more and better disciples, and nothing about that mission is on hold. As a church we are going to come out of this season very lean and mission focused. But we are going to come out of it. 
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During their time in the wilderness the Israelites experienced calamities and plagues, suffered violence and want. And yet, every indication is that the number of Israelites who came across the Jordan was actually greater than the number of Israelites who had come through the Red Sea! 
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Let that be true of us! We can do the work of growing in our faith now. We can offer the Word of life to our friends and neighbors now, inviting them on the journey with us. And when we meet again, as we certainly will, there will be people meeting in person with us for the first time who had been meeting with us virtually for some time, who came to faith through the nimble, adaptable, unflappable, mission-over-comfort ministry of our church for the glory of God! We can't wait for that day.

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