5 Things from 2021 Worth Celebrating
This year has been filled with both celebrations and heartaches for our church community. Yet when we zoom out and take a look at the year that was, we see the undeniable presence of God at work building His church. We’ve seen His faithfulness, favour, love and peace manifested in the collective life of Soul Sanctuary. Here are five things that happened in 2021 at Soul that we can’t help but celebrate together.
1. We had a historic Life Group semester
In Fall 2021 we launched 28 Life Groups with 265 unique adult group members.
Our Fall 2021 Life Group Launch was the biggest recorded group launch in the history of Soul Sanctuary. 28 groups launched and 265 unique adults took the relational risk of joining a group, many of them for the first time. The number of groups and volume of registrants speaks directly to the need for Christian community in an age of isolation and loneliness. We’re under no illusion that participation in a Life Group remedies all our interpersonal issues, but we do know that Christians gathered together for worship, prayer and study only serves to glorify God and strength the church.
Our focus on Life Groups as a means of life transformation is an essential part of our mission as a church. By cultivating Christian community in a mutually submissive environment we are able to learn from one another as we meet together at the foot of the cross, learning to live in the way of Jesus.
For more on the impact of Life Groups this year, skip ahead to #5.
2. Our Kids Summer Camps
We saw 144 unique kids, 74% of them from outside the Soul church community.
Throughout July and August our Summer Ministry Team ran six weeks of Kid’s Day camps which served as a missional outreach to our community and provided essential childcare to many families. This year we saw 144 unique kids attend camp, some of them for multiple weeks. 74% of these kids were unrelated to our church community, having heard about camp through advertising, friends or neighbourhood connections. We’re excited for what camp is going to look like in Summer 2022!
Further, YOUNG LIFE (Gr. 6-8) and WILDLIFE (Gr. 9-12) ran YOUNG+WILD Summer Camp as a day camp at the end of August seeing 76 students attend with the purpose of building deeper relationships with God, their leaders and their peers.
3. $75,000 given to missions partners
We gave generously to projects in north Winnipeg, Ukraine, Brazil, Kenya and more.
This year we gave over $75,000 to various missions partners across the world. Our partners have used these funds at their discretion for the purposes of caring for vulnerable children, providing better living conditions for imprisoned persons, resourcing new church plants and providing academic scholarships.
Our community has also been involved tangibly in missions projects that aren’t reflected in financial giving. In Summer 2021 a team from Soul aided Living Word Temple in the renovations of a newly purchased house next to the church property, in Fall 2021 we sent an academic team to Ukraine to lecture in a local university at the request of our Ukrainian church partners and in December we sent thousands of dollars worth of food and formula, as well as an additional $4,000, to supply the Harvest Manitoba Food Bank at Living Word Temple through our Giving Tree initiative.
4. The relaunch of in-person gatherings
1 ordination, 8 baptisms, 6 child dedications and 300 people worshipping in-person each week.
After multiple lockdowns in the winter and spring, and a summer of parking lot services, we were able to relaunch in-person gatherings in September. Together we celebrated 8 baptisms, 6 child dedications and the ordination service of Reverend Jo-Anne Hollander. We ran one gathering at 10:01am, and consistently saw it filled to capacity with an average of 300 worshippers each week while an additional 40 households joined us online.
One unique benefit of the winter and spring lockdowns was that it allowed our community to participate in Growth Track digitally. Between our online and in-person Growth Track classes we saw 77 people onboard into positions of Servant Leadership, using their God-given gifts in the service of others.
5. The launch of discipleship groups
Six women’s discipleship groups with an intentional focus on spiritual formation.
In Fall 2021 we launched our Discipleship Groups, a type of Life Group that operates with an express desire to fulfill the biblical principles of Christian discipleship. These micro groups are an opportunity for people to take next steps in their spiritual maturation and personal growth by walking alongside mature believers in our community who invest in their lives, allowing space for them to grow in faith and to live their lives intentionally through a scriptural lens.
“My faith in God and my understanding of Him and His Word has continued to grow through this intentional time of study and discipleship.” - Victoria G.
In the Fall Life Group semester we launched six discipleship groups for women, all of which filled to capacity. We’re excited to launch our first discipleship group for men in Winter 2022.
Looking Ahead to 2022
As we look ahead to 2022 we’re excited for everything God will continue to do through our community. We believe that Soul Sanctuary will continue to be used to impact Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada and the world at large. We want to invite you to contribute to the future of Soul Sanctuary by giving a year-end gift. All donations received by December 31, 2021 will appear on your 2021 Charitable Giving Statement.