Say
Yes! In
the summer of 2021, Pastor Dan Ellis and the 2022 Vision Team from Rileyville Baptist Church (RBC) in Luray, VA, sought the Lord for a one-year goal. Coming out of the pandemic, they felt the congregation was languishing. Pastor Ellis explained, “We had not experienced division or disunity through the pandemic, but we also were not experiencing the joy of Christ either.”
Steps of Faith As the team prayed, they believed God wanted RBC to take steps of faith in obedience to His Word. They knew those steps of faith would be personal, as people looked to see where God was working and got involved. Steps of faith
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would also be planned, as the church offered opportunities for outreach and missions for the following year. The challenge was knowing how to measure these steps of faith. “The only way we could measure was through testimonies,” Ellis recalled. “Because our mission statement is ‘Helping People in the Valley Say Yes to Jesus,’ we decided to call these testimonies Yes Stories. By saying yes to Jesus, we don’t mean saying yes to Him for the first time
(justification), but saying yes to Him for the 500th time (sanctification).”
A Goal and Plan The vision team set a goal of 52 unique Yes Stories by members who would share in weekly Sunday worship gatherings. The plan was for God’s people to brag about God for how He came through when they obeyed Him despite their fear. They needed to know there was a blessing in saying yes to Jesus.