By Faith: 2008
In the Bible, Hebrews chapter 11 tells the stories of faithful men and women of faith who have gone before us. Their stories of faith, seen most clearly in their actions, are meant to inspire us follow their example and live as a community that exists to be blessed and be a blessing to others. This faith, rooted in a belief that God was in fact the one through whom all things had been made and through whom all things would be renewed, led them to act in ways that the world might deem crazy, stupid or irrelevant. This faith made them live according to a different set of rules.
God continues to shape similar stories here in our community, The Well. They go forward in confidence with this faith as their guide and these stories as their inspiration,
At The Well in 2008…
By faith, the people of The Well worked hard to intentionally be a tangible example of the Kingdom of God. They did their best to live as a community that was focused not so much on their own needs, but the needs of others. This dream was embodied in their official times together such as worship gatherings, small groups and other community events. This community also worked hard to live this out in their homes, neighborhoods, schools, places of work and leisure.
By faith, they trusted that God would continue to shape them into a community that spoke through their lives and with their words that Jesus Christ is the long awaited Messiah who died on the cross for our sins and conquered death and evil so that we can have life and that this world may be fully healed when He returns.
By faith, trusting that the scriptures tell a true story about our world, the people of The Well spent each Sunday morning studying the books of Acts and Ephesians together. By faith, they allowed these two books to encourage as well as convert their way of life.
By faith, Gary Alloway and Todd Hiestand led a team of teachers that included, among others, Vince Caperelli, Davis Taylor, David Congdon and Shanna Cummings.
By faith Phil Wood faithfully led the worship team for the eleventh straight year by leading on his own and developing an excellent core of leaders around him. By faith, Tim Graham, Amy Congdon, Mark Licitra, Billy Futrell and Tom Daniels all served as worship leaders throughout the year and filled in for Phil as he took a well-deserved four month sabbatical.
By faith, Gary Alloway led the liturgy team. This team added 7 new members through out the year and creatively led our community in worship.
By faith, Alex Alb led a very worshipful Good Friday service that took a look at the different perspectives involved in the narrative of Jesus’ crucifixion. These perspectives were taught by Rob Cummings, Tim Miekley, Henry Fuhrman, Ginger Ware and Alex Alb. By faith, Otto VonWatcher lead a reflective Holy Saturday Service and by faith, the community worshipped and celebrated together a risen Messiah on Easter morning.
By faith, the men of The Well, led by Vince Caperelli and Ken Monahan, spent a weekend in Ocean City, NJ working through their stories in the context of God’s story. By faith, the women of The Well spent an entire day at Bryan an Ginger Ware’s house engaging in issues of spiritual formation.
By faith, believing that we need to constantly ask fresh questions about our context and culture, The Well invited Al Hsu to lead a seminar on the challenges suburban Christians face as they seek to live out the gospel. Led by Deb Miller, The Well also partnered with the Renew community and hosted a financial seminar with David Briggs on budgeting and financial accountability.
By faith, knowing that we need to continually be challenged and refreshed in our thinking, Todd Hiestand taught a class on the mission of the church, Gary Alloway taught a crash course on the 400 years of church history from Acts to Constantine and Shanna Cummings and Alex Alb taught a class on personal identity and calling.
By faith, taking seriously the call of the writer of Hebrews to not forsake the gathering of the saints, the people of The Well gathered in smaller groups to pray, learn and encourage one another. Gary Alloway led a Psalm group through the season of Lent. This group met for 6 more months studying and praying through the book of Psalms. By faith a group met throught the fall Wednesday evenings at Gary’s apartment for prayer, David Congdon led a movie group that engaged films from a perspective of faith, Tim Graham led a group that studied the book of Mark, Ginger Ware led a group that read a series of Flannery O’Connor story stories, Todd Hiestand led a group through the book Life Together by Deitrich Bonhoeffer and Tim Ebersole led a group through a study of the book Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton.
By faith, Samantha Weildich decided to commit her life to Jesus and went through a four week discipleship class and was baptized in front of friends and family in a nearby pool. By faith, the rest of the community celebrated this occasion with a big picnic including a series of riveting games of bocce ball.
By faith, Todd Hiestand and Gary Alloway accepted an invitation from Mark Priddy to Boise, Idaho. Todd and Gary were deeply impacted by the ministry Mark’s small community was having on the town of Eagle, ID. This example ignited their imaginations for ministry in Lower Bucks County.
By faith, as a community, The Well took seriously their call to be a blessing to others in Feasterville, Bucks & Montgomery Counties, Philadelphia and the world and engaged their world in a number of different ways.
By faith, Anna spent a week in Lower Bucks County living in the Neshaminy Inn. Throughout the week she rode the bus and her bike and visited local non-profits. This experience, coupled with a move into the area, taught her and the rest of the community how poverty – lack of food, housing, money, or social poverty like isolation and lack of community – can only be recognized when we see it first in ourselves. Anna used this experience to caused the people of The Well think carefully how they respond to needs in the local community.
By faith, 25 people were part of a local missions trip that was led by Gary Alloway. This team partnered at a number of local organizations that were serving the poor in the area such as Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, Interfaith Housing Group and the immigrant ministry at Philadelphia Park.
By faith, as part of the local missions trip Melanie Hiestand, along with the help of a number of superstar volunteers like Bryan and Lila Ware, organized a car wash and huge garage sale to raise money for a local family who’s four year old daughter had cancer. By faith, Assumption Catholic Church allowed us to use their parking lot for the sale.
By faith, Gary Alloway and Anna Pelger organized the Bucks County Forum on Suburban Poverty. This forum included four local leaders and community organizers who spent the evening discussing issues of poverty in Bucks County and an important event raising awareness to issues of poverty in our local area.
By faith, Gary Alloway, Anna Pelger and Tim Miekley shared in leadership of the homeless ministry and faithfully went down to the city on Monday nights to serve the homeless population in Love Park by bringing food and building relationships.
By faith, Gary Alloway helped The Well serve men and women fighting to get out of poverty by partnering with The Bucks County Housing Group. He organized a picnic, a halloween party, food baskets at Christmas, a Trenton Thunder game that blessed 20 kids and a coat drive that yielded over 100 jackets. By faith, many in our community responded to these needs by giving of their time and finances.
By faith, Melanie Hiestand started a knitting group where women of The Well knitted scarves for the homeless and created some great friendships.
By faith, The Well, through the efforts of Drew Breder, Dan Dauenbaugh, Michelle McCaffery and Christy Pappas was able to use its building as an opportunity to serve the local chapter of the Bucks County School of Rock by hosting their concerts throughout the year.
By faith, “Woody” Wood, Kim O’Donnell and Andrea Dunn continued to establish The Well as an excellent venue for the arts in Bucks County by organizing the third annual Fashion and Art show.
By faith, knowing that the Kingdom of God is bigger than our small church, the people of The Well partnered with others who were doing Kingdom work in locally and throughout the world.
By faith, a number of the members of our community partnered with and ministered to people in other countries around the world.
By faith Todd Hiestand and Gary Alloway joined the Feasterville Ministerium and have beeen partnering with the other Feasterville churches to see a more united church in our local community.
By faith, The Well continued to parter with the Ecclesia Network which planted five new churches in 2008. By faith, as part of this partnership, Todd Hiestand sat on the Board of Directors for one of these church plants in Austin, TX.
By faith, Deb Miller and Dorie Morgan spent a Sunday morning teaching local Lutheran confirmation class about the nature and mission of our church.
By faith, Matt McNeil traveled to the country of Laos to teach English classes to students stuck in the net of poverty.
By faith, Holly Mosely spend a semester studying abroad in the country of Uganda. By faith, she asked fresh questions about life, faith and God as she sat with some of the poorest people in our world.
By faith, Todd Hiestand traveled with two other pastors to the country of Zambia to work with Pastor George Palo. There they spent two weeks encouraging and teaching pastors who are daily serving in a world where issues like poverty, malnutrition and HIV are commonplace.
By faith, Tim Miekly traveled to the Dominican Republic to serve with the church there.
By faith, Brenda Mellon helped organize a team from PBU that traveled to Nepal and then hiked a day and a half to bring electricity to a small community.
By faith, the people of The Well said goodbye to Henry and Samantha Fuhrman as they moved to Boston for Henry to pursue a seminary degree. By faith, Samantha was instrumental in helping The Well be a community that cares deeply for the poor, disenfranchised and oppressed. By faith, she served faithfully as a member of the Ministry Leadership Team for three years.
By faith, Bryan and Ginger Ware said goodbye to The Well and moved to Chicago with their two children Lila and Cameron. By faith, the people of The Well trusted that God really knew what he was doing when they heard they were moving!
By faith, the people of The Well said a sad good bye to John and Carrie Lupoli when they moved to Orlando, FL with their children Joshua, Kaylie and Julie.
By faith, the people of The Well lived life together throughout the year celebrating holidays together like Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter. By faith, the people of the well simply had fun together with by way of the annual camping trip, Phillies game, and amazing whiffle ball tournament.
By faith, believing that children are a vital and important part of our community’s life and mission, the people of The Well continued to make children a visible part of the community, even if that meant they were distracting at times. Also by faith, Beth Wood led a team of gifted and compassionate Sunday School teachers and children’s workers who gave not only their time, but also their lives to the children in the community.
By faith, the Ministry Leadership Team of Todd Hiestand, Phil Wood, Gary Alloway, Shanna Cummings, Samantha Furhman, Kate Livingstone and Ryan Kelly served our community by seeking God’s will for our community and keeping us faithful to our mission.
By faith, the Ministry Leadership Team invited Shanna Cummings to be a new member of the leadership team. By faith, Shanna accepted this invitation and served the community well, especially in her gifts and passion for leaderships and discipleship.
By faith, Kate Livingstone and Ryan Kelly served their first three year terms as members of our Ministry Leadership Team. It was definitely by faith that they agreed to be part of this team at a time when The Well was in the midst of major transition. By faith, both Ryan and Kate will take a year long sabbatical from direct involvement on the team so they can rest from all their hard work.
It would be impossible to tell the stories of all the ways that the people of The Well lived out their faith in quiet, simple and organic ways in their neighborhoods, homes, workplaces and friendships. But by faith, they celebrated the births of a number of children (with many more to come!), mourned different of losses together, supported each other in the midst of struggle, forgave and asked forgiveness when necessary and sought to model a community that was patterned after God’s heart.
By faith, the people of The Well asked God to teach them to be a community full of generosity towards each other and those outside the community, trusting that He who began a good work in them would bring it to completion.
By faith, this community looks forward to the stories that will be written and the new people who will join their family 2009 and the years ahead…
