Dear friends and family:
Today is our annual State of the Church address. Over the many years of leading Skyway Church I found that when told people our annual business meeting was going to take place many chose to stay away. I then learned how to take this time as an opportunity to share my vision for our future and it changed into one of the best Sunday’s of the year. As we look back at 2009 our congregational finances were affected as our families were affected. We stayed in faith and moved forward beyond our struggles. As we look forward into 2010, I am committing to provide training and prayer to help people prepare for a new and different economy. We are opening new Skyway House Churches throughout Arizona as well as expanding our WLI training to other cities in Arizona and other states in the USA. Today we will recognize our new chaplains who have spent the last two years in training for us to license them into ministry. I look at the current world struggles as a pruning time. When you prune, you prepare to have greater fruitfulness in your life. Even though our finances were cut back we have not stopped preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have expanded to reach over 26 nations, the most ever! We have not stopped preparing for the foundation for a great future; we are making it deeper and larger than ever before. All of this is preparing us for great multiplication in the next decade. God promises us a great and glorious future through Jesus Christ. I ask every member to support this vision with prayer, participation and finances as we move into our new decade together. – Pastor Greg

Today is my forty-ninth birthday. This is the only year I can honestly say that I am 49, and still people will smile and think I am not telling the truth when they ask me my age. Looking back I can’t remember how many birthdays or anniversaries I have celebrated by first throughout Arizona as well as expanding our WLI training to other cities in Arizona and other states in the USA. Today we will recognize our new chaplains who have spent the last two years in training for us to license them into ministry. I look at the current world struggles as a pruning time. When you prune, you prepare to have greater fruitfulness in your life. Even though our finances were cut back we have not stopped preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.  We have expanded to reach over 26 nations, the most ever! We have not stopped preparing for the foundation for a great future; we are making it deeper and larger than ever before. All of this is preparing us for great multiplication in the next decade. God promises us a great and glorious future through Jesus Christ. I ask every member to support this vision with prayer, participation and finances as we move into our new decade together. – Pastor Greg

Dear friends and family:
Today is the day that I am going to share with all of you from my heart about God’s financial plan for us in the new decade. At the same time in response to a request by more than 40 pastors and ministry leaders throughout Arizona, Governor Jan Brewer has issued an historic proclamation for a Day of Prayer forArizona’s economy and state budget on January 17th, 2010. Gov. Brewer has joined Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln by urging Governors, and Congress to seek God’s guidance during times of difficulty. The proclamation states: “Throughout this day of prayer, we ask for God’s favor, blessing, wisdom, and guidance to rest upon our state government, businesses, and our citizens … that God would aid and empower the citizens and businesses in our state ….” Financial health is vital to health in all other areas of life. God does not want the weights of debt to create the many problems we are currently facing. God’s plan involves us putting him first and then being able to live on the rest. As we put God’s plan for finances into action we will see true change take place in our lives. Let’s prayand obey as we see economic change start with us. – Pastor Greg

Dear Church family:

In June of 2007 the Lord gave me a vision of the map of Arizona and told me I was to prepare our state for what is about to happen in the next move of God. I did not know how it would transpire but since the fall of 2009 we launched the Skyway Home Church with Tim Pederson leading this for us. Here is the latest email I have just received from Tim…

Pastor Greg,

Happy New Year and what a great year to come. We had 20 people in our living room last night for Home Church. Gordon and Romona Hofer ministered and it was awsome. The power of God was intense and we built more relationships with more people excited with what God is doing in Home Churches. I talked to a couple who has a small Home Church in Chino Valley, AZ and they would love to come under the Sky Way covering, we will be meeting in a few weeks. I believe that by the end of April, we will have five Home Churches in operation under the Sky Way DNA!!!. Can’t wait to get to Camp Verde and Cottonwood, AZ and get those towns going as well.

My focus and vision is to plant Generals in every region of Northern AZ.

These Generals will then help Pastor and plant multiple Sky Way Home Churches in their towns. God keeps sending more and more people who are hungry for His presents and just are not finding it in the small communities of Arizona.

Thank you again for this opportunity, God is truly blessing it.

Tim Petersen

Let’s remember to keep Tim and these new church plants in our prayers this year!

Pastor Greg

Dear friends and family:
As we enter into the New Year of 2010 we are starting the second decade of the 21st century. Can you imagine how fast time is passing! Things are transpiring quicker than we would have thought possible even ten years ago. We cannot be victims of our circumstances and filled with hopelessness any longer. I heard the Spirit of the Lord say, “It is time to rebuild.” God is going to strengthen those who have been torn down, He is going to re-enforce those that are leaning because of the storms and He is going to build some of us in completely new and different ways. Today I encourage you to mix your faith with God’s promises as we start the year off right!

Dear Church Family and Friends:
The angel announced peace on earth and good news to men when he heralded the birth of Jesus the Messiah. The shepherds all gathered together to go and see what the angels were telling them. This message of good news remains with each of us today. We need to have the same attitude of the shepherds to personally go and worship the Lord and to bring others with us when we go. Let me ask you a couple of questions. How important is it to you to be at church each week to worship Jesus? I hope all of you say and practice that it is very important. It takes a real emergency to miss attending church. Next I would ask you how important is it to you to bring a new person to meet Jesus personally through our local church? I would like to ask each of you to prayerfully invite new guests to church each day or at least each week. Take our business cards with you and hand them out wherever you go. Let’s create a culture of saying to others, “Let us go see what the Lord has told us about.” We will have two great opportunities next week with my annual Christmas message and our candlelight service. Let’s all pray and invite friends to join us during these times and then let’s carry it over into every week of 2010! – Pastor Greg

Dear Church Family and Friends:
It is December and retailers are hoping that we spend money on Christmas presents to turn their 2009 fortunes around. I am a big fan of giving gifts, receiving gifts and not being cheap when doing so. I think we should honor each other who is worthy of a gift with something that truly blesses them rather than notching another name off our lists. I also want to encourage everyone to spend the money you have available for gifts not the money you don’t. Many in America will go into credit card debt to buy presents which is not a financially wise way to steward our wealth. Pray over your gift list and ask the Holy Spirit to direct your purchases. He will lead you to the right presents at the right price. Let’s honor our Lord’s birth with presents that fill our heart with joy and not buyer’s remorse. -Pastor Greg

Dear friends and family:
As we recently experienced God’s healing in our Restoration Sunday I am encouraged to see what can
happen when we surrender to God’s Spirit and allow Him to work through the problems we face in life. Today I want to remind each of us to remember the way of God’s peace in all that we do. We are called to be ambassador’s of Christ. We are literally carriers of His peace. How do we do this in a practical way? We need to guard our hearts from negative confessions about our family and those that God has connected us to. We need to stand guard for each other in the spirit and speak blessings and words of encouragement. If we see something that our brother or sister is blind to, we should meekly offer to help the situation instead of standing as a judge. In the same way, we cannot be offended if someone we love reveals a blind spot to us. These are some practical ways to walk in reconciliation and move forward through our victories we have experienced. – Pastor Greg

Dear Church Family and Friends:
As we approach Thanksgiving as a National Holiday I would encourage each of us to embrace thanksgiving as a daily way of life. Recently while hosting Bishop Jacob he marveled at all the blessings in our natural surroundings from the roads we drive on to the tranquility of our neighborhoods at night. He then said to me, “My brother, I think that so many do not even take one moment to thank God for so many blessings.” He was not being critical, he was stating his observations. We have so much to be thankful for but perhaps we focus on what is lacking. Instead of being thankful, we are anxious about something that is wrong. Have you ever looked backwards through a telescope? It makes big things small. Perhaps we are looking through the wrong end of the telescope every day. Let’s turn the telescope around and start thanking God for every blessing every day throughout the entire day. – Pastor Greg

Dear Church Family and Friends:
Today is Restoration Sunday. This is a term I heard while in prayer for our congregation. We have suffered
greatly in the past two years from economical problems. As we have dealt with these problems doors to emotional pain and distress have opened against us. I believe the pathway to recovery is to find the biblical principles that operate in an opposite spirit to what we are facing. Today I am going to share these principles in faith that we are going to break through the spiritual barriers that are restricting us from the life God intends us to live. Be ready to receive today and practice what I share with you as you go home and into the week -Pastor greg