b'Monadnock Covenant Church: Creating a Community Culture TogetherSince January 2007 the Monadnock Covenant Church has experienced significant growth in the number of people who worship together on Sunday morning and call the church theirhome church.That growth has been both wonderful and challenging. The wonderful part, according to Pastor Garth McGrath, has been seeing new people come into the fellowship of our faithcommunity. The challenge has been dealing with the unanticipated changes that accompany such growth.To ensure that as many people as possible felt that they were part of this community changeprocess, the church organized a Better Together Weekend. The purpose was to bring the faith community together with an event that would embrace newcomers while at the same timecelebrate the contributions of people who had been with us from the beginning.In the course of several hours spread out between Friday evening and Sunday morning,people came together to share food, conversation, life experiences, and faith journeys in both small and large group settings. By the time the event closed with a worship service on Sunday morning, the community was able to reflect on and articulate all the ways that its members are. better together. Monadnock Covenant Church group Pam CrosbyWere better together in mission work, because by combining our resources we have more support to give. Were better together in serving people in our community because bycombining our resources and time, we can make sure that projects get done that need to get done. Were better together as students of the scriptures, because we can continually ask one another, Where is it written in scripture?While the church continues to grow, Pastor McGrath notes another, more meaningful aspect of its growth, people are growing deeper in their faith, and as a church, we are experiencing Move youra renewed sense shared purpose and wholeness. We are becoming a healthier faithcommunitytogether. numbersEngaging Our Community In Health1988222_CMC2.indd 21 2/1/10 12:26 PM'