Beginning in early 2020, our Communications Team has been tasked with compiling and releasing an Annual Report to the congregation of City Church. The goal of each Annual Report is to live out City Church’s commitment to transparency by highlighting and summarizing key areas in the life of the church, including (but not limited to) our membership, finances, and programming. Each year, we see the Annual Report as a marker in the ground as we look back at the previous year and look forward in faith to what is to come.
A LETTER FROM ERIK
Hey, City Church!
Believe me, we had some cheeky ideas for what the 2020 City Church Annual Report could look like. A picture of me staring blankly off into space. The phrase “Good Riddance” scrawled across a surgical mask. An actual dumpster fire.
But in the end, we landed on the report that is before you. We intend this Annual Report to serve as summary of the work and life of City Church during the last 12 months. We know that the clichés about 2020 being unprecedented are tired and threadbare. We’re convinced that there’s a way of looking back that helps us to see places where God showed up among us. Despite the pandemic, widespread racial reckoning, and a contentious political season, there's much to remember and celebrate within our life as a church. This Annual Report will be revealing of where we’ve been and catalyze our reimagining of the year to come.
Our Communications Team worked really hard to creatively capture 2020 in a way that’s honest about all we endured and grateful for all the ways God worked in us and through us. As you review facts and figures from the last year, as you see photos of (socially-distanced) events, and as you are reminded of surprises left on your front porches, we hope you will be encouraged. And we hope you’ll begin to imagine what the year ahead might offer—as we center ourselves on God and His love and as we are sent into the world to shine as His light.
Stay Well & Do Good,
Erik
Like most organizations, City Church had to get creative about getting and staying connected in 2020. As we continually reimagined how to “be the church” throughout the year, we found ourselves in many memorable moments. Here are some that stood out to us…
As a way to observe the season of Lent together, we assembled a devotional, Take with You Words, a collection of poems to encourage contemplation, repentance, and prayer fitting to the season. Each poem was paired with relevant Scripture and prayers written by City Church staff, leadership, and members. It began before the pandemic hit but helped us through those first few weeks of uncertainty.
Our first Sunday away from in-person worship was on March 15th, and we offered a simple guide that called for us to “trust the liturgy,” as Erik likes to say. By the following Sunday, we’d found a new rhythm with video messages and music recorded in separate parts and mixed together by Adam—an effort that gifted us a collection of City Church favorites sung by voices we know and love.
Our first episode of Good Morning, City Church aired on Monday, March 23, 2020 and introduced a sign-off that has served us well since: Stay Well & Do Good.
Our first episode of Good Morning, City Church aired on Monday, March 23, 2020 and introduced a sign-off that has served us well since: Stay Well & Do Good.
A little over a week after we made the decision to stop worshipping in person, we launched Good Morning, City Church as a way to read the Bible together and hear voices from our community. Here are the five most-listened-to episodes in 2020:
Friday, December 4th (with Tracye Woodfin)
Wednesday, December 9th (with Grant Woodfin)
Wednesday, June 10th (with Julie Davis)
Monday, April 6th (with Harrison Ford)
Thursday, December 17th (with Mack Hendrix)
A month into the pandemic, we began Re:Formation, a five-part podcast series to explore some of the bigger questions of the Christian life with the help of the Westminster Shorter Catechism—and some nerd-ing out from Erik, Meg, Harrison, and Jim.
As the reality of celebrating Easter apart set in, we put out a call for you to share the good news of the resurrection—and y’all answered it! Seeing familiar faces declare, “He is risen! He is risen, indeed!” was just what we all needed. As an added bonus, we finally got Jennifer Sullivan reading John Updike’s poem Seven Stanzas at Easter on video.
We kicked off summer with the delivery of care packages, complete with Nate’s Bagels, Blanchard’s Coffee, and the City Church Summer Playlist, curated by our own Harrison Ford. Thank you to Jordan Greene and Sabrina Porrata for your design work!
June brought care package deliveries, the return to in-person worship for some, and the introduction of the live-stream for others. Our congregation quickly adapted to pre-registering for in-person worship and wearing masks, and Adam and our sound volunteers did a lot of learning on their feet as they worked to bring the worship service into the homes of those unable to return to the building.
Photo by JB Burtch.
Painful acts of racial injustice across our country brought protest to the streets right outside our doors this spring and summer. As a church, we responded first with A Day of Prayer & Fasting. We followed that with a virtual forum, In Richmond as it Is in Heaven, where we explored the idea of loving our neighbors through civic engagement. City Church members and attendees also participated a virtual book group to discuss Drew G.I. Hart’s The Trouble I’ve Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism. Meanwhile, the circle at Monument and Allen—the epicenter for the protests in Richmond—became a place for us to gather and pray throughout the summer. At the end of August, we began forming our Racial Reconciliation Taskforce to produce practical recommendations as to how City Church can take steps to grow in being a reconciling church—hard, ongoing work that we hope will bring fruit in 2021.
August also brought an exciting milestone for one of our key ministry partners and a member of our City Church family: the ordination of Peter Lyon as campus pastor of Reformed University Fellowship at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Welcome Back Sunday is typically a time in when we gather together to share a meal and reconnect after being scattered here and there during the summer. That, like most things, had to look different in 2020. So, we put together a video with a special message from Erik, featuring the beloved Porch Portraits which offered us a way to “catch up” with folks we hadn’t seen in a while. Thank you again to our photographers who made this happen: Megan Carson, Lindsay File, Sarah Lyon, Lauren Mathews, Sabrina Porrata, and Sarah Lynn Saunders!
Illustration by Tess Miller. Layout by Rachel Lee.
September 2020 also brought with it the launch of The Takeaway: Food for the Soul, Wherever You Go. This labor of love brought together the voices and talents of members of the City Church community as we explored topics like identity, agency, morality, and freedom. Take a look at some of the most popular features from our first season:
Main Course: Who Am I?
Kids Meal: His Opinion (with a visit the Murphy boys’ backyard)
Drink: A Fall-Flavored Smoothie (with Liz Thomson)
Dessert: Heavy by Birdtalker (with Adam Bailey, Heather Evans, and Nate Wise)
In response to our summer sermon series, Songs for the Way, we started sharing Food for the Way in mid-September. Through reflections, Scripture, and questions, this devotional on the fruit of the spirit invited us to meditate on the virtues and qualities that allow us to be more like Jesus during our time here in the already-not-yet. Food for the Way was a collaborative effort shared by Val Catrow, Julie Davis, Meg Haden, Rachel Lee, and Tess Miller.
As fall rolled around, our City Groups started up again—and got creative! Virtual gatherings and outdoor meet-ups were the name of the game.
Our annual Harvest Party in October required some reimagining, too. Inspired by The Takeaway, our staff and volunteers pulled off a to-go version of this beloved event…although we did have space for some folks to stick around and enjoy Brunswick stew and smoked meats together.
That weekend held another special moment in the life of the church. The following day, we had the privilege of voting for two new deacons: Stephen Day and Seth Huffman! Stephen and Seth were officially installed on November 8th.
December meant it was time for another care package delivery. This one included perhaps the best staff Christmas card ever created. From left to right: Erik Bonkovsky, Meg Haden, Jennifer Murphy, Val Catrow, Harrison Ford, Adam Bailey, Jim Pulizzi, and JB Burtch.
As Christmas approached, our fearless Children’s Ministry team, Jennifer and Jim, pivoted multiple times as they tried to figure out something comparable to our annual Christmas Pageant for the kids of City Church. What is Christmas at City Church without baby angels wandering around the sanctuary and tray after tray of chicken nuggets?! Still pretty great, as it turns out. And we all reaped the benefits of the team’s hard work as we watched (and re-watched...and re-watched) Christmas According to City Kids. Compiling this video was one of Jim’s final tasks before closing out his tenure as our Pastor of Children and Families. What a way to finish out four years of good, good work!
And finally, since we couldn’t celebrate Christmas together like we typically would, we put together our very own Christmas Special: A Thrill of Hope, a dispatch created to remind us of the shared hope that we have in Christ—now and always.
GOALS
As we look back on how God was faithful to City Church in 2020, it’s important to also look forward and establish goals for how we will steward all we’ve been given. This year we’re hoping to...
Establish a church-wide commitment to at least three recommendations from the Racial Reconciliation Taskforce
Plan a spring event for Women’s Ministry in lieu of our usual January retreat
Complete a website refresh by September 2021
Register 25 participants in our Leadership Basics class in the fall of 2021
Add two new City Groups by fall 2021
Re-expand nursery to its pre-pandemic state when it is safe to do so
Welcome 30 new communing members (including five professions of faith) to our roll by January 2022
Bring in $665,881 in offerings for the 2020-2021 fiscal year
Encourage 100% giving participation from all members and regular attenders
Send out $139,835 to our ministry partners during the 2020-2021 fiscal year
PRAYERS
Nothing is possible at City Church without your participation and prayers. Will you join us in praying for the following?
Reimagined habits of reading God’s Word, resting in weekly worship, and reconnecting in gospel friendship
Reimagined ways of “doing church” when the pandemic eases up
Open minds, open ears and open hearts to our non-Christian family, friends, and neighbors
A renewed commitment to hospitality
Developing and deepening friendships in our church family and in our community
God’s continued protection over the physical, mental, and relational health of our church family
Wisdom for City Church’s staff, session, and leadership committees as they continue to guide the church through this pandemic
Gospel revival within our church and the greater Richmond area
Thank you for taking the time to read through this report. We hope it helped you see how God was at work at City Church in 2020—how He was still so kind to us in a year that often felt brutal. In 2021, may He continue to grow us, to bless us, to refine us, and to send us out in the power of His Spirit to live and work to His praise and glory.