We had a wonderful annual meeting on Sunday, March 1. There was a good spirit, filled with gratitude for God's provision and hope. A special note of celebration was that our Covenant family contributed more than $500,000 towards our shared expenses between our regular, global, compassion, and building funds. Thank you to everyone for your generosity and love!
We reviewed and approved our reports, including our financial reports forom 2025. And we approved our budget and nominees for 2026. This includes a 9% increase over expenses in our regular fund. We are trusting in God to provide through the generosity of his family at Covenant. You can review all these reports in the attachments.
We enjoyed two videos looking back at 2025. The primary one was a slideshow celebrating what God did among us with pictures from the year. Due to privacy of children and youth, this isn't posted below, but if you'd like to watch it, please message Jon (jon@covenantchurch.ca) and ask for the link!
The second slideshow was the product of Jon experimenting with an AI resource he learned about at a Be In Christ Church of Canada Lead Day. Using Google NotebookLM, he uploaded the manuscripts from his 2025 sermons (up to Advent) in order to see what themes dominated last year's messages. Then he clicked the "Video Summary" button. He (and others he showed it to) were amazed at what was produced as a summary of our teaching times in 2025. It is attached below for you to watch if you're interested. The only sources it used for this video are the text of Jon's messages. All images, the script, and the voices were generated by Google's AI.
We are grateful for all who call Covenant home. An emphasis for 2026 is finding ways and using tools to help us get and stay connected and engaged. One such tool is Breeze. We are inviting everyone who is a part of our Covenant family to create a profile. This tool will allow us to have an online directory (complete with pictures and with only information you would like to share), track financial contributions, facilitate communication (both churchwide and among smaller groups), and schedule volunteers. If you haven't created your profile yet, please do so at https://covenantpenetang.breezechms.com/form/3ff8d5.
We are excited for how God will continue to work among us and through us as we continue to seek first the Kingdom of God, follow the way of Jesus, and remain sensitive the the leading of the Spirit.