LOOKING BACK
The Citylight story team is a group of believers who share the story God has done through His son, Jesus, and is currently doing in and through His Church. These stories are a powerful tool that can help people see themselves in God’s story of redemption, love, and healing. We do this all for the glory of God! This season, God has been moving through His people! We have seen life transformation, growing community and outreach, serving our neighborhood, and worship. Check out the latest stories below or on the Citylight Stories page: citylightomaha.org/stories.
"Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble" - Ps 107:2. You have been bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. We no longer live for our glory because our passion is to tell the story of our great redeemer. I pray this song reminds you of the Lord's goodness!" - Willy Roberts
Citylight Worship Playlist
At Citylight Church we want to multiple disciples. God has multiplied far more than we could have ever asked or imagined in our college ministry called Salt Company. Check out this story of how God took one Creighton student’s faithfulness and multiplied it into 3 new City Group leaders and a growing City Group for men!
Creighton City Group Story
We found an opportunity to step into the lives of families by quickly putting together an outreach program to support students until schools opened up this past February. It is in these moments, these people, these circumstances that we have the opportunity to see God, to serve God, and to share God with the world.
Homework Club Story
LOOKING FORWARD
Adult Discipleship Equipping
This September, we’re kicking off the first of our three discipleship equipping classes: Christian Story!
What’s the idea behind these classes? Great question! Let me give you the thought behind them… Citylight Church exists to multiply disciples and churches. We do this in two primary rhythms: gathering on Sundays for corporate worship and Bible teaching and scattering into City Groups throughout the week to live on mission in community. These simple rhythms have served our church family well for eight years and have enabled us to multiply and deploy hundreds of disciples into multiplying 13 new churches! But as we rapidly send out some of our most equipped and seasoned disciples and disciple-makers to church plants, our elders have sensed the need to supplement these rhythms with some classroom teaching environments to ensure we are equipping new and growing disciples well.
So, this past spring, our elders decided to add a few core Sunday morning discipleship-equipping classes to the rhythms of our church to provide additional resources and education for our members and attenders. These classes are built around three fundamental aspects of Christian discipleship: Christian story, Christian belief, and Christian formation.
Each of these classes will meet once a week over a three-month period on Sunday mornings for lectures, reading discussion, and formation exercises. They’re designed to be taken in sequence and we want everyone who calls Citylight home to go through them. We’re working now to finalize the curriculum and teachers and would love your prayer as we plan for the fall! I also want to encourage you, our members, to be the first to go through the classes. So, be on the lookout for registrations starting late July.
Our second class, Christian belief, will kick off in January along with our second round of Christian story.
- Gavin Johnson
Midtown Kid’s Classrooms
We plan to move the current upstairs Midtown kids’ spaces to our current office space in the basement. This will allow the upstairs kids’ classrooms to be expanded and changed into adult discipleship spaces. We desire to offer core classes on Sunday mornings to give our church family knowledge in Biblical literacy, Christian theology, and spiritual formation.
Midtown Suite 203
This suite is accessible through the same exterior doors as the “East Room”. The plan is to build-out an open office concept that will allow the move of our Midtown offices from the current location in the basement. This will free up basement space and allow us to have contiguous kids’ classroom space.
West Location Second Floor
The West build-out space will be in the unfinished second floor of the West location building. When the West space was built-out in 2017, the space above the bathrooms, office, and kids' classrooms was configured to one day support a second floor build-out. This build-out will include a large classroom for adult meetings, office space, and five additional kids' classrooms. The plan is to move the current offices to the upstairs, freeing the downstairs office to become another adult classroom for Sunday gatherings.
STAFF UPDATE
KEDRA's BIO
Kedra Prescott has been a follower of Jesus since she was young. She came to us recently from North Carolina, but she and her family are originally from California. She has been married to her husband Tom for over 21 years. They have 2 children. Sydney is 18 years old and Micah is 17 years old. They have been attending Citylight Midtown for the past 5 years. Before Citylight, the Prescott family lived on campus at Boys Town. Tom and Kedra were Family Teachers. Kedra has been working with children since she was 15 years old. She has worked with every age group in some capacity. She has been a Paraeducator, substitute teacher, daycare owner, Preschool Director and most recently a High School Religion Teacher at Boys Town. She comes to us with a BA in psychology, a minor in Biblical Studies from Biola University and a Teacher Certification, and Masters in Education from UNK. Kedra's heart's desire is for the youth to be confident in what Jesus has done for them and encouraged to share what they believe about Jesus with others.
BILLY BERGLUND's BIO
Billy grew up in Omaha, Nebraska where he met his wife Hannah while in High School. They got married in August of 2014, graduated from Crown College in May of 2015, and had their first child, Cooper, in May of 2019. Over the last 11 years, they have been on a journey from Nebraska, to Illinois, to Minnesota, and lastly to Colorado, where they have lived for the past 6 years. Billy graduated with his master's degree from Denver Seminary in 2019 and over the years has served as a youth pastor, high school basketball coach, and Bible teacher in a local Christian School. He is passionate about encouraging students on their journey and pointing them to Jesus. He loves spending time with his wife & family, being a dad, playing and coaching basketball, being outside, teaching the Bible, cheering for the Huskers, and trying new foods. Billy and his family are excited to move back home to Nebraska and be close to family once again!
FINANCIAL UPDATE
We have finished five months of the 2021 year. It seems that every week we are seeing more families back in our Sunday gathering, a return toward normalcy in our ministries, and the re-establishment of Citylight rhythms (I’m so happy to see donuts and coffee on Sunday morning!). Financially, we are close to our anticipated giving and expenses. Through May our General Fund giving was $1,753,000 with total giving, including intern support, Great Commission Fund, and Building Fund at $1,950,000. For General Fund giving, that puts us at 35% of our annual goal of $5 million. That’s about 4% below our target for this time of year, but with slightly lower operating expenses, we are in a healthy financial position looking into the second half of the year.
Additionally, at the beginning of the year we setup a Building Fund that could be used to direct giving towards the build-out happening at both locations. You can see more information about our plans on the Discipleship Space Build-out page. We are committed to completing this work without additional debt. Would you consider supporting our build-out by giving to this need?
We are so thankful for the generosity of the people at Citylight. We know Jesus provides for His church, and it has been so amazing to see the faithfulness of His provision during this season.
Thank you,
Nick Miller
