If I had to pick one word to describe Eikon Church in 2016, I would probably choose “growth.” Or “omg,” but that doesn’t sound as smart. Just take into account that our church attendance doubled after moving into our building in Kyle. Now that’s not just a number from the grand opening service (which, by the way, saw 700 stories walk through our doors), that’s an average for every service we’ve had at the building. We had about 225 people a week before our Grand Opening in Kyle, and we’ve seen about 403 a week since then. But I would be remiss to say that growth is just a 2016 thing. God has clearly marked Eikon as a church of growth, proven by the fact that we have seen an 80 percent increase in attendance since the first year of Eikon services.
Speaking of the building, Eikon Church had it’s very first service in OUR very own permanent location on September 4, 2016. Those of you who are regulars at Eikon know how much of a miracle this is after so much back and forth and uncertainty. God provides and God honors bold prayers.
For a couple numbers you probably didn’t know we were tracking, we gave out 334 guest cards, 2,559 communion cups, and 4,608 donuts. I know what you’re thinking, that’s a lot of donuts. You know what I’m thinking? We didn’t even get donuts until September… Yeah, chew on that…
Now for my favorite part: giving. Let me just say, y’all are amazing and so faithful in your giving. This is how we affect our community and the world and you really rocked it in 2016. You gave Eikon $279,796 to fund operations, ministry, outreach, staff, facilities costs, and missions. Because of you, Eikon Church was able to give $42,494 to missions around Texas, the country, and the world. As you can imagine, getting into a permanent facility is expensive, so we launched our For Our City campaign to which you gave $280,786. We couldn’t have done it without you and we can’t thank you enough.
We love our baptisms and we love that 28 people said yes to being baptized in 2016! Congratulations to everyone who took the leap!
As you may know, we love our Easter celebrations here at Eikon, so much so that it won us second best event in San Marcos in 2015, behind only Sights and Sounds. In 2016 we had 4500 people come out to our Easter Egg Drop Extravaganza in 2016, which is double what we saw the year before. And believe it or not, yes, we really did drop 40,000 eggs from a helicopter to a swarm of excited children. And yes, it was as awesome as it sounds.
Christmas is a fun season for many, but it is incredibly different for many others, especially in Hays county. Eikon was able to meet needs this season, thanks to your generosity, by providing Christmas meals for 23 families and 50 kids. Additionally, 315 kids got toys through your donations to our efforts with Angel Tree.
As we say, we’re better together and real growth happens in circles, not rows. This is why we are so passionate about small groups. In 2016 we almost doubled our number of small groups and saw 46 percent of our churchgoers attending one of these groups. We know we all have busy lives, but we also know that community is essential and we are so excited that so many of you said YES to making attending a small group a priority in 2016.
And for all of you social media whizzes, we had some crazy online presence this year. 3,741 sermons were watched, by people from 58 different countries, and we had 18,435 individual website visits. Instagram had 15.5k likes, comments, and shares, and 941 followers. FaceBook had 20.4k likes, comments, and shared, and 1386 followers. Twitter had 1132 likes, comments, and shares, and 493 followers.
Now, you may be asking, why is all of this important? That answer is simple. Dan and the other pastors at Eikon have said so many times this year, that numbers matter because “every number has a name, every name has a story, and every story matters to God.” Doubling our church attendance matters because that means we are doubling the amount of lives we touch. The amount of communion cups matters because that’s how many people took part in an amazing act of reverence and rejuvenation. The amount of Facebook shares matters because that’s that many more invitations or planted seeds. Numbers matter because they are real, tangible ways to see the work that we are doing for the Kingdom of God.
If you want to see these stats displayed visually, click here.
Hear a special message from Pastor Dan about all God did in 2016 and vision for 2017 by clicking here.
Be on the lookout for a post soon about what to expect for the future of this blog! We have a lot of exciting things on the forefront and can’t wait to share them with you! Have an awesome week!
- By: Victoria Rinear
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