2025
Year EndREPORT
2025 was a fun filled year for Loving God, Loving Others and Making Disciples. Just take a look and see for yourself!
SOCIALLYconnected
Our website and social media presence continued throughout the year to create new and better ways for our people to engage.
Between Facebook, YouTube, TheOrchard.life and Instagram, we worked hard to keep those digital connections as real and effective as we could.
FB followers watched
minutes of videos
.LIFE visitors logged
sessions
viewers watched
broadcasts
sharing the gospel resulted in
31 Baptisms
and 37 Decisions for Christ
MAKING THE GOSPEL RELEVANT
Stepping Up
by serving
Our church family really stepped up their serving in 2024! Teams continue to grow, increasing our serve capabilities across the board. We even added three teams, .Life, Orchard Women of the Word (OWOW), and Communications.
It was another incredible night! 7 churches in Ellijay came together to form a multi-church worship team of musicians, vocalists, 38 person choir, lighting and sound for one night of powerful worship with our community. With over 700 in attendance at the Victory Christian Center, ETC was there to record the entire night once again. Below is a short recap of the night.
A Packed Year for Gilmer
Thanks to all of our amazing volunteers, our church out did themselves for our community in so many ways this past year! Here's how we did that...
Loving God, Loving Others & Making Disciples
4th Quarter Highlights: At Super Tailgate Sunday we had 19 LifeGroups and many attendees took advantage of the opportunity to meet them, with 32 people making decisions on the spot to join or visit one. Our youth ministry continues to grow. We welcomed A.J. Parker as the new youth pastor. Plus, this past year they had the opportunity to partner with Blair Haven Farm & Equine Rescue & Sanctuary. 13 volunteers went on a Saturday to help build a goat playground. Our youth also served as elves at Breakfast With Santa. The Orchard Guys continue to meet Saturdays for Breakfast and devotional and attended The Man Church Conference. Plus, 11 men have completed Spiritual Fathers training, 9 have entered into a mentoring relationship and the others are seeking spiritual sons to mentor. Our women's ministry, Orchard Women of the Word (OWOW), kicked off 2025 with a monthly study of women of the Bible. They also gathered for several fun activities and 23 attended the Women of Joy Conference. Celebrate Recovery celebrated their 9th year anniversary, continued to grow their jail ministry and started hosting Celebrate Recovery meetings at the Timothy House on Monday nights. We wrapped up the year with 480 attending Christmas Eve services.
22 LifeGroups met weekly in homes! They were eating, praying and studying God's Word together.
Weekly attendance is now averaging 30 youth! Also, 8 youth took the first step of obedience by getting baptized.
The Orchard Guys continues to be a time of fellowship, good food and study.
Our growing women's ministry is a time of fellowship, fun and learning.
Our CR leaders, apprentices, and volunteers scaled up in the last quarter of 2025. On Monday nights, our Timothy House meeting has been going strong. Friday night meetings are seeing lots of newcomers and regular attendees are celebrating recovery milestones. On Saturday's the female inmates in the Fannin County Detention Center are grateful for the meeting we provide. On Halloween, the Perez life group made night very special for our kids with games, treats, costumes, and fun. On November 7th, Andrew and Charlene Marshall brought a night of outlaw gospel and testimonies to our CR. Thanksgiving Day we held a family style potluck dinner that was enjoyed by 48 attendees.
Receiving a CHIP is a call for celebration at CR. In the 4th quarter we gave out 21 six months, 18 nine months, 22 one year, 13 eighteen months, 5 two years, 2 three years, 4 four years, 1 five years, 1 six years, 1 seven years, and 1 fifteen years!
Our 4th quarter also saw 5 salvations, 15 rededication and 4 baptism requests.
2025 Financial Report
So much took place in 2025, these are just some of the highlights. We broke ground on our Highland property the first quarter. Construction began as we watched our new home going up. Despite a few hiccups along the way, we're on track to move in by late summer or early fall. Our women's ministry, OWOW, began their first study series averaging 40 in attendance each month. Our men's ministry, Orchard Guys, took 15 men to The Man Church Conference. We had beautiful weather for another Easter in the Park, with over 700 in attendance and 5 decisions for Christ. Our Rocky Railway Camp brought in 84 kids to hear the gospel, with 6 salvations. Seamless summer fed 50 kids weekly throughout the summer program. 65 children received backpacks stuffed with school supplies. In September we had back-to-back weekend events in River Park, Appalachian Restoration Motorcycle Rally and Super Tailgate Sunday! We baptized 17 at the rally and another 6 at the tailgate. November we participated in the 2nd Ellijay Night of Worship with over 700 in attendance. Our HopeTree provided 82 kids in our community with Christmas gifts and Breakfast with Santa shared the true story of Christmas with 272 in attendance. Plus, 480 celebrated Christmas Eve together.
Yearly Budget
General Giving
General Spending
Fund Balance
2025 Allocation
Year To Year Contributions
2022
$885,149
Total Contributions
2023
$745,000
Total Contributions
2024
$798,025
Total Contributions
2025
$760,502
Total Contributions
ForGilmer
Your gracious giving to ForGilmer and the General Fund allowed us to not only fund our usual outreaches, but enabled us to flex with the changes, so we could do what nobody else is doing to reach people nobody is reaching.
$5,347
Total Giving
$14,120
Total Spending
$201
Fund Balance
Orchard Student Ministry
The youth are our future! Your giving helped lower food costs on Wednesday nights. It also enabled us to provide student scholarships for DNOW and FUGE camp, assuring any student that wanted to attend, could.
$25,832
Total Giving
$23,987
Total Spending
$23,976
Fund Balance
Celebrate Recovery
Watching Celebrate Recovery grow is a blessing! Thankfully, even though their spending this year exceeded their giving, they had enough overflow from 2023 in their account to cover it.
$33,836
Total Giving
$35,510
Total Spending
$3,340
Fund Balance
Guatemala
Two elders and two deacons walked into a church building in Guatemala.
It is an old, run-down awful building. Pastor Secundino is trying to get his new church building built. His congregation has raised enough money for four walls and a roof, but still needed a floor, windows, and front doors.
We prayed about it, and funded the completion of their building by sending them $12,000 from our Guatemala fund in the first quarter so they could begin meeting there as soon as possible! We're happy to report that the church building is complete and services are in full swing. Their first service was December 21, 2022!
$203
Total Giving
$0
Total Spending
$681
Fund Balance
Building Fund
Your continued support helps us prepare for moving to our future home.
$2,528,803
Current Fund Balances
$1,650,020
Total Giving
$3,941,139
Total Spending
"Right Now" Pledge Progress
$2,046,342
Total Pledged
$1,963,873
Total Received
96%
Of Pledges Received
We hope that this information gives you a complete and well rounded look at how we seek to steward our resources. Your obedience and generosity makes all of this possible. If you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to reach out to Steven Mansell through the button below. He manages our accounts and is more than happy to help!
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