Tuesday, September 28, 2004

Wow-Church Planting leaves little time for blogging!

I'm back- hopefully on more than just a monthly basis. So much Cool stuff happining that it can be quite overwhelming.

For awhile our church has had worship services in the open air at the Park of Roses, but at the start of September we went public with our first worship service at Crestview Middle School. I really feel like God has been with us on this venture. The first Sunday it seemed as though everything came together perfectly. Our welcome team set the place up and helped to make all comers feel welcome. The Tech team did a phenominal job setting up the sound and projection. THe worship team did a great job leading us in worhsip, and the children's ministry team made sure the kids had a blast. I really enjoyed preaching on the geneology of Christ- What kind of people does God use to bring about his kingdom. Perhaps I'll post an MP3 of it sometime.

I was completely surprised by the impact of merely having a public worship service on the surrounding community. We have had several visitors who have come merely because the signs. Talked to one gentleman who lives across from the school who was very excited to check things out. People can actually experience God and his community, and that experience is often initiated by a regular public worship service. Whaddaya know! :)

In Ephasus Paul met at the School of Tyrannus, so we kinda got a precedent for renting out a school. :)

The next week the Janitor didn't show so we had to call and only were able to gain entry 15 minutes befor the service started. That week we were able to dedicate Kate Gallaugher, which was cool, but the service was not as smooth as the next.

We now have 5 community groups: One co-ed on Crestview, a women's group elsewhere on Crestview, another co-ed group on Granden, another on Longview, and a men's group starting next week.

With this church plant it truly is an "all hands on deck" situation. Everyone has a job and they are doing their job's in a superb fashion.

It has been an exciting time- most exciting is to see an increase in people's passionate pursuit of Christ.

more to come later today ( I hope)