11/21/2009

It’s been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.

It started out Sunday with Morning Worship. We had several people at church who hadn’t been there in over a month so it was good to catch up with people. We finished the series on John the Baptist during the service.

Over 11 new kids came to the church at 3:00 for Kids’ Church. We learned about the book of Deuteronomy. Since that book includes a review of much of what we’ve studied this fall we reviewed the short videos in our series then made necklaces.

We had our priesthood meeting Sunday night. The calendar, a couple of pressing issues for ministry needs in the congregation, planning our 15th anniversary party next April, and discussing what’s happening in youth ministry were some of our main topics of discussion for the evening.

On Monday I spent the day in training. The Catalyst One Day Conference was here in Baltimore focusing on building and maintaining momentum in congregations.

I made the foolish mistake on Tuesday of trying to replace the recycling bin that was stolen from the church last week. This seemingly simple task took traveling to four stores in three different parts of town.

Wednesday morning we had perhaps the slowest start to SonRisers we’ve ever had. No one came during the first 10 minutes and seven kids came in the next 15 minutes. Shortly thereafter, we had a 12 minute period during which we cleared out over 7 dozen donuts. In fact, we had to close 5 minutes early because we ran out of donuts (we always start with 14 dozen). 105 kids participated in the activities that morning, 24 of whom were new to the church.

Wednesday morning was the last day during this semester that the nursing students were using the church. Both the University of Maryland and the congregation found this partnership to be especially beneficial and so we’ll be continuing it next semester.

Also that morning I met with a couple of Americorps volunteers who have been assigned to the area. Their group is in the process of developing a project for the community so they were seeking input from community leaders. They interviewed me for about 90 minutes before heading out to their next appointment.

The rest of the day was devoted to curriculum development, the NA Meeting, and the Mid-Week Service. I didn’t get as far in the curriculum development as I had hoped.

I had the chance to visit in homes on Thursday evening. We’ve had several people who have been sick recently and so we were able to check in on some of them.

Bob Kyser arrived Friday afternoon and the rest of the visitors from other congregations got to town a few hours later. They observed and participated in Friday night’s Pizza Church sessions. In trying to get the kids to understand connotations of Samaria and Galilee, the kids boiled it down to “Galilee is good and Samaria sucks.” I don’t think any of us who were present will confuse the connotation in the future.

We spent all day Saturday discussing ministry ideas, programs, pitfalls, and concepts. In the morning I took the group on a walking tour of Pigtown pointing out tangible ministry highlights. Just before dinner Marjorie came in to help stimulate thoughts on ministries partnering with other organizations like what we’ve been doing with the University of Maryland the last couple of years. Tamara finished her internship in time to join the group for dinner.

Looking ahead to next week we have our full schedule of activities. Sunday morning at 10 a.m. is our mission center teleconference for the election of world church delegates. Bob Kyser will bring the message during Morning Worship. In addition, we have our monthly Celebration Service and annual dessert potluck on Sunday night. Some of the folks from out of town are leaving on Sunday evening while others are leaving Monday morning. Next Saturday evening is our monthly Sundae Church. Throughout the week we’ll be finishing up our preparations for Advent.

Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following families in the forefront of your prayers:

The Kreager Family
The Fellows Family
The Hamm Family
The Austin Family
The Cherry Family
The Palmer Family
The Fellows Family
The Dameron Family

Thank you for your continued prayer support.

Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
“Building the Kingdom of God Here and Now” PowerHouseMD@Juno.com www.pigtownchurch.org