12/11/2005

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

It started out Sunday with our full schedule of activities. During Morning Worship our topic was Love. We celebrated communion as a part of that service. At Kids' Church we reviewed the Christmas story and made crafts depicting a manger scene. We shared memories of experiences and events that had taken place in our little building during Evening Worship, our last scheduled worship service for the room.

We spent quite a bit of time running around from store to store this week picking up the supplies for the new building and the grand opening celebration. Staples, Sam's Club, Shoppers, Guitar Center, Wal*Mart, Aldi, Radio Shack, and the Home Depot were among the places we shopped. Most notable was Tuesday's trip to Ikea. While there Onalee and I bought 2 sofas, 2 chairs, and 1 loveseat to help transform the old building into a community living room. We somehow managed to wedge all that plus the candles for the Christmas Eve service into my van.

We had our priesthood meeting on Tuesday. During it we reviewed responsibilities and procedures for the coming weekend's events. We also did a walk-through of the building and learned things like where keys are located and how to use the programmed heating/cooling controls in the new building. For about an hour before and an hour after the meeting we worked together cleaning, painting, and doing detail work on the facilities.

We had bitter cold weather on Wednesday morning. With that, the school opened its doors early to let the kids in so we had fewer participate in our SonRisers activities. Those who did, though, seemed especially glad for the hot chocolate. Afterward, I distributed about 800 fliers to promote Saturday's grand opening.

After the Narcotics Anonymous meeting the group moved their supplies from the old building to a cupboard in the new room as they'll be meeting in there from now on. The Adult Disciples class was replaced by our annual business meeting for the election of officers.

After the business meeting, those who were there moved the chairs to the new building. We then assembled the furniture and set up the living room. Once set up the place looked totally transformed. To me it felt welcoming and comfortable. I could envision people gathered in this room to learn, pray together, and support one another. We'll need to get things like plants, end tables, and rugs to soften the look a bit more and make it even homier.

During the day on Thursday Tamara put a final coat of paint on the steps. This coat included texturing to make them slip resistant. I distributed several hundred fliers on the south side of the boulevard and in the new development. We also had a Home Depot run to pick up those final odds and ends.

That night Danny and I worked on the church building. He spent about 2 hours doing a thorough mopping of the floor. I worked on several odds and ends then began installing the sound system. Once the floor was dry we began to determine how to best arrange the room for worship services.

Schools were closed due to weather on Friday. Therefore, Bryce and I were able to take Violet and Joshua to the hospital to finish up his bone marrow transplant procedures. Afterward, he and I worked at the church setting up tables and chairs and completing the sound system installation.

That night brought our first official activities in the new building: Pizza Church. To help acclimate and give them ownership of the space we sent them on a scavenger hunt for trivia about the building. Many of the kids were surprised to find living room furniture in the old building. Some were even more surprised that their pastor would shop some place as cool as Ikea. Once they found all the information they were allowed to eat their pizza. Afterward, Jenn, Tamara, and I started preparing the building for the next day's activities, including decorating the tables.

Our community grand opening event took place Saturday from 11:00 - 1:00. People started gathering shortly after 9:00 a.m. to bring in the food they prepared and put the finishing details on the decorations (which were especially beautiful). We served a turkey dinner and had games, visiting, and building tours. People seemed to really relax and participate in many activities throughout the event. Many members brought friends, neighbors, and coworkers with them. We also had several people respond to the fliers distributed earlier in the week.

We had lots of leftover food. We packed it up and will bring it out Sunday after Evening Worship to eat together again.

After the open house the man from the security/fire alarm company returned for the third time. He was able to get the bulk of the security protection in and the system able to be armed. There is still some work to do, most notably the fire alarm, but we can at least now have the building monitored for forced entry.

Saturday night brought our monthly Solid Rock Cafe. We had a notably larger group than we've had the past several months. We super-sized the new video game by putting it on the monitor and had several other new or special features to the event. About half way through, one of the people on staff said, "I can't even imagine how we did this in a smaller space."

Afterward we set up for Sunday morning. We arranged over 80 chairs with lots of leg room with lots of room to spare. We also worked on fine tuning the sound system and planning how to set up for Evening Worship.

Looking ahead to next week we have our full schedule of activities. In addition, we'll have our opening worship services in the new building on Sunday. Evening Worship will be a song service and we'll eat leftovers together afterward. We need to have all our materials ordered for our upcoming "40 Days of Community" campaign before the end of the week if they are to be here on time. The following Sunday at 4:00 p.m. is our annual bake sale so we'll be working this week getting ready for it.

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

Daryl
Ila
Daniel
Susan
Robert
Rachael
Summer
Terry

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