12/16/2007

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



It started out Sunday with Morning Worship. Damon was the reader as we lit the second Advent candle. He had to leave right afterward as his friend Janet’s mother had just died from cancer and he wanted to help her if he could.



When I turned on my cell phone after the service I had a message waiting for me. It was Jake. The message said that due to the weather by his farm he was not able to bring the animals for the petting zoo that afternoon. When I called him to follow up with that information we tried to find an alternate date but couldn’t come up with one before Christmas.



With that, I called Jenn and we quickly came up with some plans of things for people to do since the animals wouldn’t be there. We ran off coloring pages, set up the ping pong table, laid out our giant checker boards on the rug, set up a table full of Legos, and had another table with card games and Yatzee. Meanwhile, Vonceil lead the set-up of the bake sale.



By 2:30 a crowd had gathered in front of the building. Needless to say, they were disappointed about the animals. Most came in anyway for the activities. I was only told off by a couple of people.



In all, over 130 people participated in the afternoon’s activities. The vast majority of the people were not otherwise active in the congregation. It’s the best response we’ve eve had to our fliers. For the most part, kids were relatively well-behaved and people relaxed, visited, and played games together. The bake sale cleared $362.37 for the church’s AIDS orphans programs in Africa.



Sunday marked two years in our new facilities. Since we opened we’ve wondered if there would be interest in the community for some kind of indoor carnival some weekend during the winter. The response to Sunday’s activities makes the answer to that question a resounding “Yes!” We’ll be looking at how to do that in the future.



Once people cleared out and we cleaned up a little bit it was time for Evening Worship. When that was over it was almost time for the football game to start on TV. The Ravens were losing quite completely by half time. With that and since it was already after 10 p.m. we closed up shop for the night.



On Tuesday evening the Citizens of Pigtown held their monthly meeting at the church. They had originally planned to meet at a local café for a Christmas party but at the last minute moved the party’s date and held their meeting at the church.



89 kids participated in our SonRisers activities on Wednesday morning. That evening at Adult Disciples we learned about the town of Bethlehem and its role in history.



On Thursday I was called up to the hospital to be with a family as they had the life support system removed from one family member. When I got home from that we had the news on and learned that some kids who have until recently been active in church activities were suspects in a violent crime.



Throughout the week we’ve been coordinating Christmas gifts for families in the neighborhood. We’ve received some cash donations to purchase food cards for people. We’ve also had a few people call to talk find out needs and coordinate giving.



Friday night brought Pizza Church. We had small groups throughout the evening. Our scripture focus for all three groups was the account of Jesus’ birth in the Gospel of Matthew. For some kids it was obviously the first time they had heard the story. Two girls requested baptism.



The city is changing and improving its recycling program in 2008. To accommodate this they were selling official recycling bins at a discounted price on Saturday morning. Woody and I rode out in his pickup to get some for the church to distribute to the congregation to encourage better earth stewardship. We were in line for about 90 minutes and were only able to get a portion of what we were needing as the supplies at our location were running low. More are to be available later in the week so I hope to complete our order soon.



That afternoon Tamara, Jenn, and I were scheduled to take a couple of boys to Burger King for the milkshakes they’d earned through church participation. Once we met up with the boys, they told us it was too cold to go there. Granted, it was a very chilly day but it wouldn’t have been so bad if one of them had been wearing a coat and the other had zipped up the one he had on while playing in the park.



Looking ahead to next week we’ll have our full schedule of activities. In addition, we’ll be distributing fliers throughout the week inviting people to participate in our Christmas Eve service. We’ll also be assembling and distributing our Christmas care packages for the teachers in our elementary and middle schools.



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



the Erbe family

the Mitchell family

the Smallwood family

the Housner family

the Caine family

the Barrett family

the Boozer family

the Braxton 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