2/10/2008

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



It started out Sunday with communion at Morning Worship. We were joined in worship by one neighbor who has never been to a service here before. We also had one member return who hadn’t been at church for a while because of working night shift. She had recently quit the job and is hoping to be more active in church again.



The overall energy level at Kids’ Church was off the chart this week. It took quite a bit of work to get them to focus. That work was not very successful. We did learn a parable about a fig tree then made treats out of Fig Newtons.



Some kids at Kids’ Church planned to stay there for the Super Bowl. There were two problems with that. First, the game didn’t start for a couple of hours. Second, we have a “children must be accompanied by adults for this event” rule in place. These facts were reviewed with them numerous times before, during, and after Kids’ Church.



Once the kids were out Bryce, Jenn, and I did the bulk of the set-up work for our football game party. We had the church decorated, the electronics functioning, the chairs and tables arranged, and food heated and ready by game time.



At game time, a group of kids all of whom were at Kids’ Church earlier in the day were at the door ready to attend. They did not have parents with them. They argued and made quite a bit of a racket for quite some time. This did not help their case for wanting to come in and assured us of the right decision to require parental supervision.



Throughout the game it seemed we had only a handful of people at the church. However, some people came only for the first half while others came in time for the second half. Some came and got food at the snack bar and took it home to watch the game. In all, though, we had over 40 people take part in the festivities and we raised enough money to send one kid to camp.



I got an email on Monday from a nursing student at the University of Maryland asking to interview me regarding community health issues. She was surveying community leaders so that the nursing school could better provide community health services in the area. We were able to meet and visit for about an hour on Thursday afternoon.



86 kids participated in Wednesday’s SonRisers activities. That evening after a very large Narcotics Anonymous meeting the Adult Disciples group continued its study of the book of Judges.



On Thursday evening some people stopped by as the men’s group and the exercise group were getting ready to start. They were looking for a community group meeting that they thought was scheduled at the church. They either had the wrong night or the wrong location.



That night the men’s group had a chili supper together in celebration of having completed our study of a book together. We’ll now begin deciding what text we would like to read together next.



We got an estimate on repairing the portion of the roof that blew off in a storm last week. It was quite a bit more than we had anticipated.



Friday night brought Pizza Church. The kids were chatty most of the evening but we were still able to get through the lessons as planned.



On Saturday Tamara, Jenn, and I headed down to Stafford, Virginia, for the Mission Center Leadership Team meeting. We got home from that around 3:00 p.m. That evening was our monthly Solid Rock Café.



Looking ahead to next week we’ll have our regular schedule of activities. In addition, mayor Sheila Dixon will be at the Citizens of Pigtown meeting on Tuesday night so we’re expecting a bigger crowd for that. They’ll need to use the main room rather than the front room so exercise group is cancelled on Tuesday. Later that night is our monthly priesthood meeting. Next Friday Dave Brock will be arriving in the area for a training he’s doing at Dundalk on Saturday. He’ll be staying at our house and will be participating in ministry activities in Pigtown on Friday and Sunday.



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



Barry

M’Rhaiyah

Francis

Keith

Amber

Alyssia

Monica

Less



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