2/11/2007

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

We started the week with communion during Morning Worship on Sunday. Our MP3 player turned up missing so we had to scramble to find all the songs on CDs. Dave, our Mission Center President, came to worship with us and he and Danny served communion. The message was the last in our series on Stewardship.

During Kids' Church we had a lesson on what temptation is and how to resist it. The kids went through the Sunday newspaper fliers and cut out pictures of things that tempt them then glued those pictures on a collage.

After Kids' Church we set up for the Super Bowl party. By about 5:30 all the food, decorations, and electronic equipment were ready. Over the course of the evening we had just over 40 people participate. These included most of our regular Sunday night crowd, people who participate in the congregation at times other than Sunday night, friends from nearby congregations, and a few people we hadn't seen in church for years. People seemed to relax and thoroughly enjoy themselves. Sales from our concession stand raised enough money to send one kid to camp.

For the first time in the seven years we've been having SonRisers, we had a snow day called on Wednesday morning. Fortunately, the person at the grocery store who is in charge of our order kept her ear on the radio and didn't prepare our order so we weren't stuck with an extra 14 dozen donuts.

On Wednesday night the Adult Disciples group started the Temple School course on the ministry of the Elder. Jenn is required to take this class prior to ordination so we're studying it together. While that was happening Woody and Bryce sanded and stained the cross.

Having given up looking for the MP3 player and guessing that it had found its way into somebody's pocket, we bought a new one this week. We'll keep it in a more secure place this time.

We received a legal notice this week that the church building is scheduled to be sold in the city tax sale. We'd gone a couple of years without this happening but didn't make it this year. The root of this problem is that, though we've tried repeatedly since 1999 to get this corrected, they still send our bills to the wrong address. After over an hour on the phone with the city, I called the legal department at church headquarters and they'll be working things from their end to try to get the address issue resolved. I'll need to get a money order next week to cover the bill and hand deliver it to city hall as they won't take checks to get things out of tax sale.

We had small Pizza Church sessions on Friday. Todd came up for part of them and is planning to do so regularly between now and camp so that he can get to know some of the kids and so that he, Tamara, and Jenn can have camp planning meetings afterward.

Jenn and I went to the Dundalk congregation Saturday evening to participate in some of their 50th Anniversary celebrations. We had to duck out early to get back in time for our Solid Rock Cafe.

We had a small group at Solid Rock Cafe. That was OK because a couple of them put up a bit of a challenge and we were fortunate that the only thing broken was one of the ping pong paddles.

Looking ahead to next week we'll have our regular schedule of activities. In addition, we're scheduled to have some visitors for Evening Worship on Sunday, including church president Steve Veazey & Cathi Cackler-Veazey and Kris & Peter Judd. After that service we'll have a potluck dinner in conjunction with some leftovers from the Super Bowl party. Thursday evening is our monthly priesthood meeting.

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

the Harris family
the Burrs family
the Jeffers family
the Conley family
the Stallins family
the Daggett family
the Sykes family
the Barrett 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