3/21/2009

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



It started out with an unusually small group gather for Morning Worship. During the service, we continued our study of the Beatitudes.



Between the services I got an email from Lou at the Village Center. They’ve received a significant grant for the Drug Free Neighborhoods program and needed to have at least one faith based organization represented on its board. We accepted the invitation.



We had a surprise during Kids’ Church as nearly 40 kids came. Fortunately, Kathy and Sarah were both able to be there to help. This was especially good since Tamara and Jenn were out of town. We had a lesson about Peace then colored some pictures to remind us to act peacefully.



That night for the first time I wore a suit to Evening Worship. That was because I had to go directly from there to a funeral. After the service, Danny and Earl had a meeting together.



Charles’ funeral was scheduled to start at 8:00 p.m. Several families with relationship to the church and some people who used to live on my block (Charles lived across the street from me) were all at the funeral. The funeral started a little late and people stayed around for a while afterward. Oddly, several roads were closed on my route home so I didn’t get in until after 10:00 p.m.



Kayla was at the funeral. She used to come to church whenever she visited her grandparents (Charles and his wife Rose) and had gone to camp a few times. She had since moved to West Virginia. She was so excited to let us know that she’s getting a 4.0 in high school and is in the marching band.



With the late night on Sunday, I spent Monday catching up on paperwork that I would normally do on Sunday evening. Don and I also got the last of the problems with the web page ironed out.



This was timely as Google started running our ads that morning. I’m curious to see how effective they’ll be. As of this writing, our ad has, since Monday, appeared over 31,500 times as people have searched the internet. 15 of those people clicked on the ad to get more information about the church. This has come at a total cost to us of $10.16.



On Tuesday I spent the day at a seminar on church planting and evangelism. Afterward we dropped off the car at the body shop for the needed repairs from damage it received during the police incident a couple of weeks ago. We were able to pick it up on Saturday.



55 kids and the police came by during SonRisers on Wednesday morning. The middle school had sent them over to make sure the kids were getting to school on time for their state standardized testing that day. When the office came in all the kids had already left. He got a donut and was on his way.



I spent Wednesday afternoon through Friday at the Conspire Conference, a children’s ministry training event sponsored by Willow Creek. Among the highlights of the event were the message from Phil Vischer (creator of Veggie Tales), classes in leading kids through the mourning process amid traumatic experiences, and music ministry from Sara Groves.



We had a small group for Adult Disciples on Wednesday night. Tamar took the lead in teaching the class.



Thursday night brought this month’s Family Bowling Night. Next month will be our last bowling night of the season.



It was a rough week at Vonceil’s school. In three different instances, two students and one parent died this week. The one boy who was hit by a car had come to The Power House a few times several years ago. The TV coverage of the incident included an interview of a young man who used to be quite active in Pizza Church when he was in high school.



Friday night brought Pizza Church. I arrived back from training just in time for things to start. Tamara taught the first group and I led the middle school group. The senior high kids had finished their study of the Gospel of John several weeks ago. Tamara had found a “Hip-Hop Interpretation” of that gospel and brought it in. The kids seemed to like it so we had each of them choose a favorite story from John then gave them the same story in hip-hop form. They’re to practice it and come back ready to read it to the group next week.



On Saturday morning Tamara and some others from the mission center went to the Washington, DC, area for youth ministry training. This one day event was sponsored by Youth Specialties.



That afternoon we had a wedding at the church. Billy Jo married Charles. It was an informal event and about 20 people came to share in the celebration.



Afterward I walked around the neighborhood trying to track down some of our young parents. Since we have a baby blessing scheduled for next Sunday morning I wanted to invite other relatively new parents to bring their little ones to church for their blessings as well.



Looking ahead to next week we have our regular schedule of activities. In addition, we’re scheduled to have the alarm system repaired on Wednesday morning. We have a mission center leadership team meeting next Saturday morning in Springfield, Virginia. Next Saturday night is our monthly Sundae Church.



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



The Jones Family

The Jackson Family

The Peoples Family

The Richardson Family

The Cizic Family

The Burton Family

The Bookhultz Family

The Miles 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