9/12/2009

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

It started out Sunday with Morning Worship. This was communion Sunday and the Gillilans joined us from Towson for the service.

Immediately afterward Chester’s family came in and asked to meet with me. They wanted to see if they could use the church for Chester’s memorial service on Thursday night. They didn’t need me to lead the service as the pastor from Inner Harbor Church of God would fill that role. The other church was both too far away (outside of walking distance) and quite small. Our building was free on Thursday so this was not a problem.

After that I had lunch with Ron and Carol. We hadn’t had a chance to visit much over the summer so we were able to catch up and to talk about this fall’s plans at the church.

At 3:00 we launched the new version of Kids’ Church. With it being a holiday weekend, we weren’t surprised that we had a small group of kids there. That worked out well as we were able to test how some of our plans would work with this crew. Overall, things went quite well.

Evening Worship had a few youth in attendance. This is the last month for this service in its current format. October will bring many changes to it, including switching it to a monthly rather than a weekly service.

Early in the week I found several more people on Facebook who were active in the church when they were kids. I was able to touch base with a couple of them and am waiting for responses back from the rest. As of this writing, the Power House has nearly 200 fans on Facebook.

Nearly 70 kids participated in Wednesday’s SonRisers activities first thing in the morning. I spent the middle of the day at the computer catching up on some data entry. Meanwhile, Don and I worked out some details on updating our web page. He took care of the updates so the web page has a little different look and the information reflects the new fall schedule.

That evening at the NA meeting we learned that Maurice, the long-term leader of the group, was not doing well in his battle with cancer. At the Mid-Week Service we continued with Psalms and Proverbs as our scripture base.

After the service a few people from Chester’s family came by to get things ready for the service. I had anticipated that we would review the a/v needs and determine placement of some items they wanted on display. We did that, but they also helped set up chairs, cleaned the bathrooms, swept, and did a variety of other tasks to help get the church ready.

I got some phone calls and was stopped on the street by people with questions about Chester’s memorial service. Some people thought he would be laid out at the church. Others thought that it was on both Thursday and Friday evenings.

Over 250 people gathered at the church on Thursday night for the memorial service. Though there was plenty of room for that many people, we only have 162 chairs. Due to the service we postponed the Priesthood Meeting that was scheduled that night.

Friday night brought Pizza Church. Several of the kids who were new last week were back and seemed to be quite into what was happening. We’re hoping this will become a habit for them. The first two groups studied Genesis 3 while the third group continued its study of the Gospel of Matthew.

The Pigtown Festival was on Saturday. The University of Maryland School of Nursing shared a booth with us. We were there together from 9:00 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. While there I was able to connect with some other community organizations, most notably Paul’s Place, for some future activity collaboration.

Saturday night was our monthly Solid Rock Café. It was one of the best ones we’ve had in a long time. There was a good sized group of kids there, many of whom were new to SRC. A couple were kids we met through Bible School and some were ones we hadn’t seen for a long time and are now old enough to participate. Everyone seemed to relax and really enjoy their time together.

Looking ahead to next week we have our regular schedule of activities. In addition, the leadership teams of a couple of community organizations are using the church Monday evening to try to work through some points of conflict. I have a World Church staff meeting via the internet on Wednesday afternoon. Friday morning I’m taking part in a seminar on compassion fatigue. That evening the women head out to Pennsylvania for the Deer Park Women’s Retreat.

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

The Stewart Family
The Moore Family
The Bass Family
The Hayes Family
The Jones Family
The Wilson Family
The Hall Family
The Martin 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