9/14/2008

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



It started out Sunday with Morning Worship. After several weeks with below average attendance, we were back up to a good sized group again this week. Since it was the first Sunday of the month it was our communion service.



The Ravens kicked off their season at 1:00 p.m. so four young adults gathered at the church to watch them on the plasma TV. We took a few minutes before the game to get talk about voting and got three of those gathered either registered to vote or updated in their registration.



During Kids’ Church we began learning the story of Moses. We also returned to our school year format and music.



We had an extra project after Evening Worship. Ron Gillilan has been putting together a video to go with his healing and spirituality work and needed some clips of Christians in prayer. His son Steve manned the camera and recorded the group standing in a circle reciting the Lord’s Prayer.



The Citizens of Pigtown met at the building on Tuesday evening. Gloria took care of hosting the group.



65 kids participated in this week’s SonRisers activities. I took some of the leftover donuts to the middle school to as a treat for the staff.



After that, we distributed fliers about Family Bowling Nights to people living in the 1300 blocks of the neighborhood. Since we have several weeks to get this project going we decided to do staggered fliering over the first few weeks rather than hitting the whole neighborhood at once.



While doing that I learned that someone in the neighborhood won $24 million overnight from the lottery. It was quite the talk on the streets for the rest of the week.



That night after the Narcotics Anonymous meeting, Robert, Jennifer, and I quickly set up the church for bowling. We set up three bowling lanes: one at the plasma TV in the front room and two with video projectors in the back room. We also set up things for people to do while waiting for their turns, including the ping pong table, card games, checkers mats, and a Lego table.



Patricia registered around 50 people over the course of the evening. They ranged in age from about 4 to over 80. We had a couple of new families we’d never met, several young adults (some of whom we hadn’t seen at the church in years), some neighbors who have come to special events at the church in the past, and some people who come to church regularly. People seemed to have an especially good time playing together. Several initiated follow-up conversations with me later in the week regarding their enjoyment of the event.



We met up with Josh at the church on Thursday afternoon. He replaced the exterior lights at the back of the church that vandals had broken a few weeks ago. He also replaced the light bulbs in the lights outside the front of the building.



I spent some time this week researching new approaches to evangelism and church administration. I found some interesting things and ordered materials to get a deeper look at some of the more promising concepts.



I met with Robert and Ebony on Friday morning to work with them on wedding planning and counseling. Their wedding date is in mid-October.



Friday night brought Pizza Church. It was raining and that seemed to cause some of the kids to need more time to settle down. Afterward we ended up sitting and visiting with our senior high aged boys for nearly an hour after church was over.



The kids’ behavior at Saturday’s Solid Rock Café was especially challenging. Jenn and I had our hands full. We had to kick out one kid and probably should have kicked out a few more.



Looking ahead to next week we have our full schedule of activities. In addition, we’ll have a cake after Evening Worship to celebrate Earl’s 77th birthday. Because of the hurricane, the Ravens game was postponed (they were to play in Houston) so we won’t have our football game Sunday afternoon. Next weekend several women from Pigtown will head up to Deer Park campgrounds in Pennsylvania for their annual Women’s Retreat. We’ll also be making the final preparations for our Night Clinic which is scheduled for Sunday, September 21.



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



The Brown Family

The Jones Family

The Russell Family

The Alexander Family

The Willis Family

The Leach Family

The Parker Family

The Curtis 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