6/27/2010

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

It started Sunday, June 6, with Morning Worship. We celebrated the sacrament of the Lord's Supper during the service. People also started bringing in cleaning supplies that we'd requested the week before.

During that service Vonceil got a message that her uncle had died that morning. Once we got home we arranged flights to get her out to Kansas City that next week to be with family.

At Kids' Church we learned from the book of 1 Kings. We had a sticker page (always popular) for the kids to work on in conjunction with the lesson.

That night was our monthly Priesthood Meeting. We spent a good portion of our time working on calendar and staffing issues for both some immediate and longer-term situations. We also worked on coming up with ways to get things done and physically replace some worn-out items that cost much more than our budget currently allows.

The next morning Onalee and I headed out to visit family in Michigan for a couple of weeks. Bryce was already there. Vonceil left Tuesday for Missouri and returned later that week. She met up with us in Michigan once her school finished for the summer.

The first Sunday I was gone Bill and Wendy Brian were in town. Bill brought the message at Morning Worship and he and Wendy were responsible for the lesson and craft at Kids' Church. Earl presided that morning and spoke the following Sunday. Gloria presided the second Sunday morning I was gone and Tamara was in charge of both Kids' Church and the Celebration Service that evening. Patricia was responsible for the NA meetings on Wednesdays while Tamara and Robert lead Pizza Church sessions. Vonceil, Tamara, and Robert staffed June's Solid Rock Cafe.

SonRisers ended its season while I was out. As expected, the last two Wednesdays had low attendance. Gloria, Tamara, and Patricia filled the church's freezer with leftover donuts and took more of the leftovers to the local schools for the faculty to enjoy.

Once my vacation ended we had lots of work to do to get the summer plans up and running. We ordered craft supplies for Bible School, completed and turned in some youth worker forms, followed up with camper registrations and packing checklists, updated and hung the Bible School banner, registered for a booth at the Pigtown Festival, reserved a moon bounce and obstacle course for Bible School, and many other odds and ends jobs that needed to be taken care of all at once.

While organizing some of these materials at the church one of our neighbors stopped by. He runs the cub scout/boy scout group that meets at the local elementary school. The school was not going to be available for the group to use this summer and he wondered if they could meet at the church for the season. Robert was able to take on the responsibility of opening, closing, and being present at the building each week for the group. They'll start meeting there next Tuesday.

As I was making a final check of our 12-year-old computer that is soon heading for the recycling center, I came across copies of these reports dating back to 1999. I reformatted them into Word documents, put them on disk, took the disks to Gloria's house to transfer them to flash drives, then took the flash drives to my home computer so that I could post them on the blog. If you are interested in looking at these archives, they can be found at http://thisweekatthepowerhouse.blogspot.com/. We're missing a few months so if any of you have some sitting on an old computer somewhere please let me know and we'll add them as well.

With unseasonably warm and occasionally record breaking heat this week, people were out on their steps once the sun went down. We were able to get out and have some good visiting time with folks and catch up with what's been going on. I also got to meet people who had moved in over the winter. They hadn't seen me walking around at night with my collar on so that opened up the door for conversation.

With July coming fast we printed next month's copy of Kids' Church News this week. We'll be preparing it to go in next Thursday's mail. While working on the text we set up a blog to post that newsletter's information on line as well. You can find it at http://kidschurchnews.blogspot.com/. Eventually we hope to have it linked to our main website.

July also brings the time when we start a new attendance year for the kids. We're finishing up the 2009 - 2010 data right now and are setting up the system for 2010 - 2011. Tamara has a "make your own Power House T-Shirt" prize she's implementing for kids who reach 20 credits. She's been stocking up on supplies for them during recent sales. We've also got a couple of trips to Friendly's in the works for kids who've recently crossed over 40 credits.

Friday night brought Pizza Church. Along with our lessons about Paul's experience on the road to Damascus (groups one and two) and the purpose of the church (group 3) we reminded kids that many would be changing groups beginning next week. Up to this point in the year, kids attend sessions based on what grade they've just finished. Beginning next week they attend based on what grade they're entering.

Tamara came over on Saturday morning to join in a conference call. The call came in from the UK where Richard was training a group of World Service Corps volunteers. Two young adults from the UK are going to spend the month of August with us in Pigtown. We were able to ask and answer each others questions and get geared up for what's in store that month.

That evening Tamara offered a registered youth worker training session for people who will be on staff at camp. Three people in the registration process took the training and two who have been registered for a while participated to be up to date.

As that group finished, the kids came in for Sundae Church. They had a boisterous time and downed plenty of ice cream. Afterward a few stayed to help get the back room ready for tomorrow's services.

I got home around midnight. Shortly after getting in the house I smelled smoke. I looked out the window and saw the street filled with it. I went back out to see what was happening. It turned out that someone had set a dumpster on fire by the middle school. It smelled like a house fire, though, because the dumpster was full of old furniture that had been removed when the building closed last week.

Looking ahead to next week we have our full schedule of activities. In addition, the scout group will start its meetings at the church on Tuesday afternoon. Our July newsletters will go in this week's mail. We'll be writing curriculum, making final camp preparations, and starting our new attendance year.

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

The Jackson Family
The Smead Family
The Collier Family
The Cox Family
The Jamison Family
The Pestridge Family
The Gilmore Family
The McCauley 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
http://thisweekatthepowerhouse.blogspot.com/