1/7/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
Sunday brought our three services. During the morning worship, we reviewed some of the many wonderful things God had done with us, to us, and through us in the year 2000 then set out an overarching emphasis for 2001. In 2000, we focused on equipping ourselves with tools for Building the Kingdom of God Here & Now. In 2001, we'll be looking at the Raw Materials for the continued building process, including Redeemed Souls, Renewed Minds, Restored Bodies, and Revived Communities.
After the evening service, we had a time of fellowship to celebrate New Year's Eve together. People brought salads, beans, and chips and the church provided hot dogs.
With the holiday on Monday, we didn't have any activities. We may have paid a price for that because the back of the building was graffitied with spray paint overnight. By Wednesday afternoon, Danny had it all removed. It was the most graffiti we've had at the church.
With school back in session we opened Wednesday morning for SonRisers. We had around 35 kids come. Later that day, we started our Teen Key Leaders group. This used to be the Teen Disciples class but we've changed the name to emphasize the dramatic shift in format that Vonceil is using in developing this group.
In place of our Adult Discipleship Class, we met as a congregation to discuss the concept drawings of the addition to the building that the architect provided. After a positive and unified discussion, we decided to let him know that the concept was consistent with where we see the ministry going and to seek information on some of the details of the project.
With fresh wet snow on the ground, the kids at Pizza Church had their minds more on snow ball fights than on the activities inside. We had a good sized crew at each session.
We had a quiet evening at the church on Saturday. Just as we were closing up, a large warehouse about a half a mile from the church became engulfed in a massive fire. The neighborhood came out to watch the flames.
Looking ahead to next week, we'll have our regular schedule of activities. In addition, I'll be spending some time at the city zoning office to determine what regulation changes have occurred on our property that could alter our building plans. I'll also be meeting with the architect to share with him the congregation's discussion of the plans he's drawn.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Bruce
Mike
Jim
Chris
Kirsty
Jeanna
Thank you for your continued prayer support. Merry Christmas!
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
home.sprintmail.com/~vajaba/
1/13/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out Sunday with our three services. During the morning, we focused on what a witnessing church would look like, what we look like, and how to get there from here. Kids' Church watched the new 3-2-1 Penguins video. And, at the evening service, we looked at what it takes to lead a life of faith like Simeon and Anna.
A couple of activities that had been suspended over the holidays were back in action. Turning Point resumed on Monday night. Ron Gillilan's "Health and Healing Ministries" class met on Tuesday night.
I spent much of the day on Tuesday working at the church. I installed RAM upgrades in each computer in the lab. (We got them at good price because the RAM was very low. We just watched for a good sale on RAM and saved quite a bit of money.) I also moved the church computer out of my kitchen and into the church.
As usual, Wednesday was our busiest day. SonRisers had 38 in attendance. We learned that Daphne, the woman who has lead the Narcotics Anonymous group that meets at the Power House, was recently ordained a Deacon in her church. Teen Key Leaders, Adult Disciples, and Prayer Circle all met in the evening.
Also during the day on Wednesday, I braved city offices to find any new information about what kind of zoning variances we would need for its construction. There are a couple of new things we need to consider. Additionally, I learned that because of the strong economy and increase in construction, there is a nearly 6 month delay right now just in getting a zoning hearing. Other than the elevator doors not opening and getting a longer ride than expected, it was a relatively smooth trip through city offices.
Thursday brought computer lab. The younger kids haven't gotten back into the habit of coming since Christmas, but the older kids are starting to again.
Friday afternoon I met with Berny, our architect, to discuss building plans. I shared the information I'd received from the city and the ideas and questions from the congregation. He made a few adjustments in the plans and took them back to the drawing board. We should have full architectural drawings for the addition in the next couple of weeks.
Friday's Pizza Church sessions went quite well. We had 16 at the first session and 24 at the second.
Since I'm presenting information about the Power House at the Council of 12's meeting on church planting next week, I decided to run the statistics this week so that everything would be current. (I'll make any last minute adjustments in the presentation's numbers after Sunday's activities.) At this writing, in the last six months we've had over 180 kids come to one of our lesson based activities (Pizza Church, Kids Church, or an adult service). Of those, 50 are on track for camp with their attendance requirements, with 3 meeting attendance but not age requirements. SonRisers typical weekly attendance is in the high 30s with 75% of those in attendance not attending anything at the church prior to this program.
Saturday afternoon Mike Barber picked up a couple of kids and took them with him to the Solid Rock Cafe at the church in Dundalk, Maryland. He's done this each time the congregation has hosted one and it has been a great opportunity for the kids to serve in ministry.
Looking ahead to next week, we'll have our regular schedule of activities. In addition, I'll be spending a couple of days in Independence, Missouri, at the meeting on church planting. Friday night will be our monthly Sundae Church for high school kids. Next Saturday and Sunday, Danny will be trained on the church's new Shelby computer system.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Joshua
Lamont
Tony
Jackie
Shirley
Patricia
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
home.sprintmail.com/~vajaba/
1/20/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out Sunday with our three services. The morning service focused on what a praying community would look like. Kids' Church studied our identity in Christ. During the evening service, we continued with out fruits of the spirit series looking at long suffering.
Of course, Sunday afternoon the Baltimore Ravens won their game against Oakland and are Super Bowl bound. We're working on ways to have a community celebration during the Super Bowl.
Monday evening I caught a plane to Kansas City to spend part of the week at the church's summit on church planting. Along with the events of the summit, Tim Carnahan (first pastor of the Power House) and I stayed together. I returned Thursday night.
While I was gone, all regularly scheduled activities proceeded as normal. I haven't talked with everyone yet to know just exactly how things went. I got good reports from those I have talked to and am assuming that "no news is good news" for the rest.
Friday night brought our two sessions of Pizza Church. Mike taught the lessons on being obedient to God. Afterward, we had our monthly Sundae Church for our high school aged kids.
On Saturday, Danny attended training on the church's new computer system. I spent most of the day in bed sick with the flu.
Looking ahead to next week, we'll have our regular schedule of activities. In addition, Danny will finish up his computer training on Sunday afternoon. Thursday evening we have a camp planning meeting. Friday night is our monthly Solid Rock Cafe. Next weekend, Diane McNeil will be here from East Lansing, Michigan. She and I will be laying the groundwork for students from the church's Michigan State University campus ministry to spend their spring break here.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Woody
Darlene
Ed
Sissy
Julia
Tony
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
home.sprintmail.com/~vajaba/
1/27/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out Sunday with very low attendance at all our services. The flu and some icy sidewalks kept many people away for the day.
Throughout the week, the flu continued to plague us. We had to cancel Teen Key Leaders, close the computer lab and cut short some other activities because we were unable to keep enough people well to keep things going. However, we did have a lot of good things happen during the week despite the sickness.
Monday evening brought the start of the new semester at St. Mary's Seminary. Ron Gillilan and I are in the New Testament class together. Meanwhile, Gloria and Ed continued with their leadership of the Turning Point group.
On Wednesday morning we had 43 kids come to SonRisers. Thursday evening we met with the camp committee to discuss and try to resolve issues surrounding this summer's youth camp. Friday night's Pizza Church sessions were among the best ever with high numbers, good behavior, and Mike's quality instruction. Even with the competition of two teen dances nearby we had a full house for our monthly Solid Rock Cafe.
Also on Friday evening, Diane McNeil arrived from Lansing, Michigan. She's the director of the campus ministries center at Michigan State University and is coordinating a trip for some of her students for spring break. They'll be spending the week here in Pigtown honing in their evangelism skills as well as touring Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Over the course of the weekend, we hammered out the details of the trip and she got to meet some of the local church members.
Looking ahead to next week, we'll have our regular schedule of activities. We'll be adjusting the schedule a bit on Sunday evening to accommodate the Super Bowl. Other than that, we'll just be trying to keep everyone healthy to keep all our activities up and running.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Desirey
Ramon
Ravon
Julia
Edna
Shawna
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
home.sprintmail.com/~vajaba/
2/10/01
It's been a busy couple of weeks at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
I'm sorry I didn't get a report out last week. Just before I was ready to come over to the church and type it, my right hand had an unfortunate encounter with a van door. It's fine, but typing and writing were quite unpleasant for a couple of days.
The last two Sunday mornings finished up the series on guidance for both individual and community spiritual growth goals for the year 2001. During Kids' Church we started a series of activities learning about Old Testament heros. The topics for the messages during the contemporary services have been the fruits of the Spirit.
We've had continued growth of the SonRisers activities each Wednesday morning. We had 48 and 44 in attendance the last two weeks and are prepared to soon talk about numbers in the 50s and 60s. Our Teen Leaders group continues to develop its new focus and the computer lab has been in full operations.
During the Adult Disciples group, we started a new 8 week study of spiritual gifts. This will take us through the end of March.
Pizza Church has been a busy place with more than 30 in our combined attendance for each of the past two weeks. Even with a Valentines dance for teens happening in the neighborhood we still had a good turn out.
In these last two weeks, we also had our monthly priesthood meeting. Much of our focus was on preparation for the arrival of the students from the Campus Ministries Center at Michigan State University this March. We've pretty much got everything ready for them.
We did learn that the playground project has had a couple of minor delays. It is now scheduled to go out to bid the first part of March and construction is scheduled to begin in May. We're hoping to have this ready by the time school is out in late June.
Looking ahead to next week, we'll have our regular schedule of activities. Mike Barber will be bringing the message during the morning worship on Sunday. Also, I've been selected for a jury so we'll all be ready to be flexible for our schedule of activities this week.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Anna
Donald
Derris
Stephen
Michael
Julia
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
home.sprintmail.com/~vajaba/
2/17/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started off Sunday with Mike Barber bringing the message during the morning service. At Kids' Church we studied the story of David and Goliath. During the contemporary service, we continued with our series on the fruits of the Spirit by talking about love and how we express it to each other and to God.
I'm probably not the best one to check with as to everything that happened this week. I spent the first couple of days serving on a jury in an attempted murder trial. Because of that time consuming and intense experience, I've been a little off schedule and out of focus on the rest of the things happening around here.
We were open all seven days this week. Monday night was Turning Point and Tuesday night Ron Gillilan's health and healing ministries group met here. Our numbers at our youth activities were down throughout the week due in part to rainy weather during the scheduled activities. We did have 38 at SonRisers on Wednesday and 11 & 8 at our Pizza Church sessions on Friday. We had computer lab on Thursday and Pastors' Hours on Saturday.
Looking ahead to next week, we'll have our regular schedule of activities. In addition, we have a playground meeting on Tuesday. Our monthly Solid Rock Cafe is scheduled for Friday. We also have a Mission Center Leadership Team meeting on Saturday.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Less
Mike
Norman
Jackie
Tiffany
Torrin
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
home.sprintmail.com/~vajaba/
3/10/01
It's been a busy couple of weeks at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
We had all of our regularly scheduled activities. In addition, last Saturday was a Purpose Driven Youth Ministries simulcast. Of the 10 people from the different congregations around the mission center who were in attendance, 8 participate at least in part in the ministries at the Power House.
The most exciting things happened once the MSU Campus Ministries group arrived from East Lansing, Michigan. The 11 who came were able to stay either at houses in Pigtown or at the church. Throughout the week, different families in the congregation provided meals for them. We were able to operate our full schedule of activities plus the extra things they did.
On Sunday, the group participated in the morning and the contemporary services and took leadership of Kids' Church. Both the group from Michigan and the kids from Pigtown had a wonderful time with songs, stories, and crafts.
During the day on Monday, we developed a survey tool for use in the Barre Circle/Roundhouse Square area of the neighborhood. That night and on Tuesday night, they went door to door seeking information from the residents as to community needs, church involvement, and what things would interest them in attending a church.
Wednesday, we spent much of the day compiling data and getting a general overview of what was going on in the hearts and minds of those in this area. We've got a pretty good overview and now need to dig a little deeper into the data to help hone in our evangelism effort.
They toured Washington, D.C., Thursday morning through mid-afternoon on Friday. While they were gone, we had meetings with other community leaders, redesigned our web page, had the railings installed on our front steps, visited in a couple of homes, and contacted the architect.
When they got back Friday afternoon, we launched the new web site for the Power House. You'll now find us at:
www.rlds-cbmc.org/powerhouse
The old page hadn't been updated for many months so you'll want to stop by and see what's happened.
With the whole crew here for both sessions of Pizza Church, we were able to break down into small group activities for part of the lesson. The kids responded extremely well to this and I'm sure we'll be looking at ways of incorporating this in the future. Afterward, we had a Solid Rock Cafe.
On Saturday morning, the group headed for Michigan. We got back to the business of getting ready for next week.
Looking ahead to next week, we'll have our regular schedule of activities. In addition, we'll begin planning our summer schedule and looking at how to restructure our youth ministries for fall. On Friday, Don Chesworth will try his hand at leading Pizza Church. We'll also have our monthly Sundae Church on Friday night for our high school student.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Dawn
Bruce
Woody
Shirley
Donald
Justin
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.rlds-cbmc.org/powerhouse
3/17/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out Sunday with our three services. In the morning, we began our four week series on "Raw Materials for Building the Kingdom of God." At Kids' Church we learned about the Holy Spirit. During the contemporary service, we talked about what an "Acts 2" community looks like.
Monday night's Turning Point classes have completed their curriculum. They decided to continue meeting as a study group under the leadership of Ed.
On Tuesday, I traveled down to Berny's house to pick up the blueprints for the addition to the building. This was a redrawing of the last plans he'd done addressing some concerns and ideas we had. All issues were resolved and we're ready to proceed to the next step in the building process.
Late Tuesday evening, Gloria's mother passed away. I was privileged to preside over the funeral services on Saturday.
Wednesday morning brought 49 kids to SonRisers. That afternoon we had Teen Key Leaders and Narcotics Anonymous. In the evening, the Adult Disciples class continued their study of the spiritual gifts and reviewed the blueprints to the addition. Afterward, we had our Community Prayer Circle.
The Computer Lab was up and running on Thursday and we had our two sessions of Pizza Church on Friday. Don Chesworth taught at Pizza Church for the first time this week. Ed also came over and lent a hand. Afterward, we had our monthly Sundae Church fellowship time for our high school kids.
If you went to our new web site last week and it didn't look quite right, you may want to try again. We had some problems with some of the graphics getting mixed up. We spent quite a bit of time and sent quite a few email questions to Mark Ratzlaff trying to get is straightened out. If it wasn't working, try again at
www.rlds-cbmc.org/powerhouse
Also, I spent some time trying to update this particular mailing list. If you are receiving this and would prefer to receive it at a different email address, please let me know.
Looking ahead to next week, we'll have our regular schedule of activities. In addition, we'll begin planning our summer schedule and looking at how to restructure our youth ministries for fall. Ron Gillilan and I will share a dialogue session on healing with the congregation during the morning service Sunday. Tuesday evening, Mike Hoffman, who is in charge of Forefront Youth and Children's ministries for the denomination, will arrive for a visit. He'll be here through early Sunday morning. Friday night is our Solid Rock Cafe and Saturday we have our Mission Center youth training event that Mike is teaching in Springfield, Virginia.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Joshua
Donald
Torrin
Melissa
Melina
Shane
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.rlds-cbmc.org/powerhouse
3/31/01
It's been a busy couple of weeks at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
I wasn't able to get to the computer last Saturday evening, so let me give you some highlights from the past two weeks.
During the morning services on Sunday, we've continued our series looking at "Raw Materials" for building the Kingdom of God. On one Sunday, Ron Gillilan and I shared the pulpit during which I interviewed him regarding the topic of "Restored Bodies." The next week, I talked on "Renewed Minds."
Our vision of having CORE group ministries in our congregation is starting to be realized. When the Turning Point group finished its curriculum, it decided to continue meeting as a CORE group. One of our fifth graders started one in her home on Saturdays. A third group is ready to start using the "One Hour with God" spiritual growth materials.
Mike Hoffman, director of Forefront Children's and Youth Ministries for World Church, was here for several ending March 24. He was able to see first hand our SonRisers, Computer Lab, Pizza Church, and Solid Rock Cafe ministries. His timing at being here was great in that we were in the middle of discussing how to restructure our youth ministries programming to be more effective. We spent a great deal of the week brainstorming and discussing the merits and pitfalls of many ideas.
Also while he was here, he taught a seminar on youth ministries for our Mission Center at the Springfield, Virginia, congregation. We had 3 people from Pigtown in attendance at the event.
At our monthly priesthood meeting, we continued with the discussion of youth ministries. I shared some of the plans that Mike Barber, Mike Hoffman, and I came up with that we'll be implementing this summer, sought solutions to some scheduling and programming problems, encouraged our development of discipling relationships with teens, and scheduled this summer's Bible School.
With the drawings of our new building in hand, we began exploring just exactly what zoning variances we'll need in order to construct it. I spent about an hour this week waiting in line and talking to different people in city offices. I will confess that it was easier this time than last time simply because I knew which offices to visit and knew that the red tape is thick. Though I accomplished just a little, I've learned that a little is a good thing in this process.
I've also updated the web page so you can see some of the drawings. From The Power House web page at
www.rlds-cbmc.org/powerhouse
go to the "schedules and ministries" page then click on "building project." It's a slow download and the pictures won't win any awards, but you can get a glimpse of the future there.
This week's SonRisers group crossed a milestone. The number of kids at this activity has been consistently bumping up against 50 (48, 45, 49, etc.) for quite some time. This week we had 54 kids in attendance, two of whom earned a prize for collecting the right combination of scripture cards.
This Saturday we had our spring cleaning day at the church. We power washed the exterior and scrubbed & polished the interior. We also planted grass, updated the sign, and began to make plans to paint the inside of the building.
Looking ahead to next week, we'll have our regular schedule of activities. In addition, Gloria's brother is getting married next weekend and I have the privilege of presiding over the ceremony. We'll also be completing our preparations for the Holy Week activities.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Dustin
Stephen
Gary
George
Amber
Patricia
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.rlds-cbmc.org/powerhouse
4/8/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out with our three services on Sunday. A high point during the activities came during Kids' Church. We've been working on learning the books of the New Testament in order. For the most part, this has been a frustrating teaching experience. However, on Sunday a good number of those present could make it through "Titus" before getting mixed up.
This week's weather in Baltimore brought the first real taste of spring. With that, many people spent a lot of time outdoors for the first time since fall. It was good to be able to get back on the streets and see people in that way again. Of course, this emergence from the house after a long cold winter also brought lots of noise, street fights, and a willingness on the part of the drug dealers and buyers to linger during their transaction time.
This weather also brought the reality of camp to the minds of many of the kids. "How many camp credits do I have?" and "How much money does it cost if I don't have many credits?" were the questions posed to me throughout the week, especially by kids who had attended sporadically throughout the year
Quite a bit of time this week was spent in preparation for our Holy Week activities. Designing fliers, planning additional worship services, and working out the details of the holiday celebrations were among the tasks that took time.
Of course, we had our full docket of regular activities on Wednesday through Saturday. Mike had especially good lesson during both sessions of Pizza Church. When kids start asking tough questions about salvation, sacraments, and holiness you know you're getting through.
Looking ahead to next week, we'll have a different schedule of activities. Most of our regularly scheduled activities will proceed as usual, but we won't be having SonRisers on Wednesday or Computer Lab on Thursday because the schools are closed for spring break. Thursday evening at 7:00 we'll be celebrating the Last Supper together in worship. On Friday we will have the church open from noon until 3:00 for personal meditation, prayer, and self-directed worship. If you're in the area, please join us. We'll also be distributing fliers throughout the neighborhood this week inviting people to our Easter celebrations.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Billy
Jackie
Shane
Bobby
Patricia
Don
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.rlds-cbmc.org/powerhouse
4/14/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out Sunday morning with Vern and Namar Foster visiting our congregation from the Cincinnati, Ohio, area. They hadn't been here since we moved into our new facilities and it was good to worship with them again.
We had several kids that came to all three services on Sunday. Last summer I promised that any kid that attended church 60 or more times before camp 2001 would get to go for free (the rest of the kids that attend church enough to go to camp pay $15 each toward the $100 registration). About a half dozen of our core kids figured out if they were just 10-15 credits shy of 60 so decided to come to all three services for a couple of weeks to make up the difference.
With the kids in the neighborhood on spring break this week, we closed down SonRisers and the computer Lab. Many of our activities throughout the week had below average attendance due in large part to everyone being off schedule.
Wednesday night's discipleship class finished up its course work on the spiritual gifts. We'll be looking at a variety of single-week topics between now and the start of summer.
Thursday morning, Robert and I distributed about 750 fliers inviting people to celebrate Easter services with us on Sunday. I distributed about 200 more on Saturday morning.
On Thursday evening we had our Last Supper service. We gathered around the tables and ate crackers and grape juice as we read and commented on the scriptures that describe the events at the last supper and the things that Jesus said to his disciples when they were gathered together. Each person was given the scripture references to read about the events that happened after Jesus left the upper room.
Between noon and 3:00 p.m. Friday, the church was open for self-directed prayer, meditation, and reading. We had several people stop by during that time to reflect on the events of Good Friday.
With the warmer weather this week I got to spend quite a bit of time walking around and visiting people who were sitting on their steps. On Friday night, Woody, Gloria, Dawn, Don, and I spent some sitting on Ed and Darlene's steps visiting and watching the action on the streets. They live right across the street from the old church and we watched as the drug dealers used the old church building for their business.
Ed delivered about 20 Easter baskets to the church Saturday morning. He had been up at Georgia's house so she had him bring them down. She and her granddaughter made them for us to distribute at Kids' Church this Sunday.
Danny worked overtime this week in getting corporate pledges to pay for sending kids to camp this summer. I set a goal for him to raise enough money to send 50 kids to camp. As of today, we have pledges to cover those costs and a motor coach to carry them there and back.
Looking ahead to next week, we'll be back to our regular schedule of activities. In addition, we're anticipating having quite a few follow-up visits for families who attend the church for the first time this Sunday during our Easter celebrations. I'll also be venturing down to city hall to continue with our zoning process.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following families in the forefront of your prayers:
the Mueller family
the Erby family
the Moore family
the Miskimon family
the Cox family
the Quick family
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.rlds-cbmc.org/powerhouse
4/22/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out Sunday with our Easter celebrations. We had over 20 people at each gathering , which is just a couple seats short of "standing room only." We had several new families attend throughout the day.
With spring break over and the kids starting back to school, we resumed operations of SonRisers and the Computer Lab. Not surprisingly, numbers were down a little bit during both of those ministries as is normal when they've been shut down for a week. We're expecting things to be closer to normal attendance wise this next week.
In continuing to expand our Discipleship Tool Box, our Adult Discipleship Class studied different elements of worship. Over the next few weeks, we'll be doing scripture studies on individual topics rather than a series on the same topic.
With the return of warm weather, the crime, especially drug dealing, has just been especially high in the neighborhood. This week, I penned a letter to the other local pastors calling all believers of our community into a month of prayer and fasting regarding drug dealing and addiction. This will be for the entire month of May. During May, the Power House will be open midmorning on Wednesdays for the pastors to come together in prayer on about this subject.
We had bigger groups at pizza church this week now that school is back in session. We started the older group about 15 minutes late to allow those who are in baseball to walk back from the park and not miss the lesson.
The infectious "Camp-on-the-Brain" disease continued to spread among the kids and to a few parents this week. The number of questions fielded about camp was astounding. I even had one parent chase run down the street to catch up with me to ask about camp dates. Interest in camp has never been higher.
Looking ahead to next week, we'll be back to our regular schedule of activities. Mike Barber will bring the message during the contemporary service on Sunday evening. Some of the zoning information we need from the city regarding our building project is now available so I'll be venturing into city hall. On Tuesday evening, Ron Gillilan's spiritual healing team will be meeting at the church and our monthly priesthood meeting will be at my house. Friday night is our monthly Solid Rock Cafe and Saturday is Mission Center conference in Springfield, Virginia.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following families in the forefront of your prayers:
Becky
Ursula
Brenda
Justin
AJ
Billy
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.rlds-cbmc.org/powerhouse
5/5/01
It's been a busy couple of weeks at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
We had all of our regularly scheduled activities with good attendance at most of them. The exceptions were at this week's SonRisers due in part to state standardized testing that day and some of our Pizza Church sessions due in part to baseball practice. Also, with it being light out much later, we're finding kids showing up an hour late having lost track of the time. However, our regular schedule provided only a backdrop to the many other things going on.
One surprise we had in our attendance came during our last Solid Rock Cafe. Another church scheduled a dance for the same time and the local junior high had a school trip to Six Flags that day that wouldn't be returning until Solid Rock was done. Even with those other things happening and most of our core kids not participating, we still ended up with near normal attendance that night.
The mission center healing team meeting and our priesthood meeting were both scheduled for the church building at the same time so we moved the priesthood meeting to my house. Of the many things on the agenda, one topic we spent some time discussing out how to better track our kids' attendance. The system we have right now is the best we've ever had, but it's starting to buckle due to both the number and variety of activities and the sheer number of kids. We're hoping to in some way computerize it so it can be both fast and efficient.
Last Saturday was our Mission Center Conference in Springfield, Virginia. Apostle Dale Luffman was our guest minister for the event. After he spoke at the Springfield church on Sunday, he and Rick Bunch, our Mission Center Director, came and spent the afternoon and evening in Pigtown. Dale shared with those gathered at Kids' Church about what life is like for kids in India and brought the message during the contemporary worship service. We had a potluck afterward.
We've started the work of getting kids ready for camp. This year, I'm filling out the forms with each kid that has qualified and wants to go. I'm keeping those forms and delivering them to the parents personally. We had over 50 kids meet all qualifications for camperships. I'm not sure yet how many will attend.
Once camp is over, we'll be changing our schedule for the summer. We've started talking about it with the kids and have updated the web page to show those changes.
One of the suburban mega-churches north of the city has a program where they host Christian block parties in different urban neighborhoods throughout the summer. This June they will be hosting one in the 1300 block of Glyndon Avenue. This is the block I live on and is literally in the back yard of the church. Part of their procedure is to tap into a church near the party and funnel resources into it to provide follow-up ministries for evangelism and community service. Gloria and I met with the director this week and have begun developing plans to help maximize the impact of the event and utilize the available resources for follow-up ministries.
I spent some time on Friday at City Hall. I got the first layer of the zoning appeals process taken care of. We now know exactly what we need to present to the zoning board and what the community can protest to them. Basically, the two major things are the number of parking spaces and the amount of back yard space. Since the new building won't be a traditional sanctuary or classrooms, the board will also review its uses and will need to sign off on it. The next step in the process is the zoning hearing. The city is backlogged right now and the earliest possible date will probably be in late September or early October. We'll know a definite date in about a month.
This Saturday was the opening of little league baseball in our neighborhood. I got to watch a little bit of some of the games and visit with parents and kids.
The crime rate on our streets has had a dramatic increased over the past few weeks. Especially visible is the amount of prostitution. The drug dealing is as busy as ever. Though we pray about this situation in our homes and nearly every time we are together, we have designated the month of May as a time of focused prayer and fasting for the situation on our streets and the addictions that drive it. We welcome you to join with us in this.
We've also invited the other churches in our neighborhood to do the same. Wednesday morning the pastor of the Baptist church and I met at the Power House for prayer together. Further, our congregation has invited the other local churches to join in prayer and fasting this month.
Finally, on a personal note, Vonceil and I announced this week that we're having a baby. It's due this November.
Looking ahead to next week, we have our regular schedule of activities. In addition, we have painters scheduled to come and paint the interior of the church this week. I'll be participating in a day of evangelism and church growth training by the InJoy group in York, Pennsylvania. We'll also be working hard getting the paperwork ready for camp and will be in contact with the local schools to discuss some of our fall plans.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following families in the forefront of your prayers:
Debbie
Steven
Tracey
Danny
Alan
Karin
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.rlds-cbmc.org/powerhouse
5/12/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
We had our full schedule of activities this week. They started out Sunday morning with our monthly communion service. Our new communion set arrived earlier this month so we got to use it for the first time.
Between services, Michael, one of our kids, got hit by a car. His leg is broken in a couple of places, but he is otherwise fine. We'll see if his leg will be healed up enough to go to camp this summer.
Don Chesworth let people know this week that his bid for purchasing a house right across the street from the church was accepted. He's now in the waiting game that always happens in real estate transactions.
The painter came on Monday and began his work. He worked all day Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. There are a few touch-ups left, but it is otherwise all finished.
I spent the day on Thursday at an InJoy church growth seminar in York, Pennsylvania. Of the 1000+ people there, I ended up sitting next to the leader of a Baltimore area Salvation Army congregation. We had the opportunity to discuss what's working and what's not in each of our ministries.
The leaders of our Narcotics Anonymous group had a pleasant surprise this week. The building is normally comfortably full for their meeting. This week the place was packed. I figured it was someone's sobriety anniversary celebration, but they told me it wasn't. They said that most of the people were brand new this week and were ready to start the recovery process. They were happily overwhelmed.
We started developing our marketing materials for the new schedule for youth activities. We're going to try using postcards this time. Our SonRisers weekly registration has provided us with a mailing list of kids who have been to the church that might be interested in checking out Pizza Church, Solid Rock Cafe, and Sundae Church. Our hope is to bring more of those contacts into the community.
We just started batting around a couple of ideas for programming this fall. The ideas of starting a Young Peacemakers Club, a SonRisers for Senior High kids, and a leadership/discipleship group for teen boys are all being pondered right now.
On Saturday I spent some time tracking down parents to get camp forms signed. I've got 16 ready so far. Also while I was out on Saturday afternoon, I was able to schedule our next baptismal service. Joshua will be baptized on Friday, May 25, at the 7:00 p.m. Pizza Church. Our Solid Rock Cafe will follow.
Looking ahead to next week, we have our regular schedule of activities. Next weekend is Ron Gillilan's Medical Science and Spiritual Healing workshop that many will be participating in. We'll also have our monthly Sundae Church on Friday night for our senior high kids.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following families in the forefront of your prayers:
Patricia
Justin
Tony
Jackie
Edna
Donna
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.rlds-cbmc.org/powerhouse
5/20/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
We had our full schedule of regular activities. Within that schedule we has some surprises and special events. We also had several things happening outside of our regular schedule.
Usually at this time of year, youth attendance begins to diminish a little. That has been true this year. However, this week the opposite was true. SonRisers had 10-12 more people attend than it has had in the past month. Even with many of our kids in baseball games, both Pizza Church sessions were packed full. We even ran out of room at our bike rack. It was full, bikes were chained to our railings, and we had a couple of bikes inside the building.
I announced last Sunday at Kids' Church that we had scheduled a baptism for May 25 at Pizza Church. Immediately, John raised his hand and asked if he could be baptized, too. I visited with him and his mom and so we will have at least 2 baptisms next Friday.
I say "at least" because several others have mentioned it to me this week so there may well be more. Justin wants to and will this week if his mom is off work. If not, we will do it shortly thereafter. Brittany and Bethany are in a similar situation. Tony says he's ready and his mom would like him to, but she wants a little more time to work with him on her own so that she's sure he knows how serious this is. We have several other kids deciding if this is the right time for them to do this.
We call this time of year "Hunting Season" around here. We spend a great deal of time each week hunting down kids and parents to get their forms filled out for camp. So far, we have 20 who have completed their applications for camp and have had about a dozen choose not to attend. In the next couple of weeks, I'll be finding kids to take the place of those who aren't able to attend.
This week we heard from the Iman family. They had been a part of our congregation for several years but had move to Cumberland last summer. They were hoping to be able to attend summer camp with us this year. The Waltons are working out the transportation and we are able to pay their registration fees so that they will be able to participate.
We found out this week that the Christian block party which was scheduled for June 2 has been cancelled. We don't know if it will be rescheduled later in the summer or not.
Some of us spent part of this weekend at the Dundalk congregation which hosted the medical science and spiritual healing workshop. Glen Ashley was down here from Michigan for it and is spending a few days before and after it here in Pigtown.
There were many other odds and ends that took place this week. We filed some more papers with the city. I spent quite a bit of time catching up on paperwork. Danny did some repair work on the floor. I visited with the principal at the local elementary school in preparing a way for the church to honor the teachers this fall. There must have been 100 other things as everyone just seemed to be running all week.
Looking ahead to next week, we have our regular schedule of activities. Our Pizza Church groups will both meet at 7:00 this week for our baptismal service. I'll know a final number once we drain the font. It's also Solid Rock Cafe week and I'll be doing a lot of signature hunting.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Berny
Julia
Mary
Joey
Chris
Joseph
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.rlds-cbmc.org/powerhouse
5/26/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
Several kids who are active in Pizza Church but have never been to the 11:00 Sunday service were walking by just after it started. With a little coaxing, they came in and joined the group.
During Kids' Church, Ron Gillilan stopped by with some friends who were on their way to the airport from the healing seminar at the Dundalk church. Among them was Ken Robinson, a member of the first presidency. They were able to visit just a few minutes while the kids made their lion and lamb to remind them of Isaiah 11.
Glen Ashley, who had been staying with us while attending the healing seminar, joined us at our contemporary service that evening. He had also come during Kids' Church and helped with the activities there.
Attendance at Wednesday's SonRisers gathering was up again this week. Don had come up and spent the night on Tuesday so he could help with it. There were a couple of boxes of donuts left over so he took them to work with him. This not only provided a treat for his coworkers but gave an opportunity to tell them about SonRisers.
The Narcotics Anonymous group again packed the place on Wednesday night. This has been partially fueled by the opening of an addiction recovery house for women just down the street from the church. They are excited about their recent dramatic growth.
Our Adult Discipleship Class studied Revelation 4-5 this week. We're going to have a few weeks of scripture studies before going back on another multi-week course.
The highlight of the week came on Friday evening. We combined the two Pizza Church sessions and had our baptismal service. Joshua and John were both baptized and confirmed. We had nearly 60 people crammed into the building. We would have had more, but some people who came decided it was too crowded and left.
I thought it was interesting to look at how we first met the two kids who were baptized. Joshua's baptism marks the first baptism of a kid we met through SonRisers. John and his sister Melissa started coming to church together when Vonceil was teaching Melissa's 7th grade math class.
After pizza church, we had our best Solid Rock Cafe ever. Thought there were many good things about it, one that stands out was the fact that every activity center had interracial groups of kids playing games together. Often there is some segregation. This time there was none.
During Solid Rock, we had some adults come by to check out what was happening. They watched in the windows for a few minutes and visited with me. They were thrilled with what they saw.
Throughout the week, we've been computerizing our children/youth attendance database. Once it's in, we hope to be able to better view the data and track attendance patterns.
I also spent quite a bit of time hunting for signatures on camp forms. I was not overly successful in finding people at home but was able to take care of some of the paperwork.
On Saturday evening I drained the font. I usually drain late at night but it worked out better time wise to do it earlier. A few of the neighbors stopped by concerned that something was wrong when they saw the water draining out of the building.
In looking at the statistics for the week, you take the total attendance numbers for each activity and added them together, you would see that we set an attendance record of over 200 people, not including Narcotics Anonymous. Of those, only 6 lived outside of walking distance from the church.
Looking ahead to next week, we have our regular schedule of activities. In addition, we have our monthly priesthood meeting on Tuesday. We also have a summer camp committee meeting on Thursday.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Wayne
Bobby
Shannon
Jamie
Theresa
Shane
Ramon
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.rlds-cbmc.org/powerhouse
6/16/01
It's been a busy couple of weeks at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started Sunday, June 3, with our celebration of Pentecost. Especially fun that day was kids' church where they had to create hats out of construction paper that were to look like the tongues of flames resting upon them. Though they had a little trouble getting started, it ended up being one of the most fun and creative projects we've done in a long time.
Bryce and I spent the next week visiting family in Michigan. The crew here was able to keep all scheduled activities going. For example, Mike came up and taught the course needed as a part of certifying people as registered youth workers during the discipleship class time. Vonceil preached in the morning, Danny, Shirley, and Ed hosted Kids' Church, and Mike preached on Sunday night.
The school year ended for the kids of Pigtown this last week. We therefore had our last SonRisers and computer lab of the year. I'll have the statistics regarding these activities, both of which were new this year, in the next couple of weeks.
With the end of school came the announcement of who would need to attend summer school. According to the newspaper, approximately 1/3 of all the students in Baltimore City Schools are required to attend summer school this year. This has seriously frustrated our camp efforts. Some kids have canceled. Others say they're just going to miss the week of school for camp. I'm in the process right now of visiting with each family who is sending a kid to camp to review the status of each camper. With only two weeks until the start of camp, this complete shuffle in kids is frustrating at best.
This Friday and Saturday brought a Promise Keepers conference to Baltimore. I've attended these events for several years and have had one or two people able to travel out of state with me to them. For the first time ever, the event was within walking distance of our neighborhood. Nine men from three congregations in our mission center attended the event together. Gloria and Vonceil hosted Pizza Church so that the guys who normally staff it would all be free to go.
Looking ahead to next week, we will be in a transitional period between our old schedule and our new one. We won't be having SonRisers or our Computer Lab but will still be using our old structure for Pizza Church. Our new full schedule of activities will be implemented in July. We'll spend some time this week trying to figure out who will be at camp. Next weekend, several women from the congregation will attend the Women of Faith conference in Washington, D.C.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Kim
Robert
Roxie
Vicky
Torin
Don
Norman
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.rlds-cbmc.org/powerhouse
7/1/01
It's been a busy couple of weeks at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
Our camp plans have changed nearly every day the past two weeks. Many kids have had to drop out due to summer school. Others have chosen to skip a week of summer school for camp. Frustrating does not begin to describe the experience. Though we've invited around 65 kids to camp this summer, only 31 are planning on attending at this writing. That number usually changes when the bus arrives. Still, that's a record number of kids from Pigtown that are scheduled to attend camp.
I was able to run the statistics on this year's SonRisers ministries. Over the course of the school year, we served 3700 donuts. 193 different kids participated in the program, which represents about 48% of the population of the local junior high. One kid that we first met through SonRisers has been baptized and 8 more have inquired. 13 kids we met through SonRisers earned their way to camp this year. In addition, we had several kids who used to attend sporadically who became regular attenders at Pizza Church once they connected to the church through SonRisers.
Another neat statistic that we learned this week was about kids earning trips to camp. Those with sufficient credits go to camp for $15, but I put out a challenge to the kids during the 1999-2000 year saying that anyone who attended 55 or more times would be able to go to camp for free. No one was able to make that challenge. However, this year, I raised that standard to 60. With the higher standard, 8 kids earned a free camp this year. I'm announcing a new challenge for this upcoming year on the bus ride home from camp to get more kids more active more often.
We started a new curriculum in Kids' Church. Each week throughout the summer, the kids will be creating pictograms of Old Testament stories. By the end of summer, they will have their own miniature Bible storybook.
Vicky, a friend of Theresa who started coming to church with her several weeks ago, decided to get baptized. We'll be celebrating with her as she does so during the evening service on July 15.
We've applied to the city to operate a sprinkler for the summer on the fire hydrant near the front for the church. They are surveying those who live on this block to get their opinion. If approved, we will be out on the hot afternoons providing a place for the kids in the neighborhood to cool off for a couple of hours.
Last weekend, several women from here went to the Women of Faith conference in Washington, D.C. It was good timing to have it the week after Promise Keepers in Baltimore. Over the past two weekends, most of the adults who are active in the congregation participated in one of these events. This has provided a spiritual boost to the group.
Our Solid Rock Cafe last Friday was one of the roughest gatherings we've had in quite a long time. Some of the older boys who had canceled their trips to camp due to summer school decided to take out their frustrations during this time. Don and I ended up being wardens protecting people and property for the hour.
In trying to learn from our mistakes at camp last year, we spent some time this week in chaos prevention. Every child who attends camp from the Power House will receive a large, clear plastic garbage bag with their name written on it in large letters with permanent ink. This should help reduce the dirty clothes mix ups of last year. Also, on the bus ride down each kid will be given a new Bible and highlighter.
This Friday, Joanne Chapman flew in from Bryan, Texas. She came up to work as Senior High Camp Pastor and is spending the day in Pigtown catching up with old friends and meeting the kids before going.
Saturday, Joanne, Gloria, Shirley, and I headed down to the campgrounds together to begin setting up for camp. We got back from there about 10:30 in the evening and will go down with the kids Sunday afternoon.
Looking ahead to next week, we will have a reduced schedule of activities in Pigtown because of camp. All activities for children and youth are canceled. We also canceled our Adult Disciples group and our Community Prayer Circle on Wednesday.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Francis
Donald
Melissa
Woody
Jackie
Bruce
Butch
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.rlds-cbmc.org/powerhouse
7/14/01
It's been a busy couple of weeks at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out Sunday, July 1, when Joanne Chapman from Bryan, Texas, brought the communion message at our morning worships service. A few kids who were excited about camp who don't normally attend that service came and took part.
That afternoon, the motor coach arrived and we were off to camp. We ended up taking 30 kids from the neighborhood on the bus. We sponsored 2 other kids who used to live here and they met us there. One other former member of the Power House who now lives in Virginia also attended camp.
Among the camp staff were several folks from Pigtown. Gloria and Shirley ran the kitchen at the junior camp while Ed and Darlene were cabin counselors at junior high/senior high camp. Don, who is in the process of moving to Pigtown, and Jeff & Beth, who have been long-term participants here, were there too.
For the second year in a row, all the kids (and staff) from the Power House made it the whole week at camp. No one was sent home for behavior problems and there were no serious injuries. I believe this is due in large part to the prayer partnering that was happening. Prayer partners from around the country held up their individual kids in prayer throughout the week of camp.
While we were gone, Vonceil and Danny kept our shortened schedule going. They presided over the evening worship service on Sunday and Danny kept the facilities available for the Narcotics Anonymous group on Wednesday. The rest of the week's activities were canceled.
Also while we were gone, our bike rack was pulled up out of the concrete. Fortunately, the vandals didn't take it. Danny is trying to come up with a creative way to secure it since bolts in concrete just aren't strong enough.
The bus was several hours late in picking us up from camp. Instead of getting home between 1:00 and 2:00 p.m., we rolled into Pigtown at 5:00. The neighbors said they enjoyed a very quiet week while the kids were gone.
On the bus ride home, I announced the new reward/incentive program for church attendance. Since we had so many kids who qualified to go to camp but could not attend, we decided to have some additional rewards to work for along with the trip to camp. We still have the policy that the kids with the highest number of earned credits get to go to camp for $15 instead of the full fee until we run out of campership money or beds. However, the kids will also be able to earn:
Power House T-Shirt (20 credits)
Trip to Ice Cream Parlor (40 credits)
Free Camp (60 credits)
Oriels Baseball Game (90 credits)
Six Flags America (120 credits)
The all-time record for credits earned thus far is 76 so we'll see that record can be broken this year.
After camp, we hit the ground running with three services on Sunday. Each service was well attended. One newcomer at the evening service was the cousin of one of our first-time campers. After church she told me that she heard so many people say so many good things about camp this year that she's decided to earn her way there next year starting immediately.
Monday and Tuesday were days to catch up on running errands with people and prepare for our new schedule of activities. This included helping people get their prescriptions filled, ordering glasses for a kid who broke his at camp, and restocking supplies for the upcoming week's activities. Our web page was updated to reflect the new schedule.
On Tuesday evening, Kirsty, one of our kids in the church, was hit by a car. Both legs were broken. This is the fifth kid who is active in the church that has been hit by a car in the past 2 years.
We also sent out our first bulk mailing. We mailed postcards featuring our new schedule for Pizza Church, Sundae Church, and Solid Rock Cafe to all those on the mailing list generated by SonRisers.
Wednesday night, the Adult Disciples class began a study on the book of Romans. This will be a brief overview for three weeks. We're going to take a break from class during the month of August and just do our community prayer circle mid-week.
Friday night brought the new Pizza Church program. Kids grades 4-5 came at 6, grades 6-9 came at 7, and grade 9-age 18 came at 8. Each group is focused on a different study track.
Saturday night started our new schedule for Solid Rock Cafe. We had about 20 kids show up. Their behavior was extra good so we extended the time another 15 minutes.
After Solid Rock, we filled the font. Edna is getting baptized during the morning worship and Vicky will do likewise during the contemporary service.
Looking ahead to next week, we will have our full schedule of activities. In addition, Sunday will feature our two baptisms. Next weekend, the youth gathered for Mission Center Reunion will join us for Pizza Church and an extra Solid Rock Cafe.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Darlene
Gloria
Ed
Danny
Shirley
Theresa
Don
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.rlds-cbmc.org/powerhouse
7/21/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out Sunday with Edna's baptism during the morning service. We had to set up extra chairs because we had more than double the number of people present compared to most weeks. In the evening we again celebrated a baptism and confirmation as Vicky entered into a covenant relationship with God.
Don closed on his house on Wednesday and began the move-in process. Since the house had been unoccupied for some time, the water had been shut off and the gas and electric meters had been removed. A neighbor saw his flashlight shining in there one night and called the police. Three officers welcomed him to Pigtown. By the end of the week the utilities were all on and working.
Wednesday night's Adult Disciples class was fun. We were studying Romans 4-6. These are some of my favorite chapters of the Scriptures and I got so excited while teaching it that I started pounding the Bible hard enough that Theresa started to go to answer the door thinking someone wanted in. After a good laugh they calmed me down and I started teaching again.
We spent quite a bit of time this week getting ready for Bible School and our upcoming fall activities. Our new banners advertising Bible School, SonRisers, and Young Peacemakers all arrived this week. We scheduled the petting zoo to come during Bible School on the day we're teaching the story of Noah. We updated our information tracts to reflect our new schedule. Also, we installed our new electronic announcement board.
The Towson congregation's women's group provided an abundant supply of canned good to replenish our food pantry. We took a few minutes to clean out and organize the food supplies so that we can more accurately keep track of what we have in stock.
On Friday night, 19 youth from the Mission Center Reunion came up and joined us for Pizza Church and a Solid Rock Cafe. Though attendance was low from the neighborhood at Pizza Church due to a baseball tournament, we had 22 local kids join us for Solid Rock (as well as a half-dozen kids who were too young to attend who watched in the windows). Among those in attendance were a couple of kids we haven't seen for a very long time who renewed some friendships from when the were at camp a couple of years ago.
Danny reinstalled the bike rack on Saturday . It looks quite secure so we're hoping it will stay put.
Looking ahead to next week, we will have our full schedule of activities. In addition, we will be changing out the banners so we can begin advertising our Bible School. (It's 10-noon August 21-24. If you're willing/able to help, please let me know.) We may also be trying to work in this month's priesthood meeting as we found out this week that the playground committee needs to meet when we normally do.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Chris
Kiana
Amber
Ciera
Brandon
Tim
Tony
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.rlds-cbmc.org/powerhouse
7/28/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
Between the services on Sunday, Danny changed out the banner in the front of the church. We now have our Bible School banner up. As soon as it is over, we'll begin marketing our Young Peacemakers Club in the same way.
Two kids who became active in the congregation moved away this week. We met Ryan and Tony this year through SonRisers and both earned their way to camp. We will miss them.
We spent quite a bit of time this week getting ready for Bible School. The themes are selected and we've rented the petting zoo and the moon bounce. We've got most of the ideas and supplies and now need to put them in a cohesive structure. Further, our marketing plan is now in place.
The front page of the Maryland section of Wednesday's Baltimore Sun featured a picture of Lamont. He and his sister were having a water fight in front of their house and a photographer captured the moment. To say the least, he was quite excited.
We had a long agenda at the priesthood meeting on Wednesday night. A highlight of the meeting came when the group decided to take a small surplus we had from our weekly offerings and use it to pay off the building early. When the check clears in the next few days, our congregation will be without any financial debt.
Penny stopped by on Wednesday to ask us to keep an eye out for her cat. It had wandered off and she hadn't been able to find it for a couple of days. Within a short time, several of the kids recalled seeing it on their block recently. The next 24 hours were full of sightings and near misses. By about 9:00 Thursday night, though, it had been found and returned home.
We had a first at this week's Pizza Church. Usually, the junior high group is predominately male. However, when we opened the doors this Friday we had 9 girls and no boys waiting to get in. If that has happened before, it was more than three years ago. Some guys did come about 5 minutes later, so it wasn't an all girls group.
Our first Saturday meeting of Sundae Church took place tonight. Don, Robert, and I worked on cutting and organizing our advertisements. We now have all the fliers for Bible School ready to be taken door-to-door. We also have our color-coded fall schedule cards for elementary, junior high, and senior high kids ready to be given out as school starts. If people don't come, it won't be because of lack of information.
Looking ahead to next week, we will have our full schedule of activities. In addition, the Gillilans will be bringing ice cream Sunday night for a celebration of paying off the mortgage. We also have a playground committee meeting on Tuesday.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following families in the forefront of your prayers:
Smeads
Erbes
Hansels
Lathams
Moores
Saffrans
Guthries
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.rlds-cbmc.org/powerhouse
8/5/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out Sunday with noticeably higher than average attendance at all three of our services. We had about 70 people come over the course of the day. After the evening service, we celebrated the payoff of our mortgage with ice cream and cake provided by the Gillilans and the Pestridges.
Monday evening Don and I spent some time helping a homeless man get his belongings out of storage. He was a few days behind in the payments and needed to get them out so he could move on to the next city where work looked more promising.
Tuesday night Gloria and I attended the Friends of Carroll Park meeting. This is a community advocacy group which has developed out of the park's master planning committee. Now that the master plan is complete, this group keeps the city and the community accountable for its implementation.
While there, the group drafted its mission statement and got an update on the progress of the playground. We've learned that the bid for construction has been awarded and the company plans to build this fall. Hope springs eternal.
This was a week where we a lot of quality visiting time with people throughout the neighborhood. Don and I got to know his neighbors a little better, several folks talked about the plans for the park, and we had lots of shepherding opportunities.
We've also gotten to build relationships with a couple of people because of the work being done on our house. A couple of months ago, we bought the house next door and began combining the two houses into one. It's been quite a project and the neighbors have liked to visit about the exact construction plans and the progress.
Friday night's Pizza Church sessions continued to develop in their new configuration. Most notable this week was the senior high group. The maturity and behavior difference was quite noticeable when compared to the junior high group. The activities are also different and, as Don said, It felt like a senior high group activity this week. We're really excited about the potential here.
Saturday night, Ed, Darlene, and I headed up to Trinity Assembly of God. Tony Evans of The Urban Alternative was in town preaching and we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to hear him.
Looking ahead to next week, we will have our full schedule of activities. In addition, I'll be commuting to Washington for the three day Willow Creek Leadership Conference simulcast. We'll also be putting the finishing touches on Bible School.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following People in the forefront of your prayers:
Mary
Joey
Robert
Melissa
Shirley
Edna
Joshua
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.rlds-cbmc.org/powerhouse
8/11/01It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out Sunday with our three services. The morning service was our monthly celebration of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. We continued with our pictograms during Kids' Church. During the evening service, Don's parents stopped by to worship with us on their way through town.
Also during the evening service we had several kids attend church here for the first time. When I passed out the seed cards at the end of the service they each took some. A few minutes later, they were back for more. They had already distributed them and found inviting people to church to be fun. They cleaned out our entire supply.
We got the last of the planning done for Bible School done and are pretty much ready to roll with it a week from Tuesday. We'll be finish up our marketing campaign between now and then.
I commuted to northern Virginia for the annual Willow Creek Association Leadership Conference. To say that it was outstanding would be a serious understatement. The speakers, the worship, the drama, and the music were all incredible. It really helped me to isolate problems, sort out perspectives, and provide solutions to the things happening here.
Don and Speedo taught the first session of Pizza Church on Friday while I fought the traffic on the Washington Beltway. I taught the junior high and senior high groups.
Saturday night was our monthly Solid Rock Cafe. Brent, Chandra, and Troy, counselors from this year's youth camp, came down from Westminster to help out. It provided a great opportunity for them and the kids to keep foster the relationships that began there.
I know right now that I won't be available to type a report next week, so looking ahead to the next couple of weeks, we have our full schedule of activities. In addition, we'll be having Bible School August 21-24.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following People in the forefront of your prayers:
This week: Next Week:
Joseph Jamie
Chris Kirsty
Melissa Jeana
Ciara George
Chandra Michael
Takia Joshua
John Roxie
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.rlds-cbmc.org/powerhouse
8/25/01
It's been a busy couple of weeks at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out on Sunday, August 12, with our three services. During the morning worship, we finished our series on vision. During Kids' Church we continued with our summer pictogram project, this time with the story of Jonah. During the evening service, we talked about the difference between having a vision for a church and a vision for God's Kingdom.
The family and I took a vacation beginning on that Monday so I don't have lots of details from when we were gone. The crew here kept everything up and running just fine for the entire week. They finished the week's activities on Sunday night when Earl Jamison came up to provide the message.
This week was our Vacation Bible School. On Monday, Robert, Gloria, and I distributed about 1100 fliers to promote Bible School. This was the first time we used postcards rather than full size sheets of paper. Because of the stiffness of the cards, it was substantially easier to get the cards under doors and in mail slots. We completed their distribution in record time.
Bible School itself was absolutely incredible. Vonceil, Gloria, Darlene, Mike, Don, and I worked all or part of the week. We reached over 100 kids, and more than half of them were new contacts. The most popular activity was the visit of the animals from Noah's Ark. We had over 70 kids come to pet the truckload of critters that came in for a couple of hours. The kids really got into the activities (like the Tower of Babel building competition) and the crafts (like turning our old crayons into candles). We ended the week by bringing in a moon bounce. We lost count of the bouncing kids somewhere around 65. When you consider that our building is statistically full at abound 19, you can see that we were stuffed full all week long.
We had some great relationship building throughout the community during Bible School as well. The most dramatic example of this happened with a man who lives across the street from the church. Since the day Tim and I put the initial zoning hearing sign on the empty lot back in 1999, this man has complained about anything and everything, especially the number of kids around. We've gradually begun building a relationship with him, but it's been a long road. Last Christmas when we were supposed to have the petting zoo come, he threatened to call the police. This week when it arrived, he came over and brought his grandson with him. That afternoon, he called me over to tell me what a wonderful activity it was and how all the kids in the neighborhood kept talking about it. In our snapshots of the activity, we found a picture of him with his grandson by the animals. I blew it up and took it over to him. He was thrilled.
While walking around the neighborhood Thursday night I was greeted by a family whose kids had been to Bible School. The youngest girl in the family grabbed hold of my leg and said she thought it would be a good idea if I sent a letter to her parents saying when the church is open for kids her age so that they could help her remember to come. I told her I thought it was a great idea. She didn't know that the letters were already in sealed envelopes ready to go in the morning's mail.
Friday night's Pizza Church sessions all went well. Over the course of the evening, we had about 8 kids who we met at Bible School come and take part in the activities along with our regular crowd. This was especially cool since we focused on promoting Kids' Church and the Young Peacemakers Club rather than Pizza Church. In addition, we had one kid who we met at Bible School bring a friend with him to Pizza Church.
For much of the summer we've been trying to get a permit to run a sprinkler from the fire hydrant near the church. This week, Gloria finally received the last of the permits and the equipment for it. Unfortunately, the fire hydrant isn't one of the standard ones in the city. It needs special tools. She spent much of the week visiting with city officials and local firemen trying to get this figured out. Danny found some tools that should make at least part of it work. Hopefully, we'll be able to have it on a couple of afternoons this coming week. We know next year to start earlier so we can help kids keep cool during the heat.
We had lots of things happening around us this week that were quite the opposite of our Bible School experience. One of our kids was sexually assaulted. Another was stabbed in the arm. A family who we know lost their house this week. The extremes of life have kept us emotionally stretched.
Looking ahead to next week we have our full schedule of activities. In addition, we're anticipating the delivery of school supplies for our kids from the Towson Women's Group this Sunday. Tuesday evening is our monthly priesthood meeting. On Wednesday evening we'll be assembling care packages for the teachers from the local elementary school. We're eager to see which kids from Bible School will be attending Kids' Church. Also, we'll be finishing plans for the kickoff of our Young Peacemakers Club.
Also, please update your bookmarks to reflect our new web address:
www.cochrist-cbmc.org/powerhouse
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following People in the forefront of your prayers:
Rajah
Dewayne
Rocky
Shane
Monse
Steffan
Amber
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.cochrist-cbmc.org/powerhouse
9/1/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
We had a few people sick last Sunday so our numbers were down slightly throughout the day. During Kids' Church we finished our pictograms from the Old Testament. Sunday evening, Darlene and Ed brought over the school supplies the Towson Women's Group purchased for the kids.
We learned on Sunday the someone from another church had started a smear campaign against our church the previous Saturday. Kids and parents alike were upset about the lies being spread about us. We don't know the full extent of the campaign, but it appeared to be targeted at specific families rather than a blanket campaign like we had a couple of years ago.
Tuesday night we had our monthly Priesthood meeting. We had a full agenda as we prepared for this fall's activities.
We had a fun time during Adult Disciples on Wednesday evening. First, we assembled care packages for the teachers and staff at our local elementary school. Each package included an apple, candy, some pens, a glue stick, stickers, and a note of encouragement. Once that was finished, we sorted the school supplies given by the Towson Women's Group by grade then packaged them for easy distribution on Sunday after Kids' Church.
Thursday morning we delivered the care packages to school 34. The principal and staff were thrilled.
By the end of the week, we gave up on connecting the fire hydrant and sprinkler. The materials were due back to the city next week anyway, so Gloria made sure everything was returned. She also started gathering information about the process for next summer so that we might make a better try next year.
Our signs were updated this week. On Sunday, Danny changed the banner on the front of the church to one that promotes our new Young Peacemakers Club. On Tuesday, he hung a new banner with the church name on it on the Glyndon Avenue side of the building. On Thursday, I updated our main sign to reflect our fall schedule.
We had a great time at all three Pizza Church sessions this Friday. The first group learned the story of the prodigal son. The junior high group learned about blessings and then offered school year blessings for the person sitting next to them. The senior high group continued its study of the book of Matthew. 28 kids were in attendance that evening.
We've always encouraged kids to volunteer to bless the pizza. For a long time, it's been a struggle to get someone to do it. The last few weeks we've had so many want to offer the blessing that we've started having several blessings on the food. This week was especially powerful during the first session. We had 4 boys pray. Often, it's a case of "Thank you for the pizza amen" said four times in a row (which is fine by me). However, this week all four of them just started pouring out their hearts to God about some of the tough issues in their lives. They almost forgot about the pizza.
Looking ahead to next week we have our full schedule of activities. Our new fall schedule will be in full force as we start up SonRisers (6:30 a.m. Wednesday), Young Peacemakers Club (3:00 p.m. Wednesday), and the Computer Lab (4:00 and 5:00 p.m. Thursday). This is also the week for our monthly Solid Rock Cafe. In addition, Carolyn Passmore from Jonesboro, Arkansas, will be arriving Tuesday for a week's visit.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following families in the forefront of your prayers:
The Guthrie Family
The Wheelton Family
The Saffran Family
The St. Thomas Family
The Hansel Family
The Huntley Family
The Smead Family
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.cochrist-cbmc.org/powerhouse
9/8/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out with a full house (29) at church Sunday morning. During Kids' Church we distributed school supply packets to the 28 kids present. We gave a dozen or so more out later that day to others who came by. We had an especially powerful evening service which included several administrations.
On Tuesday, Carolyn Passmore arrived from Jonesboro, Arkansas. She runs the Kids Bible Club Mission there. She came to join us for a week so she could get some new ideas for her group.
Wednesday brought our first SonRisers for the year. We had about a dozen kids come. It being only the second day of school, many kids were afraid to stop by for fear they would be late, even with 40 minutes until the bell. Based on past experience, we expect that fear of tardiness will vanish in the next couple of weeks.
Wednesday afternoon brought the launch of our Young Peacemakers Club. It was scheduled for 3:00 and no one showed up. At 3:30. we had about a dozen kids at our door. They informed us that they get out of school at 3:15 instead of 2:40 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. With that, we taught the lesson and officially changed the start time to 3:30.
Our Adult Discipleship Class began its review of the discipleship toolbox. We spent this week reviewing some concepts of prayer.
Thursday brought the return of the weekly computer lab. We had a good start with about a half dozen kids attending.
Friday night's Pizza Church sessions had a total of 29 kids in attendance. The first group studied the parable of the talents. The junior high group studied the Lord's Prayer. The senior highs studied Matthew 8.
Saturday nigh brought our monthly Solid Rock Cafe. We had a new Nintendo game cartridge that was wildly popular. The kids got to teach Carolyn some card games to take back to Arkansas with her. We had about 20 kids come.
Looking ahead to next week we have our full schedule of activities. Carolyn will be teaching at Kids' Church and will bring the message at Sunday evening's service. We'll also have a potluck after the evening service. Next weekend a few women will be attending a retreat at Deer Park campgrounds in New Hope, Pennsylvania. Three of us will be attending a satellite simulcast of the TEAM Leadership Seminar from InJoy.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Theresa
Ravon
Don
George
Jeana
Kirsty
Shane
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.cochrist-cbmc.org/powerhouse
9/15/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out Sunday with 20 people gathered to hear a message on hope during the morning worship. Carolyn Passmore taught the lesson at Kids' Church and brought the message during the evening service. After the service, we had a potluck dinner and a time of fellowship.
Carolyn flew out from National Airport on Monday afternoon so we spend the morning doing the tourist thing in Washington. We truly enjoyed having her here for the week and many people received a great blessing ministry from her ministry.
The attacks on Tuesday had a direct effect on us. We were glad to hear that Bonnie Barber, who works in the Pentagon, was safe. Five people from the company Don works for, however, we not as fortunate as they were on the planes that crashed. We opened the church on Tuesday evening for a prayer service.
We were able to continue with the rest of the week's schedule as planned. We did adjust the content on some of our lessons to fit what was happening. Our attendance was lower than expected on Wednesday due in part to many kids staying home from school that day.
Thursday, however, we had a big group at both computer lab sessions. Use of every computer was maximized.
We also learned on Thursday that long-time supporter of the Power House LaDrue Montgomery passed away. She was a member of the Towson congregation.
On Friday afternoon, Darlene and Theresa headed up to the Women's Retreat at Deer Park. This was a smaller group from the neighborhood attending this year due to several other events scheduled this weekend.
We continued with an amazingly consistent number of kids at Pizza Church this weekend. For years, the number coming has often changed dramatically from week to week. For five weeks now we've had between 27 and 29 kids each week. This week we had 28.
We had one kid request baptism this Friday. He's been thinking about it for several months now and decided it's time. I still need to talk to his mother, but we've tentatively scheduled it for Friday, September 28. We have several others who have been considering baptism so perhaps they will join him.
On Saturday, Vonceil and I attended InJoy's T.E.A.M. Leadership Seminar via satellite. A portion of the afternoon sessions were changed to a nationwide time of guided prayer.
Looking ahead to next week we have our full schedule of activities. In addition, we'll be introducing our fall curriculum at Kids' Church this Sunday.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Melissa
Melina
Donald
Justin
Michael
Troy
Patricia
Billy
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.cochrist-cbmc.org/powerhouse
9/23/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out with full to overflowing crowds of people worshipping on Sunday. Even with some of our regulars out of town we had around 20 at our morning worship service. Kids' Church had 31 kids and 7 adults attend. We had nearly 20 come to the evening service.
Wednesday was our long full day which started at 6:30 a.m. with SonRisers. 33 kids came this week which is more than twice as many kids came last week. We had a good group for the Young Peacemakers Club where we worked on building self-worth. Narcotics Anonymous had a full house at its meeting. We had an unusually small group for Adult Disciples (where we began our study on Jesus' Sermon on the Mount) and Community Prayer Circle.
It was a dreary day on Thursday which is probably in part why we had record numbers of kids at the computer lab. If we had twice as many computers as we have there still would not have been enough to go around. We also had a couple of kids come to the lab who we met at Bible School this summer but hadn't seen since.
Once again, the total number of kids in attendance at the three Pizza Church sessions was 28. We had originally planned to combine the three groups next week and have a baptism. However, we could not get parental consent for the kid who wanted to get baptized so we will be having our regular sessions next week.
We did, however, have another kid ask about getting baptized. Her sister has been talking about getting baptized sometime, too. Hopefully, this will happen in the very near future.
Saturday night brought this month's Sundae Church. Our time together was disrupted because two of our kids were accused of beating up another kid. I had to leave the church and go be a alibi for them as they were at the church during the time.
We ended up spending a huge amount of time this week in one-on-one counseling. The range, scope, depth, and quantity of problems in peoples lives seem especially high right now. We've also had many people access our food pantry and will need to get it restocked.
Looking ahead to next week we will have a different schedule of activities. Schools in the city have teacher inservice on Wednesday so the kids have the day off. Therefore, we won't be having SonRisers or Young Peacemakers Club that day. Also, there is a public meeting regarding youth activities in the neighborhood on Tuesday evening. Gloria will be taking the lead regarding what's available for youth at the Power House.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Amber
Steven
Bev
Jamie
Neil
Darlene
Bruce
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.cochrist-cbmc.org/powerhouse
9/29/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out with great news at our morning service. A woman who had visited the church a long time ago came to the worship service. Afterward, she came up and said she'd been to a couple of the tent revivals another group has been hosting in the park. As a result she decided to commit her life to God and wanted them to baptize her. They said they would but thought it would be better for her to go to a church in her neighborhood to seek baptism and to get on a discipleship plan. We began a time of investigation and education together and she will be baptized the first Sunday in October.
The rest of the day was good, too. Kids' Church again had a full house with 28 kids and several adults. We started a series in the evening on the topic of the presence of God.
With school closed on Wednesday we didn't have SonRisers or Young Peacemakers Club this week. People kept quite busy anyway. Gloria represented the church at the Southwest Community Council meeting. The discussion for the night revolved around opportunities and activities for youth in the area. Danny got the handle on the front door replaced as our old one couldn't take the quantity of use and abuse any longer. Vonceil had a good sized group at the computer lab. And, of course, our core groups met throughout the week with different people leading each of them.
Friday night's pizza church sessions had 33 kids in attendance. We thought that we might have fewer kids as the nearby Episcopal church hosts a dance the last Friday of each month. The opposite was true. We were short on staff and it got a little out of control in front of the building between the junior high and senior high sessions.
Looking ahead to next week we will be back to our full schedule of activities. In addition, we have our monthly priesthood meeting on Sunday night after the evening service. We'll also be having a pre-baptismal class on Thursday evening.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Nancy
Monce
Justin
George
Mike
Joshua
Robert
Roxie
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.cochrist-cbmc.org/powerhouse
10/6/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out Sunday morning with 21 people at our morning worship where the topic was "Miracles." One kid received his t-shirt for attending church 20 times since camp. We had 27 kids at Kids' Church and 19 at our evening service. After the evening service we had our monthly priesthood meeting.
We started taking orders for this year's Power House sweatshirts. We've done this for a couple of years now. We don't make any money off of it, but we have fun getting matching sweatshirts to wear throughout the winter season.
On Monday we spent some time trying to get new keys made for the church. It seems our new lock set takes a special kind ok equipment to cut them that most locksmiths don't have. They're being special ordered and should be ready the first of next week.
We came to the end of our first quarter for our kid attendance tracking. As of the end of September, we've had 198 kids attend church at least once. This does not include those who attended Bible School. Two years ago, we had just over 200 kids for the entire year. 64 kids are currently tracking for camp. Eleven kids are coming 2-3 times a month while 18 are attending at least weekly.
With 57 kids attending SonRisers this Wednesday, we shattered all attendance records. Last year it took until spring to break the 50 barrier so we're bracing ourselves for the future.
The adult disciples class continued its study of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. We have one more week to go with that. Also during class, Billy requested baptism. I reviewed the adult pre-baptismal materials with Karen and Billy on Thursday evening and they will be baptized Sunday morning.
Jason came up from Laurel to learn the ropes of running Thursday's computer lab. He'll be leading this ministry when Vonceil is off on maternity leave.
With the kind of numbers we had at SonRisers, it shouldn't have been surprising that we also had record numbers at Pizza Church. The second session alone had 27 kids. As they were leaving, we sat down and immediately listed about 8 kids who rarely miss who weren't there. We will have to take down the tables for the second group just to accommodate the bodies. By the end of the night, we had 38 kids come to church. We also had 2 kids earn their t-shirts by having attended church 20 times since camp and one earn his ice cream sundae for coming 40 times since camp.
Of course, there were many other things happening around here. They ranged from construction equipment showing up for the new playground to our web page being updated to loosing the contents of the church's freezer due to the door not being closed tight. No dull moments here.
This week we had one of the highest attendance rates of any week in our history. About 160 different people (virtually all of whom live within walking distance of the church) came to at least one activity. Our total attendance at events in the building (which would include some people counted multiple times) was around 250.
While I was typing this report one of our high school kids stop by. No surprise there. However, he's determined that he wants to come to all three services on Sunday. On his own he gave me specific instructions that if he doesn't make it to church that I'm to break my own policy and deduct a camp credit from his total.
Looking ahead to next week we will have our full schedule of activities. We have two baptismal services scheduled on Sunday. Billy and Karen will be baptized during the Morning Worship and Melina will be baptized during Kids' Church. We had 5 people inquire about baptism this week so we may have some others joining them. Gloria and Darlene will be attending an Interpersonal Peacemaking workshop at the Springfield, Virginia church next weekend. We also have our monthly Solid Rock Cafe next Saturday evening.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Don
Troy
Terry
Dennis
Alicia
James
Shaquanna
Damon
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.cochrist-cbmc.org/powerhouse
10/13/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out Sunday with our Morning Worship. We had a record smashing 40 in attendance. Some people had to stand through the service as there was no more room for chairs. Karen and Billy were baptized and we celebrated the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. After the service, one family requested a baby blessing and two people requested baptism. We scheduled the blessing and one baptism for that night's contemporary service and the other baptism for the next Sunday morning.
We had 21 kids and 5 adults at Kids' Church. Melina was baptized during that service. We tried something new by making a prayer chain for her while she was drying off. The kids seemed to enjoy making it for her.
22 people came to the evening service. Samantha was blessed and Yvonne was baptized. Towards the end of the service during our prayer time, Karen raised her hand and said that her son, who I knew had been considering baptism, wanted to know if he could be baptized before going home. His sister brought over dry clothes and a towel and CJ was baptized at the close of the service.
After church, Don, Robert, and I went out to Friendly's for ice cream sundaes. Robert had earned one by getting to 40 attendance credits since camp. Several other kids crossed the 20 credit mark on Sunday and earned their Power House t-shirts.
Once we got back, Don and I drained the font while updating the baptismal records at headquarters and transferring the kids' attendance system to my computer. Sunday was a very good and very long day.
Things didn't slow down during the week, either. We had 51 kids come to SonRisers on Wednesday. Later that day, two kids requested baptism during Young Peacemakers. And, the Adult Disciples group finished its study of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.
We had 17 kids attend computer lab this Wednesday. Considering the fact that we only have 5 computers, that's more than a full house. Demand on the computer lab has increased significantly this year. If it could be open more than one afternoon each week it would really help. If you know anyone in the Baltimore area with basic computer skills who might be interested in hosting the lab for a couple of hours every Monday and/or Tuesday please send them our way.
Friday afternoon Darlene and Gloria headed out to Springfield, Virginia, for an Interpersonal Peacemaking workshop. They will be there until Sunday evening.
We had great groups at Pizza Church on Friday. We ended up rearranging the furniture between each session to better accommodate the different groups and the instructional styles for the activities. I taught the first group, Mike taught the junior high group, and Don taught the high school kids.
Saturday brought our monthly Solid Rock Cafe. Kids were lined up at 7:15 waiting to get in at 8:00. We had a smaller than usual group come which was really good because Don and I got a chance for some quality one-on-one interaction with several of the kids. Afterward, Danny and I got the font ready for Sunday morning.
Looking ahead to next week we will have our full schedule of activities. Shaquanna will be baptized during Morning Worship. Monday evening Gloria and I will be presenting the blueprints of the new building to the Hearts of Pigtown community group. We'll also need to post our sign for our zoning hearing by next Saturday.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Jerry
Violet
Tom
Jeana
Melissa
Troy
Shane
Charlie
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.cochrist-cbmc.org/powerhouse
10/20/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started off with 30 people at our morning worship. Unfortunately, we had a last minute postponement of the baptism scheduled that morning. We'll reschedule it in a couple of weeks. We continued throughout the day with good crowds at both Kids' Church and our evening worship. That evening, Darlene and Gloria returned from the Interpersonal Peacemaking Workshop held in Springfield, Virginia.
Monday night, exactly 2 years to the day that our current building was delivered, Gloria and I attended a Hearts of Pigtown community meeting to discuss the current ministries of the church and present blueprints for our building addition. The group had only positive comments about the church and its impact in the community and voted unanimously to support this plan as it is presented to the zoning board on October 30.
Our biggest surprise of the week came at 8:13 Tuesday morning when Onalee Ruth Anderson was born. This was a little over 4 weeks before her due date. She was a healthy 7 lbs 1 oz and 20 inches long. She and mom are doing well. You can see pictures of her at http://geocities.com/btkoghan/ .
Wednesday morning we had a record breaking 76 kids at SonRisers. 70 of those kids were junior high aged which basically meant that 1 in 6 of the kids at the local junior high attended SonRisers this week. Our 100 donuts a week just can't handle that big of a crowd so Danny will be getting 150 starting next week.
We adjusted the schedule this week due to Onalee's birth. We canceled Young Peacemakers on Wednesday afternoon and Wednesday night's Adult Disciples watched a video from Willow Creek on race relations. Thursday's computer lab was also canceled, but we had already planned to be closed because there was no school for students in Baltimore on Thursday.
Friday evening brought Pizza Church. We had 29 in attendance over the course of the three sessions. I taught the elementary and junior high groups and Don taught the high school kids.
Gloria and Darlene had long planned a surprise baby shower for Vonceil for Saturday. Vonceil's mom was in town to help with the baby so she came over and opened the gifts in her place.
With the zoning hearing just 10 days away, we needed to post the sign for our hearing. Ed reworked the sign from our last zoning hearing and Danny posted it on the building Saturday afternoon.
Looking ahead to next week we will have our full schedule of activities. In addition, we have our monthly Sundae Church next Saturday evening. The high school kids who come to it will be assembling our Halloween candy packets.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following families in the forefront of your prayers:
the Smead family
the Quick family
the Moore family
the Saffran family
the King family
the Pailer family
the Latham family
the Mueller family
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.cochrist-cbmc.org/powerhouse
10/28/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out with slightly smaller but still good sized groups at each service on Sunday. During the morning worship, we started a series on stewardship that will lead up to Thanksgiving. At Kids' Church, we made personal invitation cards for friends that don't currently come to church and congratulations/get well soon cards for Vonceil. During the evening service, we talked about the importance of praying in unity and then spent some time practicing that principal.
We got the new attendance tracking software that Don wrote up and running on my laptop computer. Our statistics are now up to date and we can more easily track student participation. Jason has the scanner in hand and is planning on connecting it next week. Once he does, we will be able to issue the kids "credit" cards that they can scan to speed up the attendance tracking process.
The ability to quickly enter attendance data is most critical during SonRisers. This week we had 82 kids. This does not include the kids who came 25 minutes after the tardy bell who didn't understand why I wouldn't let them in that late. Even with multiple lines going, it took quite a bit of time for all the kids just to sign in. The new system will speed up the process and let us use our contact time for more relational activities.
Those gathered at Wednesday's Young Peacemakers Club finished their project on racial relations. Next week is Halloween so the group decided to not meet since they would want to get ready for trick-or-treating.
The Adult Disciples group also decided not to meet next week due to Halloween. Many of them will be at the church helping hand out candy and cookies earlier that evening and will need some time at home. This week we reviewed some witnessing strategies that we had learned earlier in the year.
Jason came up and ran the computer lab this Thursday. When some of the kids who went to camp found out he was the one replacing Vonceil, they decided to come to hang out with him for a while. He was a favorite cabin counselor and some of the kids were anxious to renew their relationship with him.
This week some kids figured out how to turn off the electric power to the church from the outside of the building. The security system called me at home on two different days to let me know that power had been out for an extended period of time. A couple of the kids thought it would be fun to do this between sessions of Pizza Church. I guess they didn't think we would be able to catch them. They were wrong. Danny is working on finding a better way to secure the panel box.
We had 27 kids at Pizza Church. During the junior high session the topic centered around wisdom. It eventually lead to a discussion of justifiable force in self defense in relation to the commandment "Thou shalt not kill." It was a great opportunity to share thoughts and understandings as well as to teach about the need to seek wisdom from God and to learn to hear His voice before finding yourself in a tough situation.
The Sundae Church crew assembled the 400 Halloween packets to be distributed on Wednesday. Afterward, we went out for ice cream.
Looking ahead to next week we will have an adjusted schedule of activities. We will be handing out candy for Halloween on Wednesday so Young Peacemakers and Adult Disciples Class are canceled. After the contemporary service on Sunday evening we will have our monthly priesthood meeting. On Tuesday afternoon we have our much anticipated zoning hearing.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Earl
Donna
Roxie
George
Latoya
Michael
Karen
Troy
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.cochrist-cbmc.org/powerhouse
11/3/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out Sunday with our three services. In the morning we continued with our series on stewardship. During Kids' Church we made Jack-o-lanterns with Christian symbols. During the evening service, we continued our series on the presence of God.
After the last service we had our monthly priesthood meeting. Our main agenda item was reviewing and adding material to the grant we've been working on. We'll be editing and putting the finishing touches on it next week.
Tuesday brought our zoning hearing. We were able to present our plans to the board for consideration. Gloria and I attended to represent the church. No one in opposition appeared. The city accepted the plans and approved all zoning variances necessary for construction.
Wednesday morning brought our SonRisers gathering. 67 kids came this week. Rick Bunch, our Mission Center President, came up and helped with the activities. He and I met afterward to discuss the grant that our congregation is currently writing.
Wednesday evening we handed out candy packets and cookies for trick-or-treaters. Between 3:30 and 7:00 we distributed over 230 packets of candy. For part of this time, we had to take our supplies outside because the Narcotics Anonymous group had its weekly meeting in the building. Theresa, Robert, Vicky, Anne, and I had a good time visiting with all the kids.
Jason came up for the computer lab on Thursday afternoon. While he was here, he got the scan gun hooked up to the laptop computer. We'll begin the process of getting cards for the kids in the next week or so and will hopefully have the entire system up and running by month's end.
I spent some time on Friday visiting with the principals of the local elementary and middle schools. We talked about neighborhood issues and how each of us was addressing them with the kids. We also arranged for the church to provide Christmas time "thank you" packages for the teachers at each of the schools.
Friday night we had 31 kids. I taught the elementary and middle school group while Don taught the senior high kids. At the end of the middle school group's lesson, 5 kids requested baptism. After a group discussion with them, I sent them off to get parental con cent. We also had 4 kids have enough credits to earn t-shirts this Friday.
This week we had our 300th kid come to church since July. This is almost as many as we had total for July 2000 - June 2001 and we're only 4 months into the year. Our attendance pattern shows more kids coming through the doors and kids coming more regularly to activities.
Looking ahead to next week we will have our full schedule of activities. Next Saturday we also have our mission center leadership team meeting and our monthly Solid Rock Cafe. In addition we'll be focusing quite a bit of energy this week on grant writing.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Tyeisha
Brittanie
David
Theresa
Phil
Earl
Michael
Karen
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.cochrist-cbmc.org/powerhouse
11/18/01
It's been a busy couple of weeks at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out Sunday, November 4, with our three services. Don brought the communion message at the morning service. At Kids' Church, we worked on a WWJD project. During the evening service we finished up our series on the presence of God.
We continued through the week with our regular schedule of activities. Some highlights included having 85 at SonRisers, practicing how to share our testimonies during Adult Disciples, and some really good lessons at Pizza Church.
Mike Barber and I met together that Wednesday morning after SonRisers. We did some initial planning for this summer's youth camp. Based on the current attendance statistics, we knew there were some things that needed to be planned out well in advance.
Throughout the week, we spent a large quantity of time working on a grant proposal for the congregation. With the exception of some statistics that would be updated after Sunday's services, we completed it on Friday night.
We had 28 present at our morning service last Sunday. Jeff continued in his series on stewardship focusing on the topic of tithing. At Kids' Church, we taught a lesson on saying positive things rather than criticizing. During the evening service, we celebrated the completion of the grant proposal. Much of our prayer time focused on thanks for what God has allowed us to witness here and for the daily mission of the congregation.
The church building hosted activities on both Monday and Tuesday nights this week. As usual, one of our CORE groups met on Monday night. On Tuesday, the mission center's Healing Team held there meeting here.
Wednesday morning brought SonRisers. We again broke our record by having 95 kids come. There was a consistent crowd of 12-20 visiting inside and another half-dozen sitting on the cold steps throughout most of the event.
Wednesday afternoon was our Young Peacemakers Club. The group worked cooperatively to make the letters for the word "PEACE" with their bodies. We took pictures of each letter with the digital camera and created posters out of them. Upon exiting, a fight broke out between two of the kids who had just successfully completed the project. We spent some time together afterward calming them down and again discussing appropriate behavior.
That evening brought Narcotics Anonymous and Adult Disciples/Community Prayer. By the end of the day we had 131 different people attend at least one activity at the church.
We had a full house at our computer lab on Thursday. We had more than three times the number of kids as we have computers for them to use. Some kids doubled up on machines. Others took turns. A few decided to leave and try again another day.
Our personalized sweatshirts came in this week. Thursday afternoon we sorted and distributed them to those who had ordered them.
On Friday evening we combined all three sessions of Pizza Church for a baptismal service. We had 28 kids and 4 adults present to celebrate Tyeisha's baptism.
Looking ahead to next week our activity schedule will be different due to the Thanksgiving holidays. Sunday evening we'll be having our annual dessert pot luck after the evening service. Young Peacemakers Club, Adult Disciples, and Computer Lab are canceled this week.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Forest
Don
James
Tyeisha
Brittany
Salvie
Tim
Bobby
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.cochrist-cbmc.org/powerhouse
11/24/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started off Sunday with our Morning worship. As a part of the service we had an opportunity for the sacrament of administration. Several people received blessings during that time.
During Kids' Church we talked about Thanksgiving and being thankful people. We made turkeys with things we're thankful for written on the feathers. It was neat to look out the front door after church and see some of the projects taped in the windows of the kids who live across the street from the church.
After the evening service, we had our annual Thanksgiving dessert potluck. Shortly after the 28 who had gathered went through the line, word got out on the street as to what was happening. About a dozen more kids came and joined us in the fellowship.
The Hearts of Pigtown community association held its monthly meeting on Monday night. During the meeting, Gloria received an award for the work she's done this year in the neighborhood.
Wednesday morning brought 80 kids to SonRisers. One of the teachers from the local middle school stopped by. He was trying to track down some permission slips for a field trip before the school day started and he knew that there was a good chance of finding some of his kids here on Wednesday mornings.
With the Thanksgiving holidays, we cancelled our activities from Wednesday afternoon through Thursday. The only exception was the Narcotics Anonymous meeting on Wednesday evening.
This was the first year we've held Pizza Church on the Friday after Thanksgiving. We weren't sure how many would attend but thought it was worth a try since both Mike and I were in town. We ended up with 23 kids coming to the church for the activities.
A woman who grew up in Pigtown who now lives in California but attends church at the Power House when she's here visiting relatives stopped by to visit this week. She was excited to hear of what's been going on here since she was last here and described the Community of Christ as . . . "a denomination that's DOING something." She wasn't sure of here departure time on Sunday so she didn't know if she would be here for a service or not but was glad to have at least had contact with us while she was here.
Saturday evening we had our monthly Sundae Church for high school students. We had an unusually high number of junior high kids come by thinking it was Solid Rock Cafe night. It took a while to convince some of them that it wasn't me who had the schedule mixed up.
Looking ahead to next week we'll be back to our full schedule of activities. In addition, our monthly priesthood meeting will be on Sunday night after the evening service. Vonceil heads back to work on Wednesday so I'll be learning how to juggle taking care of Onalee while preparing for the ministry activities.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Michael
Damon
Holly
Cody
Kyle
Steffan
Amber
Shane
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.cochrist-cbmc.org/powerhouse
12/1/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out Sunday with our three services. In the morning, we talked about making sure we were spiritually prepared for the advent season. At Kids' Church, we watched a Veggie Tale on thankfulness. During the evening service we focused on the need to remain in the Thanksgiving spirit throughout the upcoming holidays. After the evening service we had our monthly priesthood meeting.
85 kids came to SonRisers on Wednesday morning. This was Vonceil's first day back at work so Onalee came and joined the festivities. She slept through the whole thing.
At Young Peacemakers we were talking about "Peace for the Planet." I gave each kid a pair of latex gloves and a garbage bag. We had a contest to see who could pick up the most garbage off the streets around the church in 10 minutes. They went wild. One girl came back in at the end and said, "AJ's mother came out and told us how great it was that we were cleaning up the streets. I told her, 'We're not cleaning; we're having a contest!'" All of the kids came back with full bags.
During Adult Disciples we had a brief overview of the history of the Community of Christ. Sarah Davis and a couple of her friends who were up here from Houston, Texas, came by and joined the class.
The kids were thrilled on Thursday to have Jason back running the computer lab. I had been running it while he was on vacation. Doing that is way outside of my area of giftedness so everyone was happy to have him back.
Friday's Pizza Church sessions had 29 total in attendance. I taught both the first two sessions. We studied Luke's account of Jesus' birth. Next week Mike will teach the same two groups Matthew's account. Don taught the senior high group as they continued with their study of the book of Matthew.
This weekend we were able to run the current attendance statistics for our youth ministries. As of the end of November, we've had 379 different kids come to at least one activity since camp last July. Of those kids, 19 are attending on average of at least once a week. Another 15 are averaging at least every other week while 30 more are coming at least once a month. We've had a bunch of new kids starting to attend regularly the last couple of months who aren't yet showing up in these statistics as they only have only a few credits since they started coming. So far, 26 kids have met all the requirements for camperships for next summer's youth camp.
Looking ahead to next week we'll be back to our full schedule of activities. In addition, we have our monthly Solid Rock Cafe this Saturday evening.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Joshua
Jean
Mark
Bradley
Cody
Beth
Billy
Tom
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.cochrist-cbmc.org/powerhouse
12/8/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out Sunday with 80 people total attending the services. In the morning the topic was "Love." During Kids' Church we learned the Christmas story. We then made our own manger scenes by coloring and cutting out pictures. During the evening service we began relating common secular Christmas items with Christian holiday themes.
Prior to the morning service there was a man with a dog standing on the sidewalk reading our sign. We went out and visited him for a few minutes. He lived a few miles away and had brought his dog to the park for a walk. While walking the dog he had noticed the building and wondered what it was so he came over to check it out. He said, "Wasn't there an article in the Sun paper about this place a while back?" referring to the front page article in that was in the Baltimore Sun over 2 years ago. As we parted he said that he thought he might like to come to a service "sometime." He ended up coming back just after the service had started and joined with us in worship.
As usual, Wednesday was our busiest day. We had around 86 kids at SonRisers that morning. The Young Peacemakers Club finished up their trash pick-up project by making an anit-litter poster. Narcotics Anonymous had an unusually small gathering that evening. During adult disciples, we did a critical review of the Christmas story as written in Luke and Matthew. Many there had never sat down and compared the two accounts before.
There were about a dozen kids at the computer lab on Thursday. Afterward, Danny and I sat down and worked on his plan of service for 2002.
On Friday, Mike taught the first two sessions of Pizza Church covering the Christmas story as written in Matthew. Don taught the senior high group as they continued their study of the book of Matthew. 27 kids came over the course of the evening.
Saturday night brought our monthly Solid Rock Cafe. David, Harvey, and Mandy came up from the Washington area to help out. Several of our regular attenders weren't there this week in part, I would guess, because it was raining. The crew that was there seemed to have an exceptionally good time.
Looking ahead to next week we'll have most of our regularly scheduled activities. Because there is no school on Wednesday, we won't have SonRisers or Young Peacemakers Club this week. However, we'll be spending quite a bit of time in preparation for our extra activities for the week before Christmas. These activities include Christmas caroling, preparing and delivering care packages to the teachers at the local schools, the live nativity petting zoo, distribution of fliers, and the Christmas Eve candlelight service.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following families in the forefront of your prayers:
the St. Thomas family
the King family
the Wheelton family
the Nelson family
the Quick family
the Brannon family
the Moore family
the Guthrie family
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.cochrist-cbmc.org/powerhouse
12/15/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
We had good attendance at each of our services on Sunday. During the morning service, the topic was "hope." At Kids' Church, the kids made Christmas cards. Also during Kids' Church, two girls earned their 40th credit each and now qualify for a trip to a local ice cream parlor for sundaes. At the evening service we talked about light.
Quite a bit of time this week was spent on preparation for the upcoming Christmas activities. For example, invitiations for our caroling party were printed and distributed. Fliers for our live nativity/petting zoo and our Christmas Eve service were designed, printed, and prepared for distribution. We also gathered the final materials for our teacher care packages.
With Wednesday being a teacher training day in Baltimore City Schools, we didn't have SonRisers or Young Peacemakers Club. During Adult Disciples, we reviewed the scriptures that are positioned immediately after the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke. Our prayer time afterward focused on the neighborhood issues of prostitution, drugs, addiction, and law enforcement.
Jason was back running the computer lab this Thursday. In the past, attendance has dropped off at our after school activities in December. This year it has remained strong.
We had 20 total at Pizza Church this week. During the first two sessions, we reviewed the Christmas story then explored the reasons as to why Jesus came. Don continued to teach the senior high group with a lively discussion of the book of Matthew.
Saturday afternoon, Vicky's sister-in-law hosted a surprise birthday party for her at the church. Members of both her biological family and church family gathered to celebrate.
Looking ahead to next week we'll have all our regularly scheduled activities. In addition, we have our monthly priesthood meeting after church on Sunday night. Throughout the week we'll be distributing fliers advertizing the petting zoo and the Christmas Eve candlelight service. On Wednesday during Adult Disciples, we'll be assembling the teacher care packages. We'll take them to the schools on Thursday. Saturday evening, the kids with the highest number of attendance credits will go caroling and have a Christmas party.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following families in the forefront of your prayers:
the Boozer family
the Latham family
the Smead family
the Burrs family
the Marsh family
the Hansel family
the Banton family
the Erbe family
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.cochrist-cbmc.org/powerhouse
12/22/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out Sunday with 30 people at our Morning Worship. Some friends of the King family came this week. The mother in the family had heard them telling about their daughter's blessing so she brought her kids hopping to have them blessed too. She also said that she gave her life to Christ as a teenager but had never been baptized and wanted to do so. We incorporated her children's sacramental blessing during the service and began the process for mom to be baptized. Kids' Church had a full house. We watched the Veggie Tale "The Toy that Saved Christmas." During the evening service continued with our relating commonly seen Christmas objects with Biblical concepts.
After the evening service we had our monthly priesthood meeting. Since the agenda was relatively short, we didn't have a meal during it. While we were discussing the business at hand we sorted the fliers advertising next Sunday's live nativity petting zoo and Monday's Christmas Eve candlelight service.
Monday afternoon, Joshua and I began distributing those 4000 fliers. We just got going when it started to pour down rain. We decided to meet again on Wednesday afternoon to try again.
Wednesday morning brought SonRisers. Gloria and I ran the activities and we had 78 kids stop by on their way to school.
Wednesday afternoon's Young Peacemakers Club talked about Jesus being the Prince of Peace. We then had the kids make Christmas cards with the YPC logo on the front for their teachers.
After YPC, Joshua and I again started back on our distribution of fliers. While on the 1200 block of Sargeant, two different people who we didn't know came up to me and told me that Mr. Lee, who owns the corner store, was looking for me. We stopped at his store and learned that he wanted to donate some snack food for some of our Christmas activities. We made arrangements for me to pick them up the next day.
After the Narcotics Anonymous meeting, the Adult Disciples group gathered. Instead of our class, we took the time to assemble Christmas gift packs for each of the teachers at the local elementary and middle schools. We had some great fellowship as we ran the assembly line. Afterward, we had our prayer time.
As people were leaving, Billy noticed the daily Bible reading guides I'd picked up earlier that day at the Maryland Bible Society. Shirley, his mother, then began to tell how she had gotten the one for 2001 from the church last December, that she had stuck with it all year, and what a difference it had made both in her studying and in her life. Billy took his copy and a new Bible to start his own study for 2002.
We learned of the progress of the renovation of the old Montgomery Ward building. This giant building adjacent to our neighborhood had been abandoned for nearly 20 years before plans were accepted to turn it into an office complex employing upwards of 3500 people when completed. The best news that we heard was that the 25% of the space in the building has already been leased and they will begin to be occupied during 2002. This will have a significant economic impact on our neighborhood.
On Thursday Gloria, Onalee, and I took the Christmas packages to the local schools. While at the elementary school we learned that the students had been adopted by the students of a local private high school and that those high school students had purchased, wrapped, and distributed personalized Christmas gifts to each student. During our brief visit with the junior high principal, she shared with us her testimony of God's call on her life to be a principal in this neighborhood.
Also on Thursday I was able to pick up the donation from Mr. Lee. He gave us two cases of Pepsi and 120 individual bags of chips. Jason came up and ran the computer lab. While he was doing that, Joshua and I hit the road again with our fliers. We stopped by the elementary school and the principal personally posted some of the filers in prominent locations in the building. By 6:00 we had distributed a total of 1500 so far this week.
Mike taught the first two sessions and Don taught the third session of Pizza Church this Friday. The excitement for the night came when Alan, a kid who used to come regularly but had moved to Georgia this summer and was back in town for a visit, came to church with his friends.
Saturday morning Don, Robert, Joshua, and I again hit the road with fliers. By about 2:00 p.m. we had distributed approximately 2000 additional fliers. These trips, in combination with Gloria taking stacks to the village center and the library, brought our total to around 3500 fliers distributed this week.
Saturday's Christmas caroling was our first activity in the neighborhood that was limited to the kids in the top 25 for attendance. After a quick practice, we donned our choir robes and hit the streets. While we were walking from one block to the next, one of the younger kids excitedly exclaimed, "Pastor Jeff, I'm so proud of myself for being able to do this!" A person in the community who has never been to the church but likes what we're doing provided funds for us to do something for the kids around Christmas time. We purchased 6 feet of giant subs from Subway and used the chips and pop donated by Mr. Lee for a party afterward.
Having the kids more conscious of their attendance has given a good number of them incentive to be here more often. Joshua (not the one distributing fliers) found out last week that he had slipped off the "Top 10" list and was now number 11. He attended a couple of services this week that he normally would not have attended so that he could be back on the list. Donald and Justin are brothers that are in constant battle to see which one has the most credits. They have been sneaking into church activities when the other wasn't looking to try to be the one in the lead.
One of our congregation's goals is to have going to church be the "normal" thing kids in this neighborhood do. We hit a milestone this week as the 400th kid come through the door since camp. That breaks all annual records and we still have six months to go.
Looking ahead to next week we'll have a different schedule of activities due to the Christmas holiday. The live nativity/petting zoo will replace Kids' Church on Sunday. We will have our candlelight service on Christmas Eve at 7:00 p.m. We will be closed on Wednesday except for the Narcotics Anonymous meeting and there will be no computer lab on Thursday. A week from Sunday at the morning worship will be Onalee's baby blessing.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Harry
Shane
Samantha
Brittanie
George
Amanda
Justin
JR
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.cochrist-cbmc.org/powerhouse
12/29/01
It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out Sunday morning with a near full house for worship. The topic for the message was "Peace." After the service, Mike, Gloria, and I stayed around to prepare for the arrival of the animals.
Kids started arriving for the 3:00 petting zoo by 11:55 a.m. By the time the farmer arrived over 70 kids had gathered. When it was over, around 275 people, young and old alike, had come to see the animals. The farmer repeatedly expressed his delight in the fact that the kids were asking questions about the animals in relation to the Christmas story. He indicated that these kind of questions are rare even when he does a live nativity at a church. At the end of the event, once the animals had been put back in their cages, the farmer let several of the kids help carry the lighter cages to the trailer.
As the animals were leaving, some of the people who were sponsoring families for Christmas arrived. We delivered food and gifts to four households. Gloria had delivered the gifts to another family at an earlier time.
During the evening service, we focused on prayers for our world and the condition we find it in. One family that we met at during the petting zoo came back to worship that night. Afterward, we spent a little time getting the building ready for the Christmas Eve service.
Danny and I got together on Monday to finish getting the church ready for the candlelight service. This service traditionally has a very high attendance so we worked out a way to cram in all our stacking chairs and some additional folding chairs. We also place the 100 candles strategically throughout the room.
That evening we ended up using all the chairs. Over fifty people crammed into the building to celebrate Jesus' birth. The service featured the reading of scripture texts interspersed with traditional Christmas carols, a short message, and a prayer of blessing. Afterward, several kids stayed around to blow out the candles. Danny cleaned up the church on Tuesday.
We had a reduced schedule for much of the rest of the week. Because there was no school, we cancelled Young Peacemakers, SonRisers, and Computer Lab. The adult disciples group took the Wednesday night off. Narcotics anonymous was the only activity on Wednesday.
Friday night brought Pizza Church. As sometimes happens over the holidays, we had a smaller than usual group. 19 kids came that night. I taught all three lessons.
Saturday evening, Danny set up the font. We have both baptisms and a baby blessing scheduled for Sunday morning.
Looking ahead to next week we'll have all our regularly scheduled activities. In addition, we will have baptisms and a baby blessing on Sunday. We will also be having a luncheon after the morning service on Sunday.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following people in the forefront of your prayers:
Joan
Luke
Joshua
Alan
Brittany
Cody
Angelique
Dustin
Thank you for your continued prayer support.
Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
"Building the KINGDOM of GOD Here & Now"
PowerHouseMD@juno.com
www.cochrist-cbmc.org/powerhouse
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