12/11/2010

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

It started out Sunday with Morning Worship. All the first-time visitors from last week returned this Sunday. Jeff and Beth were back for the first time since moving back to the area. With them they brought some boxes of young peacemaker T-shirts and hats that the congregation they'd been a part of had donated to us. After the communion service, many people stayed and visited for quite a while. We locked up the church about an hour after the service ended.

We reviewed the Christmas story at Kids' Church. We then made Christmas cards to send to friends.

Because of the many extra events in the schedule over the next few weeks we moved our Priesthood Meeting to Sunday afternoon. Two of the primary topics of discussion were the plans (or lack thereof) for snow removal this winter and the situation regarding raising funds for camp next summer.

Sunday evening brought our annual business meeting. We elected and/or sustained congregational officers and approved our budget for 2011. After the business meeting, Bill (our Mission Center President) and I had a dinner meeting together.

We were greeted with a flat tire on Monday morning. When AAA came to change it we learned that the spare had been stolen when the car had been stolen. We were able to get the situation resolved in time for me to get to Charlotte's house in Germantown. After lunch together I brought her keyboard back to Baltimore. We're borrowing it for Sunday night's Arundel Singers concert and for Christmas Eve.

That evening we had a conference call with pastors throughout the Mission Center. In it we discussed new plans for next summer's reunion.

On Tuesday I made some connections promoting the Arundel Singers concert. I visited with Joe at the Laundromat and got some posters hung up there. I also got in touch with Ms. Frieda who usually promotes the concert at the AME Church and brings friends with her when she comes.

108 kids participated in SonRisers on Wednesday morning. We had been warned that the T-shirts we'd received might be a bit musty and that we would want to wash them. Each trip home from the church that day, then, included a bag full of shirts to run through the washer. That evening after the NA Meeting we had our Mid-Week Service.

I met with the art teacher from school 34. We looked at some of the Peace Pavilion items and thought of ways to improve them for next year. We also went through the bulk of the the "Peace for Us" materials and looked at ways add some color and display them well.

That evening Bill Brian was on his way through town so he stopped in. We had dinner together and had a good visit.

I had a message on the answering machine when I got to the church Friday afternoon. A graduate student from the University of Maryland School of Social Work had run across the Pigtown Peace Pavilion on the internet and wanted to know more about it. She's planning on attending Morning Worship on Sunday then touring it and visiting with us about it for a few minutes afterward.

Friday night brought Pizza Church. Our groups were generally smaller than they've been the past several weeks but still had a good number of kids. We continued with our study of the Christmas story.

Mailing lists were the order of the day on Saturday. We worked on getting the labels ready for the Christmas Eve mailing and a youth ministries promotional mailing for the first of the year.

Our monthly Solid Rock Cafe was on Saturday night. We had a good sized crowd that behaved fairly well. Several of the boys spent the bulk of the time in the bathroom working on their hair.

Looking ahead to next week we have our full schedule of activities. In addition, we have the Arundel Singers concert on Sunday evening at 6:00 p.m. Some members will go home from the concert and log on to the Christmas service being broadcast live from the Temple via the internet at 8:00 p.m. We'll be assembling the teacher care packages on Wednesday during the Mid-Week service time and will be preparing the Christmas Eve mailing mid-week as well. Larry McGuire, our President of Seventy, will be joining us for our Christmas Pizza Church on Friday. We'll also be preparing for the 12/19 events which include the Kids' Church Christmas Celebration and the Christmas Dinner.

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

The Eisenhardt Family
The Bolaski Family
The Burrs Family
The Mueller Family
The Glaesar Family
The Sturgill Family
The Buckner Family
The Bunner Family

Thank you for your continued prayer support.

Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
“Building the Kingdom of God Here and Now”
PowerHouseMD@Juno.com
www.pigtownchurch.org
http://thisweekatthepowerhouse.blogspot.com/