12/19/2010

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

It started out on a rainy Sunday with Morning Worship. As expected, we had a bit smaller group as it's harder for people to get to church in the rain. The social work student from the University of Maryland who contacted me last week joined us for the service. Afterward, Vonceil lead her on a tour of the Peace Pavilion then we visited about programming and services in the community. Meanwhile, Tamara worked with some kids on making the T-shirts they'd earned through church participation.

As is traditional here at Christmas time, we showed the Veggie Tale flick "The Toy that Saved Christmas" at Kids' Church. Most of the kids who were at the service hadn't seen it before. With the rain and darkness, the big screen, and the lights turned out it gave a theater-like feel to the event.

That evening was our annual Christmas concert with The Arundel Singers. With the rain we were worried about having more than just a couple people in the audience. The choir itself was a few minutes late coming from their earlier concert, too. Once things got started, though, we ended up having a good sized group for the event. This included some kids who came and brought a parent with them.

We had some new appliances scheduled to be delivered to our house this week. One active participant in the church knew of someone who could use the things we were replacing so he brought some friends by on Monday night to haul them away.

When the mail came on Tuesday we received grocery store gift cards from the Towson Congregation. These will provide a Christmas feast for a family in these tough economic times.

Tamara took one of our young adult members Christmas shopping on Tuesday evening. They had a fun time shopping and a good chance to talk about some more serious issues as well.

Around 105 kids stepped out of the bitter cold wind on Wednesday to take part in our SonRisers activities. During that time we had a couple of kids who had earned T-shirts come by. They were the first to receive ones from the supply we got last week from the Ottawa, Ontario, congregation.

Later that morning Nick came to the church and we worked together on the Christmas Eve mailing. Before we ran out of stamps he also put the labels on our youth ministries mailing that will go out the second week of January.

That evening after the NA meeting, Gloria, Tammy, Patricia, and Violet gathered to assemble our Christmas gifts for people who work at our local schools. The gift this year was a "Teacher's Night Before Christmas" poem with a candy cane and a couple sheets of stickers.

When I came over to the church later that night I found a set of keys on the table. I called Gloria and we determined whose they were so we got them returned before the owner knew they were missing.

A lot of time this week was spent on cleaning, planning, and organizing. I discovered the top of my desk. A friend contacted Gloria about another organization who was giving our Christmas baskets so we recommended a few families in the congregation. We sorted through recent copies of magazines (like Guideposts and the Herald) to set out at the church for those who don't subscribe.

First thing Friday morning I headed out to the schools. I took the Christmas gifts to the elementary school and had a brief chat with the secretary and the principal. I then took the gifts to the charter school. They didn't know that the gifts were coming so they were quite surprised.

When I got home I had a call from Ron. Carol had baked cookies for Sunday's Kids' Church Christmas Party and he and I needed to rendezvous to get them to the church. He was leaving work at the hospital right around the time I would be driving by it while bringing Onalee home from school so we met up in the circle drive and had a smooth hand-off.

Friday night brought Pizza Church. All three sessions had been studying the Christmas story for the past couple of weeks. Since this was the last Pizza Church before Christmas their job was to take the elements of the story and put them in order. Larry, our President of Seventy, Bill, our Mission Center President, and Dick, Bill's brother, joined us for the activity. All three sessions went very well.

People spent the day Saturday getting ready for Sunday's events. Gloria got the turkey ready to go in the oven Sunday morning so it would be set for the Christmas dinner Sunday evening. Vonceil baked cookies to add to the ones Carol baked for the Kids' Church Christmas Party.

Tamara took a group of our high school kids to the movies on Saturday evening. They were seeing the newest Narnia movie and talking about the Christian principles found therein.

Looking ahead to next week we have a different schedule of activities. We have Morning Worship on Sunday followed by the Kids' Church Christmas Party that afternoon. Some young adults from the Mid-Atlantic Mission Center are coming down to help staff the party. Sunday evening at 6:00 is our monthly Celebration Service followed by Christmas Dinner. We'll be distributing invitations for the Christmas Eve Service to every house in the area over the first few days of the week. We'll also need to put together the January newsletters for Kids' Church and Pizza Church. (To do so we'll need to do some curriculum writing as well.) On Wednesday we have SonRisers, NA, and the Mid-Week Service. We have some Christmas dinners and/or gifts to give to anonymously to people in the neighborhood. I'm officiating a wedding on Friday afternoon. Instead of Pizza Church on Friday evening we'll have our Christmas Eve Service that night at 7:00. Though our regularly scheduled Saturday activities will be cancelled on Christmas Day, we'll need to get things ready for next Sunday's services that day.

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

The Smallwood Family
The Kerler Family
The Iman Family
The Gray Family
The Mills Family
The Purnell Family
The Cox Family
The Taylor 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/