Saturday, December 25, 2010

12/25/2010

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

It started out Sunday with Morning Worship. We talked about how, like that wise men, when we encounter a God who loves us enough to become Emmanuel that our dreams change and we take our life down a different road.

Between services the Paulsons arrived along with the friends they brought with them. They set up for the Kids' Church Christmas Party then had time to finish putting stamps on our Christmas mailing and the one for January, too. I had underestimated and bought only 300 stamps so I'll have to get some more in order to complete the January mailing. Gary took the Christmas mailing to the post box that evening.

We opened the doors to the Kids' Church Christmas Party at 3:00 p.m. Upon entering, each kid got to choose from either a box of markers, colored pencils, or crayons for a Christmas gift. They were then free to spend as much or as little time at each of the centers we had set up. Vonceil supervised the cookie decorating center where the kids frosted, added sprinkles, then ate cookies she and Carol had baked. Tamara supervised the coloring center. The rest of the crew supervised the Nintendo Wii center, the Lego center, the UNO center, the checkers center, the sticker page center, and the Tinker Toys center.

We normally finish Kids' Church at 3:45. We'd had absolutely no behavior problems so we extended the activities for another 15 minutes. One girl's older brother arrived to take her home at the regular dismissal time. I think she was having a good time as she told him, "I'm not going home until they make all of us go home."

About 25 people came to the Celebration Service and Christmas Dinner that evening. It was an almost completely different crowd than the ones at either of the other services. Gloria had baked the church's 20 lb. turkey and the church provided cookies for people to decorate. Others took part in a vegetable potluck. We polished off every morsel and had a great time visiting together.

We started distributing the postcards in the neighborhood on Monday. That day we covered the Camden Crossing and Round House Square areas of Pigtown. Once that was done I worked on putting together a wedding for later in the week, finalizing the order of worship for Christmas Eve, and contacting people to staff that service.

Damon and I distributed postcards on Tuesday. We covered several blocks on the 21230 side of the boulevard. Afterward we drove out to Wendy's for lunch. There we met two of our young adults who were filling out job applications

While we were distributing fliers we'd run into another young adult who had been active in church as a kid. I knew that he worked for the city but was surprised to see him pull up in a big green city dump truck. We were able to chat for a few seconds. Our main topic of conversation was about some people he was trying to find on Facebook. I was able to help him connect with those friends once I got home.

With fewer than 70 participants we had a surprisingly small SonRisers on Wednesday morning. Those in the office at school 34, however, were very pleased to receive a few dozen leftover donuts later that morning.

Later that morning we finished our postcard distribution as we covered the 21223 side of the boulevard. That evening was the NA Meeting and the Mid-Week Service. Following that service we prepared for a Staples run by printing off the orders of worship for Christmas Eve, Sunday (12/26), Sunday (1/2), Pizza Church Press, and Kids' Church News.

With that, we spent some time on Thursday in Staples getting the copies made and organized. When we got back home Marjorie was waiting for us. She updated us on some potential new initiatives in the neighborhood as well as updated us on some current programs, some of which are not functioning well.

When she left I got a call from Paul's Place Outreach. They'd finished their Christmas toy distribution and had a few toys left over. They wondered if we had any use for them. I arranged to meet them a few hours later.

Upon my arrival I learned that we have very different definitions of "a few." With the large quantity of toys and games I sent out a text message calling all hands to the church that evening to wrap gifts for kids. We had planned to set up the church that night for the Christmas Eve Service but the toys now took priority. Damon, Carlo, Fred, Tamara, and I showed up to work. We wrapped, sorted, and packaged the gifts from 7:30 until nearly 11:00 p.m. In the end we had presents for kids in 24 different households.

We also learned on Thursday that Salem had died. Though I don't think he'd ever been to church at the Power House, he was a close relative of several members and friends of the congregation. He had been hospitalized for over a year prior to his passing.

Tamara and I loaded up the van and delivered presents on Friday morning. We were able to surprise a lot of people in just a couple of hours.

At 1:00 that afternoon I officiated at a wedding. It was held in the couple's home just a few miles away. They're friends of many people in the congregation and have been at a high percentage of the weddings and funerals I've done over the years. It was a really neat ceremony in front of their Christmas tree.

After the wedding I had some gifts for families that still needed delivery. After that was finished we finally got around to setting up the church for the Christmas Eve Service. This takes more time than usual as we have more elaborate worship centers, configure the chairs for a bigger crowd, place candles throughout the building, and the like. Tamara designed some amazing worship centers for the event. Along with this, Bryce came to the church to practice the song he was playing on his trumpet at the service.

We'd gotten several calls and questions during the day about Pizza Church. The kids had been informed repeatedly that the Christmas Eve Service replaced Pizza Church this week yet confusion seemed to abound. I decided to be at the church by 5:45 in case kids were still confused and came looking for pizza.

By 7:38 a crowd had gathered for the 7:30 service. Charlotte played the keyboard. Vonceil ran the A/V equipment, Bryce played the trumpet, Tamara and Lennard read the scriptures, Earl offered a Christmas blessing, and I presided and shared several short messages throughout the service. Afterward a quick clean-up afterward, I took Gary out for some dinner and dropped him off at home. I went back to the church to close up. Of course, once I got home I noticed that I'd left something important there so had to go back and find it.

As is our tradition, the offering at the Christmas Eve Service is called our Christmas Gift to Jesus. The monies received go to support a project somewhere outside our neighborhood. This year the congregation helped purchase a water purification system for a village in a developing country. We don't have a grand total yet, but it looks like we'll have raised enough money through this offering to provide nearly 70 people with clean drinking water for the rest of their lives.

Robert got to the church not long after I left it on Christmas night. I finished my final sermon preparations a little earlier than usual and he came over to set up for Morning Worship since he wouldn't be there the next day to do so.

Looking ahead to next week we have a different schedule of activities. Sunday will include Morning Worship and Kids' Church. With school closed we will not have SonRisers on Wednesday morning. We will have the NA Meeting on Wednesday evening but have cancelled Mid-Week Service that night. We'll be closed on Friday because of New Year's Eve. Our regular schedule resumes on Sunday, January 2.

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

The Carroll Family
The Wilson Family
The Smith Family
The Battle Family
The Sykes Family
The Braxton Family
The Boozer Family
The St. Thomas 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/

Saturday, December 18, 2010

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/

Saturday, December 11, 2010

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/

Saturday, December 4, 2010

12/5/2010

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

It started out Sunday with Morning Worship. Four new people from two different households joined us in worship that morning and all stayed after for visiting. The Livingstons were responsible for the Advent candle lighting portion of the service.

When I opened the box for crafts that afternoon I quickly realized that the manger scene sticker pages we'd planned to use were missing stickers of the baby Jesus. This would not do. With I quickly dug through some other projects in the boxes and turned a more general Christmas stocking project we had planned to use at a community event into "Happy Birthday Jesus" stockings by using some sticker lettering.

That evening Tamara and I took two teens out to Friendly's for ice cream sundaes. They had earned the trip through attending church more than 40 times since July.

The Christmas Eve postcards we'd ordered a few weeks ago arrived on Monday. This was just in time as some were to go in the envelopes with "Kids' Church News" and "Pizza Church Press" on Tuesday.

Crystal and Tamara decorated the church for Christmas on Tuesday evening. Tamara also started planning how to decorate for the Christmas Eve Service.

Pouring rain and strong winds greeted us on Wednesday morning. Even in those conditions we still had 96 kids participate in SonRisers that morning. About a dozen of them came for the first time.

On Wednesday afternoon we welcomed a first grade class to the Peace Pavilion. After the evening's NA meeting and Mid-Week Service, I switched out the welcome banner in the front of the church with our Christmas banner.

Two classes, one third grade class and one fifth grade class, came to the Peace Pavilion on Thursday. The third grade teacher's comment upon leaving was, "I wish I could bring them back here tomorrow." I took that as a sign that things went well.

While the kids were in the balcony Nick was in the front room. We were a little behind in getting our newsletters in the mail so he finished stuffing, sealing, and labeling the envelopes. He and I will be working on our upcoming mailings later this month.

The computer system at Staples had a glitch in it on Friday morning when I went there to run copies. It didn't recognize our copy card, then our tax exempt number, then our rewards number, then my own debit card. It took over an hour to get just a few copies made. However, during all the waiting I found some materials we can use for the Peace Pavilion and some stickers we can put with our teacher Christmas care packages. They were all on final clearance.

Though we had one last class scheduled for the Peace Pavilion on Friday, they didn't show up. With the very full schedule both at the church and the school between now and Christmas we may not get it rescheduled for some time.

Friday night brought Pizza Church. Numbers were down from our record-setting group last week. After the first session, both parents of one kid who started coming about a month ago came by to check us out. They were pleased and excited about what they saw and are interested in participating in other activities, especially some of our Christmas activities this month. At the start of the second session, one of the new families from Sunday morning came by to drop off their teenaged daughter. The senior high group brought some unique challenges as we discovered bottles of alcohol in some kids' pockets once the lesson was over.

In between the Pizza Church sessions Tamara started working with kids on making T-shirts. The "Make a Power House T-shirt" prize is awarded when kids have come to church 20+ times since July. We have over a dozen that are ready to make their shirts. Two made theirs on Friday and a few more made appointments to make them in the upcoming weeks.

Some students from Loyola came by on Saturday. They were working on a project in their sociology class comparing and contrasting two neighborhoods in Baltimore. Pigtown was one of their assignments so we spent about 90 minutes discussing issues in and dynamics in the neighborhood.

Looking ahead to next week we have our full schedule of activities. In addition, we have our monthly Priesthood Meeting on Sunday afternoon and our annual business meeting on Sunday night. After the business meeting I'm meeting with our Mission Center President. On Monday I'm going to Charlotte's house to pick up the keyboard she's lending us for a few weeks. That evening I have a conference call about next summer's Mission Center Reunion. We'll be working throughout the week in marketing next Sunday evening's Arundel Singers concert and updating our mailing lists for the Christmas Eve Service postcards. The art teacher from school 34 is coming by on Wednesday to work on some Peace Pavilion projects. Saturday is our monthly Solid Rock Cafe.

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

The Hampton Family
The Eaddy Family
The Battle Family
The Munoz Family
The Ratcliffe Family
The Meyers Family
The Woodrow Family
The Covington 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/