1/15/2011

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

It started out Sunday with Morning Worship. Earl and Janet surprised us by bringing in a cake to celebrate the new year. After the service we had lots of prayer requests as well as a time for sharing in cake together.

At Kids' Church we learned the story about Jesus in the temple when he was twelve. We then made necklaces. There was cake left from Morning Worship so each kid to had a piece for snack time.

That night was our monthly Priesthood Meeting. Though the actual agenda was a little shorter than usual, we had some lengthy discussions and went a bit overtime.

I got a call from Donna on Monday. She wanted to make sure that her nursing classes could meet at the church on Wednesdays this semester. We also put a tentative date on the calendar for a community health fair.

We were greeted with snow and a two hour delay for the start of school on Wednesday. Because of this, we had a small group of kids for SonRisers that morning. Still, 28 kids found their way to the church for donuts.

The leftover donuts did not go to waste. We put a few dozen in the freezer for next month's Solid Rock Cafe. We then took three dozen to each of the schools for the teachers and staff. They were quite excited to see us come.

The bitter cold weather that day kept participation low at both the NA Meeting and Mid-Week Service. Afterward we spent a few minutes organizing the materials in the Peace Pavilion as we prepared to transition from "Peace for Me" to "Peace for Us."

On Thursday we packed up the "Peace for Me" materials and stowed them in the attic. Earlier in the week we had arranged a schedule for kids from School 34 to come to the Peace Pavilion the last week in January so we needed to get the process going.

We also spent quite a bit of time writing curriculum and lesson plans for Kids' Church and Pizza Church. Though we usually plan in 6-month increments, we set out plans for the full year. By then end of the day we had the lessons and crafts scheduled for all but 4 Sundays in 2011. We have a rough outline for Pizza Church but still have some work to do on those plans.

We also received a notice on Thursday from the Baltimore Community Foundation. They are the group who manages the grants from the Fresh Air Society which gave funding to send 10 of our kids to camp last summer. The grant for this year is due the first week in February so we had to get right on it. Since the grant has to come from the camp rather than from the congregation, I contacted Sarah and she pulled her files from last year to start working on it.

Under Gloria's leadership, the church was used as a rendezvous point on Friday. People met there in conjunction with their work in the park.

Friday night brought Pizza Church. We had very small groups all evening. Sarah brought her grant materials and we spent a few minutes updating and reviewing it. We also discussed other fundraising potential. These topics are more pressing than usual because of the dramatic increase in youth participation, the steep rise in camp costs, and the difficulty in raising funds in the current economy. We also touched on the need to raise funds for sending a few kids to Spectacular this summer as well.

We had originally planned to take some kids who have come to church 40+ times since July out to Friendlys on Saturday. With the Ravens playing Pittsburgh in the playoffs that night we decided to postpone that trip.

Looking ahead to next week we have our full schedule of activities. In addition, we have our monthly Celebration Service on Sunday evening at 6:00. We'll be setting up "Peace for Us" in the Peace Pavilion. I'm meeting with Bill on Thursday and will be out of town for some training at the end of the week.

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

The Riddick Family
The Ghaffar Family
The Stewart Family
The Johnson Family
The Jackson Family
The Lancaster Family
The Spence 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/