It’s been a busy couple of weeks at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started Sunday, May 15, with Morning Worship. During our time together we continued our series on God's purposes for us. Afterward, a friend stopped by to see if we had space and time available for another NA group needed to meet at the church.
At Kids' Church we learned the story of Thomas. The kid/adult ratio made our plan for a "blind taste test" a bit too edgy so we had a tasting party instead and tried to tie it in with the story as much as possible.
More kids than adults came to the Celebration Service that evening. Just as the potluck dinner was ending the heavens opened and the rain poured down. For those who live more than 3 blocks away, I started shuttling people home in my van. I ended up making three trips. While I was out doing that some latecomers came in for the potluck. It was nearly 9:00 by the time Gloria and I could lock up the church and go home.
111 participated in SonRisers that Wednesday. That afternoon the kids from the Paul's Place after school program came to "Peace for Everyone" at the Peace Pavilion. They cleared out just in time for the NA meeting and the Mid-Week Service.
I spent a few hours on Thursday meeting with Bill and Blair, the outgoing and incoming Mission Center Presidents. We toured the neighborhood and church facilities, discussed issues, and had lunch together.
On Friday I flew to Michigan to be the guest minister at a retreat. Tamara and Robert were in charge of Pizza Church that evening. They had a good crowd and all the sessions went well.
Earl presided over the service on Sunday morning and Vonceil brought the message. Tamara and Vonceil led Kids' Church that afternoon.
Once I got back we discovered that one of the church's windows was broken. Some of the younger kids on my block were quick to tell stories about how it happened. This is only the second window that's been broken at the church since moving to James Street eleven years ago.
SonRisers broke its all-time participation record on this Wednesday. 138 kids signed in for donuts. We also noted that a couple kids came in to visit but never made it past the registration table. We also turned away about a half dozen kids once we had closed.
Because the remaining days this week were each projected to have only 24 hours in them, we cancelled Mid-Week service on Wednesday evening so we could work on tearing down "Peace for Everyone" at the Peace Pavilion. Though we let people know that afternoon of the schedule change, we had more people come to the door that evening than the last month's Wednesdays combined.
On Thursday we worked on getting our signs and banners ready to change over for summer as well as writing and printing the June editions of Pizza Church Press and Kids' Church News. While I was at Staples running the copies the manager gave me a bag full of packets of silly bands for the kids at the church. That afternoon I spent time on the phone making sure I had the correct materials for "Peace for the Planet" unpacked. Onalee and I then started sorting things out and setting up for next week's visit from school 34.
It being a warm day lots of people were out on the streets Thursday evening. We've had a large turnover in residents in the past 9 months so we've being conscious of being especially present in the evenings and letting people know about the church.
Our sound system's speakers have been bad for quite some time. This week we had someone offer to pay for new ones for us. I hit the Memorial Day Weekend sale at Guitar Center on Friday and found some that should work better than the ones we had.
Friday night brought Pizza Church. We've had many kids the last few weeks who have come to other activities (SonRisers, Peace Pavilion) that have started exploring Pizza Church. Hopefully we'll be able to make some lasting connections there.
Tamara and I met up at the church on Saturday morning to arrange the learning centers in the Peace Pavilion. We made a list of odds and ends that we needed to complete the centers and spent time that afternoon working the list. We also installed the new speakers and tested them out.
Saturday night brought our monthly Sundae Church. We had a full house for this event and the kids consumed six boxes of ice cream.
Looking ahead to next week we have our full schedule of activities. In addition, we have classes from School 34 coming to the Peace Pavilion on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons. We should hear this week as to whether or not we will get a grant for camp and will have to respond to the information quickly as registrations are due this week. We'll be changing out our banners and signs to reflect our summer schedule. Our newsletters are due out mid-week. We also hope to take a couple kids to Friendly's next weekend for the trip they've earned.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following families in the forefront of your prayers:
The Harris Family
The Jones Family
The Nickerson Family
The People Family
The Ruby Family
The Carnes Family
The Saffran Family
The Fleming 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, May 28, 2011
Saturday, May 14, 2011
5/15/2011
It’s been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out Sunday just after midnight with a baby born to a member of our congregation. This was a fitting way to start out Mothers Day.
At Morning Worship we continued our series on our purpose in life. Tamara provided roses for each woman in attendance as a Mothers Day gift.
We talked about Mothers Day at Kids' Church. Each of the kids then made and decorated pinwheels as gifts for their mothers.
On her way over to the Priesthood Meeting that evening, Vonceil discovered some of the neighbor kids using the Peacemobile trailer as a jungle gym. They were quite happy standing on top of it until she arrived.
At the Priesthood Meeting we had a long agenda of seemingly random items that needed to be addressed. Of course, we added a "what to do about the kids on the trailer" item to the agenda upon Vonceil's arrival.
After each of the scheduled activities on Sunday we went out hunting for signatures on camp forms. We ended up with a surprisingly successful day registering 8 kids for camp. One woman who was reluctant to send her daughter last year said, "She can definitely go to camp. It was such a positive experience for her last year and ever since she's been better at getting things together in her life."
We spent some time early in the week in email conversation with the folks at the Laurel Congregation. They have a little bit of land with their building and we worked out a plan for us to park the Peacemobile trailer there for the time being.
When I got up Wednesday morning to go get the donuts I ran into trouble in the church parking lot. Though I wasn't completely blocked in, the way people had parked made it nearly impossible for me to get my van out. After about 15 minutes of inching back and forth, a neighbor who was parked across the street came out and moved his van. I was now able to back straight out and across the street then have room to turn to go down the block.
110 kids participated in Wednesday's SonRisers activities. Once we closed up shop Tamara helped me get the trailer hooked up to the fan. I hauled it out to the Laurel church and parked in by their garage.
While entering the attendance data later that morning I glanced up at the television and saw on of our kids on the broadcast. "Live with Regis and Kelly" was honoring a teacher from Baltimore that day and one of our kids was pictured in a clip from his classroom.
In the afternoon we worked on setting up a means of donating to the congregation through our web site and blogs. Though still working on the details, we now have a "donate" button set up on most of our sites.
After opening up for the NA meeting that afternoon we were able to catch some parents at home to get camp form signatures. After the NA meeting one of its participants stayed and joined us for our Mid-Week service.
Once everyone left, Joshua came by. We had canceled the cable service at the church and needed to run wires from the antenna to the television. Since he trained in electronics he had all the tools and skills to do it right. Meanwhile, the kids who would have been climbing on the trailer chose to spend their time throwing rocks at the building instead.
On Thursday we spent some time in the morning painting new lines on the parking lot. While outside we had some time to visit with the neighbors who were out and about that morning.
We learned earlier in the week about who our new Mission Center President would be. On Thursday we were surprised to learn of a change in the assigned Apostle, too. That makes the second time in less than two years that we've had a complete change in the administrative supervision of our congregation.
We were able to catch up with the assistant principal at School 34 on Friday. We were able to set tentative dates for their kids to come to "Peace for the Planet" at the Peace Pavilion.
There was a mix-up with one of the plane tickets we'd purchased for getting a kid home from Spectacular. The airlines acknowledge their error but it took several phone calls throughout the week to straighten things out. At this point we have a new ticket but are still waiting for funds credited back to us.
We've experienced a change in demographics of the kids participating in church this year. With that, we're trying to get ahead of the curve by adjusting some of our marketing for Bible School and other summer activities. We spent some time updating and printing our summer flier so that we can start getting them in the hands of kids coming to SonRisers beginning next Wednesday.
Friday night brought Pizza Church. We had more normal sized groups this week in all three sessions. Afterward, Tamara bounced some camp programming ideas off of me.
Tamara met up with the other camp leadership on Saturday to spend time on the new campground. They were to plan out logistics and get a better feel for the facilities available.
Saturday night was our monthly Solid Rock Cafe. The kids seemed to relax and enjoy themselves and some even tried to teach me a game of cards.
Afterward I made a trip to the train station. I was there to pick up Quentin who was arriving back in town now that the semester at Lancaster Bible College was over.
Looking ahead to next week we have our full schedule of activities. In addition, we have our monthly Celebration Service on Sunday evening. This will include a potluck dinner. The after school group from Paul's Place will come through "Peace for Everyone" in the Peace Pavilion on Wednesday afternoon. Throughout the week we'll be working on completing our camp registration forms.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following families in the forefront of your prayers:
The Riddick Family
The Bagley Family
The Whitley Family
The Bonnett Family
The Spence Family
The Johnson Family
The Bryant Family
The Jackson 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/
It started out Sunday just after midnight with a baby born to a member of our congregation. This was a fitting way to start out Mothers Day.
At Morning Worship we continued our series on our purpose in life. Tamara provided roses for each woman in attendance as a Mothers Day gift.
We talked about Mothers Day at Kids' Church. Each of the kids then made and decorated pinwheels as gifts for their mothers.
On her way over to the Priesthood Meeting that evening, Vonceil discovered some of the neighbor kids using the Peacemobile trailer as a jungle gym. They were quite happy standing on top of it until she arrived.
At the Priesthood Meeting we had a long agenda of seemingly random items that needed to be addressed. Of course, we added a "what to do about the kids on the trailer" item to the agenda upon Vonceil's arrival.
After each of the scheduled activities on Sunday we went out hunting for signatures on camp forms. We ended up with a surprisingly successful day registering 8 kids for camp. One woman who was reluctant to send her daughter last year said, "She can definitely go to camp. It was such a positive experience for her last year and ever since she's been better at getting things together in her life."
We spent some time early in the week in email conversation with the folks at the Laurel Congregation. They have a little bit of land with their building and we worked out a plan for us to park the Peacemobile trailer there for the time being.
When I got up Wednesday morning to go get the donuts I ran into trouble in the church parking lot. Though I wasn't completely blocked in, the way people had parked made it nearly impossible for me to get my van out. After about 15 minutes of inching back and forth, a neighbor who was parked across the street came out and moved his van. I was now able to back straight out and across the street then have room to turn to go down the block.
110 kids participated in Wednesday's SonRisers activities. Once we closed up shop Tamara helped me get the trailer hooked up to the fan. I hauled it out to the Laurel church and parked in by their garage.
While entering the attendance data later that morning I glanced up at the television and saw on of our kids on the broadcast. "Live with Regis and Kelly" was honoring a teacher from Baltimore that day and one of our kids was pictured in a clip from his classroom.
In the afternoon we worked on setting up a means of donating to the congregation through our web site and blogs. Though still working on the details, we now have a "donate" button set up on most of our sites.
After opening up for the NA meeting that afternoon we were able to catch some parents at home to get camp form signatures. After the NA meeting one of its participants stayed and joined us for our Mid-Week service.
Once everyone left, Joshua came by. We had canceled the cable service at the church and needed to run wires from the antenna to the television. Since he trained in electronics he had all the tools and skills to do it right. Meanwhile, the kids who would have been climbing on the trailer chose to spend their time throwing rocks at the building instead.
On Thursday we spent some time in the morning painting new lines on the parking lot. While outside we had some time to visit with the neighbors who were out and about that morning.
We learned earlier in the week about who our new Mission Center President would be. On Thursday we were surprised to learn of a change in the assigned Apostle, too. That makes the second time in less than two years that we've had a complete change in the administrative supervision of our congregation.
We were able to catch up with the assistant principal at School 34 on Friday. We were able to set tentative dates for their kids to come to "Peace for the Planet" at the Peace Pavilion.
There was a mix-up with one of the plane tickets we'd purchased for getting a kid home from Spectacular. The airlines acknowledge their error but it took several phone calls throughout the week to straighten things out. At this point we have a new ticket but are still waiting for funds credited back to us.
We've experienced a change in demographics of the kids participating in church this year. With that, we're trying to get ahead of the curve by adjusting some of our marketing for Bible School and other summer activities. We spent some time updating and printing our summer flier so that we can start getting them in the hands of kids coming to SonRisers beginning next Wednesday.
Friday night brought Pizza Church. We had more normal sized groups this week in all three sessions. Afterward, Tamara bounced some camp programming ideas off of me.
Tamara met up with the other camp leadership on Saturday to spend time on the new campground. They were to plan out logistics and get a better feel for the facilities available.
Saturday night was our monthly Solid Rock Cafe. The kids seemed to relax and enjoy themselves and some even tried to teach me a game of cards.
Afterward I made a trip to the train station. I was there to pick up Quentin who was arriving back in town now that the semester at Lancaster Bible College was over.
Looking ahead to next week we have our full schedule of activities. In addition, we have our monthly Celebration Service on Sunday evening. This will include a potluck dinner. The after school group from Paul's Place will come through "Peace for Everyone" in the Peace Pavilion on Wednesday afternoon. Throughout the week we'll be working on completing our camp registration forms.
Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following families in the forefront of your prayers:
The Riddick Family
The Bagley Family
The Whitley Family
The Bonnett Family
The Spence Family
The Johnson Family
The Bryant Family
The Jackson 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, May 7, 2011
5/8/2011
It’s been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.
It started out Sunday with Morning Worship. We had exactly half as many people in attendance as we had on Easter Sunday, several of whom were not present on Easter. What would happen if everybody came at once? We started our series focusing on our purpose in this world.
At Kids' Church we reviewed the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. We had a corresponding coloring page and then a choice of a word search or maze to complete. Afterward some people came by for pastoral visiting and prayer.
By the way people parked, my van was blocked in the church parking lot on Monday morning when I was to take Onalee to school. I had to wake up a neighbor to get them to move out of the way.
101 kids participated in Wednesday's SonRisers program. We had a couple dozen donuts left over so we took them over to to the charter school for the staff.
We spent a chunk of the day working on getting invitations to camp and the corresponding forms ready. We're still fundraising and waiting on our grant funds but the forms are due soon so we have to move forward.
We did some work with the Peace Pavilion this week. We coordinated with Paul's Place for their after school program to come to "Peace for Everyone." We tried to set up times for "Peace for the Planet" with the School 34 but they had a fire in the building so that threw off their rhythm for the week. We also set up a new web site for it that you can see here.
That afternoon the NA group let me know that they may need to cancel their marathon they had scheduled for later this month. Our Mid-Week Service started reading "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" together.
Thursday's main focus was on camp. We spent time distributing invitations and then getting signatures from parents whose kids received their invitations last week. We had a couple families who had been to camp before that signed the forms at the same time they were given their invitation. ("Pastor, we don't need time to think about it. It's all they've talked about since last year and they are going. Can we just sign the forms now?")
The folks at Baltimore's Child left a message on our answering machine this week. They were wanting to publish information about this summer's Bible School program and wanted to make sure they had it right.
Friday night brought Pizza Church. We had large groups all night and ran short of pizza in the end. All groups did a quick review of the 10 Commandments. To open the discussion this Mother's day weekend, I asked which one of the commandments might be especially appropriate to remember this weekend. Though I hoped for "Honor your father and mother" as the answer, the first one given in one group was, "Do not murder."
We did quite a bit of running around on Saturday trying to get signatures on camp forms. We were generally unsuccessful until late that evening when we were able to track down one kid's mom.
Looking ahead to next week we have our full schedule of activities. In addition, we have our monthly Priesthood Meeting on Sunday evening. Next Saturday evening 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 Stewart Family
The Carnes Family
The Shorter Family
The Ceo Family
The Ghaffar Family
The Burley Family
The Pettis Family
The Butler 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/
It started out Sunday with Morning Worship. We had exactly half as many people in attendance as we had on Easter Sunday, several of whom were not present on Easter. What would happen if everybody came at once? We started our series focusing on our purpose in this world.
At Kids' Church we reviewed the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. We had a corresponding coloring page and then a choice of a word search or maze to complete. Afterward some people came by for pastoral visiting and prayer.
By the way people parked, my van was blocked in the church parking lot on Monday morning when I was to take Onalee to school. I had to wake up a neighbor to get them to move out of the way.
101 kids participated in Wednesday's SonRisers program. We had a couple dozen donuts left over so we took them over to to the charter school for the staff.
We spent a chunk of the day working on getting invitations to camp and the corresponding forms ready. We're still fundraising and waiting on our grant funds but the forms are due soon so we have to move forward.
We did some work with the Peace Pavilion this week. We coordinated with Paul's Place for their after school program to come to "Peace for Everyone." We tried to set up times for "Peace for the Planet" with the School 34 but they had a fire in the building so that threw off their rhythm for the week. We also set up a new web site for it that you can see here.
That afternoon the NA group let me know that they may need to cancel their marathon they had scheduled for later this month. Our Mid-Week Service started reading "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" together.
Thursday's main focus was on camp. We spent time distributing invitations and then getting signatures from parents whose kids received their invitations last week. We had a couple families who had been to camp before that signed the forms at the same time they were given their invitation. ("Pastor, we don't need time to think about it. It's all they've talked about since last year and they are going. Can we just sign the forms now?")
The folks at Baltimore's Child left a message on our answering machine this week. They were wanting to publish information about this summer's Bible School program and wanted to make sure they had it right.
Friday night brought Pizza Church. We had large groups all night and ran short of pizza in the end. All groups did a quick review of the 10 Commandments. To open the discussion this Mother's day weekend, I asked which one of the commandments might be especially appropriate to remember this weekend. Though I hoped for "Honor your father and mother" as the answer, the first one given in one group was, "Do not murder."
We did quite a bit of running around on Saturday trying to get signatures on camp forms. We were generally unsuccessful until late that evening when we were able to track down one kid's mom.
Looking ahead to next week we have our full schedule of activities. In addition, we have our monthly Priesthood Meeting on Sunday evening. Next Saturday evening 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 Stewart Family
The Carnes Family
The Shorter Family
The Ceo Family
The Ghaffar Family
The Burley Family
The Pettis Family
The Butler 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/
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