11/12/07 UPDATE

This week was insanely busy and really up and down. The good news is that it was more up than down.

One good note is that I had several very good and productive meetings. One was with a guy who is not part of the church, but showed real interest.

The biggest bummer of the week is that the prospective worship leader we were praying for decided that God was leading him to pursue another opportunity. It really sounds like a great opportunity for him, but it was a bummer for us. The "Who will lead worship" question has really been weighing on me. I'm trying to get a schedule put together for several months, but haven't been able to do it. As a result, I've been going week to week. I spent almost all week calling everyone I knew to lead worship and couldn't get anybody who was available. In case you don't know, that is extremely stressful. Finally, on Thursday night, I secured someone to lead for us. Again, God provided, but He and I definitely define "on time" differently.

Wednesday night we had our first Bible study. We had three other ladies, Jacqueline, and myself. I left a little down because it was one of those times that I didn't feel like my teaching was really connecting. Everyone said it was good and helpful, but I'm not so sure. Continue to pray for out meetings on Wednesday night.

Leighton turned 5 on Friday, so I took the day off to hang with him. We did the traditional Chuck. E. Cheese trip followed by McDonald's. it was a fun day for everyone.

Sunday was our lowest attendance so far. We had 29. There were a lot of "regulars" who weren't there. The good news is that there were two first timers and one family of "not in awhilers." Set up went really well, since J'line and I took time to organize the trailer and all our stuff on Saturday.

Two very cool outcomes: One, the speakers we have were buzzing really badly. It was very distracting and frustrating for me. Afterwards, a guy told me that one of the speakers was blown - not good. however, he said, "I was sitting there listening to it and it was starting to irritate me, but I felt like God wanted me to give you a set of speakers that I have to replace them." That was very good news.

Two, I got a call from a guy who has led worship for us a few times. He said to pray for him because they were strongly considering joining our congregation because they really believed in what we were doing and how we were going about it. He said that it wasn't contingent on leading the worship or anything, he just wanted to help. Please pray for them to know for sure what God is saying to them.