01/28/08 UPDATE

This has been a crazy week. Juanita, Jacqueline, and Leighton left suddenly on Friday to go to TN. Juanita's brother-in-law (Verlin Wheeler) passed away, so they went down for the funeral. Please pray for them. Jacqueline and Leighton will be flying back in on Friday.

I stayed here with the boys and had a crazy weekend trying to juggle everything. The really cool thing was seeing all the people who were willing to help and just do the stuff that was needed. Several people at church just jumped in without even being asked and started getting it all done. At the Bible study, they just grabbed everything that was needed to serve the food, etc. In addition, several people helped me out personally. My neighbors watched Jackson while I took Andrew to a birthday party. Jeff and Kelly took both boys to the zoo on Sunday afternoon while I cleaned up and got ready for the Bible study. It was really amazing to see them all pulling together.

Yesterday went really well. We had 32 (25/7). Of those 25 adults, 4 were first time visitors. I spent a lot of time praying this week that we would have people come from a variety of means - personal invitation, an advertisement we have on the back of a local grocery store receipt, and the signs we put out every Sunday morning. Of those 4 visitors, 1 came from the receipt and 3 from personal invitations.

The Bible study also went well. We had 16. Several people spoke up to share things that God was doing in their lives.

In addition, there are several things that are really coming together for us right now. They all require a great deal of time and planning on my part, so I could really use your prayers in the next few weeks.

- We have a new sermon series starting on Feb. 17th. I'm working to develop advertising, etc. to go with it. I think it will be a big time to draw some new people in. The series will be "Snapshots: Maybe you need to take a second look at Jesus." We are really going to focus on people misconceptions about church and look at Jesus' views on those subjects.

- We are working to put together the strategy for our small group ministry. With the way the Experiencing God group has taken off, several "confirmations" i've received lately, demographic feedback from our area, and my own personal makeup, i think this is going to be a huge part of our ministry. Jeff and I are going to begin working on that this week.

- I also have several guys interested in in-depth training and mentoring. I've got to figure out what to do, how to do it, and where to go with it. I'm really excited about the prospects.

- There are several not fun projects that have to be done, such as drafting by-laws and the constitution.

Thanks for praying.