Thursday, March 19, 2009

Life Comes At You Fast

That was a slogan of Allstate's for a while a few years back. It was best illustrated in a picture I recieved which then became my computer background while working the scheduling desk for my squadron in the Air Force. It was a 3 part picture of former Ohio State running back Marice Clarett. The first was him as a freshman diving over the goaline for a touchdown in Ohio State's upset of Miami to win a national championship. The next was his proud day at the NFL draft following his only college season. The last picture was his mug shot taken only months after the draft day picture and then you read the Allstate slogan.

It seems life never slows down and only speeds up until the sweet release of death. 2009 is coming at all of us fast. We have a P.O. Box, a rough but existing website, and soon the government will ordain us. For the Jones' and Weights' information it is looking very favorably for Michelle and I to get a house from Quadrant Homes and to move in some time in July. We just went browsing on Monday and here we are ready to build a home, it happened fast. We have all prayed and prayed about this church and the things necessary to make it happen. It seems the Lord is throwing it at us faster than any of us thought. But the Lord's plans do not always look like ours. And that is always good. Doing things His way has never let anyone down. I find it refreshing to see swift action as one who spends the majority of his typical day sitting listening to others talk for hours. Combined with this and countless other hours of hearing about what should be done for the church it is great to see and be a part of something which is being done for the church. So as life comes at us fast, when we tired we'll take breaks, but otherwise let us keep planting, watering and growing. Our Savior didn't go to the cross so we could simply wait for Him to come back. He gave us enough work to keep us occupied.

Semper Fi

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Pressing On

Hey gang, here's an update on how we're progressing since our last meeting. Several developments I'd like to inform you about and some things to keep in your prayers:

- Besides planting churches, one of the other reasons the Westside congregation in TX wanted to send a missionary to the Northwest was to help some of the struggling congregations in the area. Since moving up in early '08, we've worked with the Moses Lake congregation and the Kibler Ave. congregation. As of this week we'll now be working with the Shelton congregation. There is a two-fold blessing in this. (1) It supplements the Green family's support until we are able to get other brethren to chip in. (2) It provides much need help to a congregation that is struggling.

- Talked to Chris and he is making progress on getting us incorporated, getting us a PO box and opening a bank account. Sounds like it may take a little more time than expected to get some of the incorporation stuff done, but it's moving along.

- Our website should be off the ground and running soon. This will give us a place to funnel people who have questions about our work. Right now it will be equipped with just basic information about our work and ministries. It will be some time before we get the multi-media stuff up and running. Got any ideas about stuff you'd like to see on the website initially? Post it on the blog.

- Keep these things in your prayers: Natalie and Michelle and the babies on the way-TJ and Mike's fund raising-Doors to open to build relationships with people in the community-TJ and I and our work in the community next week-Russ and Tracie and the decisions they have to make regarding building their home and his parents and grandfather moving out-For wisdom and guidance for each of us as we patiently press on with this effort.

THOUGHT: "Of all the people you know, how many of them can say they were the first people to take the gospel into an unchurched community and bring the benefits of pure and simple Christianity to a community of lost souls...To me at least, that's something to be proud of!"

To the glory of God and the strenghtening of Christ's church,
Mike

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Welcome to the Internet

One of the aims of this blog is for us to be able to submit ideas for ministry for everyone to see and think about so that we don't take up time in our meetings for more important issues. As you all know I'll be doing our webpage, planning to have it up in June. I know Mike has some ideas of what it should do, but what about everyone else? The internet has become such a second nature thing in people's lives. People want to be able to check out a church before they worship or visit many times. This includes non-Christians who begin to think about becoming involved in a church. I take some time every now and then just to look at other church's webpages. The good ones seem simple but not boring. Informative without being overloading. Of course most have a "what we believe" section, this sometimes however only makes sense to those in the church of Christ. We need something that other congregations can see and know what we teach and at the same time easily communitcating to the lost. Take sometime over the next few weeks if you would and look at some church's websites. What do you like, what do you find useful? If you have already thought about it; what would you like to see on our site that will make it useful in ministry? This thing of course is my responsibility but it represents all of us as we try to make an impact for Christ in DuPont.