Well, the Summer has flown by and as usual I didn't get most of what I wanted done.
Looking back at my previous post I see that I earmarked 3 overriding goals for the Summer. The bad news is that I didn't get them all done. The good news is that God was doing many other wonderful things.
To review...
I did enjoy fellowship with God, however, it was not in quiet contemplative times of meditation and prayer rather it was in the midst of chaos that I found his "still quiet" voice.
As for my goal to read more, I started very well and got through some great books early in the Summer. At some point later I will do a post about the book "Exponential" by Dave Ferguson. It definitely has had a deep impact on me. As the Summer got busier I found myself depleted of the time and energy needed to keep up the frenetic reading pace I had begun.
As for my book writing project, it never got off the ground.
So what did I do this Summer?
I received a call from a group asking if our church had any outreach ideas that needed funding. I informed them that we have wanted to do a VBS and Block Party but haven't had the funding or a building to do so. They said that if we found the building they'd provide the funds. In the span of three weeks God provided a building with great outdoor grounds, local retailers willing to donate food and various items, unsaved volunteers, mobilized our church to action, and "made it happen"! Rick Warren used to say, "God creates waves, we just need to recognize them and ride them." That is exactly what our church witnessed.
When most churches have a VBS they have the children in their church come out and ask them to invite their friends. We have one child in our church, my five year old daughter. This meant that we were asking people in our community to send their children out to attend a VBS put on by a new church of 20 people who don't have a building. 12 kids came out, and 4 of the 6 families represented by those children are unchurched. In other words, God has opened an awesome door to minister to these families from our community. For 4 nights I transformed myself into "Uncle B" and presented lessons from Genesis 1-3 under the theme "God Made You & God Loves You". Then, at the end of the week we celebrated with a Block Party for the community. Just over 60 people came out and in that group were more unchurched families.
We also had our second baptismal service this Summer. What made this special was that it was highlighted by reconciliation between our church and another conservative Baptist church in our community. Since before our church started I have prayed and done everything on my end to bring reconciliation between that Pastor, myself and our two churches. I have always had the conviction that if we say we believe the same thing we ought to be able to partner in ministry. After years of prayer I received a letter from the Pastor of that church seeking forgiveness and reconciliation. He then offered his church facility for us to utilize for our baptism.
We had two men get baptized. Both of them had unsaved extended family attend. One of them, a young man, also had almost a dozen unsaved friends attend. Also, members of the hosting church attended. The gospel was clearly shown and presented and God was glorified.
Finally, I was invited to speak at a Christian camp outside of Binghamton, NY. I brought my family with me and spoke to Jr High youth 3 times a day for a week. It was an awesome privilege to lead young people to the Lord, to see young people re-dedicate themselves to God, and to interact with counselors who are young adults.
Well, that was the "Big Stuff". There was more which will be in future posts, but for now the big question is, "Where do I go from here?" I'm trying to decide if I want to change, or tweak, the previous format. I'm going to take the rest of the week to consider this a bit more and then officially start posting again next Monday.
SO, thanks for following and Lord willing we'll meet again on Monday.
ps
Some of you asked what happened to the "follow" link.
I have put it back on the page.
For those that don't know what I'm talking about, one of the links on the right side of the page lists those who follow this blog and allows you to sign up to follow this blog. By signing up to follow the blog you will automatically receive an email every time I post. How cool is that? No more checking the site to see if I have posted, you will be notified automatically. I encourage you to utilize this feature!
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