I want to encourage everyone to register for Celebration Midwest. The event is scheduled for Friday June 6-Sunday June 8. We don’t want to leave anyone behind. We have taken up a collection to help pay every adults way up to $60 per adult. We will not be having a Sunday meeting at 728 Heylman on that Sunday June 8.
We need some help as we go. Gabrielle is in charge of putting together a team who will teach one of the Kidzoone sessions. I believe we have the 3rd graders this year. It is a blast and you will be amazed at how fast the time goes with these kids.
I need help with administrating the adult recreation activities on Saturday June 7 in the afternoon. I will need leaders to help run the volleyball and basketball tourneys inside the gym and I will need someone to help organize soccer and ultimate friisbee outdoors.
Youth: You will not want to miss the Oneblaze sessions at Celebration Midwest. Matt Sweetman has some great stuff lined out for this weekend. Let’s pack the house. (by the way, I got Oneblaze St. Louis stuff in the mail this week. pick one up at church tomorrow.)
Don’t miss this great opportunity to have some fun together and get to know the other churches that we are on a mission with in the US.
Christ’s Church of Joplin has extended an invitation to us to attend their Equipped session this Sunday evening from 4:30 – 7:30 PM. They are going to be using this time to train small group leaders.
I really appreciate being invited into these training sessions. Please consider going and being trained. We will need to leave 728 Heylman by 3:15 to get there in time for the meeting.
Please RSVP so I will know which vehicle(s) to take.
This Sunday we will continue our offering for Celebration Midwest at Warrensburg. We had a great offering this last week.
Thank you so much. We still have a long way to go to get everyone there.
We will pass a sign up sheet around on Sunday to get a sense of how many people are going. This is not the same as registering. It is only a quick count to see how we are doing on reaching our goal to have everyone go to Celebration Midwest in 2008.
If you are going and would like to get in on the early bird registration, please fill out a registration sheet by or before April 27. That is only three weeks away.
“I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.”–Kierkegaard
I got this quote through an e-mail from a brother in Burundi Africa. I really like it. It encourages me that there is a cumulative effect to the work we are doing. It isn’t always the big event or the latest greatest thing; it is often just in the daily devotional acts to our savior that battles are won and walls are torn down.
As I was preparing to give the Alpha talk Tuesday night, I was reminded about the great theologian Augustine’s mother who prayed for him. She labored for over 9 years in prayer before he became a Christ follower. It is said that the great evangelist D.L. Moody prayed for 100 of his friends throughout his lifetime. He saw 96 of them get saved while he was alive and the final four became followers of Jesus at his funeral.
These stories remind me that we are in an endurance race. Sometimes we see marked progress and sometimes it seems we notice any progress at all.
In times like these I need to be reminded of God’s faithfulness to fulfill promises. I also need to be reminded about what some of those promises are. The biggest promise I live out of is the one found in John 15:16, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit–fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.”
We are here to bear fruit. I am holding on to this promise. I am praying for 100. I am praying that we will see fruitful harvest. I am praying that we will be a church that transforms the culture around us because we are transformed. We are not just a Sunday morning meeting, we are the people of God on mission, together.
Have a great week. I’ll see you Sunday.
