August 14 Highlights

I was happily back at our church after a week being gone! Love my little bar…

Here are this week’s highlights:

Every church has problems. Ours happens to be that we have great attendance in August, which means we are feverishly planning for fall growth! I will gladly take this particular problem.

Jace Lundervold called me a “Little Hottie” today. So what if he’s four years old.

Indiana brought in a bag of money for our new building. Rock on! She’s in elementary school and I can’t wait to see that dream come true for her (and all of us!).

Mark spoke on offenses…yep, that cuts right to the heart of so many of our struggles! We need to live in peace and freedom at all costs. Sometimes that is easier said than done.

Alissa lead worship for us today! Great job to the whole team! You put Alissa, Matt, and Emily on microphones at the same time and I am blessed! What incredible voices!

Rachael, our Kid’s Chaos Organizational Genius, is out of town in Montana. She normally keeps Kid’s Checkin, the Little Adventurer’s and the nursery functioning. Whenever she’s gone and I do her job, I love her more. Dear Board, I will be asking you for a raise for this woman at our next meeting. It is well-deserved! She seems to calmly keep the whole world turning, while I am a distracted, sweaty mess. If you had the “pleasure” of trying to talk to me this morning, you know what I am talking about.

My friend’s little girl was born three years ago with a heart defect. I remember praying for that baby through the surgery and talking with my friend about it through tears. Since then they have started coming to church (and the heart defect is long healed)! I was holding up that little girl today to help her wash her hands over the sink and saw the scar on her chest in our reflection in the mirror. It was a reminder that God is faithful, He has a plan, and our job is to pray and believe for the people that God has put in our everyday lives for their most important needs. When I prayed those many years ago I had no idea how important that family would become in our lives! So grateful for how God orchestrates our relationships!

Would you join us in praying about our future? We have a great vision for a coffee shop geared for parents with kids, plenty of room for teenagers, and several other side ideas to best utilize our facility to impact Hazel Dell. We have been focusing on the 78th street car dealership, but recently we have had another opportunity that could work equally as well. Same vision, similar location, better financial situation…bottom line…wherever this journey of faith takes us is fine as long as God is driving! We definitely know WHAT we are called to do, so we will leave the WHERE up to Him! We just want wisdom and open doors.

In the meantime…if we had about another $200,000 in the bank, we could get moving toward our future immediately. Thank you to those who continue to give! Now is the time!

Jeff and Angela Welk, who helped launch this church, had a little baby girl named Avery this week. Congrats and we love you!!!!

Love our people, love our staff, love our God! We continue to enjoy ministry and pastoring this church. We are so blessed by your support through growth, lots of decision making, and a little chaos now and again. Have a great week!