July 3 Coffee Church Highlights
Happy Independence Day! I am so thankful to live in a country where we can openly hold our beliefs and express our opinions. What a gift! I hope you had a safe and memorable holiday weekend with family or friends.
We had CRAZY fun Sunday!
We started the morning with a nice drizzle to set up our OUTDOOR baptism service! Everything was wet, but it dried off in time to set up…and then it started drizzling just in time for our brunch. We scrambled to move the food inside, but then we started service in the rain anyway. ‘Cause we are a church in Washington and that’s what we do! We worshipped a couple of songs with the rain spitting on our heads, but then the clouds parted just in time for baptisms.
As usual, baptisms at the Coffee Church means an entire audience full of people crying. We love to hear the stories of changed lives and God NEVER ceases to amaze me! Congrats to Izzy, Addy, Adam, Alex, Savannah, and Sarah on your declaration of serving Jesus with your whole hearts. We look forward to seeing all that God does through each of you! Thank you so much for sharing your commitment with us. It is by your words that we are all encouraged to stay on mission for Jesus. Baptism is a public declaration of the fact that God is STILL CHANGING LIVES.
We have pictures up on our Facebook page – North Creek – The Coffee Church. Thank you to Rick Donovan and Meghan Hoss for capturing these important moments!
Right after service, we loaded up an entire church full of stuff in preparation for the building closing and moved it to storage. It is always INCREDIBLE to watch how fast things happen with 100+ hands working. It was a mixed bag of emotions seeing that building empty. Another chapter closing always brings both sadness and anticipation of what God has for us.
I did find it interesting that out of our six baptism candidates, one girl was with us from the bar we renovated on Hwy 99, one was from our Battle Ground campus, one was from our Hazel Dell campus, and three were from our services at Prairie High School/Youth Group at the Link Church building. As we have moved, we have taken pieces of Clark County with us. There is a purpose to it all! That being said, I’m pretty excited to find a permanent home and stay put! My back is too old for this!!! 😉
Our teenagers made it back from camp with truly deep stories of God working on areas in their hearts and lives. He broke them free from grief, anger, bitterness, jealousy…and on and on. He taught them how to worship, how to seek Him, and how to surrender. Thank you to all of you who helped our teenagers get there with work opportunities, scholarships, and prayer!
A little side note to those of you who bounce around from church to church….You will never be all that God wants you to be until you commit to a group of Christian people and decide to walk alongside of them through thick and thin. Even I have wanted to leave in the midst of conflict or challenge, but since that option is complicated for us, we stay and work through what God wants us to learn. It is with that mentality that I have found myself flocked with people who love me inspite of my shortcomings. People will only really be real with you when they trust that you’re in it for the long haul. That right there is the greatest gift in the world. Stay put and fight for relationships. It’s a beautiful war that you need to fight with yourself.
See you Sunday!