Wednesday Update

Wednesday means it's time for a Northeast campus update. Here goes ...

- I met with David Vela from North Point Church and Hugo Garcia from Cornerstone Fellowship, both of whom are pastors in the Northeast. You can read about my meeting with them here, but I just want to say that I really appreciate their openness, their hospitality, and their willingness to work with us and help us succeed. I like guys like them and guys like Greg Hunt from Paseo Christian Church and Buck Zengerle from Healing Place Church El Paso. These guys have told me they want our campus to succeed and that when we win, they win. I would say that it goes both ways - when they win, we win, because it's all about the Gospel and the Kingdom of God!

- I met with a couple on Sunday at lunch to talk with them about the wife joining our NE campus staff as kids' ministry director. The husband said he would support his wife whatever she does, and the wife wanted to say "yes" on the spot but knew she needed to pray and talk with her family about it. She called me yesterday and told me she'd let me know by tomorrow what her decision is. Thing is, she'll only be able to work with us for a little over a year, so we'll have to go into it knowing that we have to find another person to work beside her and train under her to take over when she leaves.

- It's spring break this week so I haven't been able to make much progress as far as looking at a couple of alternatives to meet at if Dr. Nixon Elementary doesn't come through, and at talking about some more details of renting the facilities there at Nixon. I've been thinking a lot about it though; I actually dreamt about doing kids ministry there on Monday night and spent most of Tuesday morning thinking about it. It's going to be tricky, but I think it'll be doable. They're offering us rooms adjacent to the cafeteria, but I think it would be much better if we could use classrooms instead.

- So since it's spring break, I've spent a lot of time reading. I went to the only Starbucks in the Northeast yesterday to do some of that reading because I figured I'd rather be there than just sit at the Del Sol offices and read. Yesterday I finished reading "The Volunteer Revolution" by Bill Hybels, kept reading "Courageous Leadership" which is also by Hybels, and started reading "Multi-Site Churches: Guidance for the Movement's Next Generation" by Scott McConnell. And when I finish those, I have a stack of (literally) about 20 other books I need to read through, and about 40 more on my Amazon "to buy later" list.

- On Monday night I met with Josh & Nicki Sattelmeier (two of our staff team members) to talk through the pre-launch timeline some, talk about the budget, and talk about some things we need to work through before our next launch meeting. I definitely think we made some real progress there.

- I spent much of the day today taking spiritual gifts tests and personality tests to help better understand myself and how I lead. I'm going to ask my staff to take some of those tests as well, and then we'll all sit down and talk about our results so we can better understand each other.

- I also started working on a ministry plan today that we can present to potential financial supporters, 'cause we really need God to provide enough to pay for our launch costs.



So here's how you can pray for me and the Northeast campus this week:

1. My sleep cycle has REALLY been off lately. It's been terribly difficult for me to fall asleep before midnight or 1 am, and so it's been really hard to be up as early as I really want/need to be. Because of that, I haven't been able to get down to the office until 10 or even 11 am by the time I wake up, exercise, go running, have breakfast, invest some time in prayer and in the Bible, and then shower up. I'd really like to be in the office by 9 am - that would give me so much more time to get some work done and free up more time later in the day to meet with people, but to do that, I really need to be out of bed by 7 am. So please pray for me to sleep better and to be able to get up at 7 am.

2. Pray that God would clearly show us where He wants us to meet. It really seems like Dr. Nixon is the best location, but it would be SO much better if we could use classrooms instead of the adjacent rooms they're offering. They told me that there's just no way we can use classrooms, but like the old song says ... "God can make a way where there seems to be no way".

3. Pray for Josh, Nicki, and myself as we work on a budget and a ministry plan to present to potential financial supporters, and pray that God would show us who to ask to support our launch. I'd really like to see Him make it rain, but I also know that sometime He guides by what He doesn't provide. So I guess what I'm saying is ask God to provide whatever He's going to provide and to show us how to do what He wants us to do with whatever He gives us.

Thanks SO much for your prayers!



Post Script: If you have about 24 minutes and want to get a really good idea of what we're getting into in being a portable church, check out this awesome video from Oak Leaf Church in Cartersville, Georgia (a suburb just north of Atlanta).