Here's the latest update on the Northeast location:
- Things have been so busy – in very good ways, as you’ll see below – that once again it’s been two weeks since I sent out the last update. Thanks for bearing with me about that.
- As a church, we’re just about to start Vision 10.10.80, an exciting new giving emphasis over and above the regular giving of our Del Sol Church family. The “10.10.80” means that 10% of the total amount given will go to expand our World Missions activities, another 10% will go towards our Northeast location to help us grow and become established as another location of Del Sol Church, and the remaining 80% will go towards paying off the balance for construction of the Children's Ministry Center at our East campus so that we can continue to use our budget to fund ministry, rather than having to use it to pay off a mortgage.
- I’ve been working with Walter to prepare for Vision 10.10.80, and we’ve had some short deadlines to meet, so I’ve had to focus a lot on that the past couple of weeks.
- On Saturday, we had another workday at the NE location and thankfully, we were able to probably about 85% of the painting done that needed to be done. For the rest, we’ll be going out at 1 pm this Monday, October 12th, to hopefully finish up. If you’re interested in helping us finish painting, please email or call me and I’ll give you more info.
- We’ve continued to meet on Tuesday nights at the NE location, praying, worshipping through music, doing a Bible study, and preparing to serve the community. Last night, we spent the bulk of our time going down a few streets in the community, letting people know that in two weeks, we’ll be back ready to serve them - no strings attached - by doing minor house cleaning and maintenance (changing smoke alarm batteries, vacuuming carpets, washing windows, polishing mirrors, etc).
- A couple of ladies on our launch team took it upon themselves to bake some small loaves of blueberry bread to give to people as we went door to door, so we also gave those away to many people, with a card on it that basically said the bread was a free gift in the name of Christ and to contact us if there was any other way we could serve them. We also offered to pray for people if they wanted us too.
- Afterwards, we came back together, shared stories and prayer requests, and talked about what the next step is to keep Serving the World by serving the community around the NE location. For the most part, we were well received by the people whose doors we knocked on; we had responses ranging from fear of not knowing why we were there, to shock and disbelief that we would want to serve a stranger with no strings attached, to excitement about the NE location opening up.
- One lady we talked to said that her daughter had been telling her mom that she wanted to go to church, so the mom was very excited that we’d be meeting right by her house and said she’d be there whenever we start meeting.
- Based on the general openness and excitement from the community, I believe that God has hearing your prayers and has been going before us, preparing that community to receive us well as we step in to tell them about the Gospel and to create environments where they can Love God, Love People, and Serve the World.
Here's how you can pray this week:
1. God is working in our Tuesday night gatherings, building up momentum and giving people a vision for the Northeast location. Please continue to ask God to work in us and through us on the launch team as we prepare to launch this Northeast location.
2. Along the same lines, ask the Lord to send us more volunteers to join our launch team. Ask Him to speak to people at our East campus about whether He wants them to be involved in launching the NE location.
3. Pray for those in the community that we met last night. Ask the Spirit of God to work in the hearts of all the people we met last night, that they would understand that we want to serve them with no strings attached, that they would be open to us and to the Gospel, and that they would spread the word and create a buzz about the Northeast location among their friends, family, and neighbors.
Thanks for your prayers - I truly believe they make a big difference.
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