The Beat Goes On...

We had another outreach this past weekend. We passed out cookies for all the males in honor of Father’s day. I always find it interesting and amusing that people always think there are strings attached to giveaways. Many guys seemed apprehensive at first. This says a lot about our society. We seem to think that nothing in this world is free. This may be the case for many things in our life but it is not a principle. Principles are timeless and remain the same regardless of the situation. I believe this is one of the issues with accepting Christ as Lord and Savior. In our minds there is always something for us to do in order to earn salvation or earn a gift. By the very nature of the word, gift assumes that something is given for free. Overall, the cookies were accepted by many guys. It was appreciated by a lot of them as well. It was good to see our team out in the community. We had more people than we needed but it was still good.

This past weekend also marked a milestone in our family. Our oldest daughter graduated from high school this past weekend and now will be looking at going to college. One down…three to go. Now, we need to focus on the last three. Isaiah, the youngest started school the same year our oldest graduated. That is interesting. I never thought about it until today.

Amazingly, the time between our services seems like it has taken forever. Time actually seemed to slow down this month. I feel like there are so many other things to do but I’m not too worried about it. Everything will be done in due time. We received our latest door hangers late last week. They came out exceptionally well. We are learning something new with each thing we do. I never claimed to know it all and this helps to take the pressure of me and the team. I view everything as a chance to learn something new. These door hangers have definitely been a learning experience. It has been a time of growth for me as well. This…my friends, is one of the biggest things that our church wants to be about…GROWTH! If you really want to grow in your faith then start taking leaps of faith for God. He wants to grow us. The question we need to ask ourselves is…how much do we want to grow?

Until next time…

Crossroads Vineyard Church

Week in Review...

Last week I spent three days in Chicago learning how to conduct multiethnic conference type workshops. Overall the training was pretty informative but the major event that happened during the training was talking to the National Church Plant Director for the association of churches that I belong to. It was great talking to someone who has a wealth of experience and knowledge in the subject of church planting.

Our church’s inaugural Clean the Bay Day effort went really well. We have about 17 people show up to help clean up Birchwood Malibu Park. I got to the site around 8:30 and it was HOT already. We spent about an hour on the effort. I was really happy to spend the time cleaning up. It is our job as Christ followers to make sure we take care of our community. A great way I have found to do that is by taking advantage of events like Clean the Bay Day. The next community clean up type event I will look into may be Adopt-A-Park.

This weekend we will do a cookie outreach to guys for Father’s Day. The last outreach we did for Mother’s Day went really well. We pray for the same amount of results this time as well. Many kids will graduate this weekend also. The city of Virginia Beach will have tons of new graduates this Saturday. My eldest daughter Katherine will be one of those graduates.

As we move into the summer months, I need to start focusing on two things for the church: 1) funding and 2) the community letter. The community letter will be put together as a result of doing a survey in the community. I feel if I can survey at least 100 people about church and their attendance then that may be enough to draft some ideas about how we will serve our community. A big part of starting a church is funding. Churches in America cannot be started without money. This is a fact that cannot be changed. We have done really well in the early stages by using our tithes and offerings. I heard it said before that funds follow the vision. I have seen this ring true in our church thus far. We have a very faithful team that are 100% sold out on the vision. As the old saying goes, “Where God guides, he provides!”

Until next time…

Crossroads Vineyard Church