Drying Out, Diving In

After receiving enough rain to flood the Sahara, we have finally seen a few days of dry Fall-like weather. No one was gathering animals two by two, but I did see a woman walking two dogs last Friday.

We met this week for the first time at the school where we are scheduled to hold our worship services. Starting at 3:30, Sunday afternoon, we opened with an orientation to the church plant for people who may be interested in getting involved. That was followed by prayer for the church by Michael, me, and the members of the Launch Community. It was quite encouraging for our core church community to gather for prayer. This is a picture of the school where we met and plan to continue meeting for the forseeable future. It's actually a great library with wonderful acoustics (yes, it's a library with great acoustics) and wonderful natural light. I think most of us were pleasently surprised by those aspects of it.

Despite this fact, our first pre-launch services don't begin this Sunday. Rather, we will begin in two weeks because the school is being inspected by the Regents board this week and we can't be there while that is going on.

Our Home Fellowship Groups were introduced to our impending study of Galatians by reading through the epistle out loud and discussing some general concepts about what Paul was attempting to accomplish in the letter and what was going on in the lives of his recipients. Our youth program is temporarily on hold until Michael introduces me to more of the parents. The Home fellowship Groups have an exciting dynamic and vary in size, and the youth program,though we expect it to begin small, remains an ambiguous undertaking until it finally gets going. Again, as always, my financial picture remains tight. A reminder that anyone interested in helping support our church planting efforts here should make checks out to Redeemer Presbyterian Church; put my name on the memo line; and send them to my address: 83-44 Lefferts Blvd. Apt. 3C; Kew Gardens, NY 11415. Please include a note with your contribution explaining how frequently your support will come (monthly, quarterly, once a year, etc.). Of course, I could raise millions of dollars and if there is no prayer behind the money, our ministry will fail. Please keep me and Michael and our efforts continually in your prayers.

Twice in the last week, I managed to go out to Austin St. (the shopping center of Forest Hills) with two people to present our Church-Name questionnaire. Irrespective of how helpful these are in helping us determine a name, they have become an interesting study on human behavior. We may take some of what we learned to modify the questionnaire and to go out a few more times before we processes the information.

I think it would be safe to say that a similar survey of people's reaction to church names would be received differently in Mississippi than it has been in Queens. I think it may have something to do with people's reaction to the word "church."

There are a few more things on the horizon. For instance, we may have an opportunity to rent worship space from an actual church as opposed to the school library where we are currently anticipating the use of. We might have a great musician signed on with us, at least for the short term.

Our prayer needs: There was at least one person at a Home Fellowship Group (HFG) last week who seemed clearly to be a non-believer. That fact is both frightening and exctiting at the same time. It's frightening because we want the Holy Spirit to work in this person's life and we feel very self-coucious about our teaching. At the same time, we want people to feel that their HFG is a place to invite their non-Christian friends to attend. There is also a great number of little things (church planting is full of minutia, all of which is vitally important). Two dear friends of mine are expressing interest in our church plant. I would love for them to get involved. One of them recently left a church, the other hasn't been going to church for quite some time. Please keep all of these things in mind.

Until next week, may God continue to richly bless you all.