What Would You Do?
Have you seen this show? It is both great and extremely uncomfortable at the same time. Showing how human behavior, thought, responses… are all connected and how really ugly we can be and at times how beautiful we can be.
The week is flying bye… Sunday night I went down to one of our partner ministries Buffalo City Mission. Don Santucci has been going down on the first Sunday of the month to conduct that nights chapel service for many years now. Last year some other men began to go with him to help minister to the men and so Sunday night i got a chance to be blessed. Scott Stockton (Michelle’s husband and Silas/Sophia Rose’s daddy) was the guest speaker and he did a great job. So proud to be a part of a community of faith that has so many doing so much in places off the beaten path!
Monday morning found me heading down to the Buffalo Christian Center with Josh to hang out with some other pastor’s and ministry leaders from the West Side. We have been meeting together for several months trying to address the violence that we are experiencing especially as it is connected with young people. We have organized a community meeting on January 17 from 10:00 -11:30 at the Buffalo CHristian Center that will be a first step attempt to bring all faith based and other organizations from the West Side that are trying to help, resource, equip, empower… young people. We have invited a real “mixed bag” so it should be really interesting to get all of these people together. We the Church from the West Side is leading this initiative and know that heart transformation is the key to any real transformation but we have to start with addressing the immediate physical, emotional, family needs first – building a bridge relationally that will give us influence in the lives of the young people. Please be in pray about this!
This morning I got to here about what is happening at Restoration Church as I had breakfast with Dan and Alex at one of my favorite restaurants – Panos. They had there first Sunday morning gathering this week and had 70 show up! That is great especially since they haven;t really “started” yet. They are still building a nucleus of those who are convinced to be on mission to reach those still unconvinced. They already had a baptism celebration where they baptized 5 people at the Comfort Inn! So proud to see these guys and their wives stepping out and leading others toward Christ! I am blown away that God is allowing us at Renovation to be a part of this new launch. Planting, birthing, launching new congregations is what a healthy church just does and we have been able to this early in our existence so it is just a part of our DNA! God help us be a part of hundreds of these kind of stories!
Got to hang out tonight with the guys in my small group. I love hanging with the boys talking about life, sports, Kingdom… iron sharpens iron. Everybody who wants to take the next best step in their spiritual development needs to be in community… not just for what you will get out of it but what others will receive from you! So go by the Grouplife Kiosk and find out how – what – when – where you can get plugged in… it will make 09 mighty fine! (sorry)
oh yea… we had 55 first time guest Sunday! Thank you God! WOW!
