Pictures from 12-12-10 service

Ready... Set... Launch!

Oh, I wish we were ready! Not that we are grossly unprepared, but ready or not, here we go. Redemption Fellowship launches this Sunday! I am in a somewhat surreal state of mind, since this has been years in the making, and has so many years to go. We first started with going to the assessment center back in January of 2003! We spent several more years getting ministry experience, searched long and hard for a strong call, raised support, all the while tent-making, and moved to Philadelphia 2 years ago. Then, we learned the area, adapted, got involved, got ordained, and gradually grew a core-group. We filed Articles of Incorporation, secured insurance, non-profit status, etc. as we started casting more vision and introducing songs to our core-group. We partnered with CEF and ran two summer clubs for kids, put ads in papers, invited people, dropped fliers, ran two Bible studies per week, did outreach events at local stores, advertised on Craigslist, sent out 30,000 mailers, etc. etc. Now, the house of cards must stand against more wind. I am excited to see what God is going to do! This has been a hard process, not merely starting from scratch, but starting from scratch in this location. I have for a long time now felt that we are absolutely waiting on God and completely dependent upon His own desire to build His church. Though beaten down at various times with doubts and concerns, I feel confident in God's providential care over this project and look with hope and expectation that we will not only have a launch service but many anniversaries as well. Many times I have been comforted by looking at our long list of supporters and growing in faith, being encouraged that God was in this, and many of His people were behind it. I thank each of you for your support!
The needs and potential in this area for the Kingdom of God are great! To Him be the glory!

The end of the preview services

Well, 5 months have come and gone and our once a month preview services are all over. The launch service is Sept 12 and we are looking forward to it with faith and fear. Faith that God is doing something, as we have been encouraged by the last 2 preview services. Fear since the week to week demands will be overwhelming for our family.
We continue to see great potential in this region and keep pressing on knowing it is God who builds His church. Today I sat out in front of Wal-mart handing out fliers and raising money for charity. It was a hot but beautiful day and I was joined by the ever faithful Brian who plays guitar for us too. Tomorrow it is off to a local church to tell them about our vision and ask for prayer support. There is always something to do when church planting from scratch.

July 4th Parade in Aldan

Just a few shots of our Independence Day parade. It is always good to get out and see some people and talk about what we are doing. There are short-term invitations and then there are long-term, relationship-building invitations. We are working on both. Events like the 4th help with the latter category.

Kid's Summer 5-Day Club

Here are a few of the promised pics of the summer club. The kids had a blast and CEF did a great job running the show.

Update

Well, it has been over three weeks since preview service #3 and we are gearing up for the fourth next Sunday, July 11th. I have a new drummer who played with us last time and will play this time as well. I really like him and he is very talented and spiritually sensitive. Our friend Suzanne Alobeyo is also helping out with worship by singing. We are about to buy some sound equipment this weekend and keep pressing on to the goal of having great worship. Our children's summer 5-day club is going on right now (pictures coming soon) and so far it has had a small response. We had more response from our fliers last year and this year we dropped 250% more and they were higher quality. Advertising in the paper has yet to show any fruit either. The Bible study at Cocco's is slowly growing and that is an area of encouragement. We are done with Christianity Explored and Discipleship Explored for awhile and chose rather to begin an investigative Bible study in the Gospel of John. We start in a couple weeks. Please keep praying as we approach the launch service in September.

Aldan Fun-Day

We attended our annual Fun-Day here in Aldan along with the local Boy Scouts' Car-Show this last Saturday. This is our second time attending these events and we find them very useful in meeting people in our neighborhood. Here are the kids and some friends in the rumble seat of a winning Model A. The Fun-Day had arts n crafts, moon-bounce, batting competition, and a dunk-tank (which was a big hit, and a little too cold if you ask me.)

Preview Service #2

Our second service went better than the Easter service, despite having fewer people. The turnout was not discouraging and we are hopeful for the June service. We simplified some things and tried to do less of a production, which helped both with sound quality and work-load. Sorry but we have failed to take any pictures from these first two services! I am not surprised considering all we need to remember to do. Now I am back in the office trying to square away all business matters before the next service. Next on the list: sales tax exemption. Thanks for keeping up with us.

"Preview" Service # 1

Easter has come and gone and after a week of crazy work we had our first "preview" service. There were about 40 adults and 12 children in attendance, which is a large turn-out except that many visitors are just showing support and are already involved elsewhere. The next preview service, May 2nd, might be a better indicator of potential interested parties? We had many minor problems, and a few complaints, but overall the service went quite well, much better than I expected a first service to be. Soon after the next service, we will be starting Discipleship Explored on May 5th, and hopefully we will have many new participants and several from the last Christianity Explored class. We will continue to run these classes in the local pizza joint. I am trying to keep it all together, but I am beginning to have a healthy fear of the week to week grind after the Launch service in September. With no staff and no extra funding, I must be everything the church needs: worship leader, preacher, administrator, marketeer, community developer, counselor, etc. It will be a crazy rest of the year!

Website

Well, after much hard work around here my in-house graphic designer has completed the first phase of the website and I must say it looks pretty good! Thanks dear!

www.redemptionpca.com

Check it out! and please see our new prayer requests!

Redemption Fellowship, Inc.

I have recently filed the Articles of Incorporation with the state of PA that will make us a corporation. We will have exclusive rights to our name in this state and will soon Trademark our logo. We are ramping up the marketing in several ways. We continue to place ads in the newspaper, drop flyers, and invite contacts. Soon we will have a new website and Facebook page. Unfortunately we had a computer failure a short while ago that has slowed us down and we are still waiting for new software to continue with the website, but so far it is looking pretty good! A few new faces are popping up here and there and we are hopeful that this is our year. Please keep praying.

Holy Snow, Batman

The most snow I've ever seen. The kids have had a blast. We have had over 6 feet of snow this winter and more expected next week. Several things were canceled including Christianity Explored class last Wednesday and my Church Planter Community meeting. Thankfully I have plenty of work to do right here in the house.

Crammed

Sometimes I look around parts of our local community and I am repeatedly taken back by the shear mass of humanity living on top of each other. I think such tight housing could be fine if you really knew your neighbors well, but sounds fairly challenging considering fewer and fewer people know their own neighbors at all. These communities are increasingly transient when they were once highly stable. With so much change comes opportunity for the gospel to shine. Make no mistake, if we are successful in starting a church community up here it is the work of God and be careful to give Him all the glory! Please keep praying as we continue making plans towards our launch and preview services. Also, check out our prayer updates.

Quick Update / Overveiw

The new year of 2010 is the sink or swim year for the East Delco church plant. We are aggressively marketing the area for our "preview" services that begin on Easter and run once a month until the big launch service on September 12th. We are also campaigning for another Christianity Explored class once again being offered at Cocco's Pizza. We will likewise do another Summer Camp for kids through Child Evangelism Fellowship, hopefully in June. Our Sunday Night Fellowship has started back up for the semester and we are slowly growing a worship team and learning songs. There are many pieces that must come together over the approaching months for this project to be successful. Please pray that God will glorify himself through our efforts and do a mighty work. We are getting excited about the potential for another Bible teaching church espousing the glorious doctrines of grace to this community and impacting people's lives with the Kingdom of God.