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!