Interns: Please pray for our interns. If my calculations are correct they are on day number 11 and that is usually about the time fatigue sets in and enthusiasm creeps away. Our four interns this year, Lydia, Sarah, Josh & Jack hit the ground running when they arrived. Their primary mission is to help birth an Intentional Community at Summertree Apartments, where they are living, and help reach the neighbors around the Spot with the gospel. How are they doing it? Let me just tell you...
The beauty of their mission to start an Intentional Community at Summertree is that we already have two leaders in our church who live their. These two leaders are missionaries to the core and their have already been plenty of seeds planted amongst the community members. The second benefit is that another one of the guys in our church, a fairly new believer, is on board to help start this new Intentional Community. The interns had a bbq for their neighbors last Tuesday and launched their IC on Wednesday. They had several neighbors come and God is definitely up to something. Please continue to pray for them as they take the gospel to Summertree.
The other thing their doing is trying to take the love of Jesus to the Evergreen neighbors who live around the Spot. They are doing this in many ways but one of their primary approaches is called S.O.S. (Spot on Saturdays). Every Saturday they are hosting a block party at the Spot and it's not about our church... although are people are welcome to come. S.O.S. is all about the Evergreen neighbors. We were supposed to launch with an outdoor movie this past Saturday, but in case we all forgot, we live in Tacoma. You guessed it... it rained! Not to worry. The interns hit the streets with more fliers letting the neighbors know that if it rained, the movie would be indoors. The movie was "Despicable Me" and the Spot was packed (praise Jesus)! There were so many people that I had never met before. We were able to invite them to worship, invite them to VBS next week and just flat out show them we love them and God loves them.
Please pray for our interns. They are blowing my expectations out of the water, by the grace of God, but they are getting exhausted and need your prayers.
Father's Day: Father's Day was wonderful for many reasons but I will share with you two. One, I was reminded of how blessed I am by Jesus to have the wife and kids I have. Kelli, Jagen & Rylan are a gift from God and I am in awe of his grace in my life through them. I feel this way for many reasons... one of which is that they woke me up this morning with a huge slice of brownie fudge Cheesecake from the Cheesecake factory... yes, I am a fat kid at heart (and in the gut)!
The second thing I wanted to tell you about Father's Day was the most beautiful thing I could imagine seeing on this day. Their is a sweet young teenage girl in our church who we have known for a year or so. She has been growing in her relationship with Jesus and it has been so fun to watch from a short distance. She has shared with our youth leader Laura and myself several times that she is burdened for her dad and wants him to know Jesus and come to church with her. She has prayed and cried and prayed some more. To be honest, she was the farthest thing from my mind when I walked out the door of the spot this morning before worship. And then I saw her walking across the street with her father. A beautiful picture of God's abundant grace and constant movement. I literally worshipped right there in the depths of my soul. I pray that this is the first step towards eternal life change for this father. Pray that he comes with all The Pathway Dad's to steak night on Wednesday.
A Break: Finally, pray for me as I take a much needed break. I have attempted once a year to take a personal retreat for at least a couple of nights. Kelli and I decided that now was the time if I wanted to get it in before the summer. So shortly after lunch on Father's Day I headed to the Hood Canal for 2 days and 2 nights of prayer, silence, Scripture reading and planning. Please pray that I make the most of this time. Please pray that I don't procrastinate or get side tracked by the unimportant. Please pray that I don't make this retreat so task oriented that I forget to just be still and know that [He} is God. Pray that god puts a clear direction on my heart that will lead The Pathway into 2013 and that by his grace we would become a multiplying church!
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