church as abbey
Last week The Community Center at Chatham opened to the public after three years of planning, praying, and building. Reaction to the building was amazing, and ranged from "Wow" to "Now we can have exercise classes here." Everything about this project went extremely well, and moved
bless the world
I don't mean to harp on this, but the current rise in oil prices impacts more than just where we take our next vacations. As James Howard Kunstler states in his article, Wake Up America, We're Driving Toward Disaster: As the world passes the all-time oil
Community
Our new community center opened last week to rave reviews! Over 125 people attended the opening ceremony on Monday, May 19. Over 320 attended our Grand Opening Gala on Thursday, May 22. After 3 years of dreaming, planning, building, and preparing our new $3-million state-of-the-art community center is open for
bless the world
I just realize that I haven't posted anything here since April 29. That is the longest time between posts since I started writing this blog almost 2-years ago. But, it's been a busy couple of weeks. Two funerals within 4-days, and all that goes with them.
Community
Our Wednesday night schedule is pretty typical for a Baptist church. About 25-30 of us eat together at 5:45 PM, then prayer and Bible study takes place around the tables at 6:30 PM. Choir follows prayer meeting, which is the schedule in about every Baptist church I can
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Pastor John Carmichael at Evangel North Church tried the Easter Outreach Idea with great success this year. John left the following comment: We used this idea for Easter 2008. It doubled our church attendance for Easter. We average 105, on Easter we had more than 210. Largest crowd ever! The
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I just returned from a meeting of community leaders and agencies that work with children and youth in our community. About 18 people were there including the superintendents of both the city and county schools, and representatives from Social Services, Community Action, Habitat for Humanity, our local community college, Boys
Community
I stepped back in time 200-years today. No, I did not go to a museum. I went to a funeral. A friend's father died after an extended illness, and Debbie and I attended the funeral today. Our friend's father was of the Old German Baptist Brethren,
bless the world
Last year, several of us in the Fuller DMin Missional Leadership program had dinner with Alan Roxburgh one evening. Alan is one of the DMin adjunct professors, and author of The Sky Is Falling, co-author of The Missional Leader, and contributor to Missional Church, edited by Darrell Guder, the book
Community
From around blogdom, some good ideas that have translation potential for churches: 1. 20/20 powerpoints -- Kevin Kelley points to a new trend among business presenters to limit their presentation to 20-slides that flash for no more than 20-seconds each. Total presentation time: 6-1/2 minutes. Do I hear
Community
Outreach magazine has asked me to write a piece about great small church outreach ideas. Outreach's Jan/Feb issue premiered the section, "Small Church, Big Idea," featuring small church outreach ideas that worked. Here's where you come in: I need your ideas and your
bless the world
L to R: Me in the future great hall; Debbie in front of the art room off the great hall; exterior from across the street; exterior with Debbie standing beside the entrance to give some idea of the size of the building. Our community center construction moves forward daily. The