What a week!

It's been 5 days since I posted anything, and as I look back on the last week I am encouraged about New Hope's ministry. That's because I've been there to witness first-hand some of the ministry that goes on in our fellowship!

Wednesday night we had another great Awana Club meeting. The weather was beautiful, so the kids spent time outside in the park singing and hearing a Bible lesson during "council time." It was Western Night, so it was fun to see the kids in their cowboy hats and neckerchiefs! I am very impressed with the group of volunteers Ashley has assembled to lead the club, and it looks like the kids are having a great time!

The next night I got to see our youth group who was meeting at Debbie Johnson's house. The students enjoyed pizza, basketball and "hang out" time in the backyard, followed by worship, prayer and God's Word inside. What a great group of students we have! It's challenging for us to have a growing youth group without our own building, but the shepherds are actively considering how to expand our reach to youth. It is no accident that 4 of our 6 New Hope shepherds are involved with the youth on Thursday nights--our youth are incredibly important to us.

Then Friday night I crashed the party at Henry and Sonja Mullian's house where they were hosting a hamburger feed for the college students. The food was awesome, and it was really fun hanging out with the dozen or so students who navigated the winding route to the Mullian homestead. We talked about everything from majors and course work to exciting motorcycle crash stories! I so appreciate the Mullians--their hospitality was wonderful and so is their family.

(Saturday was football day for me. Oregon, Oregon State and Linfield all lost. I don't want to talk about it.)

What can I say about Sunday? Our worship times as a church are a weekly highlight for me, and yesterday was no exception. I love praising our great God with my church family! And even when Dewey's preaching about church discipline it's still an encouragement and blessing to us all! Our teaching shepherd is joyfully using his gift each week, and we all benefit. But he's not the only one. All kinds of people, young and old, are using their gifts to benefit our church, whether it's running sound or running a vacuum cleaner, providing childcare for families or providing breakfast burritos for the band, playing piano with the worship team or playing blocks with a preschooler...church is not a spectator sport for us. As we sang in one of our songs yesterday, "New Hope Christian Fellowship's the place to be!" I can hardly imagine being anywhere else on Sunday morning.

And finally, tonight I met with the rest of the shepherds for our weekly meeting. As we mentioned yesterday, we are seeking the Lord's will in where our meeting place will be in the short- and long-term. We would really like to have a place we can use all week long, and we appreciate your prayers as we pursue a few possibilities. I'll be honest, as soon as we start talking financial stuff, my eyes sort of glaze over--but it's so neat to me to see how God has gathered six men with completely different personalities and gifts, and how that diversity benefits us as we tackle something different every week. I could say a lot more about that, but maybe I'll save it for a future post.

And so it goes. Since my last post last on Wednesday, I've had the opportunity to really see our church in action. I hope you are encouraged by the good things happening here, and I hope you'll jump in and be a part of God's work here at New Hope!

p.s. Sorry I don't have many pictures to share. I've got a new camera coming in the mail this week!