Posts Tagged ‘Lewis House’

No Excuses

Posted in Life and Ministry, tagged , , , , , on November 25, 2010| Leave a Comment »

November 2010

It has been too long since I last posted here.  School, family and ministry have kept me very busy.  However as the title states I am not here to make excuses.  I am here to tell a little about what God has been doing in my life over the last few months.  I started my Senior year of college at CBC online at the end of August.  It was going to be my Junior year 2nd semester but God is good and the Registrar at CBC took what I think are extraordinary steps to make sure that I received all the credit possible for my prior schooling.  The final result is that at the end of the Spring semester I will only have one course left to receive my BA in Bible and Theology.  This semester has been an awesome experience for me and not only with my classes.

We have had a great multiplication of ministry opportunities since our summer of ministry and travel.  God has been great at opening and closing doors of ministry, putting us where HE wants us to be.  The Lewis House newsletter describes some of those events.  We have also been blessed with many opportunities to serve at Compelled Church.  We are very blessed to have been accepted as Covenant Partners at Compelled during a very exciting time in God’s work there.  As the church prepares to open a campus in Toledo we find ourselves drawn by the Holy Spirit to the lost and hurting people of Toledo.  It is amazing how God is combining the vision and ministry opportunities at Compelled with the vision and opportunities at The Lewis House. Pray for us as we continue to pursue a move to the Lewis Ave. area.  I am going to try to attach the Lewis House newsletter to this post but here is the url if I fail:

https://fanintoflame.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/november-2010.pdf

I now have my WordPress account shortcutted on my school netbook so hopefully I will get back here a little more often.  Here are a couple of specific prayer requests:

1.  Allana is creating a Children’s Choir for Compelled Church.  The will be performing for the first time before the Youth production of Rudolf the Red-Nose Reindeer.  It will be presented as a dinner theater on December 10th and as an open performance December 11th.  All proceeds benefit Speed the Light.

2.  God’s provision as we look to moving into Lewis Avenue area. 

3.  God’s provision as Compelled Church looks to launch the Toledo Campus.  Specifically we are still looking for a suitable location. 

4.  God’s blessing on all those who came out for the inaugural launch team meeting, especially Pastor Kelly and Pastor Curtis!

5.  God’s continued grace and blessing on myself, Allana, Robert, Emily, Samantha and Chayla.

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Bringing His Kingdom to Earth

Posted in Life and Ministry, tagged , , , , , , , on July 13, 2010| Leave a Comment »

July 2010

Bringing His Kingdom to Earth.  This link is the newsletter for the ministry that we are serving this month.  What a joy it has been to serve God here.  What an awesome goal this ministry has.  I think that sometimes we have a skewed view of what it means to Bring God’s Kingdom to Earth.  We measure that in so many ways that have moved our focus from God to so many other things.  The kicker is that the things are not bad, they can even be important parts of our Christian walk, but when they become the focus instead of the means of our walk with God then we begin to lose the essence of His Kingdom. 

 Sometimes we feel that we are inadequate to bring God’s Kingdom to Earth.  We dont’ have the skills.  We don’t have the confidence.  We have a past that continues to haunt us.  God’s word is full of the unskillful, the timid, the downright fearful and those with pasts full of evil, whom He has used in OUTRAGEOUS ways to serve His Kingdom.  He may not call you to be his vessel for parting the Red Sea, or defeating 135,00 Midianites with 300 men, or raising the dead and bringing the Gospel to the totally un-evangelized, (and then again maybe he will).  He IS calling you.  Focus on HIM.  Let the “locusts” fade and way and then serve.  Clean a floor, paint a wall, hold a hand, high-five a child, raise the dead, part the sea.  Ministry is in the focus.  The opportunities are out there.  Let God enhance your vision of the world.  When you focus on him ministry opportunities abound.

14 Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. 15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body ; and be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.  Colossians 3:14-17

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Feeling the Power

Posted in Life and Ministry, tagged , , , , on July 4, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Wow what a day yesterday!  Allana was still sick so she was out of the picture for most of the day.  We got Sami and Emily up and moving.  They are on half days of school.  Then it was time to feel the power…the power washer that is.  We are getting the basement floor ready to be painted.  Chipping, scrubbing and spraying with the pressure washer and then channeling all that water to the available drains.  It was DRAINING.  I know all of us were beat but our Friday night meeting started at 7:00.  We enjoyed an awesome dinner of hamburgers and pasta salad (thanks Sarah!)  Then we were thrilled to have 4 kids come.  We played games, colored and spoke the fruit of the spirit into their lives for two hours.  Then we headed off to BCC for the fireworks.  By the time we got home, everyone was exhausted.  This leads into our busy day today.  No school today so we were able to sleep in a little.  Then it was breakfast, some nice fellowship at the table with Naomi and then off to our Party in the Park.  We were able to hand out a bunch of invitations to the Ice Cream Party that we are having next Friday night here at the house.  We are looking forward to sharing our lives with these wonderful children in the neighborhood.  Big Kudo’s to Chris and his gang from Calvary Bible Chapel.  They are bringing God’s kingdom into the darkness that is life for many children in this area.  Robert jumped right in with the neighborhood kids.  He is an awesome model for relational ministry.  Tonight we are headed to New Life on Summerfield near Petersburg for their fair, then greeting at BCC and then possibly back to the fair.  God is opening the doors of peoples hearts.  So many are ready receive, they just need someone to model the Love of God and speak the Gospel!

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Wow What a Day!

Posted in Life and Ministry, tagged , , , , , , on July 2, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Another awesome day at the Lewis House.  It started off a little rough with Allana down with a bad cold.  She is still wrestling with the sniffles now but looks and feels better.  Stacey, one of the full-time workers here, took Robert (instead of me because of Allana’s condition) to Sydney (I don’t know if I spelled that right) to stop at a ministry that helps to supply our foodbank here.   We were getting a little thin in the pantry.  I know this is a big problem for  food driven ministries now.  Fishes n Loaves in Adrian is running low on food also.  So if you have extra or want to donate to a food pantry now is a good time.  There is almost certainly some sort of Organization helped to feed the poor who could really use your help.

So since I did not go to the foodbank, I got to move furniture and sweep floors.  We prepared the floor in the  fellowship hall to be power washed which we are doing tomorrow.  Sami and Emily did an awesome job carrying about 100 chairs up two flights of stairs from the hall to the auditorium.  George and I stacked tables and swept.  George had previously finished putting the plugs in for the lighting.  As we moved the furniture we planned out our plan of attack tomorrow.  By the time we were done the place was ready for powerwashing.  This is a very different face of ministry.  Yet it is ministry.  We need to stop narrowly defining what is and is not ministry.  I believe at least in part this was Martha’s issue in Luke 10.  Martha thought she had a lock on what the ministry should look like, and she WAS ministering.  Her mistake was thinking that Mary had to be serving in the same way.  You may be called to be Martha and called to be Mary all in the same day.  We were blessed to be Martha this morning.

Later in the day one of the regular attenders to our Friday night meeting brought in a homeless man whom she came across in the Kroger parking lot.  George was busy so I put together a food box for him and prayed with him.  God said love him…so I did.  It was a learning experience.  Don’t judge…love.  Don’t assign blame for his circumstance…love.  Don’t be the cynic…love.  It felt good.  I may try some more of this loving the people that God loves even when my flesh wants to be cynical thing…It feels good when you can feel God smile.

Dinner was a potluck affair with some of our regular Friday night crew and people from the neighborhood.  WHAT A BLESSING!  We had a great night of fellowship.  Relational ministry, love the people that God love’s.  Definitely the lesson for today.  Love the unlovable.  Love that family member who is a pain.  Love your neighbor.  Love the little kid down the street who is desperate for any kind of attention.  Love the brothers and sisters in Christ  who are all around us. 

Robert had an awesome day on his trip.  He has been so awesome with the kids here.  Plus they got chickens, not frozen oven roasters, real live chickens.  You can see a picture of Emily holding one of the chicks in my facebook mobile uploads album.  The kids in the neighborhood when wild.  They mobbed Stacy when she pulled back into the neighborhood.  She had called one of the Mom’s and let her know that live chicks were coming.  Stacy spent time letting them all see the chicks.  Relational ministry, Love them.  Love the little children who mob you.  Love their silly questions.  Show them God in action.  It requires love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.  Hmmm I think I have heard that somewhere before.  I guess I need to do more than memorize it.

Pray for Allana that she feels better soon.  Pray for the people in our neighborhood, that they would know Jesus!  Pray for the people in your neighborhood, that they would know Jesus…then show him to them.

God Bless and Goodnight

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One Day

Posted in Life and Ministry, tagged , , , , , on June 30, 2010| 2 Comments »

We arrived here at the Lewis House Monday afternoon (following an awesome meeting with our new Children’s Pastor-jumping the gun a little on that but I feel pretty good about the match). I wonder how many go on a missions trip and expect an Angelic Fanfare as they arrive or the heavens to open and the HS to descend in the form of a dove. I arrived with a quiet peace that we are doing God’s will for us and knowing that he is going to bless it. I have no idea what that is going to look like but I trust Him and know that He is faithful.
We had a wonderful afternoon of fellowship with George and Sarah. We pieced together a plan for this week and then I had an great night at Everfree.

Tuesday we got to work. George installed a washer and dryer in the basement for visitors to use and then we gutted the room. They had previously installed a furnace there, which included cutting through cinder block. Anyone who has done this will appreciate the mess. Allana and the girls tackled the nursery, going through donated toys, tossing the ones that were not appropriate , cleaning and organizing.
Everyone pitched in and worked hard. I am very proud of all of our kids and my lovely wife .

After dinner we hit the streets. Sami and Emily went with Erin and Naomi and found that ministry can be FUN! George, Robert and I walked the neighborhood. Allana and Chayla went with Stacy on BUNNY DUTY.

We had prayed beforehand and God had laid on George’s heart finding someone under a tree. I had gotten a strong impression of moving shadows. As we turned the corner onto Sylvania we saw a woman sweeping the sidewalk under the shadow of a BIG tree. She is a single mom with three boys under the age of 4. George asked her if we could pray for her and she asked us to pray for her family. We did and then I invited her to the BCC single Mom’s event coming up. Surprise Surprise , her Mom lives in Temperance and she was excited to get more details (which being men we did not have so Allana and I will be headed back there today). As we walked we met kids, parents, young men, old men, young women and old women. They all had one thing in common THEY DESPERATELY NEED JESUS! We prayed for some, chatted with others. We invited some and just opened lines of fellowship with others. Tired but blessed we returned to the Lewis House.

"I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that YOU will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ." Philemon 6

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