Church planting update -- the story so far ...

It's been about a month now on the Church Planting Internship. What have we been doing?

1. Contacts/Community: We need to meet LOTS of people & make friends
   
1. Attended the Neighborhood Association meeting.
   
2. Called the President of the Association and introduced myself, talked about Angel Food.
   
3. Invited 2 strangers to Easter service. A Greek guy called Napoleon & a girl from the local Enterprise car rental.
   
4. We have the coolest neighbors downstairs. We've chatted with them a few times now and bought them a little baby outfit for their unborn son. Hopefully we can establish an ongoing friendship with them once they move.
   
5. Heather and I have spent time praying in the mornings for our neighbors.
6. We are planning a front yard grill party!!!
7. We have met neighbors on both sides.
   
8. I came across an organization called Toastmasters and have inquired about attending their meetings. I know NOTHING about it, just that it's an environment for public speaking and leadership development. It's open to anyone, it's community run, but it sounds like a great opportunity to meet people. It could potentially be a context to share publicly about the gospel.
   
9. We joined a running group which meets each Monday at 6pm. We are trying to enlist others from Jubilee to join. There are currently 17 other people in the group from the neighborhood.
   
10. We are planning short walks with Jones in the stroller in the early evenings. This is when people take their dogs for a walk and there is generally a lot of people around. We hope to become familiar faces and meet more of our neighbors.
    
11. We received additional sponsorship specifically to take dancing lessons after I posted about this idea on our blog. Heather loves dancing. Should be interesting.
    
    
2. Study
1. I have read Rediscovering Church, Church Planting: The Next Generation and I have 25% through The Multiplying Church by Bob Roberts (loving this book!).
2. Euan Crane and I are beginning to prepare for the Year Team coming to serve Wentzville next month. We are going to be doing some teaching.
   
3. I need to knuckle down and move ahead with my theological and theme studies.
   
   
3. Mentoring
   
1. I met with John Lanferman on Tuesday. We discussed multi-location/site churches. We also talked about how Heather and I are doing and long term plans. John rocks!
   
2. Heather met with Linda Lanferman and had a great time. I think my wife likes Linda a lot.
   
3. Euan and I met with Rick and Curt yesterday in Wentzville. We drove around, visited the school where the new location will be meeting to begin with. We drilled Rick with questions about what he had been doing and how he had been getting the word out about the new church. This Sunday is the first Wentzville preview service -- can't wait to be there.
   
   
4. Part-time Freelance
   
1. To subsidize our income I have some freelance work coming my way from a local advertising agency. I should be signing a contract next week. I interviewed with them last week and had to scramble to get my resume updated.
   
2. Still waiting on a few other opportunities.
   
   
5. Planning For Launch
1. We are driving to Chicago next weekend to scope out that city. We will be staying with Tim and Chloe who have been gathering a group for a few years. I'll be speaking Sunday night to the group.
   
2. We are considering if we should visit other major cities to test our calling. As of yet, we still have not heard clearly about final location.

All of this activity is to build into us character, skills and vision for church planting. Please continue to pray for us.