New Life Easter Service 2010

Easter was an amazing day here in the G. home! The Easter Community Launch service for our church went wonderfully! We are praising the Lord today for the people He brought our way and for what He did in hearts in the service. We had a wonderful time.

The day started at 8:30 with all of the "core team" meeting at the school where we meet to unload all of the church materials. It took awhile, but thankfully we had everything set up in time for our first guest.

Because we meeting in two school gyms right now, we had to make a portable nursery. As I mentioned in my last post, a man in our church ended up making the whole thing out of PVC pipe and his wife sewed curtain walls. Our pastor's wife found interlocking floor mats with colors on one side and a car mat on the other side! Too cute, huh?

The guys in the parking lot wore their orange vests to help let people know where we were since the school has asked us not to put up signs on the property. The core team also had name tags with our church logo on it so that people would know who to go to with any questions. Everyone in the group did a fantastic job of making people feel welcome and the service went so smoothly.

Pastor preached a wonderful message on "Life's Story" with an overview of Scripture from Creation to the Empty Tomb. It was a wonderful message full of hope and victory in Christ. What a joy to know that my God is not dead - He is alive!!


One of the neat parts that we love about our church is that we have lunch together each Sunday. Eating together gives us a great time of fellowship and we really have an opportunity to get to know each other and our guests. We were so excited that almost everyone stayed for lunch! It did help that we had a delicious meal - spaghetti and meatballs, salad, and a feast of desserts! Normally we pick a theme and everyone brings a dish, but yesterday one lady in our church made a lot of it ahead of time and we all brought desserts and drinks. We had a lot leftover, but we always break out "to go" containers and everyone takes some home.

Our small church almost doubled in size yesterday, for which we were so thankful. We weren't sure how many people to expect, but God brought us the perfect amount. We finished out the day with 64 people in attendance! It was a wonderful day of celebrating our Risen Savior and also celebrating this new church! Praise God from whom ALL blessings flow!


Kathryne

Easter Sunday 2010

Although I loved being part of the Easter play that I was in last year and shared about yesterday, I am even more excited about the ministry opportunity that we will a part of this year.

Back in October, Saul and I helped start New Life Baptist Church in Glenview, IL. It has been a wonderful experience and God is teaching us much through it. We love our small group of believers and it has been exciting to see Christ truly build His church over the last several months.
When the church started in October, we started in our pastor's home. There were only fifteen of us, including children, so we really didn't have the necessity to rent a place. We passed out some flyers to the surrounding area when we first started, but we really didn't do too much at the beginning to invite people to come. But, God started drawing people our way - every week! By the end of the year we had about 35 stuffed into our pastor's living room each Sunday for our morning service and for lunch. We were looking for places to rent, but nothing was working out.

Finally, in the middle of February, it worked out for us to being renting a gym at a school down the street from our pastor's home. We love being there.

Anyway, all of that to say that for Easter this year our new church is hosting a "Community Wide Launch Service." We sent postcards to 20,000+ homes around the school that we meet at and have been actively inviting people to come visit our church. Our church family is also working hard to invite personal friends and contacts. Our group of 40 may perhaps double next Sunday!

There are lots of little details to work out and lots of hurdles to overcome in regards to having the special service, but it has been exciting to see things start to come together. The school that we meet in is pretty strict about where we put signs, so we have had to be creative about letting people know where we are. We ordered bright orange vests for the people who will be parking lot attenders and my brother Carlton put the logo on the back of the vests. We thought they turned out great!

Up until this point, we haven't had a nursery because we haven't had space for one and haven't really needed one. But, with having guests, someone is bound to need a nursery. We are only allowed to rent the school's two gyms, so we had to be creative on this one too. One of the men in our church is great with building things and ended up building a nursery out of PVC pipe and fabric. I'll have to take a picture of this on Sunday so that you can see. It is pretty cool.

We are exciting to see who God will bring us on Sunday. God is so faithful and has been so good to His little church in Glenview. If any of you reading are in the area and would like more information, you can visit the church website or leave me a comment! If you are reading and would pray for us on Sunday, we would sure appreciate it!

Looking forward to our 2010 Easter service,
Kathryne