Elders, Six Common Family Problems, and Don’t Judge!

Next Sunday we’ll take another exciting first step when we appoint our first lay elders. To be honest, words like confused and overwhelmed and unsure have been descriptive at times in this process.  This is new ground for me, somewhat different from the deacons/pastor model (or at least nomenclature) that I grew up with. We have tried to take the biblical qualifications very seriously: yet at the end of the day they are just men, and the decisions are not always crystal clear. But I take great confidence in knowing that we are honestly just seeking to follow the pattern of Scripture; Christ’s offices for his church; and His qualifications. Of course this is also a very exciting step – plurality of leadership is a dream come true!
I preached this morning from Genesis 27 and addressed Six Common Family Problems. Again I can’t praise the Lord enough for receptive hearers. Our Bible study time was spent on Jesus’ command not to judge (Matthew 7:1-6) – but we’ll be back next week, because there is no way to cover that in one week!
Please pray for my work on an evangelistic newsletter that we will be using next year! Thank you!

Updates

Two updates on earlier requests: our neighbor continues to come and has heard gospel presentations each of the last two Sundays. Please continue to pray for him – he seems to avoid us outside of the church service (we tried to invite him for Thanksgiving, but were unsuccessful).
At the recent Southern California FBF meeting I was able to make good contacts again with other church planters, and we are planning to have the first Southern California Ministry Summit on December 19-20.
I would appreciate your prayers as I work this week on writing an evangelistic newsletter that we will be distributing next year (part of our Personal Ministry theme).
A week from Sunday we will ordain our first two elders (technically our second and third, of course). This is exciting!

Southern California Ministry Summit

We are making final plans for a “Southern California Ministry Summit.” Our goal is to build some camaraderie and cooperation among those of us that God has called to church planting here in Southern California. We came to California with a love for this mission field and a passion for reaching it – and other church planters have come with the same passion. The problem is that we don’t share that passion with one another. Our goal with a SoCal Ministry Summit is to bring together church planters to pray for Southern California, rekindle our love for this mission field, and build relationships that can someday provide a framework for more church planting here.
Don’t know if that all make sense, but the bottom line is that a small group of us are doing a “test run” in mid-December, and then planning on a full SCMS in May of ‘07. This will involve primarily church planters / pastors and potential church planters. Would appreciate your prayers that God would bless this for His glory here.

Our neighbor, sickness, and the cancelled service that wasn’t

Please pray for one of our neighbors who has been coming to church regularly for about 2 months. It is likely that he is not saved.
I’ve had mild illnesses for about 3 weeks – sore throat, then congestion and cough, etc. I’m just not getting over it (thanks to Abby & Katie!). I felt lousy after preaching this morning, so tonight we decided to cancel the fellowship group at our house to try to give me a little chance to recuperate. One family didn’t get the word, and showed up about 5:30 – and stayed for an hour and a half! The canceled service that wasn’t. : )

November brings…

On to November, which is (thankfully) a pretty quiet month, at least on the church calendar. November 18 I am doing a men’s breakfast on moral purity.
Last weekend was a doozy:
On Friday night, we had a “Family Fun Night” at our house. We had about 40 people in our living room, whom we divided into two teams. We planned a whole series of competitions between the teams, and mixed in a skit, some silly songs, and some food.
After Family Fun Night, 9 of the kids in the church spent the night at our house
About noon Saturday my sister Cindy and her family showed up for a way-too-short visit.
On Sunday I preached on the popular topic of … election (from Genesis 25).
On Monday I returned about 7 items to Best Buy – an entire PC system that was driving me crazy. Then I went across the street to CompUsa, and we began our new life as Mac users.