We’re at a point of near desperate need. We had a great outreach event at the Fall Festival at the apartment complex and met a lot of the residents. We are also a step or two closer to the carwash outreach on November 8th. So, we are making some great inroads to the community and have still more plans for the coming months. However, this is all in real peril of coming to an abrupt end.
For the month of October, we are over $500 behind in our budget. For the months of August through October, we are over $1500 behind.
We need your prayers. if you believe, as we do, that this right where God has us and plans to continue to use us, pray with us that the funds will be there as needed. Pray with us that we will see tremendous fruit borne from our outreach initiatives. Pray that we can grow our core group of members to about 25-30 people in order to qualify for national, state, and local convention assistance. Pray that God will show you how you can be a blessing to us: by your monthly financial support, by being a daily prayer partner with us, or by even joining us as we plant in Summerwood. God may be leading you to come alongside us and be an active part of the amazing things that God is planning to do through Summerlake Baptist Church.
Your support and help does not just affect Summerlake. Remember, our goal as a church is to start our first daughter church within three years of our first full-church worship service, and to plant 5 churches per year after our fifth year. These are lofty goals, but they are the vision that God has given us to see the Kingdom expanded through the New Testament method of evangelism: church planting. We don’t want to just add to Summerlake, we want to multiply the Church.
Please join us—in whatever way God leads. Thank you so much for your faithfulness to us and our call through Jesus Christ.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Summerlake update and prayer needs.
Since Hurricane Ike and its effects moved on, we have had regular, normal Sundays. Our high attendance so far has been 8, and we are ecstatic about the 8. We have 4 children coming and are able to have an organized children’s study in the “nursery” (bedroom of the apartment) while the adults have Bible study in the “sanctuary” (living room of the apartment). We are studying Galatians and how we can have life, free and easy, through Christ.
We have some great outreach events in the works. We have talked to the event coordinator at the complex and Summerlake will be volunteering at/co-sponsoring/sponsoring some upcoming events. Etta and I are basically going to put into practice those things that we did when we were a CARES Team with an apartment ministry called ApartmentLife. We never really thought it was preparation for anything, but God knew perfectly that it was.
We are working with our complex on their Fall Festival on October 25th. We intend to host breakfasts, dinners, car washes—anything that exposes us and Summerlake to the community and helps us to build relationships with the people of our Jerusalem (see Acts 1:8). We are in discussions with the Wrights, our other church members, about block parties in their subdivision to build relationships with their neighbors. They live only about 7 minutes from Summerlake. We are also looking to advertise in a community swim team’s newsletter. This will get us a good bit of exposure in our area.
In addition, we have a contact at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary here in Houston and he approached us about teaming up with them in an outreach event during their 50 day evangelism focus. A team of students and professors will come up and staff an event in our community. The date is November 8th and it coincides with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s evangelism focus that same weekend. The SBTC is having its annual meeting in Houston this year and it is always preceded by an outreach weekend. We are hoping to tie it to their event and have some people who are here for the annual meeting involved as well.
As you can see, God has us in this specific place at this specific time. Things are happening around us that we never thought of or planned for, but God is dropping them in our lap. Please pray for all these outreach opportunities that we might reach people for Christ through them.
Also, please pray for our finances. In both August and September we were about $500 off on our giving. That means we are currently about $1000 short. With our tight budget, everything that comes in goes out and there isn’t much wriggle room. Please pray that there will be a financial recovery for us. Our bills are paid up through October 1st but our rent comes due on November 1st. We are seeing real occasions for outreach in the complex so your prayers and financial support will help us continue to reach out to the hurting hearts with the hope of Jesus Christ.
We have some great outreach events in the works. We have talked to the event coordinator at the complex and Summerlake will be volunteering at/co-sponsoring/sponsoring some upcoming events. Etta and I are basically going to put into practice those things that we did when we were a CARES Team with an apartment ministry called ApartmentLife. We never really thought it was preparation for anything, but God knew perfectly that it was.
We are working with our complex on their Fall Festival on October 25th. We intend to host breakfasts, dinners, car washes—anything that exposes us and Summerlake to the community and helps us to build relationships with the people of our Jerusalem (see Acts 1:8). We are in discussions with the Wrights, our other church members, about block parties in their subdivision to build relationships with their neighbors. They live only about 7 minutes from Summerlake. We are also looking to advertise in a community swim team’s newsletter. This will get us a good bit of exposure in our area.
In addition, we have a contact at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary here in Houston and he approached us about teaming up with them in an outreach event during their 50 day evangelism focus. A team of students and professors will come up and staff an event in our community. The date is November 8th and it coincides with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s evangelism focus that same weekend. The SBTC is having its annual meeting in Houston this year and it is always preceded by an outreach weekend. We are hoping to tie it to their event and have some people who are here for the annual meeting involved as well.
As you can see, God has us in this specific place at this specific time. Things are happening around us that we never thought of or planned for, but God is dropping them in our lap. Please pray for all these outreach opportunities that we might reach people for Christ through them.
Also, please pray for our finances. In both August and September we were about $500 off on our giving. That means we are currently about $1000 short. With our tight budget, everything that comes in goes out and there isn’t much wriggle room. Please pray that there will be a financial recovery for us. Our bills are paid up through October 1st but our rent comes due on November 1st. We are seeing real occasions for outreach in the complex so your prayers and financial support will help us continue to reach out to the hurting hearts with the hope of Jesus Christ.
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