It's going to be a great week...

Last year, mostly on a whim and a desire to try and find an opportunity for families to serve alongside one another (parents and kids working side by side), we "adopted" a local apartment complex and had a mini-VBS style program for the kids in that complex. For our church, it was a stepping stone to our Engage Hope Here emphasis...actually getting outside our walls and ministering to others. It was a fantastic week, and this year, we are doing it again. This week is our annual service to this apartment complex and the kids/families there. Please pray for us this week...it's supposed to be awfully HOT!

What I'm most excited about is this idea that there a bunch of kids who will have someone come to them for a week...on their turf...in their world...for them. It reminded me of when our Lord and Savior left the perfectness of heaven, put on flesh, and entered into the world. What was His purpose? "To seek and to save what is lost" (Luke 19:10).

I'm pumped up and excited that I get to leave the comforts of my little world this week and enter into someone else's for the God-ordained purpose... "to seek and to save that which is lost."

It's been a fantastic week!

I just wanted to take a moment and thank all of you who participated somehow in our outreach to a local apartment community. The amount of kids that continued to show up each night was amazing. It may have had something to do with the free popsicles, but they stayed for the games, bible story, and crafts.

It was a helpful reminder to me as well. Ministering to people is often so simple. Despite our efforts to "complicate" it with strategies and the like, investing in the lives of people really isn't all that difficult. I was blessed to be a part of this week, and you can bet we'll be doing it again next year.

Have a great weekend, and we'll see you on Sunday!

Summer in the suburbs...

Summer is approaching. I ran into a great article the other day tools you can use to connect with people outside the church during the summer in the 'burbs.

Summer in the Suburbs

Are there any more ideas you have?