November/December

The Light is well on its way. We are having weekly Sunday services that are going well. We are still meeting at the University of Baltimore and have had a fairly consistent, if small stream of visitors. That has been both exciting and frustrating. It’s exciting to see the regular faces, but frustrating in that we have had difficulty in getting the vast majority more involved and committed to The Light.

Many of our core group are tired and burnt out from the Launch and all the work that has gone into getting the church started. The constraints of our room and the burnout have meant that we have settled into a consistent rhythm with our Sunday Services already. While that makes things easier, it does pave the way for predictability and routine-ness in the future. However, with a calling to be innovative and creative, we are resisting that. But it can be difficult. Needless to say, everyone is looking forward to the holiday break – a chance to start off a new year with new vision and passion for what God is calling us to do.

So, we are finishing off the year by planning our 2008 Outreaches, coordinating when we can host missions teams from our faithful partners. This brainstorming and planning stage is ideal for laying the groundwork for looking ahead and reclaiming vision. In preparation for this, we have a getaway planned for the Core Group on the first weekend of January to reflect and evaluate and plan ahead.

Not everything, however, is so difficult. We have added a couple of new people to our Core Group – literally, our first couple, Jason and Nikki Rhodes. Not only do they bring new energy and ideas to the group, but they bring worship-leading talent and a heart for ministry. Jason works with computers and Nikki teaches in a nearby library/elementary school outreach program. And more specifically, Jason will be joining the inaugural class of our new Internship Program at Grace Life.

Which leads me to more exciting news! We are finally beginning a formal Internship Program amongst our Grace Life network of churches. While we have had a few interns over the years in various capacities, we haven’t always had the time or the resources to develop them as well as we would have liked. But we have finally reached a place as a network in which we can.

The program is geared for people who are exploring ministry as their full-time profession, and we have 4 people who are starting this process with us: Matt Kim (who is in his final year of Seminary, getting his MDiv, and has been with us for several years), Jason Rhodes (who, with his wife, Nikki, has just joined our Core Group at The Light), John Kovacs (who has been with us for a few years, and is awaiting confirmation as a US/C2 missionary), and Jesse Johnson (who with his wife, Rachelle, has just joined our network staff part-time as Worship Director).

Given that we are in our third church plant, and planning our fourth, we have many different roles and opportunities for each of these folks to get their feet wet, to explore the type of ministry God may be calling them to, and to gain experience in church ministry itself.

By mid-December, we will be finished with our lease at the University of Baltimore, and are looking for a new space – whether a different room within UB, or an entirely different location altogether. As I wrote in my last post, we have begun to feel limited in the space we currently use. It limits how creative we can be as well as the setting/atmosphere we desire to create.

Ultimately, our vision is to have a place that is our own, that we can use as a gallery and café, open to the community all week, and have a worship center in its midst, or in another part of the same space. This would be a first for the city of Baltimore, for any church to be open for something like that.

I’d like to update y’all on the Global Impact Conference I spoke at in Mississippi, in early November. Thank y’all so much for y’all’s prayers. I had a great time sharing there, and even saw some of our partners. I was also able to connect with new church leaders and pastors. It was exciting to see so many people and churches who were excited about missions opportunities abroad and here in North America. I appreciated the invitation to be a part of that and to share with everyone what God is doing in Baltimore and in the Grace Life Network. I also had time to visit and speak at another church in MS, and catch up with some of the people who came to last summer’s missions trip. It was very encouraging, and I always look forward to going back to visit more of our friends there, now. More than the partnerships we are developing, I am so thankful for the friendships (and getting my fix of catfish! And pecan pie! Thanks to Paul Harrell and Nan Suggs, I got my fill of that Southern specialty as well.)