April

We feel a tremendous sense of urgency as we look for a place to settle. We are continuously stymied by our lack of space and physical presence in the community. Outreaches have been only so successful, and the core group members are struggling with frustration as they try again and again to engage people.

Like I mentioned in my last update, Bill and John have been doing an all-out search for a place so that we can move onto the next phase of our church plant. We feel like it is so close, but never quite there. Promising spaces are often revoked or have hidden things that don’t work out. It has been frustrating, but we trust that God is leading us to the right space for this church. One good thing to come out of this search is that it forces us, as a core group to continually refine and re-define what this church is and will be. We are reminded, again and again, to give up ideas of what we know, in order to ask what God would have us do.

So, we have increased out efforts to meet for more prayer and to vision again as to why we started the Light church in the first place.

And again, life circumstances have become a struggle. For myself and my family, we are again facing financial pressures as house repairs have taken on new urgency, since many weren’t dealt with when we first launched the church (a leaking roof, followed by plumbing problems – which have left us with just one bathroom in the house to wash in (2 adults and 4 boys!), and now, just recently, Termites have shown up in the house!).

Likewise, Bill, since coming on as the co-church planter, has been plagued with ongoing car troubles that have put undue hardships to him and his family, as well as a leaking bathroom, too. It almost seems comical, if it didn’t wear us down so quickly.

However, our staff are not the only ones getting hit.

From our Core Group, students and recent grads are struggling, like most across the country, to find jobs, and ones that satisfy them. One young woman, so passionate about the church plant, will have to move home to her parents’ in August, due to finances, rather than continue her schooling and work here in the city. Another young man cannot get enough work to make his bills, and another young woman’s work environment has deteriorated with the economy, leaving her feeling trapped. All of these things have worked to discourage our entire core group, causing some to question their decision to remain in Baltimore, even for the church plant. While it is discouraging for the Core Group to see everyone struggle so badly, it has the added effect of demoralizing the entire group.

PLEASE PRAY FOR THE FOLLOW TWO THINGS:

1. To FIND a place for our church plant that is in the community and suites what God wants to do through us.
2. For the Spiritual Warfare that we are facing, that we would see a deliverance from it and that we will be able to overcome both the actual challenges presented as well as the their discouraging effect.

March

It has a been a busy couple of months. I hope you'll forgive my lack of an update, with this one, and another to follow shortly!

March

As I mentioned in my last post, we have been searching for a new space in which to meet regularly. It seems as if we are constantly doing this, and well, we have. While things have been going well at our smaller space/venue since the new year, we know that we need a different space in which we can meet throughout the week. We NEED to have a day-today presence in the community.

While our core group is still excited, we all recognize that we have reached a plateau in the church plant. We feel very limited in what we can accomplish in reaching this unique population of artists with out that day-to-day presence. While we are centered in the Arts District of Baltimore, we know that our target group is not a physically-defined community or neighborhood. The artist community in Baltimore is large and disperse, and without a defined space, it is impossible to reach them with only Sunday services.

As John and Bill have been looking, we have found 2 locations in the city, but neither is perfectly suited for what we want to do. Ideally, we would like a store-front property that can serve as a gallery/café: a base for our day-to-day operations and outreaches, ranging from Alternative Craft classes/groups, Poetry Slams, small concerts, etc.

In the meantime, we were blessed this month with a GREAT help – a missions team from Holly Springs, MS. They did an amazing amount of work to help us promote our Good Friday event, making contact with lots of folks in the city. They were Mike and Connie Clarkson, their daughter Christa, Webb and Tiffany Lewis, Jared Cummins, and Neal Boone. (Actually, Neal and Jared are not from Holly Springs, but they do go to college with Christa at Mississippi College.)

These folks went out each day, praying for the area and talking with people, inviting them to our Good Friday event, and letting folks know that we are in the neighborhood. They had a lot of great interactions, and you should hear their stories! Jared and Mike ventured into our local anarchist coffee shop, Red Emma’s, and learned a lot about another subculture in our very own US.

The team also helped us install 2 sculptures in a gallery in DC. Our very own Marie Cobb submitted one of her works, and we submitted a collaborative work, Incense (our prayersculpture from Good Friday/Easter 2007), to a juried show at the Honfleur Gallery in DC.

Both were accepted, but we needed a lot of help to install them. We got great feedback about them, and it was amazing to share what God has been doing in our church. One review described Incense as “whimsical, but reverent”. This would not have been possible without the MS team’s help!

Our Good Friday service went really well. Designed to be an experiential meditation on aspects of the Good Friday story, we centered the service around six words: Silence, Promise, Feeling, Broken, Question, and Change. We put out a call for original video, art, and written works that responded to one or several of these six words, and got some amazing pieces. We designed the room and the service so that after an initial time of worship, we split into groups and experienced each word (and accompanying art pieces) as a group and discussed what each meant to us and the world in the context of the Good Friday story. We meditated on the Word and His sacrifice, and shared that experience together. Many people were powerfully moved and affected.

Thanks again, Mike and Connie, for leading this trip, and thank you Christa, Webb, Tiffany, Neal and Jared for all of your hard work. You don’t know what an encouragement it was for us to have you here with us. You made our Easter weekend an exciting and blessed time.

Our ministry continues to see growth and people are being changed. I’d like to highlight and share with you a particular story from this month.

James is a 28 year old single guy who came back to the Lord about 4 months ago after several years playing the prodigal son. He told me at the beginning of February he felt God was calling him to start speaking up at work and begin mentoring some of the younger guys that he does appliance installation and delivery with. While James is 6'6" and about 300 lbs, he is a very quiet man and unsure of himself - so this was something like Moses hearing he was supposed to speak for God.

We started praying then that God would open doors for him to talk about his faith and see what would happen. One month later, James has had significant conversations with all 4 guys in his shop, had one of them attend small group with him and is beginning a Bible study next week with two of them whom he found out are Christians. One of the guys is asking more and more questions each week about faith and James believes he is close to coming to church with him. James is not only a changed man, but he is helping to change those around him.

Praise God for how He is working in James’ life.

(oh, and before i forget, thanks Neal for all the great pics!)