ACCEPTED

My time this morning with the NCO pastors was great. One of the first orders of business was the vote on three of us new

church plants being recognized as NCO churches. All three us us were unanimously voted in! It was a good time together celebrating what God has done and is continuing to do in Ohio through our churches.

Applying for NCO District Memebership

This morning I head up to Mt. Gilead for a North Central Ohio District pastors meeting. Our 25 or so churches do this every other month as a way to connect at a friendship level, hear reports on how ministry is going and to conduct official district business.
Today I've applied for Encounter Church to become an official member of the district. At present we are a daughter work of Grace Church in Powell and fall under them as a member church. If accepted into the district we will then apply to the national level within our fellowship of churches and will be recognized at EQUIP '09, the national conference for the Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches.
I'll let you know how things go later on today.

Fun at Space Camp

After being with the NewThing guys in Chicago I flew to Huntsville, Alabama to meet up with my son Zach's sixth grade Space Camp trip. I have been a chaperon to four boys since I arrived on Wed. morning. It's now Friday and we are heading back to Columbus, Ohio.
Here are some pics. and video of the things we saw and did.

What a hoot!

Yesterday was really a privilege. Hang'n out with a bunch of pastors who are totally committed to seeing new churches and new church planting networks birth. We had meetings for about four hours led by Dave Ferguson with good food and discussions. I met a guy named Dave Richa who went to Moody Bible Institute at the same time as me and even lived on my floor just before I arrived. It was so fun talking about all the guys we knew.
After the meetings ended there was a surprise all of us. We were taken to a Chicago Cubs game but not in the ordinary way. If you are at all familiar with the stadium, we were actually across the street up on one of the roof tops. All our food and drinks were even comped. What a hoot!



Today we've got hours of more meetings talking/dreaming about how/when to see new churches launched from each of our churches over the next two years. I'm also personally looking for Encounter to have a leadership resident or two by this Fall.

Hang'n with the NewThing guys

Right now I'm sitting in the Yellow Box Ground Level Cafe' in Naperville, Ill. I'm here for the all lead pastor gathering. Guys are coming from all over the US and I think even one from the Philippines. We'll be together Mon. and Tues. As you've likely read in past entries, Encounter is partnering with the NewThing Network. They are committed to seeing new churches start and so are we. In fact in my message yesterday called, Multiply 2.0, I detailed out some our thoughts regarding a future plant out of Encounter. If I haven't mentioned it before, you can listen to our Sunday service messages by going to http://www.encounterchurch.us/. Anyway, I'm looking very forward to my time with these people. I'll tell you more in the next few days.

Praising God for His Blessing

Yesterday we completed our five week series on our vision and core values. It was a super morning from worship and testimony to message and connecting after the service. Honestly we thought attendance would be down b/c we knew five families weren't going to be there but we ended up with our highest attendance yet. It was our 14th service and 110 were there. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. When we thought it would be a ghost town, He brought a crowd. My church planting coach, Clancy Cruise, was there with his family too. I look forward to hearing his thoughts on the morning.

The next five weeks takes us into a series called, "Beginnings" with Genesis 1-12 as our main texts.

Two SERVE events in one day

Yesterday those of Encounter church were well represented at Eli Pinney helping around the building with mulching, planting, cleaning, etc. I heard that there were some good conversations with our folks and some of the neighborhood people that also showed up. Across the river but not far a few of our folks served in a different way. Another school was having a carnival and three of our members ran a booth at it. This gave them the opportunity to share about Encounter

and the love of Christ. Great job everyone! We're living up to our core values.

The Wedding of Q and U

Each year at the school my children attend the kindergarten class puts on a formal wedding for the letters Q and U. As you well know Mr. Q needs Miss U at his side so he can make the QWA sound:-)

Six years ago I officiated it for my sons class, three years ago Melissa & I were Q and U for Abby & Sara's class and today I again officiated the ceremony for our kindergartener Rachel's class. How fun!!! My barber, friend and Grace Church's high school youth pastor

Mark Artrip sang a ballad he wrote for the occasion.

We even ate cake afterwards to celebrate.