Mike McCaman does a bang up job!

Yesterdays service was great! Nate young and Jennifer Painter led us in worship, I got to do announcements and Mike & Emily spoke during the testimony time about their future ministry in Mexico City. Mike's parents, Gary & Linda McCaman, were in attendance as well. Matthew 13:24-30 & 36-39 were the main texts Mike preached from about Christ followers being like seeds the Lord has placed in the world for His purpose. You can listen to Mike's message or any other from the past when you CLICK HERE.

Mike and Emily McCaman in the house!

This Sunday Encounter Church has Mike & Emily McCaman and baby Noah visiting. The two of them will talk about their present and future adventures church planting in Mexico City. Mike will also be preaching the message.
They along with Matt & Cheryl Storer are our two officially sponsored missionaries. Rather than our little church body trying to help and get to know a dozen or more missionary families, we've decided for now, to have just two. That way we can give more and deepen our relationships with just a few. Months ago it was decided to provide each of these two families with 5% of our Sunday morning offerings. Another 5% is put aside for benevolence and still another 5% for a future church plant to come out of Encounter. This adds up to 20% of our gross offerings marked for Give Away. This is one of the ways Encounter lives out the vision statement: "Seeking HIS Kingdom First".
I sorta joked with both families about not being able to give them a set amount of money monthly but that they should pray for numerical growth at Encounter. The more people attending, the more finances given, the more quickly their needs will be met:-)

From what I remember the only thing holding the McCaman's back from being in Mexico City right now is finances. They speak the language, have been trained, have their passports & paperwork in order and have a team of people waiting for their arrival. Checkout their blog to learn more about them or go to our website for their contact info. and call them yourselves.

Don't Buy Stuff You Can't Afford

Here is a funny video that SNL did years ago. I can see us using it in a message series on personal finances in the future:-) It's such a simple concept and makes sense but often we don't live our lives by it.
Enjoy.

Win without a hit???

Our twin daughters played Dublin Youth Athletic(DYA) softball again this year. Last year was coach pitch and they regularly hit ground balls into the outfield. This year was the first time they played kid pitch. Now if you know either of my sweet daughters, you know they are socially quite aggressive. But when you put them at bat with a mostly inconsistent 3rd grade pitcher...they become quite timid. However, their team made it to the championship game and to my amazement won that game without a single hit! Once the bases were loaded every walk provided a run!!! In the large pic. Abby is on the left and Sara is one the right.

Celebrating VBS in our morning service

This mornings church service was fun as we celebrated last week's VBS. We showed a power point with picture highlights of the week. Then Kyle Mielke came out as the NASA Commander with his cadets,
Kristi and Jocelyn, the kids sang two songs and Kyle had four of them recite a Bible verse they had memorized during the week.
I don't know how many were there but it has to have been about our highest attended service with numerous visitors from the
neighborhood who came out to see their children sing. Here are some shots from this morning and also a link to an online album if you'd like to download any pics. for yourself.

http://picasaweb.google.com/encounterchurchjerome/VBS2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCPX-iNr5mYebrgE#

VBS ends well

Well we have completed our first VBS. What a great adventure for our people and children. Throughout the week a number of children asked Jesus to be there Savior and on the last night week gave away a bunch of Bibles. So many that I need to order more for our Sunday morning services again!
On Sunday we will have the kids sing in the service and hopefully show a slide show of the week. We've invited parents from the neighborhood to attend so hopefully we'll see some there.
It's been a very busy few weeks for many in the Encounter Church body. I know I'm looking forward to relaxing a bit and spending some more time with the family.
In my next entry I'll try to have a link for you to get pics. from last weeks VBS.

Operation Barnabas @ Encounter's VBS

I told you in my last entry that during the 4th of July parade we handed out Frisbees with VBS info. on them. What I didn't mention was that for two of the five nights we'd have 30 high schoolers joining us. They were with the ministry group, Operation Barnabas or OB, a six week ministry team for 10th-12th graders. They go all over the United States and do whatever churches need doing.
For us they went on prayer walks in Dublin neighborhoods (including my own), handed out over 5000 of our contact cards and put on an awesome presentation with clowns, puppets and teaching. I know you may be thinking - cornball - but really, it was good. They picked great upbeat and fun music. Even sang a song from HS Musical. Here's some pics. and a silly video of them singing with the kids.

Dublin's 4th of July Parade

Whoohoo!!! It's been a long but fun day. This morning we had about 55 Encounter Church friends walking, roller-blading, strollering and driving in our cities 4th of July parade. The 3000 Frisbees and 100 lbs. of candy were all gone about two hundred yards before we completed the parade route. It was fun to see many people on the roadside we knew from DYA sports, other churches or our neighborhoods. This evening we saw the Dublin fireworks with three other Encounter families. We were a noisy bunch with seventeen kiddos running around.

Tomorrow after the church service we begin the set-up for our VBS on site at Eli Pinney Elementary next week. You can register your children online at www.encounterchurchjerome.com. It should be a great week with people from our the local neighborhoods and all our own children attending. Many of our people are involved to make it a really fun experience.

Preparing for Dublin's 4th of July Parade

Last night a bunch of Encounter ladies taped no less than 3000 postcard invitations to the 3000 Frisbees we're handing out at the Dublin 4th of July Parade. We also have over one hundred pounds of candy and thousands of Encounter Church contact cards to handout. I'll be pulling a little trailer with my jeep, Jim Fish is hauling all the Frisbees and candy in the back of his pick-up truck and I've borrowed my dentist, Brad Fulton's, 1975 convertible Oldsmobile 88 Royale. It's got to be about the longest car ever made that's not a limo!

Look forward to pics. for the parade in my next entry:-)