Tomorrow's the Big Day!

Sunday June 29, 2008 will be a day that lives in history for the Spoelstra family. Tomorrow morning, with twelve other families, we will stand before the congregation to be named and prayed over.
Ten years of ministering at Grace Church in Powell, OH with such a dedicated group of families has been our pleasure. We've learned so much and are now to be sent out with our mother churches blessing and support. It's awesome!
And the team that's being sent is first class. These men and women are an experienced, faithful and hard working bunch. I look so forward to praying and dreaming with them about how God may use us as a team to reach people in the Dublin-Jerome area.

Here is our churches name, vision statement and core values:


ENCOUNTER CHURCH
"Seeking HIS Kingdom First"
Celebrate--Grow--Serve--Multiply


I will speak about each of those words in future blogs.
Look forward to some pics. from tomorrows service in my next entry.

One More Sunday

Today was the last Sunday to attend Grace Church before heading out to the church planters boot camp in York, PA tomorrow. Next Sunday's sermon title is, "A Families Call". The main application for the message will be the introduction of the Encounter Church launch team of 13 families to the congregation for the first time. We are so blessed to have that many families willing to pioneer a new work for the Lord. I'll be sure to post pictures and maybe some video. I hope to post you an update this week of our time at boot camp.

10 More Days

It's Friday afternoon June 20, 2008 and I am on staff at Grace Church in Powell, Oh for just 10 more days. I've been on staff since June 1st, 1998. That's right, 10 years have gone by and it's been the greatest experiences of my life...so far. Because in 10 days I become a "church planter". I have the great privilege of being sent by a loving Mother-church who is providing me close to a dozen of her finest people and my entire salary and benefits for this first year.
About a month ago we had our first "launch team" meeting on May 22 with my Sr. Pastor, Rick Nuzum, there at my side. He allowed me to cast vision for this group of families committed to reaching the Dublin-Jerome area for Christ. Here's a few pics. from that night.

For my sweetheart Melissa and I, this has been almost a two year journey living out God's will for our lives. I gotta tell ya, I am a very blessed man to have this woman stand beside me these 13 years of marriage. She is totally for doing this new ministry. This next week we will be attending a boot camp for church planters in York, PA. It should give us some real meat-n-potatoes on how to move ahead with this team of people.