Back from Gull Lake Family Camp

Well we're back in town from an awesome week at camp. Our kids looked so forward to going again and having some of their best friends along made it even better than last year. There were 11 families from Grace Church w/ five of them being launch team members.

The speaker taught us thought the life of David in seven very application oriented messages. The activites at Gull Lake Ministries are great and their summer staff is fantastic. This will be a place we will go to again as a family. I'll post some pics. once Melissa gets them off our camera and sends them to my laptop.

Thanks to all of you who prayed for me while I took my nostalgic trip to Canada. I truly saw more family and friends than I expected, which was wonderful. I even got the opportunity to tell the people in the church Melissa & I served in 10 yrs. ago about the church plant. Here's a couple shots of the trip:

What a Great Day!

This was one full day.
First we got the family to church by 9:30am to catch the last 15 minutes of Pastor Rick's first service message. Then he had Melissa and I with the kids come up onto the stage. He and I both said a few things and then he read the names of the 13 launch team families. He then invited the congregation to surround the families where they were and lay hands on them while he prayed. It was a very meaningful moment. Here's a pic. of the group of us. There are just four people missing. Including them, there are 61 individuals on the Encounter Church launch team with a baby set to be born any day. What a blessed pastor I am!
Then after the two services eight of the families headed to Liberty Park for a picnic under a shelter house. That was a time for the group to get re-acquainted since some of these families hardly know each other.
After a few hours at the park we headed straight for the Dublin South pool until we got totally rained out.
We were home for less than an hour when we turned right around and headed back to the church for what will probably be our last communion with our mother church. It was a very special time.
In two days I head off to Ontario, Canada where I'm from. I plan on visiting most of my familiy members and old homes I lived in throughout my youth. There are also a bunch of friends I'll see along the way too. I hope to at least get one post in while I'm there.

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.

We're A Team

There we are, my sweetheart and I, working hard together on a project given to us by the boot camp leaders. Our time has been relational, encouraging and practical. Especially when it comes to laying down more detailed time lines on what needs to be accomplish when.

In the next entry I intend to share about the church name, vision statement and core values so you'll have a better understanding of who we are and what we're about.

Great Time W/ Old Friends!

The night before Melissa & I went to the boot camp we met up with six of my old Bible college friends who live near York, PA. We all recently reconnected on Facebook and just had to get together once we knew how close we'd all be. It was crazy fun to reminisce about old times as we poured over yearbooks and photo albums. From left to right the couples are Julie & DJ Mahoney, Melissa & I, Jen & Dave Kaminkow, and Jody & John Kray. They joked about all getting in their RV's to attend Encounter Churches launch service.