Monday, March 2, 2009

February is over!



It is officially March, which has been welcomed into my life. I just finished a week of events which were a blessing, both to me and others, yet it all happening in one week left my quite tired. Other than the ministry updates included below, there is not a whole lot to report on. Tatum and I are studying away. I have just over 3 months until graduation. At that point, I’ll be having a graduation party whenever I see somebody. The one social highlight we had came the week after Valentine’s. We actually went out for a nice dinner in Little Italy. We talked. We laughed. We relaxed. It was insane. That whole “date” thing is worth all the hype. But since we forgot our camera on our one social event, you only get a picture of the cliffs along the Pacific. Now onto the ministry updates…..

Soma Conference
We have an annual conference entitled the “Soma Conference”, which is always focused on wholeness. My job each year is to oversee the coaches for each team and spend the painstaking time of figuring out which team is the best fit for each person. Its one area where my excel spreadsheet skills from my engineering days come in quite handy. Although it is draining, it’s a good fit for me. I also coached five guys throughout the weekend, which is always fun for me. The theme of the conference was Risk and we had some amazing speakers in for the main sessions and the workshops. Overall, the conference was a huge success so thank you to all who prayed.

Men’s Event
In order to save myself some effort and utilize a great speaker, we had a Men’s Event the Monday night before Soma, which is Thursday through Saturday. Well that sort of backfired on me because we had 115 guys show up. That is 40 more than any Men’s Event we have ever had during the week! So all of the sudden I had to put some effort into figuring out the food problem since the hunger was not being dissipated. I cannot complain that the event took effort, though since God answered some prayers in bringing out such a huge turnout. I’ve heard great feedback and more guys are interested in the future Men’s Events. The topic was “Dangerous Friendships” and Todd Langerveld talked through principles found in the friendship between David and Jonathan. We also had a challenge to give up NOT spending time with God for Lent. So my prayer is that the men at Flood spend more time with God over the next 40 days than they have in a long time.

New to Faith
Also, we finished up another New to Faith class this past month. It was definitely a smaller class in that we only had two girls, but it was still a huge success. It’s always a thrill to walk alongside of people when they are seeking. One woman had already made a faith commitment to Jesus Christ, but still had a lot of questions. Therefore, she was fine going through the seeker section of our class. The second woman was definitely in a place of seeking and had many questions. The best news came at the end when both girls asked if they were allowed to go through the second tract of the New to Faith class. Just to give you context, we have only had one total person choose to do that in the past year. The second girl seems very close to making a faith commitment, so we are excited to see them continue to grow in tract 2. So if you think of it, please pray for them.
Growth Group Leader Training
Well, although I thought I had four guys going through the training, two of them had to drop out because of schedule conflicts. So I’m finishing up with the two that remained, and the other two will join another four guys in a new training starting on March 15th. Please pray with me that God would continue to raise up more men to be growth group leaders.

March….
So what does the next month hold? Tatum gets a well-deserved spring break! I might get a weekend camping trip in, but most of my month is full of studying. Here are a few highlights that are coming up though:
➢ Tatum’s Core Group on finding redemption from sexual pasts. Her next group starts up on March 15th, so pray that God would speak through her like He has in the past. (You can talk to the girls from her first group for proof)
➢ We are going to try an event in April focusing on Fatherhood. Since having babies is the new fad at our church, we realize we need to start addressing the new role. So pray that God would lead us in that.

Thank you to each one of you. Your prayers and support have been a huge encouragement to me throughout the year. I know any success in my ministry is tied to your prayers, so thank you.