Friday, October 8, 2004

2:01 PM The Power Connection Junior High Fall Retreat starts this afternoon. Darin Weil heads up a group of 55 students and leaders on their way to Phantom Ranch. Darin told me that the theme is prayer, and along with all the fun and games, they plan to spend a good part of the weekend on their knees. 1:28 PM Here are two more entries in the Crosswalk weblog: Sausage and Eggs with the Men No Time to Hate 12:10 PM Pastor Howard Duncan passed along the outreach plans of SC2 (Single Christians Serving Christ). Here are their goals: 1) Minimum of six events a year 2) Roughly a 50/50 mix of ‘service’ and ‘outreach’ type events. We are defining service as literally serving the community where the intention is to show Christ’s love through our action, but the focus will not be direct evangelism (i.e. Raking leaves). Outreach is being defined as an event with a primary goal of sharing the Gospel with people (i.e. Handing out tracts). We realize many events may have a mix of both. 3) Have every regular (SC)2 attendee participate in a minimum of 2 service/outreach events. Following that outline, here are their plans: Sat, Nov 13th: Breakthrough Urban Ministry Coffee Hour – Directly following the benefit concert being held at Calvary, we will host a coffee hour where attendees can mingle and meet the performers. The hope is to use this social time in tandem with the concert to encourage attendees to give generously to the Women’s Ministry of Breakthrough. Pastor Andrew has okayed the idea and the dining room/parlor is on hold. January, ‘05: International Student Ministries Event – We are investigating the possibility of either a dinner or activity night for International students. Most likely this will be towards the beginning of January as a kickoff for their new semester. February, ‘05: Food Drive – We will sponsor a church-wide food drive for the Oak Park Food Pantry. Tom has already put together a proposal and discussed the idea with Pastor Howard. We need to follow up with Howard at the end of this year to confirm the project and lock in specific dates. March, ‘05: Joshua House Dinner – We are looking into a spring cleaning/dinner event for Joshua House where we will assist them with minor chores in the afternoon (i.e. Cleaning, painting) and prepare them dinner in the evening. April, ‘05: Single and Satisfied – a day-long conference covering addressing the issues of singles in our community. My comment: SC2 is setting the pace for ministry at Calvary. Every ministry and group in our church needs to do something similar—schedule intentional outreach and service events so that people can get involved in reaching others for Christ. I’ll be happy to mention the plans of any other groups on this weblog. 11:54 AM Friday morning shout-out to Butch Jarrell, Susannah Schwarcz, Mike and Gail Black, Pastor Mateen Elass, Travis Woronowicz, Sergey Rakhuba of Russian Ministries, John Selph, Judith Buchanan, Bob Kryder. Special get-well-soon wishes to Sophie Miller.