Yeeh

Well, there is so much to tell, because it has been fast and furious, so let me give you the basic update on life, the church, and ministry.

First, starting with the New Year, we made a pastoral change, bringing in Andres Doimeadios to be Hispanic Pastor. He is from Cuba, and the Christians there don’t mess around. Already we are seeing great growth. The evening service used to average around 40. Tonight we had over 70; about 4 weeks ago, 96. Andres also brings a lot of energy to the other areas of ministry; we don’t see ourselves as limited to various ethinic groups. So, while he is Hispanic pastor, he also works with us and leads with us in every other ministry area. One of the great gifts Andres brings is a desire to see the people of The Rock La Roca more connected one to another. Over the past few months, all of the people groups have had many chances to get together in more and more ways than before. Also, Andres is a United Methodist pastor; previously, there was not much connection with the broader Methodist structure, but now we are taking every opportunity of being involved with the many ministry and discipleship opportunities of the broader church.

Second, Roz is tearing it up in the church plant. The student is overtaking the master. He has me doing his evangelism work, whereas before, he did mine! Used to be, we’d drink some red bulls and hit the streets. Now Roz is down in Woodland, meeting people, witnessing, having dinners at his house, and adding more and people to his launch team. He has had two people accept Christ in the past 3 weeks. We baptized one of them last week, and he gave his testimony today. I can’t say how awesome it is that he is tearing it up like this. He has had a rough year, but God has worked it out for the good, in ways that would not have been possible had things stayed the way they were before. So even very difficult things get turned to good ends.

We baptized three people last week, one of them from the church plant. The other two come to us from our hospitality work in the community.

Our youth pastor, John Gallaher, has the toughest job in the Annual Conference. There are no conferences or resources for how to youth ministry in the 05. But John has dug in and stuck with it, taking on the difficult challenge I gave him: take the tough kids. The tendency (and desire of some who used to be in our church) was to push away the rough kids in the neighborhood. If you want to go to a quiet, well-behaved youth group where kids with stable families hang out, there are plenty of churches for you. But if you are a stressed out and freaked out kid, this is the only place for you. John said it best: “I didn’t think I was going to have to be a dad. It’s hard to figure out how to minister and be a hard-ass at the same time.”

Our children’s pastor, Melissa McDonald, has the hardest job in the Annual Conference. There are no conferences or resources for how to do children’s ministry in the 05. But Melissa has dug in and stuck with it, taking on the difficult challenge I gave her: recognize that our tough kids deserve ministry just because they are kids. We have no concern whatsoever of tying children’s ministry to the parents. We are glad for any contact we can get with the parents, but the kids are worthy of the love of Jesus and the ministry of the church whether we ever see their parents or not.

Some times when there is a lag in my postings, I don’t know what to say. There is all kinds of weirdness, sadness and funniness going on.

Having a good time, wish you were here.