Sunday recaps

• We had a decent crowd on the 30th considering it was in the middle of the holiday vacation. We ushered in the New Year by observing the Lord's table and remembering the good things that God had done in our lives and anticipating the good things that God would bring into our lives in 2008.
• This past Sunday, Jan 6, we started the new series above. Can we live the kind of life in 2008 that someone would want to make a movie about? We talked about the power of story and that God's primary way of sharing truth was through storytelling. Most of the Bible is the recording of stories with very little comment. Jesus' primary form of teaching is storytelling (parables). We remember stories but forget sermons. We are all living a story but have God's permission to live a great story worth remembering. And the great stories are the stories that line up with God's greater story of redemption that He has already written for this world. I'll write more about this later because it really excites me and fires me up about the opportunity to rise above the mundane and live greater than we are used to.
• It took us all day Sat. to get all the Christmas decorations down and put away plus we were redecorating the street and cafe area. Joe Stagnaro came to me in Dec with a vision of changing the street and making it into a warmer more receptive and contemporary place. So I turned him loose. Joe is very creative and talented (his talents run from guitar to sewing) and has a great eye for design and form. The store fronts remained the same but the floor was repainted, our coffee and serving line was changed, the Visitor Registration repositioned, couches and chairs and lamps and tables were brought in, and the results were amazing. There is a little more to do but the changes were well received and it definitely gave us a newer, fresher atmosphere.
• We have had several new families attending with quivers full of children. One family has 6 kids another with 5 and another with 4. Thats 6 adults but 11 children and 4 youth.
• We raised enough money to drill another fresh water well to open doors for the living water of Jesus Christ. Praise God!