The last few days have been a whirlwind. Tuesday took me to the mall for delivery of some of our multi-media equipment, followed by meetings with a couple of area pastors.  I met last week with a great Pastor Jeff McCracken of Rainier Assembly of God, and Tuesday I met with Pastor Todd Anderson of Shekinah Worship Center, and Pastor Chuck Tilton of Father's House in Longview. All of these guys were great friends of mine when I lived in the Kelso area... and now all three are Senior Pastors. It is so cool to talk with them about what God is doing in their lives and churches. I was especially appreciative of the welcome that they extended to our endeavor in the area.  A blessing, and what a Kingdom perspective for the work in the community!

Tuesday evening brought a great meeting with members of our Leadership Team that live in the Kelso area. What a great group!!! Great prayer, great dialogue, great fun!

Wednesday brought a trip up to the mall with Jason Wyman and Steve Strickland, and we were joined by Frank Osterweil (great job on the windows Frank!) and Tyler Davenport. We bought lumber and built the structure for our platform.  A few more touches tomorrow by the Strickland-meister and we will be looking forward to hanging curtains and starting on sound and multi-media next week.

A couple of things to pray about:

1. connections - our mailers go out to 34,242 homes from Castle Rock to Kalama next week! Let's pray to connect with old friends not presently committed to a local church, and people we have yet to meet who need Jesus! We are believing for a full house starting day one!
2. favor - we have been working hard to have good rapport with area churches and will continue to do so. It is always tough when a struggling church finds out about a new work coming to the area. It can cause them to be negative, territorial and even suspicious simply because they are frustrated. My prayer is that we can come along side and be encouraging to those churches, and possibly be a part of their turnaround. As a leadership team we have been praying for God's blessing on specific area churches that we have a relationship with. We want to see every church grow. We are on the same team, and we win as a team.  Even if every church in the area doubled, we still wouldn't be making a dent in the 45,000+ area people!
3. finances - this project will cost $25-$30K out of pocket!  We will be receiving offerings in Vancouver on the last Sundays of Sep-Dec and in Kelso Nov-December.  We are believing God to meet the need. After all, the need has been created by our efforts to make Him famous!!!

Get ready for the Lord to BLOW YOUR MIND!  He is at work!