Monday, July 19, 2010

Common Grace Updates

So many exciting things are happening! Please pray with us!

Nes completed his first year as Commissioner of Timoteo Flag football. There is a solid group of five men who make up the leadership team for the league and opportunities are coming the league’s way. They were accepted into a program called the Hispanic Capacity Project. Through this, they will be given resources to further develop the structure of the league and be given a financial grant. A grant from the Huston foundation was also received to support a fall weekend retreat for all the players.

We are currently praying about an exciting opportunity to work with a neighborhood church. They are in a transition period and are looking to focus their vision to move forward. The church is just seven blocks from where we live and has a desire to be incarnational and to reach out to its community. As we pray for God to give us direction and wisdom, we ask that you join us in prayer. This will be an exciting step to take, but a challenging one. Our hope is that this church could become an example of how a church can learn to better reach its community and work with other churches to do that. Through Common Grace’s mission to connect, support and mobilize churches, Nes would work with the leadership team of the church to focus their vision, utilize their gifts and teach them how to work with others to reach the neighborhood for Christ.

Common Grace is also in the process of building a missional and relational partnership of leaders and churches in the greater Philadelphia area. Several have already been meeting for missional discussions over the last year, and have developed a vision for this partnership. The ultimate goal is that people in the greater Philadelphia area have repeated opportunities to hear, see, touch and respond to an incarnational, geographically close, culturally relevant presentation of the gospel.

Nes continues Seminary classes through the summer at Biblical Seminary. The program is called the Urban LEAD MDiv and is structured to be very practical for people currently working in an urban ministry setting.

Our urban garden is doing well. We are gardening half of it and our neighbor Ralph is growing on the other half. We have green beans, zucchini, white beans, corn, tomatoes and grapes!