Starbucks, Church, Thoughts?

I came across this video today called "What if Starbucks marketed like the church?" It's good fodder for thought and discussion. It comes from a blog called Beyond Relevance.

Good Things Happening; Exciting Week Coming Up

God continues to work in Ireland! For the last three services Pastor McFarland has been away taking care of some important things, so it was my turn again to bring the Word! I'm always amazed at how God always lights us up with the Word for the moment and then orchestrates the service to accomplish His work. Yea God!

On Sunday a family from Poland visited our church. They have little Christian background and spoke very limited English. It was a neat experience to get to know them a little and to start planting seed in their heart. We could tell they were touched by the service and the love from the church family.

And speaking of family, God directed me to speak to our families last night. In this critical moment in time, there has never been a more pressing need to build our families around Jesus Christ. The Scripture says that it was the wise man who built his house upon the rock. While everything in this world is being shaken, the homes that are built on the Rock are going to stand strong.

I shared with the church my memories of having "family devotion" as a child with my family every Monday night. And sometimes my mom would get particularly spiritual and take me and my brother through the house on a victory march! I can remember thinking, "if the kids at school could see me now...". But you know what? Here I am 20 years later and those moments have never left me. Now the challenge is mine to pass on to my children.

One final note, tomorrow we leave for a week in Scotland. We will be attending the district minister's meetings, visiting the Glasgow church and Bible School (Bro and Sis Robert Kelley pastor/missionary) and then spending Thanksgiving day with the Kelley's and other Americans in the district. It's going to be a great time. People keep using the words "visit" and "Edinburgh" and "castle" in the same context, whatever that's all about. : )

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

The Christmas season is officially here in Northern Ireland. Of course, they don't celebrate Thanksgiving here. Therefore, Christmas decorations go up after Halloween. We have been listening to Christmas music and trying to pick up a few gifts to take back home with us. There will be no Christmas tree for us this year as we are leaving the first week in December to head back to Louisiana. We are fully relying on the Christmas trees and decorations of our friends and family at home.

Actually, someone at church said that they don't put their decorations up until after Thanksgiving (even though they don't celebrate it). I don't know. But decorations are up in stores and Christmas music is playing. We are in the mood for the most wonderful time of the year!!

More Miracles!

On Saturday evening Pastor McFarland received word that his father, who lives in Oregon, had a massive heart attack and was on life support. Simultaneously, Sis McFarland's father was undergoing major surgery in Florida.

On Sunday, the church prayed. On Monday the reports came back that Bro Mac's father was completely off of the life support, was walking around talking, and will probably be released from the hospital next week. Then we found out that when the doctor's opened up Sis Mac's father, they found nothing of the condition for which he was undergoing surgery!

Is God good or what? I'm telling you, He is still working miracles.

November Is Here

Has another month already come and gone? It's amazing how fast time passes. It seems like October just arrived, that I had my 32nd birthday, that we were enjoying the beautiful fall colors....and now it's November and things seem more winter-like every day.

We rolled our clocks back an hour (as a matter of trivia, we performed this ritual one week earlier than the US) and that has meant that it is getting darker earlier.

It also means that it is time to give you a summary of what God did in Ireland during October!

Holy Spirit Outpouring
Gillaine was filled with the Holy Spirit at the beginning of the month. It was so amazing to watch her being born into the Kingdom knowing that six months prior she had no knowledge of what this New Birth was all about. God is still pouring out His Spirit on all flesh!

James and Eve are a precious Apostolic couple from Dublin who have been driving up here to the North to attend services. They rent a room of their house out to a girl from France named Florence. She visited with James and Eve and showed interest in the things of God. Pray for Florence.

Staff Meetings
We began a formal series of staff meetings, aligning our goals, priorities, job descriptions, roles, etc. We had a great time brainstorming and organizing the various ministries from the ground up.

College Ministry Launched
Speaking of "ground", we launched our college ministry, called "Grounded", in October. We meet weekly at Starbucks for a time of Bible Study and fellowship geared to the college level. Why meet at Starbucks? Well, it appears that God is opening a door for us there. Shawna works at Starbucks and as she began to share with her staff and managers about Greater Life, they became very interested and wanted to offer Starbucks as a place for us to meet and have Bible Study. The manager told us that she would be willing to close the Starbucks one evening and then re-open it after ours just for us! The only thing is we'd need a crowd large enough to justify the re-opening. So this opens up all kinds of possibilities for outreach/youth services/meetings, etc! Who wouldn't want to go to a "youthy" type meeting at Starbucks?

Communion Service
We had a phenomenal Communion Service this month. In Ireland, like many of the churches in the States, they would tend to have communion each week. We choose to partake of communion less often, in order to underscore the importance of the service. We spent time in prayer and fasting to prepare ourselves for the service and God showed up in a big way. Many prayers were answered and lives were touched.

Now we have high expectations for November! Keep praying for Ireland!