Lord's Supper at IBC

The Thursday before Easter was a special time of Communion for us... we did a live re-enactment of the Lord's Supper. The auditorium was set with tables for about 150 people with all the tables decorated to represent what a traditional Passover table and meal may have looked like in Bible days. Our deacons an life group leaders dressed like Jesus and the 12 disciples kind of like the famous painting of the "Last Supper". All the lights in the church we turned low and candles on each table set a somber but somewhat cozy mood. I read a narrative describing what may have happened in the events of that day intermingled with the verses of scripture that gives us more detail. Genia, Erwin and Amy sang special songs at various points through the narrative reading. Then Pastor Ken had a short message and challenge before leading the congregation of about 160 people through the remembrance of the Lord's Supper. Our goal was to give the congregation a sense of what it may have been like to be present with the Lord on that day before He went to the cross. Our disciples left the table where they were sitting and served the tables for the congregation. Everyone seemed to enjoy the evening and the special event had a delightful atmosphere.

I haven't written in the past few weeks simply because of a lack of time. We have been full on from the holidays and church activities as well as helping to host a few visitors from the USA that came to help with the Bible distribution... speaking of which I met a Korean man and Chinese man while I was waiting on Mt. Eden. Our Bible distribution team was finishing up their day of handing out Bibles when I came back to the car to wait for them. These two men curiously approached me to ask what we were doing as they noticed we were giving packets out to people. When I told them we were handing out the Bible they eagerly wanted to know more... eventually the Chinese man wanted me to pray for him. And I did after I explained the gospel. I'm not sure how much he understood since his English was only about 50%, but he does have a lot of information in his language to read.

Last week at the church office I was working late with a counseling session when a strange somewhat deranged man came into the office and demanded money. Pastor Ken and the Church secretary had already left for the day and it was just me and my counselee in the church. I didn't think the stranger was actually trying to rob us although he did demand that we go to an ATM machine and take out money for him to have gas to put in his car. I offered the man $10 to help him in his situation but he wanted more. I refused to go with him to an AMT and asked him to leave the building to which he made several threats but did leave. Come to find out that this man was wanted by the police in our area for several robberies. My counselee was going through a bad situation to which this only added new stress but the Lord seemed to work in his heart on that day and used the stranger to help break the heart of my counselee... talk about God working in strange ways!!

Last Sunday Pastor Ken brought a great salvation message in the morning service... then later, in the evening time after my Hot Topics class I was approached by a girl that introduced herself as Lily. Lily was born in Taiwan and is 16 years old. The Sunday morning service was the first time that she and her family had come to church... apparently the morning message had been working in her heart all day and she came back in the evening wanting to know more. My daughter Faith and I took Lily into the church office where we explained the gospel in more detail... Lily was ready and eager to trust Jesus. What a blessing to see this beautiful young lady humbled and professing in Christ.

The church building is coming along well... but a few snags with city council may delay things a bit. The city council made us put in an emergency fire exit at the back of the building which was not in the original plans. Now that same council has received complaints by the neighbors about the door. So what does city council do? They inform us we are in violation of our resource consent to build now because the emergency door was not in the original plans! In NZ the government red tape is outrageous. We have been trying to work out with the council about the conflict but now each branch of the city council is in disagreement with each other... one says we can continue the building because the fire exit is being put in by the council and the other branch is saying we cannot continue until we work out a possible solution with the complaining neighbors. We're not sure how it's going to work out but for now the contractors say to keep going forward, so I guess this is not too surprising for them since they deal with city council regularly.

Have a Happy Easter.

300 and growing

It finally happened... we broke the 300 number in our worship service attendance. While we all know that numbers are not the most important thing, it is a goal that Ken and I set to get the congregation to 300 before we start looking at the possibility of having two morning worship services. We had 310 in the worship service last week and several new families that will be joining our fellowship. The new building is coming along at a fast pace and may be ready for use in late April or early May... so we definitely will need the extra space. We'll soon start the planning of reaching out into other areas of the city as our current building cannot seat more than 300. Maybe some of our current congregation can be used to start the new church plant.

The bible studies are still being well attended with an average of 20 people in each of the men's groups and ladies groups that Genia and I lead. Plus our Tuesday night life group has 12 people. This week Genia and I visited several families with spiritual needs and we also have two serious counseling cases that are in progress. On Friday afternoons we are having a blast doing pre-marriage counseling with a young couple from the congregation... they are a lot of fun and committed to the Lord. We can hardly wait for the wedding to take place at the end of May.

Genia and I went to the city last weekend for our 22nd anniversary. We spent the night and had a great dinner... got up Saturday morning and had breakfast together before going back home. And as expected we were gone only 24hrs. but had an emergency call from a church member whose close friend had taken a lot pills to end their life. The friend didn't accomplish the suicide and was admitted to the hospital over the weekend and now seems to be doing better but will need lots of spiritual help to get their life back on track.

We are helping Mark this weekend with a group from the USA to distribute more bibles to the Chinese people. A team of ten people from Texas will arrive tomorrow and one of the men will be staying at our house. Over the weekend and Monday/Tuesday we will be helping them distribute bibles and driving them around Auckland.

The weather here is beginning to show signs of turning to Autumn.... we have had a great summer with warm days and less rain than normal. Not too good for the farmers I guess but great otherwise. This morning I went out for my morning walk/run (less run than walk nowadays) and had to put on a light jacket. It was good and refreshing but the day usually still gets warm with about 70 degrees.

Joshua, Faith and Catherine are all doing well and busy with school, church activities and Life Groups. Faith is planning to attend a Baptism service over the weekend for a close friend in Hamilton about an hour drive out of Auckland... she is still trying to work out transportation as the weekend is not convenient to do a lot of driving. Her friend is a missionary daughter to our colleague that is pastor at the church in Hamilton. I'm glad the children can build strong spiritual friendships, sure helps to keep things right!

Genia has been slightly under the weather with a cold... so has most of the congregation. Tonight is one of our rare free nights to stay home. I started a weight lifting routine with our neighbor a few weeks ago so we'll continue with that tonight... it's something that I enjoy and used to do regularly but my mid-life body don't respond quite so well. But I'm now past most of the soreness and feel pretty good. I also use this time as a time to disciple him as he is a newer believer... we usually get a good conversation going about spiritual things. He is quite an athlete and played a lot of NZ pro sports and is about ten years younger than me. So, the deal is he mentors me through the weight training sessions and in turn I mentor him through spiritual issues. We've built a good friendship and can push each other to the limits in the right direction both physical and spiritually... do you know how many illustrations work well between the physical work-out and the spiritual work-out? More than I could have ever thought of...Man, we find almost every new exercise leads into a spiritual application! So, I guess its all good... the pain and the gain, right!
Ciao