Our Lunch with the School

Okay...we hosted a luncheon for 37 of the faculty and staff of Squaw Peak School on Thursday. There were six ladies who knocked themselves out making sandwiches and cutting fruit and veggies for the lunch. The teachers were so appreciative and we all had a wonderful time.

The principal was gracious to allow me a few minutes to introduce ourselves and tell them why we were there. I gave each person who attended the luncheon an index card to write down their prayer requests and six out 37 did...with more to come. I also gave each one of them my business card and told them that if they know a family in crisis or has just experienced a tragedy and they don't know were to turn to call me.

Well, I walked into the school Friday morning to pick up some stuff and got pulled aside with our first request. There is a family in great need as the dad was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia that kids normally get three weeks ago. He own his own small business and to keep expenses at a minimum they have forgone health insurance. Their only son is trying to keep the business afloat during this time. Their youngest daughter, a nine year old fourth grader, is having the most difficult time because she is daddy's little girl.

The mommy came to the teacher with all of this Thursday afternoon after our luncheon and the teacher got in touch with us Friday morning. (God's timing maybe?) I will be visiting with the mom along with someone from the school early this week to see how we can come along her side to help them in their time of need.

Even if it is meals and cleaning the house, we will come along the side of the family and help them as we can. We have a pediatric oncology nurse who has offered to talk to the family and bring along a child life specialist to help them during this time.

God often uses a crisis like this to draw people to Him. Being instruments in His hands, we are his eyes, ears, and hands as He marches on to accomplish His mission. Who knows how all of this will turn out, but it is a privilege to have the opportunity to help a family in their time of need.

Meeting the Local School

Today is another first for us as we are hosting a lunch for 37 faculty and staff of our local elementary school. Since we are renting their facility on Sundays, one of our attendees suggested that we host a lunch and introduce ourselves to them. So we are.

We threw out the idea to our congregation on Sunday and they responded wonderfully. One person is making all the sandwiches, one is doing the fruit, another one the vegetables, and one is doing the drinks!

We will be sharing with them our heart to work together on the the things that we can work together on; thank them for letting us use their facility; give them a little pep talk; invite them to keep our contact information handy in case they find out if one of their kid's families is in crisis; and invite them to write down their name and grade level so that we may pray for them through out the school year.

Our hope is that this will open up a door and that we will be able to pour our lives into the the people who educate our children.

Please pray for us today.

Moving the Ball Down the Field - Yet Another Way We May Impact the Schools

We have a heart to transform the city of Phoenix for Christ so we are starting in three areas: the city of government, the school systems, and the business community. We have begun to make some inroads with the city government. See here, here, here, and here. We have also gotten involved with the school system. See here, and here.

Because of the building we have been leasing for the past 15 years or so has sold, we have had to look for another space to worship. So we approached our local K-8 school and they have been very supportive and enthusiastic about us using their space on Sundays. Currently, the school is going through a substantial make over. They are turning it back into a neighborhood school, rather than having kids bused in from all over the district.

As the principal is describing the changes to me she asked me to be on an Advisory Committee with other parents, teachers, administrators, and community leaders to help develop the school's new identity and mission going forward. We just had our initial meeting last week, (there is about 10 of us)and everyone was excited that we were going to using the school to worship and about how involved in the community we want to be. In fact, one of the teachers wants to introduce us (the Advisory Committee, not our church) to rest of the faculty of the school at one of their upcoming meetings. The result is that I will be able to share the passion we as a church have for the community and the school to the entire staff!

Who knows how God is going to use us as His instruments to effect change in our local K-8 school, but He has put us in the position to do that very thing.

Nepal - Part Two

Many of us know this in our heads yet it is one of the most difficult things to do well and consistently: pray. I had the privilege of spending several hours with the pastor of flourishing Nepali church and he said that one of the first three teams he developed was an intercessor prayer team. If you have participated in any church planting conferences, this is one of the first things they address.

The unique thing about this pastor's team is that they pray together from 4 am to 6 am everyday. How many of our people are willing to pray at that time in the morning, much less two hours a day?

It is such a great encouragement to me to hear how God is working through economic hardship and government restriction in an overwhelming Hindu country. Make no mistake, the transformation that they are seeing with entire households turning to Christ is fueled by God's people crying out to their Heavenly Father and interceding on behalf of those whose lives have yet to be transformed. May we follow suit.

Being Missional - Nepali Style

We have had the privilege of hearing a first hand account of the wonderful work God is doing through a group of obedient Christians in Nepal - the home of Mt. Everest. Working with a fraction of resources that we have in America, these Christians are beginning to transform the country. We were so inspired to hear how God has used one family to impact the lives of so many.

A Nepali Christian man who was working with Campus Crusades for Christ in Nepal received a word from God to start a church in his town back in 2004. Four short years later they have scores of people coming to know the Lord, have set up 8 different schools on doctrine which has led to 7 church plants in the surrounding villages.

The thing that struck me the most is how these Christians are beginning to transform their community. The have started My Father's House, a safe refuge for children who have been kicked out of their homes and disowned because of their Christian belief and The Princess' House, a healing and educational refuge for prostitutes.

They have set up a rescue team who goes into the red light district to find prostitutes who want out of the trade, but are trapped in it. They bring the ladies who are interested into caring place that helps heal the emotional and spiritual wounds of their profession, teaches them the Bible, and a skill that they can use to become self-sufficient all within six months. They have had about 70 go through the program and now many of those former prostitutes are now ministering to their friends who haven't left the profession and encouraging them to go to the Princess' House.

I know many churches here in America do similar things, but wouldn't it be cool if more of us did more things. Many of our people are yearning to get involved to do something significant. Let's provide them avenues that align with their passion and set them free to do immeasurably more than we can ask or think.

Building Bridges into the Community through Common Interest

Many of our local high school kids are behind academically. Way behind. When I met the the principal of the Camelback High School, I ask him what his school's greatest need was. Without hesitation he said tutors. So we created a tutoring program in conjunction with the local Senior Center (they have a bunch of retired teachers who could help) and the Senior Center hosted the after school program.

It started off great guns, then began to fizzle. When Ann Justus, one of our members and teacher extraordinare (is that a word?), approached the administration about this problem, they suggested that we tutor the freshman football team next year on campus. They told us that 83 kids started freshman football last year and by the 6th game of the season they could not field a team because of academic eligibility issues. They could use the help.

So this coming fall, we will be tutoring and loving the freshman football team. We view this as one way to build bridges into the community through a common interest. We are hopeful that by loving them as Jesus does will cause a transformative (is that a word?) spark that would ignite the entire school...thus leading to healing, reconciliation (with God, friends, family, races, and ethnicities) peace, and joy that is Christ's alone.

A big dream...sure it is, but God is looking for willing instruments that He can use to redeem the world and make it a better place. Sign me up! How about you?

Transforming the Police Headquarters for Christ (Part 1)

I have a buddy who works for the Phoenix Police Department and recently requested a transfer from a patrol position to a desk job at police headquarters. His zeal for God and love for Christ is evident to all those who know him. We had lunch the other day and discussed how we could start some sort of lunch time small group at police headquarters. His boss is a Christian and there are a few others working in the building who are Christians as well. We are going to try to get them together and get them thinking how they can be used by God as His instruments to transform police headquarters for Christ. Please pray that God would prompt His people to come together to worship Him in the midst of their day and be inspired by Him to work to transform headquarters for Christ.

Serving the Underserved

The final tally is in! We raised just a bit over $600 from Keeping Kids Safe Day for some underserved families. The K-8 school that is adjacent to our property buses kids in from a poor part of Phoenix. The school asked the parents to complete a survey identifying their greatest needs and the number one need is food.

So we are trying to be intentional about meeting this need which is a big challenge for a small church like ours. When we decided to host Keeping Kids Safe Day, we decided to charge vendors a $25 booth fee and ask for a donation for food purchase. Between the booths and food we raised over $600...and this is just the start.

We have plans to reach out to other churches in this school's boundary and ask them to partner with us to meet this need. We are still forming the plan, but the goal is to form an alliance of neighborhood churches to collective meet this need.

Most of these families rely on public transportation system, so when we get our food boxes ready we are going to work with the school to identify one family that we could "set up shop" at their house to pass out the food boxes. Our hope is that we will have a greater impact and serve more families by going to them, rather than asking them to come to us.

Keeping Kids Safe Day

Wow! What a day! Saturday the 22nd we hosted a Child Safety Event called "Keeping Kids Safe Day". We approached the city of Phoenix about this idea in late 2007 and they jumped on board with both feet. We were able to get Phoenix Police and Fire to teach the kids about general safety issues and they brought along a lot of cool stuff - like a big fire truck, a police motorcycle, police cars. Phoenix Fire also brought out their demonstration house where they teach kids house to get out of the house if it's on fire and what to do if there is an emergency. They also had kid sized fire coats that the kids could put on.

Phoenix Children's Hospital in partnership with Phoenix Fire sponsored a Car Seat Safety Check. They checked over 30 cars and if the seats were not properly installed, they taught the parents how to install them properly. Farmer's Insurance enrolled kids into the Amber Alert Network.

The Police also had free Vehicle Identification Number window etching available.

There was lots of food and drink available thanks to our good friends at the Rotaract Club and we had some fabulous live music from some local artists. One artist is part of a band called "Safety Patrol". They are a group of city employees who sing about safety to kids. He had some great original songs like "Stranger Danger" that really helps kids remember safety stuff!

We also had about 15 local vendors who sent up booths to be apart of the day. We asked them for a $25 booth fee and 100% of the proceeds will buy food for needy families whose kids attend the school that is adjacent to our property.

One of the benefits of hosting an event like this is working closely with the city government. So much is made about church and state, but it has been our experience that the city government will bend over backwards to work with churches on things that we share in common. We have also developed some solid personal relationships with the good folks in the Fire, Police, and Council's office that we hope will grow.

Our goal is to transform the city of Phoenix for Christ. We pray that God will honor our goal and that through events like this, we are able to develop relationships with key people within the community who will be able to influence public policy in a Christ honoring way.

This event is a small step in that direction, please pray that events like this please God and that He will bless and multiply His influence on the city government.

Progress on the Missional Front

Wow! We continue to make progress to impact our community. There have been about 15 kids from Camelback High who have showed up for our tutoring classes and we have identified a local family who has expressed an interest to possibly start a Young Life club at the high school.

We have also identified about 150 Somali political refugee kids attending Camelback and are trying to line up resources to help them with life skill stuff. Many of them are unable to function real well in our society.

We are hosting a huge Child/Home Safety Day in conjunction with the city of Phoenix in late March. The Fire and Police Dept. will be doing all sorts of safety things with the kids including a car seat safety check. We will be collecting food and clothing the which will benefit some underprivileged families in our community. More to come on that soon.

We are developing a relationship with Pinnacle Forum, a parachurch organization that focuses on bringing Christ into the Phoenix Business Community.

We also are working on developing an alliance with other local churches in the immediate community to help support our local K-8 school who has a number of underprivileged families. Remarkably, the kids of these families are bused to this school from another part of town. So we are going cast a wide net out with other local churches and see if we can come together to collectively impact the lives of these families.

Fulfilling the Needs of Our Community

We are on a relentless pursuit to uncover the needs our community. As we are digging, we are discovering that the community is quietly groaning for help meeting their needs. It seems like every conversation that I have multiple needs surface. Some needs are basic (like food and clothing for children) and others are bit more advanced (like developing a tight knit community). We now have many opportunities to serve our neighbors in tangible ways and are working to fill some of those needs. Below is just one way that we are doing that very thing.

There is a well-known retirement home a few blocks from our building and many of their residents do not drive, nor do they get out much. With Christmas around the corner, we decided meet a need by bringing Christmas shopping to them. Some of our folks spent a couple of months making wonderful hand-made clothing, painting beautiful landscapes and pictures, and baking homemade yummies in an effort to meet a need to an often neglected population. Our "boutique" was a great success as we sold lots of stuff with the proceeds going to a young man in our church body that needs a seeing eye dog. By setting up a "boutique" we raised awareness of our church and the fact that we love seniors. Most importantly, we met a need in our community and have further solidified our relationship with the home and their residents. (We already do a weekly Bible Study for the residents there.)

Getting Involved in the School System

A Bible believing church and public schools working side-by-side for the betterment of the students? C'mon you have got to be kidding!!! Well, it's happening in our neck of the woods. About mid summer I called the Principal of Camelback High School, Pete Garcia, and to my surprise he called me back and wanted to talk to me about how we could come along the side of them and help them.

We set a meeting and during our 90 minutes together he briefed me on the challenges at Camelback High. We hit it off (helps that he is a man of strong faith) and was very encouraged that we wanted to help him complete his mission.

We bantered around a few ideas, but settled on creating a desperately needed tutoring program. (His church has had great success in tutoring junior and senior high kids.) We have something called an AIMS test which you must pass to graduate. 70% of the kids who fail the test do so because they haven't taken Geometry their sophomore year and the majority of kids at Camelback are taking Algebra their sophomore year. To throw even more kids behind the eight ball, many incoming freshman have the academic skills of a sixth grader. As you can see there is a great need to accelerate the learning of these kids.

During a meeting we had with staff of Senior Services of the City of Phoenix, I mentioned that we were working on getting a tutoring program off the ground and they became immediately interested in partnering with us. They thought that they could rally some retired teachers who patron the local Senior Center, they have ample space to host the program, and the Center is about four block from the high school. About 300 kids walk by the center on their way home as well as all the bus routes run by it. So, we decided to follow the number rule of real estate, "Location, location, location" and have them host our program.

Initially, we are inviting 10 kids to be a part of the program until we get the "hey we are new at this thing" kinks worked out, then hopefully expand it slowly to other students.

Ultimately our goal is to transform Camelback High School for Christ by helping launch a Young Life and a Fellowship of Christian Athletes club. This tutoring program is the first shot to making that vision a reality.

Getting Involved in the Neighborhood (G.A.I.N.)

We began praying about 9 months ago that God would open a door into the Phoenix City Government and a few short weeks later I received a call from our city councilman's office requesting space at our church for a Coffee Talk with the neighborhood. (This is a town hall meeting held in the morning.) We thought that this might be a good start, so we went for it.



Representatives for numerous city departments attended to be a resource and answer questions on specific issues along with our city councilman Greg Stanton. One of those representatives was Community Action Officer Monte Woods from the Phoenix P.D. Monte works with the neighborhood associations on various "crime suppression" initiatives and helps resolve conflict and diffuse tension in the community.

Monte and I hit it off immediately (he's a strong man of faith) and after a few weeks he suggested that we host a G.A.I.N. (Getting Arizonans Involved in Neighborhoods) event sponsored by the Police Department. (Think big block party of multiple neighborhood associations with vendors and city departments distributing information on all sorts of stuff.)



About 100 people attended including the Chief of Police and his chain of command and two city councilmen and their staff. We had the opportunity to get face time with all these folks and explain to them our desire become willing partners on issues we have in common. They were pleasantly surprised of our desire to get involved and encouraged us to continue to work with them. We also got a lot of face time with the leaders of the neighborhood associations around our church who work in conjunction with the Police Department to make the city safer.

Who knows where all this will lead, but we now have about 20 solid contacts to nurture over the coming months and we are well on our way of solidifying a relationship with the Phoenix P.D. We are hopeful that these relationships will bear fruit and begin to draw the people of our neighborhoods around the church into a closer relationship with Christ.

By hosting the event like this we also gained advertising that you just can't buy as we raised awareness of who we are and what we stand for. We had several fruitful "God" conversations with exploring or hurting souls. Others asked many questions about our church, service times, etc.

We are hopeful that this event will springboard us into deeper relationships with all we met as we penetrate the city and work to transform it for Christ.