Monday, October 18, 2010
Voice Lessons
Jeff Dewhurst has been giving voice lessons to these three young ladies for the past several months. His dedication to professionalism, passion for music and sincere Christianity pushes the girls to excellence.
The girls are encouraged to practice through the week and are beginning to sing specials for church. Jeff is the Music Minister at our church and has really drawn people to God in worship.
Choir Practice at Our Church...
Choir practice was fun yesterday! Our crew is going to Tennessee this coming Saturday and everyone is excited about it. Yesterday we created new choir binders and developed our Choir guidelines. Our Choir decided the most important element of our choir was to sing! Not really...but that along with coming to practice and listening to the choir director were the main points of discussion!
What I love most about choir is seeing the faces of these young people lifted in worship. There are the fun moments when the whole choir is clapping, swaying and singing their hearts out and during some of those times are when I catch expressions of worship and praise to God. Yesterday one of the girls had her eyes closed and I "caught" one of our guys singing his heart out in worship...then he saw me watching and became self-conscious. But this is what choir is all about! It gives our people a chance to worship God in an unhindered atmosphere.
Pray for us as we travel this weekend. It will be a long trip and just pray that we can have those "God-moments" along the way!
What I love most about choir is seeing the faces of these young people lifted in worship. There are the fun moments when the whole choir is clapping, swaying and singing their hearts out and during some of those times are when I catch expressions of worship and praise to God. Yesterday one of the girls had her eyes closed and I "caught" one of our guys singing his heart out in worship...then he saw me watching and became self-conscious. But this is what choir is all about! It gives our people a chance to worship God in an unhindered atmosphere.
Pray for us as we travel this weekend. It will be a long trip and just pray that we can have those "God-moments" along the way!
Friday, September 10, 2010
Scavenger Hunt - The Winning Team!
Teen Power 2 had a scavenger hunt last night and this is the picture of the winning team! Contestants had to find random items, sing in a parking lot, get their picture taken with a fast food employee, form a pyramid and create a group name and rap. Our name? Team Impossible!
"We are Team Impossible and we can't be stopped,
We are gonna climb to the top, top, top!"
After returning to the church, Kyndra Tichenor gave a short devotional on the importance of having an attitude like Jesus. She did a great job!
Teen Power 2 is a split off the old group. The original Teen Power began almost 10 years ago and those teens are obviously not all teens anymore. While the original group still meets on Tuesday nights, Teen Power 2 meets on Thursday nights and targets 11-16 year old teens downstairs as well as kids over 5 upstairs. Last night we had around 20 kids, 13 teens and 10 workers.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Our New Roof!
Our church has long needed a new roof. Matt's dad traveled in from Pennsylvania to oversee the whole process and as of about 1:00 today the job is finally completed! We are also grateful for the help of David Tucker, Jordan Terrian, Paul Holden, Justin Jamison, Jeff Dewhurst, Austin Watters & Austin's dad - Mr. Watters.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Getting Back into Blogging
As you may notice there has been some recent activity on this blog. We would like to keep our friends and supporters updated on a weekly basis as to our activities and progress. Blogging seems like a great way to do it.
The past few weeks have seemed overwhelming at times because of the huge needs of our people. Tuesday night there were five guys at our house who would all like to go back to school. Dorcas tested them on Thursday night and we are going to be checking into what possibilities there are for them. Getting an education is foundational for giving any kind of hope to our teens.
What kind of Christian would you be if. . .your parents were homeless, you dropped out of High School in 9th grade, you have no permanent home yourself, you have no income (besides $200 of food stamps each month), no transportation and no one to give you a job reference? These are the questions we are faced with regularly.
Currently we have ten young people - over the age of 18 - who faithfully attend at least two services a week at our church but have dropped out of High School. In talking to any of these youth, you will find a deep desire to finish High School but they just do not think they can make it on their own. They need help.
The past few weeks have seemed overwhelming at times because of the huge needs of our people. Tuesday night there were five guys at our house who would all like to go back to school. Dorcas tested them on Thursday night and we are going to be checking into what possibilities there are for them. Getting an education is foundational for giving any kind of hope to our teens.
What kind of Christian would you be if. . .your parents were homeless, you dropped out of High School in 9th grade, you have no permanent home yourself, you have no income (besides $200 of food stamps each month), no transportation and no one to give you a job reference? These are the questions we are faced with regularly.
Currently we have ten young people - over the age of 18 - who faithfully attend at least two services a week at our church but have dropped out of High School. In talking to any of these youth, you will find a deep desire to finish High School but they just do not think they can make it on their own. They need help.
A Mustang for Main Street Chapel?
In the month of June, the Main Street Chapel Choir traveled to Michigan. In the service at Adrian, Michigan, Tim and Nicole Turner were moved upon to help Main Street purchase a new van. They had a 2003 Convertible Mustang that they were preparing to sell. Instead of selling it and keeping the profit, a few weekends ago they hauled the car here to Cincinnati and gave it to our church. We were moved and challenged by the generosity of this young couple. May God bless them for their spirit of giving!
Thursday, September 2, 2010
TOPS Students
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Web Presence Update
Well, in about two weeks we have made our mark on the web. When you type "Main Street Chapel" into Google Linda's video comes up as #5 entry on the first search page. Nicole is #6. A Wikipedia listing also shows up for Main Street Chapel, but I don't know how long this will last. The editors of Wikipedia decided Main Street Chapel wasn't notable enough to be in their encyclopedia, so they deleted my entry! I guess we are going to have to show them :-)
Give Away Help
Last night a mix of college students and community youth worked together to get the Give Away squared away. It took forever, but they got it done :-) I wasn't there because I had to work, but Dorcas said Nolan got things going and everyone worked hard. We are ready for Sunday, except for the 400 hotdogs Tyler, Nolan, Joe and Daniel are donating. We are expecting to have quite a few hungry people! Hopefully the weather is nice.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Church in Da 'Nati (Cincinnati)
Here is a picture of our church with a few of our youth standing in the front of it. It isn't much. Just a two story building, but a ton of stuff goes on in that building. We had 82 people in there just a month ago. People literally bounce off the walls. Of course, they literally bounce of the wall (sometimes they leave holes) even when it isn't packed. For some reason that is the game when they are flirting. Pound the person you like into the wall :-) I haven't figured that out yet. 90% of our church is under the age of 25 (me too!) and most are unchurched. It has been an awesome ministry to lead and I like seeing the changes our youth are making in their lives. It won't be long until they are making changes in other people's lives.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
More Give Away Prep
Today we spent getting ready for next Sunday's Give Away. Here is the team that helped. Dorcas is taking the picture. It is a free yard sale we do to build a reputation in our community as a caring church. We got everything in order except for the clothes. There is still an enormous pile of clothes to sort through and get ready for next Sunday. We need to get some fliers made up as well to pass out. Our teens did a great job of getting the word out last year.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Give Away Prep
Today was spent getting ready for this Sunday's giveaway. Our give away is like a free yardsale. This will be our second give away. Our first give away was the first Sunday in December 2007 and it seemed to be a big hit. We had over 150 people come into our church and everyone was saying that they hadn't heard of anything like it before. The picture is two people who came. On the left is Vickie. She was a prostitute at the time, but I recently heard she is in a program that is helping her get off drugs and learn some job skills. I forget the other lady's name. I think the Give Away was a major step in building our reputation in the community. It created a little bit of a buzz and people thought about it for a short while after it happened. I think that doing another one could help to strengthen our image to the community as a church that wants to help. A lot of times this is the image churches want the community to have of them, but they never really do anything to make it reality. I am curious how well our give away is going to do. We have just as much stuff as last time, but it is a different time of year. In December it was cold, so people wanted clothes and Christmas was right around the corner so they might have been getting presents. June is a little different. Its hot, so people may not be as interested in clothes and there aren't any other reasons like Christmas presents to get stuff. Still people like free stuff and downtown people need stuff. It seems like it won't make that much of a difference. I don't know! I guess we will find out. Anyways, today we had a van load and a half of stuff leftover from the God's Bible School & College yardsale to take down to Main Street Chapel. It was hot work, but Nolan, Tyler and Daniel helped, so it went pretty quick. They seem excited about it. It seems people are willing to volunteer to help with stuff when it seems like it is really helping others. Plus, they got a free lunch out of it!
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Driver's License Experiment
A few months ago I promised Justin I would help him get his driver's license this summer. I called my insurance company and they said I could add him on for free as long he only had his training temps. So, today we decided to try to take the written test. I let him know Monday to start studying. He read through the whole book which is a big accomplishment for him :) I quizzed him a little bit and we decided to go ahead and give the test a try. I figured he would probably fail, but maybe God would intervene and he would pass. Well, that was as far as we got because he did not have his orginal social security card. He had a photocopy of his S.S. card and a birth certificate (the middle name didn't match), but the driver's bureau said it wouldn't work. So we spent 2 1/2 hours downtown at the federal building to get a printout of his S.S. card. I will keep you updated on Justin's progress.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Main Street Chapel/Teen Power
The ministry I pastor (sometimes I feel more like a social worker:)) is located in the heart of Cincinnati's inner-city. The neighborhood is called Over-the-Rhine. It is known as one of the worst neighborhoods in Cincinnati. I have been helping in the neighborhood for 5 years. I started pastoring when I was a sophmore at God's Bible School & College. I got to know Dorcas (my wife) while working at Teen Power. A growing youth ministry got started while we were students, so we decided to stay and continue to work with the youth after graduating and establish it into a full-fledged church.
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