Church Planting

One month ago we began a new church venue on the campus of Michigan State University. Each week 30+ volunteers work from 7AM-2PM to help set-up sound, lighting, projectors, and decorations, play in the band, serve in the welcome team, make coffee and deliver donuts, along with a host of other jobs.

It has been interesting making the transition from a small house church to this new service which attracted 167 people last week. I think that the most difficult aspect has been the amount of time that I seem to be engaged in "busy work". In Germany I had significantly more time to spend building relationships with international students. As with all new ventures, however, it is necessary for everyone to jump in wherever needed to make things go smoothly (more or less smooth anyhow).

Here, I have been helping to schedule all of the volunteers (several hours each week). As usual, the beginning of the semester has also required the hanging of innumerable posters, passing out fliers, manning information tables, et. In addition I'm helping to lead a house church which requires about 7 hours a week of meetings. On top of these activities I am enrolled in three courses and working 20-30 hours each week. This week I also began attending MSU's German club in the hope that I can keep up my German language skills. I had a really good time and met several people whom I would like to get to know better. Despite the time pressures, I am really excited to see what God is doing here.