today i was standing in my bedroom looking out at our town (as i was waiting for charl to get her butt off my laptop!! wink) and as i stood there, i saw two kids from bar n bus that i see ever week, then a guy walked by that i knew from one of the local pubs, then another man that gemma and i had the pleasure of praying with randomly during a moment of spiritual attack popped by; all the while normal everyday life of corringham was buzzing around us. Families where lining up at the corringham hall for karate lessons, council workers were going about business, cars zipping by... and it really made me realize how to anyone it might not look like were are doing much... but to God we are making all the difference in the world. 

yesterday i had the pleasure of sitting with my four man team of transit and plan out the last two months of our time here. we have much to do... from helping set up prayer room in Woodridge (the first time this community of believers steps out in this way... so we are all really excited for the potential there), to church camping trips, preparing bible lesson, organizing corporate prayer, creating welcome packs, getting involved with youth mentoring... the work here is endless and beautiful and wonderful! Our community as a whole has really felt the challenge to get out into our community. there is a time to come into the prayer room and fill that space and equally there is a time to step out of the prayer room and into the community. One of the ways we are thinking of doing this is choosing a local pub (hopefully the most dodging in town) and just going there once or twice a week and hanging out and getting to know the staff and the locals and just simply share life with them. I am actually quite excited about this because our community does an amazing job reaching out to the youth in our community (we are good at that) but a challenge to us would be to start reaching out to the 20-30 year olds in our town... there is a huge lack of that age in our community... and its time for us to listen to how God is calling out to them! wow am i excited to see where God takes this!

I think over the next two month what i am most looking forward to (besides my sister&cousin and Sarah&Julie visits!) is just taking responsibility for my faith and the work we have here. I am going to start mentoring some youth here and tho that scare the sheez out of me i think its time to stop letting fear in my weaknesses control me and let Gods strength finally do a good work through me! A good friend told me that i have this way of drawing people in and that means that i have a "bit of responsibility to live well"... (deep breath) I'm ready for some well living! 

I also get to help plan some stuff that the community will build on next year and it feel amazing to invest into this coming up next year! But what i think i am most excited about is really digging into this idea of doing church with out a building. How can we do church in corringham with out a building, with out the prayer house, with out our house, with out our garage. we keep saying that God, the church, the body isn't found in a building... and i know we all know that and we do function like that... but ... BUT how are we showing that to the people in our community? to them we still our running back to our buildings, our church, our prayer house, our garage... we interact with them and then say we are taking what we chatted about with them "back with us". i want to be challenged to cut that out of our routine. to stop taking what we experience with them back and to just experience church with them on the street... in completely simple but intentional ways! i have no idea how this looks... and it scares me because we are totally going to have to rely on God to make this work (shock... big gasp... what living in faith...NO!!) YES, FINALLY!!!!

so i look forward to letting you know how it goes... cheers peeps!