the Glory of God

Another week has come and gone, wow. Is time flying for all of you? What blessings did God fill your life with this week?

Will start our week off with last Friday. Someone called from the Bright House, asking if I could open the door for them, since they locked their keys in the house! Arriving at the house, I see Karl working hard at the Bright House II. I asked Karl, this is not Saturday is it?! He said, no it's not. He got an invitation to go sailing Saturday morning. He felt bad he could not be around Saturday, so he came by on Friday, wow, how awesome is that.

Our visits on Saturday went well. Turner is doing fine. He asked when the time change was happening? Wonder why? We made our way over to Richard and found him in bed. He was not well at all. Ms Dawn encouraged him to get up and go sit in the sun. He did make it up and into his chair. Richard's new friend, Joe arrived about that time and brought him some food. We hated to leave Richard in his state, but Joe said he would hang around for awhile to watch over him. Isn't that cool. We found Dale doing ok. He has a bad cold and congestion. He won't go to a doctor, so he sits there and coughs. Robert was there with him, checking on him. We had a good visit with Smokey and returned back to the center. Mr Matt and Tim made their way over to the new camp downtown.

Several of us, attended the funeral, later Saturday morning of our friend Curtis. They called it the Homegoing Celebration. The funeral home was packed with all of Curtis' friends and family. Just as we walked in, they announced, would someone from Common Ground please come forward and share a few words about Curtis. We all selected Joey as our spokes person, doing a great job of sharing our thoughts about Curtis. We got a program from the funeral and saw they recognized Common Ground and St Catherines. Standing in the back, we met all the family members and each one of them shook our hands and said how much they appreciated our friendship with Curtis. Each member said Curtis talked about us all the time. Just want to remind each one of you, you have no idea what kind of impact you are having on our community. Usually we do not get to hear about it, but just know you are changing lives for Jesus. There is a program of the funeral hanging up on our bulletin board in the fellowship hall.

Small number of children this week at our afternoon activities. Not sure why? But with the small numbers we are able to talk with each child and find out what is going on in their little lives. It is not about the numbers but about the hearts.

We had another packed house at our mens Bible fellowship. I was cooking some cakes for dessert a lady brought for us and by the time I got to the chapel all the pizza was gone! Mr Matt went by and picked up Richard and he was doing much better. We had a new man from the community come. Matt continues to reach out to the guys on Thursday encouraging them to come on Tuesday evenings. God is beginning to lay a foundation of something special for the community on Tuesdays. Matt read from Romans 1, talking how we often take things on our selves, leaving God out of it until we have completely fallen on our faces, forcing us to get on our knees and ask for forgiveness. Why do wait so long before we go to God?

Thursday was full of people, excitement and praise. Our chapel time was started off by our friends from New Star Baptist. Ms Jean and her grand children, sang their hearts out to God. Then Pastor Eddie shared the Word reading from Galatians. Talking about, never give up, never stop doing good, giving all praises and honor to God. Eddie cut to my heart when he said, Common Ground keep on keeping on. When people don't act the way you want them to act. When children run from you or do things they shouldn't do. When you get no thank you, keep on keeping on because God is right there with you. A member of our community, sitting behind me, hugged my shoulders as the Pastor was preaching his sermon, saying mr brian we love you, thank you. Very powerful.

Mr Matt and Ms Vickie and their friends from Airline Baptist provided our meal of red beans and rice, salad and cake. Not sure how the red beans and rice were, it was gone by the time I got into the fellowship hall! Being the end of the month, we served over 130 people, with 30 new people wanting bags of groceries. Ms Abbie had prepared 70 bags, ran out and had to make a few more. Wow! It is nice having a crew of people helping out during our meals and helping clean up afterwards, makes things go a lot smoother.

As I walked into the hallway after church, I glanced up and we had a special treat, Sione with his big smile was walking down the hallway. He was in town for a preachers meeting and wanted to come by and see the new kitchen. Great to see him.

The JJ house continues to come together. The siding is complete and has it's first coat of paint on some of it. Insulation of the attic is done, with more insulation ready to be put on the walls. Sheet rock has been delivered and ready to by hung. Our challenge of plumbing has been worked out and now everything is all hooked up and ready to go. God continues to bless this dream in becoming a reality. Plans are being drawn up for our second house! Isn't that amazing!

We have a group of youngsters coming to the garden area today to help Ms Patty. Who would have ever predicted, our garden our community becoming a place where children can take a field trip from school and help out. Truly a blessing!

The one theme I have heard this week from mens Bible study, to chapel, it is not about mr brian it is about God. It is not about how much we can do, but who gets the glory. If we are in this journey for ourselves, then we are traveling along the wrong road. Do we want thank yous, do we want praises, do we want the children to act right, yes, we are human. But that should not be what we are striving for. What if we don't get the thank you's, the praises, the right behavior, we will be become discouraged, we will burn out and quit. That is not what God wants from us. God's Kingdom will not grow if we quit, we will not receive the blessings of Him, we will not develop that personal relationship with Jesus we long for.

As Pastor Eddie shared, the road we have choosen will be hard, it will frustrating at times, but it also will be glorious. As long as we remember, it is not about us but for the glory of God. As long as we put our faith not in man but in God, we will be blessed beyond our imgination. Thank you all for being a part of this community, where we can help each other along the way. We need each other, we need our God, we need our Jesus. Amen.

Have a great week. Praises and blessings to you all. lvoe and lvoe!

God's Kingdom

Wow, what a week. Not sure where to start and not sure I will get everything in this note that went on, but I will try. Hope your week was full of joy and blessings.

Our Second Saturdays, have become a morning full of activities and challenges. So much going on, people, activities, visits and adventures. It is amazing it all gets done. But as Joey said, it is because of community and all of you working together, that God's Kingdom continues to grow. Ms Lisa has put pictures up of the morning on our Face book page.

We had new visitors from Bossier City Community College come and work with us. We had friends from Brookwood come and helped us out with various projects around the center. The biggest challenge was the painting of our fellowship hall and hallway. Ms Lisa got it all organized and the floors look beautiful. We put wax on them earlier in the week and we were ready for Thursdays activities. We organized the outdoor friends room, so we can see what we have as our seasons change getting ready for the colder months ahead. We broke down two big bags of sugar and rice into smaller baggies. Ms Abbie put them in our grocery sacks this week. We also went over to the Bright House II and continued our work there.

While all of this was going on, Momma T and Ms Patty were getting the garden ready for U2 events. A big crowd of neighbors walked to the garden and shared in all the fun and activities. It was great to see new friends bring their children with them to participate in all the fun. A start in building of relationships in our community.

As this was going on, our faithful group of servants visited our friends who live outdoors. Mr Scott reported everybody seems to be doing ok. Richard called from the hospital for us to go by his gas station to pick up his belongings. Mr Matt did, and loaded up his one suitcase and brought it back to the center. Can we put all our belongings in one suitcase? That sounds like a sermon one day!

Concluding our morning, Joey hosted a welcome back party for Lomax of hotdogs and all the fixings. More neighbors came bringing their gifts of food to the table and everybody had a great time.

What a morning, what a testament to community, what an example of God's Kingdom in the midst of us. Thank you all for doing what you did, for being obedient to His calling, thinking of others before thinking of yourselves.

Monday was a day of joy and sadness. I had the opportunity to have lunch with Pastor Roger of Grace Community. He wanted to reaffirm his commitment to our community and the help of Grace and all it's resources as we travel along our way. It was good to hear his thoughts and to share our vision of the future.

Then several hours later, Mr Matt gets a call from our friend's sister in law, Rose, telling Matt of the passing of Curtis. Curtis, who has been a friend of ours for many years, going with us on our Saturday visits, helping us cook breakfasts, helping out on Thursdays, called Rose and said, it is time. We had been visiting Curtis on Saturdays. Curtis missed coming to our Thursdays, so he gathered up enough energy to come visit us last Thursday. I feel bad, I did not see him that day, but Joey and Momma T did and welcomed him with many hugs. Joey and Lomax had a lvoe offering Thursday to help with funeral expenses. Curtis' funeral will be this Saturday, October 20th at 11am.

Joey was not feeling well Monday, so Krysten closed our afternoon activities for the day. Tuesday and Wednesday, we had a full crew of kids. From my lunch with Roger, I had left overs. I brought them to Ms Lisa Tuesday. Ms Lisa said,  that restaurant was one of her favorites. When I walked in, Ms Lisa being Ms Lisa heated up the leftovers and I found them all sitting on the floor of the newly painted fellowship hall floor enjoying Indian food. The children ran up to me and said mr brian, how did you make this, it sure is good! Thanks Pastor Roger, you made the afternoon! Krysten, Joey, Ms Lisa and Ms Dawn could use your help in the afternoons, come when you can.

Mr Matt again had us sharing our hearts as we discussed the reading of 1st John, chapter 4 in our mens Bible fellowship, we must love each other. In verse 18, we should love people not only with words and talk, but by our actions and true caring. God is lvoe, we must be lvoe. For it is God's lvoe working through us that allows us to lvoe. Powerful testimonies that night.

Wednesday evening we had a treat as a youth group from Christ Methodist joined us and helped Ms Abbie in the clothing room, food pantry and other projects. Don't know if I have mentioned, but every week, we have a young lady, who has recently retired, join Ms Dorothy and Ms Abbie in the clothing room. Stephanie comes faithfully every week and works tirelessly. She asked Ms Abbie, if she could bring some of youth from church to help hang some winter clothing we had gotten in. So Ms Sarah, the youth pastor of Christ and Stephanie brought the youth and the hung the clothes up. Also, we had gotten a lot of can food items from Grace that needed to be sorted and put on the shelves, they did that. Then, I was stressing over, getting all the tables and chairs moved back into the fellowship hall and they helped with that. Amazing how God continues to provide! I shouldn't be amazed by now, but . . .

As I drove up Wednesday afternoon, a serious game of kick ball was happening. It was good to see everybody having a good time. I noticed we had a new person helping out and then looked again and it was Lomax. It was good to see Lomax back with us and in the environment he belongs.

Thursday was a special day for me and all of us. I was hoping to let me birthday day pass as quiet as possible but Momma T and Ms Sarah would have none of that. We started off our Thursday afternoon activities with our new piano and song leader, Gus leading us in praises for the Lord. Then we had a new treat, one of the youth pastors from Brookwood share the Word. Josh's message about God's Kingdom being near was awesome and got us all thinking about what we can do to make it happen.

Following chapel, Ms Sarah had a birthday cake full of candles ready as everybody sang. Very touching. The kids, shouted blow out all the candles mr brian. There were a lot of candles! I tried but couldn't get them to go out or some would light back up after I blew and blew and blew! Ms Sarah being Ms Sarah had put those "funny" candles on the cake! Everybody had a good laugh, I was exhausted!

Thank you all for the sweet notes on line and the cards everybody signed. You don't know how much I appreciate all of you.

Ms Sarah and Mr Scott and the young adults class provide supper of pancakes, bacon, fruit salad and dessert. One of my favorite suppers, it was delicious.

Ms Lisa and Momma T helped Ms Abbie with the handing out of food bags and everything went well for the most part.

We had some new visitors, friends of Dr Phil from Kings Highway Christian church. Tammy is the youth director and came to see how her youth can become involved with Common Ground. Very exciting to have them a part of our community.

We continue to struggle with the children and their challenges of behavior and excitement. Joey's challenge this week is to see if he can help.

After our meal and clean up, we gathered in the chapel for our Bible time. Joey and Lomax treated us to birthday ice cream and another birthday card, very, very nice. We hooked up the computer to the projector and we got to see some of Lomax's adventures in California! Exciting. Lomax is in the process of putting up all his pictures and writing about his adventures on a blog and will have it up soon for all of us to experience.

Prayer concerns continue for the Bollingers. Talked to Pete the other day, he and their son Nick are doing better, we need to keep Cari lifted up. Tests being run to see how the treatments are going for Cari. Keep our homeless camps in your prayers. Life is hard enough, but you add, homelessness, no job, no id, no justice, it is even more difficult. Keep our children of community in your prayers. We have no idea what our young people face everyday to survive. The challenges they face should not have to happen to these young people, so their struggles are manifested in anger and resentment. How can we help? James, mentioned a family friend, Mr Smith has terminal cancer.

God's Kingdom, where is it? Tuesday evening, the men talked about God's lvoe. What does it look like? The past several weeks on Thursdays, following our meals, there continues to be large groups of people hanging around the center? It's reminds me of our mens gatherings on Tuesday evenings, we close the doors of the chapel, but the guys still hang around talking, why?

You tell the children, don't come to the center when it is raining, or cold, or hot, but they continue to come, why?

Josh talk about God's Kingdom here on earth in chapel, where is it? Josh read the Lord's prayer from Matthew 6, saying in verse 10, May your kingdom come and what you want be done, here on earth as it is in heaven. Josh pointed out, God's will is being done in heaven, isisisis God's will happening here on earth?

Over the years, we have seen, people come to us because something is different about our community. The children come because they do not experience God's lvoe in their lives. As Josh pointed out in chapel, following Jesus is hard work. Some folks try it for a Sunday or two and drop out. Some try it for a week or two and decide it's not worth it. Some come and try to fix the people, hoping to see changes and stop coming because things don't change. Did God give up on us? When we make the same mistakes or mess up time and time again, does Jesus say, I'm out of here? Of course He didn't, so why do we quite and run away?

Matt said something Tuesday evening that I have not heard in many years. When I had the opportunity to visit with Shane Claiborne in Philadelphia one year, we wore Shane's ear off asking so many questions, why do you do this, how can you make this happen, how can we fix this situation, how do we help the poor. Shane smiled, , listened and said think about why you are doing what you are doing and we will talk about all your questions later.

Matt came up with the answer we came up with talking to to Shane. In our relationships with our community, we are the ones being ministered to. We are the ones being blessed. God is calling us to lvoe one another, not fix one another. God is asking us to walk together to a life of lvoing each other. As we begin to walk hand and hand, we will begin to learn about each other and realize we both need Jesus in our lives. That's what the Kingdom of God looks like here on earth. Wouldn't our world be a better place if we all walked together, not one better than the other, but hand in hand.


Common Ground is unique because of each one of you deciding, it is not about me but about God. We as humans can not forgive or love, but we can if we allow the Holy Spirit to flow through us, you all are doing that. It is not easy, God never said it would be. I am thinking if it were easy, we might think, we can do this with out God and he not get any of the glory. Thank you all for your continued passion in learning to let go and let God in your lives. Thank you for realizing, we are in this journey together, all learning from each other, needing each other along the way. Very proud to be a part of such special servants.

Hope to see you around the center next week. Have a great weekend with your family and friends. Lvoe to all. Amen.

peace

We had our jackets on and heaters going the first part of the week, today, is shorts and air conditioning! Ol'man summer just won't give up, but he is getting weaker! Hope your week was a good one, full of fun and adventures.

We had a great Saturday last week. We filled up our trucks with supplies and made our visits. Our first stop was to check on Turner. Turner continues to amaze us with his peculiar requests. He looks through our supplies, gets some stuff and says, do you have any hand sanitizer? Mr Scott looks but could not find any, will have to get him some this week. A man living in cardboard boxes, sitting on a dirt floor, under an over pass, wanting hand sanitizer!

Being the first of the month Richard was gone, so we made our way to see Dale. We all made the comment, we have not seen Dale's camp look so nice and clean, even Dale seemed to doing really well and looked good. His camp mates were not there, so Dale was enjoying his solitude. We visited with Smokey on our way home. Some of us went by and saw Curtis and Mr Matt and Tim, went to an old/new camp behind the macaroni plant. Tim had heard there were some folks there, boy were they right! Tim and Matt found 8 folks in need of everything. Tim had brought some bags we had been given and they were all appreciative of the items.

Something special about Matt taking Tim to a camp. A man we found under a bridge, having nothing but the clothes on his back, is now employed, going to church and Bible study and wanting to help others. That is pretty special and one of the best examples I can think of when I think about God's lvoe!

While we were having fun and visiting, Karl was back at the Bright House II working hard tearing down more sheet rock. Don't tell Hat he was there, but Karl is doing a great job. Most Saturdays you will find him there, come by and lend him a hand!

Pretty quiet with our afternoon activities this week. Monday was a holiday, Tuesday, the kids came in mass and to be very nice, they were a hand full. Krysten and Joey decided to end the afternoon early. Wednesday, they made us suffer and did not come! Ms Dawn and Ms Lisa, got other things done on Wednesday! We will see what next week brings!

Tuesday, Mr Matt gathered the men together and read from 1st Thessalonians, chapter 4. Talking about living a life pleasing to God. Do all you can to live a peaceful life. Wow, isn't that cool. Wouldn't the world be a better place if we all practiced that! One thing that happened Tuesday evening, an example of how this group of men is becoming an important part to each others lives. It was 7:25, just about time to end the evening, in walks one of our neighborhood guys. He works in construction, working long hours, but he said, they got off early today and he felt he needed to come and be with us even though for only a short time, awesome!

Wednesday, Ms Lisa meet with the Food Bank people for our annual inspection. We passed with flying colors! We are in the process of getting a health inspection for our kitchen so we can begin to purchase items for the kitchen to cook for our evening meals.

Thursday was a fun day of activities. Chapel was led by Willie and Wes, sounds like a country group! Something about those two when they get together, Wes starts playing the piano and Willie starts singing, and God is praised like no other. Willie says I will sing it this way and Wes, says, I'll follow you, something special about that. Then Willie talks about the tongue, from Proverbs and James. Willie starts off, by saying, God made us with two ears, two eyes, one nose with two openings, but only one tongue. The tongue is a powerful force and one we need to learn to control. Something we can use to build up not tear down each other. I had asked Willie to keep it to 30 minutes in chapel if possible! Those of you who know Willie, that's not possible, but by 45 minutes we were leaving. To be honest, I was not ready to go!

Our meal was prepared by Krysten, making spaghetti, salad and cookies, yummy. Ms Abbie handed out the bags and everything seem to go pretty well for the evening. We can always use your help serving, cleaning or handing out, so come when you can.

After we finished our clean up, we met in the chapel and read from John 11. Talking about the death of Lazarus, the resurrection, and the plan to kill Jesus. We talked about, how the Jews, saw Jesus crying, then he brought back to life Lazarus and then they go to the authorities to plot to kill Jesus. How many times has Jesus brought us back to life, given us grace and we turn our backs on him? Ouch, He deserves better than that.

Prayer concerns, continue for the Bollingers. Carrie and Nick, but now Pete has developed some sort of hand or arm problems. Safe travels for Hat and Karl as they go up to New Hampshire to visit with family. Momma T's mom and dad are doing better but still need our prayers. Charley continues to heal and gain strength from his surgery. Homeless camps around town and how they are being treated.

This Saturday will be a full day of activities. We have two groups coming to help out. A group from BPCC and a group from Broookwood. Mr Scott will be leading our visits. Momma T and her crew will be hosting U2 Saturday in the garden, starting at 10. Then after all of that, at noon Joey will be hosting a lunch for Lomax and his return to us. No excuse not to come and be a part of something, if you can't help and meet our new friends, then come and eat!

Been thinking about what we read Tuesday evening, do all you can to live a peaceful life. In verse 12, it says, If you do, then people who are not believers will respect you. When those we see every day, do our lives represent peace or confusion? Do we build up or tear down? If we want others to share in the lvoe of Christ, do our actions encourage others to want to get to know Jesus? The ol'saying, easy to be a Christian on Sundays, but hard to tell a Christian the rest of the week, is that us?

The other part of the discussions on Tuesday was, in verse 10, they were loving their brothers and sisters, but now we encourage you to love them even more. God's work is never done. We can sit back as humans and say, look what I have done, look at what a nice building we have built, look at all the good things we are doing, man we sure look good. For me, meeting new people, visiting with new groups, you hear this all the time. I have to be careful my ego, my pride does not get in the way. This is not about mr brian, but about God. God is about lvoe, not about stuff. God is about changed hearts not about pride and egos.

God continues to bless our community because we continue to reach out to others. We must never get complacent in our actions and feelings. God continues to challenges us. We must meet those challenges with God's directions in our lives.

Thank you all for living lives of peace and passion. For showing God's lvoe to others by the way you respond to challenges. As Momma T said, as she served the spaghetti Thursday night, she saw people with smiles and people with frowns. With God's help, may we change those frowns to smiles next week.

Have a great weekend and a better week! See you Saturday. Amen.