Services

Dare I say, in this part of the world, we had a hint of fall weather this week. Only got to 92 a couple of days! Hopefully more to come.

With our van in the shop for repairs, we took our own cars to visit our friends. It was kind of nice driving around down town in "undercover" cars! The first response we got when we stopped, didn't recognize ya'll without the white van! Turner is doing fine. Richard was being Richard and we sat on the tailgate of one of our trucks and listened to him give a recap of Genesis, priceless! Shawn's camp was filled with some of our old friends. Dave has moved away from Big D's and is now in the vicinity of the bridge. Juan was there, just getting out of jail, seemed to be doing ok. For those of you who do not know, Tim has been arrested and is in jail until September 17th. The sad thing about all of this, he will loose his job, his income and both he and Dale will again be out on the streets. We need to continue to be there for them and show God's lvoe.

Tuesday evening, we had a good group of men, coming together for our Bible fellowship. Matt read from Mark 7, talking about worshiping traditions instead of God. Why does man put so much emphasizes on traditions rather than worshiping God? Jesus said, you show honor with words but your hearts are far from me. The things they teach are human rules, their worship of me is worthless. We need to remember, this is all about God not us. If we do not put God first in everything we do, then it is worthless.

Wednesday, Ms Lisa, Krysten and Joey mapped out a plan for our after school activities. They want to continue the type of building of relationships they had during the summer, so they want to make arts available to the children. They talked about having Monday as music day, Tuesday working on the computers, Wednesday being art day, Thursday reading day or something along those lines. We talked about having special guests join us, maybe have Momma T show them how to bake cookies, have Ms Patty show them how to plant seeds. Do you have special gift or skill you would like to share with the children? Email Krysten and let her know, she is in the process of making the schedule. We plan to start our activities the first week of September. We need a name, Arts in the afternoon?

Thursday morning, we had our first slab poured of the JJ houses. Pictures are up on our face book page. Want you all to know, how much this is a God thing happening. Time after time we came across road blocks, for those of us who have worked with God, we come to know this is not expected. But for those who have not done work for the Lord, it is exhausting and frustrating. As you try to comfort those who are wit's end, you draw upon your faith and obedience, knowing God will working it all out. And then, on Thursday morning, you get to experience the awesomeness and joy of God when it all comes together. One other aspect of all of this, is this construction company, in the business to make a profit, decided to donate all their time, materials and labor to the pouring of the slab, a huge cost savings to the building of the house. God is soooo good!!

Chapel was especially good Thursday afternoon. Gus drove over from Longview and we were treated by his singing and playing of the piano. Then Pastor Eddie's wife, Jean and a friend sang a couple of songs about the love of Jesus. Flying high already, Pastor Eddie talks about the lady who had a bleeding problem for 12 years and one day pushed through the crowd and touched Jesus' robe and was healed. Pastor titled his talk, we all have issues, what do we do with them? He had an alter call and a young man came forward. Sitting in chapel, I was reminded of our discussions Tuesday night about worshiping traditions. Looking around our chapel, we had folks of different colors, we had children, we had a dog sitting with his friend, we had folks in shorts, we had singing of different types of hymns. As Pastor Eddie said, God wants us just the way we are, not worshiping traditions but worshiping Jesus Christ. Awesome!

Next week we will have Pastor Roger from Grace join us, along with Spencer playing his guitar.

We talked to Pastor Eddie, he will be out of town this Sunday. We will be joining Pastor Eddie and his wife at Bright Star Baptist at 11am September 2nd. The church is located on Southern, a block south of 70 street. Come and join us if you can, he would love to have us all.

Ms Abbie and her crew fixed grilled cheese, salad and oranges for supper. That was after she had put together 60 bags of groceries. Ms Abbie works tirelessly for our community and is a huge blessing to us all.

Dawn, Dr Phil and I stopped for a moment and focused on God's word later Thursday evening and read John 8. Our lives are hurry, hurry, run, run, God's word has a way of making sense to it all. I needed that time, thank you guys for being there.

Prayers were lifted up for Pete's wife Carie. They have a long, strenuously battle ahead of them in her fight against her bone cancer. They will need all the support and prayers we can give them. Prayers for Ms Sarah and Mr Scott as they travel back from their beach vacation, hoping their time together was good for their souls and spirits. Prayers for the Doctor who mistakenly left their baby in the back seat of his car at LSUMC. Such a tragedy. Prayers for our children as they grow into adults and start their own families. That they are able to make good choices and have the willingness to ask for help from mom and dad if needed.

Has everybody signed up for the Brookwood 5k run? Have you contacted your friends, family, your church, your coworkers? mr brian has signed up, like Joey, may try the fun walk. It is an honor to be selected as this year's recipient, let's support them as best we can.

This Saturday at 8 am Airline Baptist will bring a crew over and begin the renovations of Bright House II. Ms Sarah, put us on your list of a youth painting project! The man in charge is the partner of the construction company who is helping us build the house. What a blessing this company is, please come out and say thank you to Mike and everybody.

I got a phone call last Friday from a person needing some assistance. It was hard to hear them, but the thing that stuck with me was, the question they asked, what services do you offer? I have been thinking about that all week, what services do you offer? What a strange question, but one I guess you ask an organization who is in the helping business. Not sure I have been asked that before? I started to think, would you go to your mom and dad and say, Mom what services are you going to offer me today? Or go to your Uncle and say, Uncle Jeff, are your services available on Saturday?

Ms Lisa, in her writing of grants and trying to put in words what we are about, asked, why is common ground different than the other 96 non profits in the city? I guess now, my first response, is we do not offer any services, we offer lvoe. We offer a meal to our friends, we share with our community the clothes we have, we provide a bag of groceries to our neighbors, not out of obligation but out of lvoe. We have no clients only family. Chapel time is a feeling of family. Yes, like all families we have issues, but we all can come together and worship.

Common Ground is about family, not about services. If your family is hurting you help through prayer, your presence or your shoulder to cry on. Common Ground is not about Common Ground it is about God. As long as we put God first, blessing will flow. It is not about traditions, or attitudes, or agendas, we must get past all of this, it is about the lvoe of Jesus. We talked about Thursday evening, man messes up so much when it comes to loving God. We put so many rules and regulations in the way, we loose sight of what we are about. God is about lvoe, plan and simple. Lvoe your God with your heart, mind and soul and then your neighbor. That's it.

It is an honor to be a part of a community where God is the leader. Where God comes first. Where there is no one greater than He. May we stay focused on God and His will for our lives and our community. We have such prayer warriors in our mist, His will be done. Amen!

Have a great weekend, come and join us in the fun!