Comfortable

It can't be Friday already! Were does the time go? Hope you were able to get outside this week and enjoy the gorgeous moonlite nights. It has been a beautiful week here in this part of the world.

We will begin our report with the past Friday. It rained and rained and rained. We had a group of middle schoolers scheduled to come and work in the garden. In spite of the rain and cold they worked for a little while. They moved inside the center and Krysten and Ms Patty showed them around and they did some more work. A great group of children. We got a nice note from their teacher, I thought I would share with all of you, because it is about you:

We enjoyed our work with Common Ground so much! My students did fantastic...and not one complaint about the rain, mud, or cold temperature. I was very proud of them! I definitely want to do something with you all for Christmas. It was mentioned that we may be able to help wrap Christmas gifts. I will be in touch as the holidays approach and hopefully there will be something we can help with.

Thanks again! What an incredible work Common Ground is doing for our community...I'm so impressed and blessed to see what God is doing right here in Shreveport!
Blessings!
 Leesa Wallace

Saturday was filled with surprises and adventures. We visited our friends who live outside. Turner is fine. Richard was doing better, sitting in his chair waiting for us to tell us a story. He told us, he has permission to move into the building behind his gas station? Hope he is right, we'll see? Dale sat in his chair and coughed the whole time. He is congested really bad, not wanting to go to the doctor. We offered food to him and he said, I have an ice chest full of food, too sick to eat. Joey went by one day this week, bringing him some hot soup and he said he had just eaten something. Always enjoy our visits with Smokey and all his stories. Matt and Tim found Andy and his friend and brought them back to the center to wash clothes. I told Matt I would take them back to their camp after they were finished. At 5:30 Tim and I were driving them back to the camp! It seems the Hope house is having problems and they had not been able to wash clothes in several weeks.

We went by the JJ house to visit with Dave and Willie. Both are doing fine. They work on Saturdays now, so go by and seem them and compliment them on the building of the house. Everybody needs to go by and see the color being painted. Can't describe it, you need to see it for yourself! Caution, wear sunglasses!

Saturday afternoon, while waiting for the clothes to finish, Karl pulls up and starts working on the Bright House II! He was watching his daughter run a race that morning, but made time in his day to come by and work, very cool. Almost finished tearing out, go by and help him on Saturdays.

Our after afternoon activities continue with a smaller number of children. Come by and help, Krysten, Joey and Lomax play with the children.

Mr Matt, was out of town Tuesday, so God brought us Pastor Eddie to lead Bible study. Pastor had a handout titled, The Two Man in Every Human Being. Talking about the outward and inner man in all of us. Very challenging to think about we are going through everyday and how hard it is to live a life of Christ.

Wednesday evening, Joey organized a Halloween evening for 13 of our children. He along with Krysten, Lomax and friends from the Baptist Collegiate Ministry, took our kids around to the neighborhoods for treats. Pictures are coming. There is talk about next year, us hosting an evening of fun and treats for the neighborhood.

While I was getting ice at Grace Thursday, Ms Sarah and Mr Scott gave me can goods picked up by their middle schoolers while trick and treating Wednesday evening.  Isn't that cool, always thinking of others.

Another great Thursday afternoon full of fun, food and friends. Heather and her husband Derrick got us started in chapel with song and praises. Then her dad, Richard talked to us about giving and being thankful for what God has given us. Richard read the story from Acts, about a lame man asking Peter for alms as they were going into the temple. Peter did not give him alms but restored his legs so he could walk. We ask God for something we think we want, but God will give us what He knows we need, often more than what we had asked for.

Our meal of chili, crackers and salad was provided by a group of ladies from United Healthcare, our local electrical company and cooked by the chefs from a local college. The meal was part of last weeks, One Day to Make a Difference. These two groups got together and collected enough money to buy us a new freezer! Awesome.

We only had around 70 folks, not sure where everybody was, but it was kind of relaxing. TJ purchased plates and cups from a donation from a Sunday school class from Grace, so we used them for the first time. We had some help from the community to wash the cups and plates afterwards, very nice.

Prayer concerns, William, who is in Dallas at the moment. Trying to find his way in life. Continue to pray for Pete and Cari. Pete misses all of you and promises to come by soon. God's direction in our journeys, allowing us to listen to His quiet voice and follow His directions. May the presence of God be in our national election next week.

Don't forget, supper at the Ackermans this Sunday, 6pm.

From Ms Lisa's note, a huge and long awaited project on the greenhouse will be starting this weekend. Come by and help if you can. Finally happening. Praise God!

Don't forget to "Fall Back" with your clocks Sunday. Don't show up an hour early for church!

The thing I am overwhelmed with this week, God's Kingdom is never completed. I guess one year it will be, but not now. He is constantly bringing us new challenges and new blessings, always asking us to walk in faith and obedience. Ours is not to ask why, but just let it happen. He seems to be asking us to move outside our comfort zones to experience new challenges. I could ask, why God, I don't want to do this. I feel comfortable where I am, don't ask me to do this! But where does our faith come in? If we live a life where we are comfortable, why do we need God? Did Jesus get comfortable in His surroundings? Don't think so, He was always moving from town to town, lvoing on folks, meeting criticism at every turn, but He always was on the move. The only time He stopped, was to find a quiet place to pray.

The outer man in me wants to stop and feel comfortable. But the inner man, full of the Holy Spirit, wants to reach out, lvoe and get to know our neighbors. Let's make our prayer this month, to allow the inner man in all of us, to take over our lives, to lvoe unconditional, to lvoe without ceasing, to lvoe so that the honor of God is glorified! Amen and amen!

Have a Great weekend and a glorious week. Hope to see you around the neighborhood.

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.

no entry

Just finished our first week of fall! How was it for you? The mornings have been nice but the afternoons get pretty warm. Hope your week was a good one. Ours was busy as usual.

Saturday was full of activities and adventures. Mr Scott led our visits to our friends. While they were at Richard's gas station, 4 train folks showed up and we helped them out. Then Richard took our group to a place where he knew a couple of folks needed some help. We then made our way over to check on Dale. Mr Matt and his group finished the morning by checking on Smokey. You just never know what God has in store for us on Saturdays, that is one of the coolest parts.

Momma T and Joey played host to our bikers. Showing them around the center and garden area. Momma T and Ms Patty worked all morning long in the garden.

We have been overwhelmed with children in the afternoons this week. We have had over 20 children each day with only Krysten and Joey trying to make do. Ms Abbie helped out Tuesday by pitching the ball as they all played kick ball. Ms Lisa was there helping out also.  Ms Dawn came Wednesday afternoon and joined in on the fun. Krysten and Joey could really use your help, just your presence will help, so come by Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 4:30 - 5:30.

We had a special treat Monday evening, as we had BCM students from LSUS come by to hang out with the kids. Krysten fixed pizza for the children's supper. Everybody had a great time playing all sorts of games. Joey  is working on the students coming once a month to hang out, very exciting.

Tuesday evening, we had a packed house at our mens Bible fellowship. Mr Matt brought Richard by for his first time. Richard said as we were leaving, this is pretty cool, I want to come back. Matt read from 1 Corinthians 12 talking about the Body of Christ. How all parts of the Body need to work together for the glory of God. Some of us talked about how we thought we wanted to be the head when in reality God wanted us to be a foot. How things just never seemed to work out, or we got frustrated with others, only to realize after a period of time, we were trying to be something we were not designed to be. We all have spiritual gifts, those gifts whatever they may be are important and if you do not exercise them and use them, then the Body will not be who God intended it to be.

One of our highlights of the week, was the return of Lomy on Wednesday! It was great to give him a big hug and see his smiling face. When the kids saw him, they all gave him big hugs. Can't wait to hear about his adventures. He said, he is headed to Center to spend a week with his grandmother and then come back home and settle in. Want it be nice to have our boy back with us again! Momma T would say, we will have all our peeps back with us in the Bright House once again!

Thursday afternoon was great, as Joey commented after the evening was over, this has been a good day. Pastor Eddie's wife Ms Jean got Ms Abbie to play the piano and we got off to a great start in chapel. Pastor Eddie took over and read from Mark 4 about the blind man sitting on the side of the road, asking Jesus for help. Pastor asked us, when was the last time we asked Jesus for help? Why do we try everybody else, read every self help book there is, and as a last resort we turn to Jesus? Awesome time in chapel.

Following chapel, we enjoyed a meal served by Matt and Ms Vicki and their helpers from Airline Baptist. They fixed the same meal as last month with left overs, this month they ran out! A huge crowd this afternoon. I think I heard Ms Abbie say they handed out over 70 bags of groceries.

While chapel, feeding and giving out of the groceries, St Luke's Medical van pulled up and began seeing folks from the neighborhood. Hopefully more and more folks will come as they become more familiar with the volunteers from St Luke's. They may start coming every other month.

To conclude the evening, we gathered in the chapel for our Bible study reading John 10, talking about Jesus knowing his sheep and the Pharisees fussing at Jesus for saying such blasphemy things. Know matter what we do or how much we do, if Jesus does not recognize us, it is all for nothing. It is not about us but about Jesus.

Prayer concerns were mentioned for Momma T's dad. He had a stroke Monday and is recovering from that. Continue to lift the Sauls up as they deal with the passing of John's dad. Keep the Bollingers in your prayers, for their son Nick's back procedure and Cari's treatments. Got a nice note from Pete. Pete said, "I miss everyone at Common Ground. Cari's in her second 3-week round of chemo, very time consuming. Tell everyone at CG that I miss them and send my love." Tim brought up prayers for the homeless who are being pushed around downtown, that tempers don't flare up and retaliations do not take place.

In my line of work, I drive to all parts of the city and out in the country each month. The last several years I have noticed a strange phenomenon, gates across the driveways of churches. Most of the gated churches, I have noticed are in the country where they have a gate across the one driveway going into the parking lot.

Many years ago in the beginning of my spiritual journey, when I saw these gates across the church driveways, I thought to myself, they are just trying to protect their property. But now, after realizing everything we have, everything we accumulate, is not ours but God's, how does God like the gates of our churches? If one of God's directives to us is to go out and make disciples, how does  lock gates of His churches accomplish this?

As we talk about in our mens discussions, life has challenges for us everyday, if not every hour. The church must think outside the box and become open to everybody every day, not just on Sundays. For whatever reason the chapel has a calming effect on me when I walk in. Most sanctuaries has the same effect for most people, so the church needs to recognize this and open the doors. Hopefully our churches are not more concerned about the buildings than the people who occupy them.

I have been asking the question to myself, Are we at Common Ground, opening our doors or is our entrance closed? Are we opening our hearts to all? Are we more concerned for the souls we meet or for the stuff we accumulate? Do we make sacrifices for others? Do we think of others first? Are we flexible enough to go with the flow or do we stick to our schedules?

What do you think? When someone asks you about Common Ground, what do you say? Who is Common Ground? Our mission statement says, we are committed to building community through compassionate outreach, genuine care and acceptance of all people. Are we doing that?

Driving up to the center Wednesday afternoon, I see all these signs along Southern Avenue in front of the center. I walk out to the signs and there is one for a free legal clinic, there is another one for chapel service, one for a free meal, one for medical van conducting free medical tests, wow. Then a few minutes later the green area is full of children from the neighborhood playing kick ball. And another group sitting in front of the chapel doing homework. I can think of no better examples of what Common Ground is all about than what we saw on Wednesday and Thursday. And that is just two days out of the week!

When I think of Common Ground I think of each one of you doing everything you do for others. Opening your doors to those who do not have a home to go to. Visiting those who do not have homes. Providing a place where the Word of God can be heard and discussed. Sharing a meal with those who might not have food at home. Giving groceries away weekly, no questions asked. Providing a safe place for our neighborhood children to come to. Building a home for those who do not have a home. The list goes on and on. Each one of you are living out your spiritual gifts as the Body of Christ should do. In so doing, the Kingdom of God is growing.

You guys are awesome and inspiring and a blessing to this community.

Have a great weekend and a great week. Amen.

Wisdom?

Another week has flown by. Hope yours was filled with blessings and surprises. We finally got some much needed rain and cooler temperatures in this part of country. Is the weather good in your town?

We started off last Saturday by preparing breakfast in our new kitchen. It was awesome. Joey grilled the bacon on our new stove, John W cooked the pancakes, James cut up the oranges. It may be just me, but I thought everything tasted a little better coming from our new kitchen! We were preparing breakfast  for a Sunday school group from Grace. Lots of folks showed up and worked hard all morning long. The group divided into two and some cleaned all the pots and pans and appliances in the kitchen. The other group worked across the street and continued the demolition of the Bright House II. By noon, they had filled up the second dumpster! Amazing group of people. Thanks to John Williams for making it all happen.

Mr Scott drove us around to make our visits. We first drove over to the JJ house and found Dave and his crew working, so we stopped and visited. We then made our way to Turner. He is doing fine. Richard is back and had a story for us as usual. Dale has moved back into the woods. Mr Matt helped Dale secure the tarps to keep out some of the rain. We gave him a few items to keep him going. We drove by Smokey's old camp and there was no one there. We finished our visits by checking in on Smokey at his new apartment.

Monday had been a day of rain. Joey showed up in the afternoon preparing for the arrival of the kids. I said to Joey, they won't come. Guess who showed up! No one had a rain coat or umbrella, they were wet, but they came! They came Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. Wednesday was a beautiful day, so games were played outside. Ms Abbie helped out by turning the jump rope for the kids. Come by and join in on the fun. Don't forget BCM folks will be at the center Monday evening, come by and meet them all.

Tuesday afternoon, Joey and I went by to see one of our long time friends, Curtis. Curtis has been around for many years, going with us on our Saturday visits, helping us cook breakfasts, coming by on Thursdays. Unfortunately, Curtis has cancer, and we found out, the hospital has released him and told him to go home because there is nothing more they can do for him. Tuesday was Curtis' birthday, so Joey and I took Curtis to the grocery store to get his favorite flavor of ice cream, strawberry and bought him some fried fish they had just cooked up. It is sad, to see this bright eyed young man, always had a smile, coming to the end of his life, keep him in your prayers.

Tuesday evening, we had to put more chairs in our circle for our mens Bible fellowship. What a blessing to have such a diverse group of men, coming together to talk about God and what He means in their lives. Mr Matt read from 1 Corinthians, chapter 1 starting in verse 18, talking about wisdom. We talked about there are two kinds of wisdom, wisdom of the world and spiritual wisdom. A question was asked, would you rather have youth or wisdom?

Thursday started off with a challenge, but as always God provides. About an hour before chapel, our piano man called and said something came up and he was not going to be able to play. I began to freak out because the piano man was to play a couple of hymns for Brother Bob. About 30 minutes later, as I was wondering what we were going to do, guess who walks in? Gus! He drove all the way from Longview, to play and sing if needed! I said thank you God! I told Brother Bob, Gus would sing a couple of songs and then he would have to lead us in the singing of his hymns because Gus did not know the songs. Well I was wrong as usual and God was right all the time! The second song Gus sang was one of the songs Brother Bob wanted to sing. So we all got to sing the song and have Gus play for us, isn't it amazing how God works!

What a treat we had in hearing the Word from one of God's mightiest players. Beth's dad, 94 years old, preaching for over 60 years, has not lost a beat. What passion Brother Bob has for the Lord as he talked about the Holy Spirit, forgiveness and his Father. Beth, please tell your dad how much we appreciated his time with us and if he ever wants to come back to let us know. Next week, Pastor Eddie and his wife from New Star Baptist church will be leading worship, come and hear what God is up to.

Ms Judy prepared a feast for our evening meal, serving over 125 folks. Ms Lisa and Momma T, helped out Ms Abbie in the food pantry to learn about our challenges there. New friends of Noel joined us and helped serve and clean up.

Be sure to stop in the hallway of the center as you make your way into the fellowship hall. Ms Lisa has gone above and beyond in putting together all our pictures from years past. You forget or at least I do, where we have come from, our humble beginnings, our friends, our children who have grown up. Wow, unbelievable, humbling to see these smiles displayed in such a unique way. Thank you so much Ms Lisa for all your hard work.

Got a phone call from one of the pastors at Grace, Warren Clifton. He is organizing a motorcycle ride for a group of folks this Saturday. They will be starting at Grace and their first stop is Common Ground. Joey and Momma T will be around to show them what God is doing in our part of the world. Please keep an eye out for Ms Abbie, she may jump on the back of one of the Harley's and we may never see her again!

As you all saw, the JJ house is coming along nicely. With the rain we had, the build was stopped for awhile, but now they have jumped up the pace and we now have a roof on the house. Very exciting to seeing it all come together. Great job Dr Phil.

Prayer concerns, Momma T's dad. Running tests to determine what is going on with him. God's direction for our challenges on Thursday evenings. Continue to lift up William and his challenges. All our outdoor friends.

Been thinking about the word wisdom and our discussions on Tuesday evening. Worldly wisdom and spiritual wisdom. One leads to death, one leads to life. Wisdom is something you have to work at, especially spiritual wisdom. We think if we show up on Sunday for an hour after 45 years of doing the same thing we will be wise in our spiritual walk. But we talked about, you have to work at obtaining spiritual wisdom. You need to pray, you need to read the Word, you need to listen, every day, every hour to develop a relationship with Jesus allowing us to become wise in God's Kingdom. Don't you find yourself, as you do this over the years, a peace within you, a joy not thought possible, a longing for a closeness with God, wanting to share this new found life with others. As Brother Bob said so eloquently in chapel, we serve others not because we are suppose to but because we want to. We serve, because of God's lvoe for us is so unimaginable, we can't help ourselves but to lvoe others.

Hope this week, you grow in your spiritual wisdom. Hope you find time to read the Word, to meditate on it, to listen to the quiet voice telling you, I lvoe you and there's not a thing you can do about it! To seek out those who do not yet know this lvoe and show them there is another way, a better way, a way that will bring life, eternal life.

Have a great weekend and a great week. Amen.

Our stuff

Can we say good bye summer! This week has been 105 heat index and unbearable. This weekend the temperatures are suppose to drop twenty degrees! Can we say Amen! Hope in your part of the world, the fall weather has gotten there, as we prepare for a new season.

With the van still in the shop, we made our way around to the camps in trucks and cars. Turner was waiting for us as we arrived. Ms Dawn and Mr Scott heard Turner say, as he was finishing shopping in the back of the truck, thanks, I really appreciate this! A first for Turner. Being the first of the month, Richard was not at his gas station. Hopefully he has stayed out of jail and the hospital? We went to Smokey's old camp and there was no one, so drove on! That was a first. We spotted John behind Labor Ready, so we stopped and visited him. Dave walked up not too long after that. Our final stop was to check on Smokey. He is doing fine, adjusting to his new surroundings. The apartment is very nice, clean and cool. We visited with the caretaker in the office and thanked him for watching over Smokey.

While we were playing with our friends, Karl was back at the center working hard in the Bright House II. We have a new empty dumpster, just waiting to be filled up with more debris, so Karl got the ball rolling. Starting to look better inside, not nearly as scary as it use to fill. Lots to do, so you never have to worry about something to do, just come by and take out your frustrations by tearing out some walls!

Some of us had the opportunity to visit Pastor Eddie's church Sunday. Bright Star Baptist Church, is over 100 years old and going strong. The numbers are small, but their hearts are willing. They made us fell welcomed and opened their arms to us. The Spirit was flowing through song and word.

Tuesday, we had our first afternoon back with the children. It was good to have the laughter, smiles and energy from our children. Krysten, Joey and Ms Lisa kept them busy with games and activities in the Friendship room. Come by any afternoon at 4:30 and join in on the fun.

Tuesday, we got our final inspection and it's official, we now have a working kitchen, all approved and ready to cook! John Sauls has done an outstanding job in coordinating everything to make a place where we can proud of for many years to come. Ms Lisa has left some before pictures on one of the counters.. Amazing to see the transformation. Come by and take a look and be sure to tell John when you see him around, what an outstanding job he has done.

Tuesday evening we had another lively discussion about life, as Mr Matt led us in reading from 1 John 3, 11- 24, we must love each other. Verse 18, said, we should love people not only with words and talk, but by our actions and true caring. We talk about getting past, looking at the color of our skins and seeing the color of our hearts. That starts by getting to know each other through Bible fellowship, working together, living together. And we can do that because the Spirit of God is in us and sees no color.

Chapel service started off our Thursday afternoon of activities. Heather and Derrick sang and their dad Richard shared the Word. We had a big crowd for our first Thursday in September, wow! Over a hundred, as we ran out of Kool-aid and food at the end. Ms Sarah and Mr Scott brought their Haiti friend, Diri JonJon, by for a visit. Mr Tom fixed a feast and everybody seemed to enjoy it all. Pastor Jackson will preach next week. TJ and the Brookwood folks will be providing the meal.

After our meal, Momma T and I met with Michele Sauls about organizing our kitchen tasks differently and seeing if we can get more help from our community and others. With our new kitchen up and running, we thought it might a good time to get more people involved. More to come.

Don't forget, Brookwood's 5K run is this Saturday, September 8th. The fun run starts at 8, with the 5K starting at 8:30. Still time to sign up or if you can't, just come on out and support those who are supporting us.

Has everybody seen the pictures Dr Phil has been sending out on the JJ house? We now have walls and siding on the house. One good thing about all this heat and no rain, construction has been going on everyday. Dave's craftsmanship in the building of the house has gotten the approval of our construction company. Everything is looking good, keep praying.

Looking at Amanda's birthday list, we had two birthdays this week! Sorry guys for missing them, David McCormick, our newest Board member. Long time friend of ours, married to the best pharmacist in Shreveport, Elizabeth. David's most important job, being a new dad. Great to see them at supper Thursday. You should have seen Ms Abbie's smile carrying around their new baby! Our other birthday was our own Zig Zag, Allison. Allison is in Atlanta beginning her studies to becoming a clergy in the Methodist church. One of her favorite things to do at school, is working with the children of homeless families, remarkable young lady! We have another birthday this Saturday, Ms Abbie. When you see her next time, don't forget to wish a happy day!

Continue to keep Pete and Cari in your prayers. Pray for Karl as he travels to California. Pray for the families in Haiti, trying to survive. Keep our families in your prayers, relationships that need mending with the power of God's lvoe. Pray for Charley and the team for Kiros as they go into the Wade Correctional Institution starting Thursday.

Next Saturday, September 15th a Sunday school class from Grace will be joining us for a work day. To get them started off the right way, Joey and mr brian will provide breakfast. We just couldn't wait to try out the new kitchen! Not sure what is on the menu, but everybody is welcome to join us at 8:30.

When we showed up Sunday at Pastor Eddie's church, there was preaching going on as we walked in, the Spirit was flowing already. As the Pastor was finishing up his talk, he asked another gentleman sitting next to him, to get up and say a few words. This elderly man told a story about seeing a light outside his front door. His wife called the man to the door and told him go see what the light was. There was a terrible storm going on, raining, wind blowing, trees down, electricity out, but they could still this light. The man got his rain gear on, walked out his door, checking out to see if there were wires or something connected to this light to make it glow but there was not. The man started wondering, what kind of stuff was inside this light to make it glow?

The elderly preacher looked at us and said, isn't that what God is concerned about for us? The stuff we have inside of us, do we let God in or do we keep it to ourselves? The stuff we hold on to, does it carry us down or make us better? Is our stuff more important than anybody else's stuff, occupying all our time? Heard two of our pastors talk about our attitudes over the weekend. How does our stuff affect our attitudes? If we hold onto our stuff, our lights are not as bright as they can be.

We all have stuff, but how we handle our stuff, makes us different. For most of us, we are learning, God is in the stuff dealing business. No matter how small or how large our stuff gets, we can turn to God for help. We are learning, God yearns to deal with our stuff, if we just let him. So, let go of your stuff, and let God in. The more we let go of our stuff, the more room there is for the light of God to shine through.

We talked about Tuesday evening, there are folks who don't want God in their lives and they don't want others to have God in their lives, so they do whatever they can to make everybody's life miserable. We have a choice in the way we live our lives, we can go along with them and fill our stuff up with their stuff. Or we can fill our lives with the power of Jesus and go about our way, full of the light of God. We read Tuesday night, the people who obey God's commands live in God, and God lives in them. Isn't that a better way to live? Each one of us has the remarkable ability to defeat the stuff of the world because God lives in us. Isn't that a better way to live?

Hope your week is filled with the glow of Jesus growing stronger inside of you. Hope your light shines bright with everybody you meet. What an amazing God we have, allowing us to deal with our stuff, so that He may grow stronger inside of us, so that His light will shine bright in our world. Lvoe to all. Amen.