Are you ready? We're excited!

So have you noticed that I get excited a lot? Especially when I see God moving and working and opening doors for our work in Suffolk! The week of July 4 is no different.

We have another great opportunity to serve and share with the people of the Riverfront Swim Club about the work that we are doing in their neck of the woods. As we provide a block party for the families present, we will also have some great opportunities to tell them about our church and the most important freedom there is...faith in Christ! So we are once again looking for volunteers who will step up and serve on this great day. We are not looking to provide as many services as Memorial Day weekend, but I told the director that I would put the invitation out and see how God moves our members to serve. Please let me know as soon as possible if you anticipate serving.

During this event, we will also be spreading the news about Laugh all week! In case you have been hanging out at the light rail station waiting for the Tide to crank up and missed the news...we are having a BIG comedy bash across Hampton Roads during the week of July 5-8!!! This is going to be a significant opportunity to provide a family friendly opportunity to reach out to the people of Norfolk, Chesapeake, Virginia Beach, and...Suffolk! We will be at the Harbourview Grande theater at 7pm on July 7 and it is going to be a blast. Be sure to grab that ONE special friend and join us for a great evening that is absolutely free and will even include some pretty sweet surprises! Ok, I have just about reached my limit on exclamation points, so I am going to have to bring this to a close.

Bottom line...we're excited! Not just excited about events, programs, yadda yadda. We're excited about Jesus and we want to share that excitement with others. Will you join us on the journey and make this dream become a reality? Share this vision and let's see God do some incredible things in the days ahead as his people are found faithful in the fields that are ready for the harvest!

Live the mission!

If the Lord of the harvest called, would you know?

So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields."

Matthew 9:38

I have been praying for you. Some of you have been prayed for directly and others indirectly. I have been praying to the Lord of the Harvest that he would send you to serve. Doors for the gospel are opening daily, but I can't do it all. One dear lady once asked me, "Why don't you do it?" Referring to a need that I saw at the Judeo Christian Outreach Center for someone to lead Bible study. While I wish that I could do everything, I have had to come to the realization that I cannot. Even though I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. I will continue to seek to find those open doors for the gospel and see our members serving joyfully.

Would you recognize the call?

Many people have cellphones today that have special ring tones assigned to friends and family. I purchased the song "She's a brick house" by the Commodores for my wife, but it was not a ring tone. So I found another song for her, "Love me do" by the Beatles. Wouldn't it be easier if God had a ring tone? We have to abide in Christ so that we might recognize God's voice and hear his call. I believe that those who are walking closely in faith will hear the call to the harvest and develop the heart of the Father for his creation.

What happens when you receive the call?

My favorite illustration about God's call upon a person's life is from Rick Warren's Purpose driven church book. In the course of his experience he views God's work in the life of a believer much like that of a surfer on a wave. You are ready for the perfect wave, you catch the wave, and then you ride the wave. The glory of laboring in the Lord's harvest is that he does most of the work if we are truly laboring in faith. We guide people on the experience and help them to obediently surf the wave, but the Holy Spirit does most of the work.

Are you ready?

The joy of serving in the harvest is the essence of Psalm 34:8 as we taste and see how good our God really is. He can take our work and make it joyful. He can give us a holy addiction or a Christian hedonist (according to John Piper) perspective in such a way that we can't get enough of this L3 (Love God, Love Others, and Live the Mission) experience.

I can't tell you all that God is going to do in missions and especially in North Suffolk, but I believe that it is good. No, it's not good. It's beyond anything that your human intellect can think or imagine. His ways are higher than your ways and thoughts are higher than your thoughts. But you have to ride the wave. You have to taste how good our God really is. You have to answer the call. Stay tuned for more exciting opportunties to live the mission in North Suffolk!

The Love-Hate Relationship that We Have with Surveys

While I am not a fan of surveys (either administering or responding to them) I cannot deny that people have been reached through a simple survey and a subsequent invitation to church. While we are doing various things to reach out to people through prayerwalks, block parties, and other gatherings, the simple act of getting to know people through a survey shows them that we care about what they think.

In the next few weeks under the leadership of our Missions Intern, Josh Herring, and one of our members who is passionate about this type of work, Wayne Laughinghouse, we will be conducting various survey blitzes with the goal of reaching out to more Suffolk residents directly. In the course of this work we are going to ask four simple questions.

• What is your church background?
• In your opinion, what are the top three reasons people do not attend church?
• When you hear the word Church does it have a positive or negative association, and why?
• How long have you lived in the Suffolk area?

This Sunday we will plan to meet at the Crossroads Center and travel together to the North Suffolk area prepared to conduct surveys, pass out information from our church, and pray for the people that we encounter.

As always, we are praying that the Lord of the Harvest will send forth laborers into the harvest by providing people to join us this Sunday. Those who are interested may respond to our Facebook group or email Josh at josh.p.herring@gmail.com. If you are unable to join us, please pray for the intersections that we will have with the residents of Suffolk and that God will cause those seeds to grow in His time.

May we continue to be a church who loves God, loves others, and lives the mission!