StoneBridge Inventory

Just finished a whirlwind day with fellow StoneBridgers. Our Back to School Celebration day was solid, but not spectacular. We fell short of our attendance goal by 20 people, but it was good to see many new faces in the crowd. Our small groups signup for university students is going well. We are on track to launch three groups out of our one group from last semester, all led by students with apprentices in place. This is a major development. Jason and I are looking for apprentice leaders to emerge for our Tuesday and Wednesday small groups, so we can eventually hand over the reins in these groups. This will free us to pioneer new groups. I am examining the possibility of launching two new groups soon...one for nearly/newly marrieds and one for junior high/high school students. As of the first week of September, we will have 5 or 6 small groups, which seems to be a sign of good health for our church.

I think everyone enjoyed the picnic this afternoon, once people began to eat. We are going to develop a Ministry Team which handles the planning for our picnics and other events. This will take the load off our our staff. We are doing a much better job of empowering people for ministry than in the past, but events like today remind me that we still need to make strides in that department.

Since Jason gave out props in one of his blogs, I'm going to give out a couple of MVP awards for the day. One goes to Loren, who made a huge difference in the life of a StoneBridger today, and the other goes to my wife Belinda, for once again going the extra mile to put together some awesome activities for the kids at Coopers Rock.

All in all, it was a good day. God has developed and added to our fellowship this summer, our best summer ever. I'm praying that we will be able to ride a really big wave this fall, and see a growth explosion, not the incremental baby steps we have taken to this point. For that to happen, we've all got to raise the bar of commitment and excellence.