Got it!!

So on February 21st we posted a blog with a bunch of our needs... I was looking back through the list of needs because I have had some people ask what our needs are these days.  Check this out, I think this is pretty cool, here is the list we posted back in February and our status with each item:

Non-profit business license - Got it
Website hosting for Intersect website - Got it
Website design for Intersect website - Got it
Intersect logo design - Got it
CCLI license - Not Yet
Media Computer - Got it
Media Shout - Got it
Video Projection Unit - Got it @ the church we rent
Projection screen - Got it @ the church we rent
Bibles (To give to those who don't have one) - Got it
Sound System (sound board, speakers, monitors, amps, cords, microphone, etc.) - Got it
Copy machine/Printer - Got it
Advertising - Got it - But you can never have enough!!
Trailer to store and transport equipment - Got it

God is Good isn"t He!! Looks like God has met our needs upto this point and I believe He will continue to meet our needs!!

Birth Date

When Anna and I were called to plant a church here in the Palouse early in 2011, it was like God birthed something inside of us.  So we came up here in March and April and recruited people to join us in planting a church here in Moscow and came away with having 6 families willing to partner with us.  So on May 1st Anna and I pulled in here not knowing what was to come and just trusting it wasn't heart burn we were feeling (It wasn't heart burn!!). One of the first pieces of wisdom we received from our training was to treat this plant like a birth.  They encouraged us to not rush into launching the church because one of the main reasons church plants fail is because they are birthed too soon.  So we decided to treat Intersect like a fetus and decided to take almost 9 months to train our launch team, get to know our launch team, and exegete our community (big words that mean get to know your community, their mindset, and their way of life) before we launched it.  So here we are 2 and half weeks from our birth date and it has felt like this thing has gone so slow, but as we all know the last trimester of pregnancies are the most important.  So I want to ask all of you for your prayers in these next 3 weeks.  These next 3 weeks are going to be exciting for us, challenging, and miraculous.  So we need all hands on deck praying in faith, supporting financially, encouraging all who are apart of this, and lets be ready for this baby to be born!!  Pretty awesome that our baby (Intersect Community Church... Anna is not pregnant) is being born the same time of year that we celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus.  Lets look to our Lord Jesus and ask that this church being born will impact our community and our world like Jesus' birth did.  Let us remind Him that this is His church and He promised that His church will destroy the gates of Hell!!  So thanks to everyone who has been apart of this pregnancy up to this point and I am asking for more involvement especially in the next 3 weeks as we prepare to give birth.  God bless all of you!!

2nd CSO - leaf raking

One of the things we are very passionate about is getting out into our community and playing apart in making it what it is.  So once a month we get as many people together for a Community Service Opportunity (CSO) and find a place where we can do some manual labor.  So October 30th about 15 people from our church got together and prayed that God would show them where to work and asked that He would open the doors for them to show love to someone because of the love God has shown to us.  So as they were driving around, they saw a house with a lawn the size of a small park covered by leaves.  So all of them jumped out and started raking while Aaron went to the door to convince the people to allow our group to rake their leaves.  They were confused when our group didn't want money, or anything else for the job to be done.  They were even more confused that a church group was there on a Sunday morning instead of at a church building and for icing on the cake they couldn't understand why our group wanted to talk more about God and His love than about our church.  You see these events are not to get our name out there, they are about getting God's name out there!!  It took our group 5+ trips to the recycle drop and more than 3 hours to complete the job, but that place look amazing when they drove away and God got the glory.  As you can see by the pictures our kids led the way in getting the job done and making it fun the whole time!!

As the leader I was so proud of our group, I was proud at how they all worked together, how God's name went out and not our churches, and how this was done when I was out of the country.  I could not be prouder and I just praise God for how He is working here in the Palouse!!  May His name continue to go out and May He continue to build His church!!  Thanks to all of you who pray for us, financially contribute, and who come out every week to help make this thing happen!!  May God bless all of you as much as He is blessing us!!  Until Next time!! 

Harvest Party 2011

Last Saturday October 8th 2011, we put on a "Free Community Harvest Party".  None of us knew what to expect (which probably led to a TON of prayer) but what we got was an awesome time!!  The parking lot was jam packed for all 3 hours and we probably had somewhere between 150-200 people who came out and enjoyed the afternoon with us. We had 400+ pounds of apples and pressed it all into cider and gave it all away.  We had over a hundred pumpkins for people to carve and take home and we only had to take 15 home.  Our lovely Marianne had to run to the store during the party because we ran out of snacks and drinks due to the amazing turn out.  As you can see from the pictures we had bouncy houses, face painting, mask making, popcorn, cotton candy, and so much more for people to enjoy. 

Several people in our group had a lot of conversations with people throughout the day who showed up and at least 3 couples told us they would come out to church next week.  Anna and I also ran into several people we went to high school with and got to catch up with them.  Join us in praying that we will get to continue to love on the people in our community in such a way that they will come to find the hope, grace, and love that we have found in Jesus.  We hope to have another type of event like this soon so that the relationships that started Saturday can continue!!  Thanks for your prayers, financial contributions, and involvement in our church plant here in the Palouse.  We are so privileged to be here and be supported and used by God.  May He continue to shine His light here through us in all we do!!

1st CSO

Last Sunday September 25th, we took our church to the streets here in the Palouse for our first ever Community Service Opportunity.  23 of us showed up to clean 9 Bus Stops, clean the play structures at 2 parks, and take fliers out to several trailer parks to promote our upcoming Harvest Party.  This was a great time of serving, deepening our relationships, and a time to teach and model what it means to be a Community Church!!  I think it was great not just because we got the opportunity to serve our community, but we got to take our kids with us and teach them how to value our community as well. 

This is not just a one and done thing for us, its just the first of many to come.   Our next CSO is our Harvest Party October 8th where we will provide 3 hours of completely free fun.  Not only will people from the community get to come and have free fun, but we will also send them home with a carved pumpkin, a gallon of freshly pressed apple Cider, a mask for the kids, and goodies.  We are so excited about this and so is our church who has given over $1000 to make this an awesome time.  Please be praying that the community will come out and have fun with us and pray that the Lord will provide for all the needs for this event. 

By the way for more information about whats going on at Intersect, check out our website.  www.intersectpalouse.com

Thanks again for your prayers, encouragement, financial support, and your love!!  We so desperately need Jesus in the Palouse and if He can use us to show His love, then were available, excited, and ready to be used!!

2nd Practice Service

On July 31st we had our official 2nd practice service.  We had 40+ people in attendance and it turned out to be a great morning.  In the video above you will meet our very own Marianne Davis.  Her family moved from Nampa to Moscow with us and she tells a little bit of the story how that all happened.  She did a fabulous job and got rave reviews!!  Her story is powerful and raw!  It is very helpful to those of us who have struggled through the tough calling of God at times!!

Since our last service we have purchased our own trailer, sound system, more area rugs, and had cubicle sound panels donated to help make the "Burp" a better fit for us.  All of those new acquisitions helped make our morning smooth and helped with the look and sound of the facility.  Some of the comments we heard about our service were,
"Well I have never been to a church like that before." - we all took that in a good way!!

Another man(which does not go to church anywhere) came from Lewiston and said he wants to come every Sunday this fall to go to church and then go to his brothers house and watch football in Moscow.  Isn't that cool!!  We hope and pray God will continue to stir in his heart and help him in his desires.

One lady approached me after service and said, "I go to church every week and there are alot of times I walk out and didn't get the message, but today I understood it... I actually got it this morning.  Thanks!"

So God is building His church already!!  Praise Him!! I am so thankful for the Launch team He has put together here in Moscow and I am so excited to see How He will continue to work and move here in the Palouse!!  A big thank you to all of you on our Launch team, all of your prayers and hard work is already paying off!! A huge thank you to all of you who have been faithfully praying for us, supporting us, and encouraging us.  All of your efforts are felt and so appreciated!!

I just want to again put our needs out before you and if you can join us in prayer for these items, that would be greatly appreciated!!

We are in need of $1000 for our website.
We are in need of $1500 for a projector.

Thanks for taking a moment and keeping up on what God is doing here.  We will keep you up to date on everything as they continue to happen!!  Next Service is August 21st

July 25, 2011

Lots to update all of you on, so hang on!!

We have now been here on the ground in  Moscow for almost 4 months and already the Lord has provided us with a lot!!  In the past few weeks we have purchased an enclosed trailer to haul all of our church stuff in.  I was looking for an 8ft trailer because they were more in our price range, but the Lord provided us with a 12ft trailer, He must think were gonna have alot of stuff to haul!!  He knows best!!  We have also had enough money come in to purchase a full sound system, Praise God!!  We have everything including the capabilities to record the audio of our services.  So we will be able to Pod Cast our sermons and testimonies!!  Pretty Awesome right!?!  God has also provided us with Sound Panels to be able to use in the Schiermans Clubhouse (aka slurp N burp).  The building has concrete floors and brick walls, so there is alot of echo and not enough stuff in there to soak up sound.  Thanks to John and Cathy for providing those, you are an answer to prayer!!

Here is quickly how that happened...

One Wednesday, Deb and I were talking about looking at the U of I or WSU for some sound panels like they use for cubicles to help soak up some of the noise at the clubhouse.  So that night I met with some of the guys on the launch team and mentioned to them to pray that God would provide those for us.  Well Aaron, who was there, just happened to talk to his mom earlier in the day who mentioned that if there was anything she could do to help our church, let her know.  Just so happens her and her husband own a business out of the Seattle area that deals in used office furniture (like cubicles).  Well Bla Bla Bla, Yada yada yada and now we have 20+ sound panels, free of charge to soak up sound in the Clubhouse and a trailer to store them in and haul them all there and back!!  Cool right!!  Those kinda stories are happening all the time here.  God is working miracles and doing all kinds of stuff in our body right now!!

So lets see if God will continue His work... The next big item for us is a Website.  This is a something that we believe will greatly help us and will help get our message out there.  So we have found a site that we love and think will work perfectly for us.  It costs $1000 to purchase and we want to throw that out there for all of you to pray with us about.  I know God is going to provide this for us and I am excited to see how He does it!!  Pray with us about this and ask God to continue to work miracles here and providing us with all we need to be who He wants us to be!!

Also be in prayer, our 2nd service is coming up this Sunday and we are excited to see who God brings out and how He works!!  We have so much more already than we did a month ago and we just recognize that God has to be present for all this to come together and for this work.  We are all so excited about inviting our friends and family to come join us but we want it to be a positive experience and know that only God has the ability to make that happen!  If you want, please make to drive to join us, we will take anyone who has a desire to be there!!  This 2nd service will give us another chance to practice being who it is God is calling us to be.

To end let me just say that we are all so grateful to all of you who have been praying for us, supporting us, and following what God is up to here in the Palouse.  He is at work in our lives and we are excited to be used to love our community better and show them how much God loves them!!  Thanks to all of you who have been an encouragement to us in the past few months.  If I am honest, there seems to be a lot of tough days right now!!  My pastor always told me there is no over encouraged leader, so all of your encouragement and love has been so benificial!!  Thanks also to all of you who have come to Moscow to see us and love on us and see what were up to here.  Your visits have been so meaningful.  We love all of you and we love being in the center of Gods will here in the Palouse.  We areso excited to see what God is already doing here in our midst and also excited to see what He has to come!  God Bless