Thursday, July 10, 2008

Sabbath, July 5, Jeanne and I joined with Bill and Darlene Peterson and 240-300 other Seventh-day Adventists, Romanian Embassy officials, the President of the Romanian Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists and the Director of the SDA Romanian Voice of Hope Radio network with the Romanian members in dedicating their church building and church mission plant in Reading PA. They have purchased the former St. James Lutheran Church at 5th and Chestnut Streets in Reading. The St. James Congregation was very happy to see another Christian congregation locate in their building, as the Lutheran Church family was not able to continue the financial costs of the building or the congregation. St. James had been a church plant from the larger Lutheran Church in Reading, in 1850, as the larger church only spoke German and there was a desire for an English speaking Lutheran church.

Romanians from across the US came to join in the dedication. Bill Peterson and I spoke a few words in the morning. Then for the afternoon service, I was asked to share the dedication message and lead out in the dedication prayer. Pastor Niculi Butoi is serving as a lay pastor of this church plant, and has been very energetically and sacrificially giving of his time and leadership.

A number of musical numbers were offered by various choral groups, violinists, pianists, vocalists and the Berks Chamber Orchestra.

Our prayers continue to be offered for this new work by our Romanian believers. For more information, see the story written by Tami Horst.




Tuesday morning, I was invited by Chuck Allen, Food Service Director at Blue Mountain Academy to offer the Devotional message for the gathered Adventist Food Service Administrators which held their annual convention at Blue Mountain Academy this year. My message was from John 6 and the feeding of the 5,000 where Jesus blessed a young lad’s generously offered lunch. I asked the gathered food service directors where they might see themselves in this story. The principal individuals were: The boy’s mother who baked the bread and packed the lunch, the young boy of perhaps 9-10 who offered his lunch, the disciples who mingled with the crowd, or Jesus who blessed and handed out the meal. Chuck had an excellent convention planned for our SDA food service directors from academies and youth camps.



Tuesday, I met with the MIC team which is led by Bill Peterson, and we worked diligently on helping our Churches and Pastor have a structure for our Churches being completely Mission Focused. One of the concepts that came out of Tuesdays meeting, was to invite 12 seasoned pastors of the PA Conference to participate in a Focus group over the next 2 weeks, to help identify any obstacles that exist in the Conference structure or the local church structure that either interfere with a pastor in their role to help the local church totally focus in mission and growth, or that slow it down. Please keep this in your prayers.

Wednesday, I had the privilege of spending an hour with the Cool Camp campers and staff while they are at the Reading Kenhorst Church this week. Next week they will be offering Cool Camp at the Reading Spanish Church and then the week after, at the Shamokin Church plant. Keith Bowman, the director, Kelsey Larrabee and Katie Paris shared with me how rewarding it is to share with the children who don’t really know anything about Jesus, and how important it is that church members connect with the families each day after Cool Camp. Two young non-SDA youth from the community were too old to attend Cool Camp this year, but since they attended last year and loved it so much, they have come back as volunteer Staff and they are doing real well. There were about 30-40 kids in attendance at Cool camp and only 3 were Seventh-day Adventists.