Philly, Summer '09

Hey everyone, I just wanted to write a little bit about some outreach opportunities that are taking place here in our own city of Philadelphia this summer. Usually the summer is a time when our church family as well as our Jr. and Sr. High students go overseas to help our missionaries, and to share the love of Jesus in a cross-cultural setting. With the current economic situation in our country, and more importantly, with a prompting from the Lord, C.C. Philly (the church body, and both the Jr. and Sr. High) has decided to stay in Philadelphia this summer to share the love of Christ in our own city. This will be taking place in various forms of outreach, and at various times, in various places around our city.

C.C. Philadelphia has birthed 3 Calvary church plants in the past couple of years, and we are all very excited about what the Lord is doing in each of them. Part of our outreach to our city will be coming along side of these church plants and helping them out in any way that we can - from painting and fixing things up, to helping them with VBS, to street evangelism etc. The Jr. High and Sr. High will both be doing 2 week trips to the city to come alongside these churches.

In addition to all of that, we have some opportunities that are available to those in our congregation, as well as others around our city that have a burden for Philadelphia to be reached for Christ. Once a month we will be meeting at C.C. North Philly (meets at the YMCA at Broad and Master) at 10a.m. for worship and prayer, and then from there, we will go out on the streets to share the love of Jesus with those that the Lord directs us to. The next time we will be meeting is on Saturday, July 18th. Please pray about joining us!

We all meet there this past Saturday, (June 13th) and hit the streets afterward. With my team was a brother and his wife from C.C. Philly who is an incredible painter. He brought two huge paintings of his that depicted the crucifixion, one of them he was still working on. Our group of around eight people set up at Love Park in Center City, and as Ryan set up his paintings, and was working on them, many people stopped to look at them. As they were standing there we then began to share with them about what they were looking at and the importance of Jesus' death and resurrection. It was a great time, and the Lord called people to Himself that day - what a privilege it was to see God move that day! For the next event, I think Ryan will be working on painting the story of the Prodigal son. Please pray that the Lord anoints him to paint it according to the way He desires it to be done! I'm really excited about all of the outreach in Philadelphia this summer, and I'm asking you guys to pray for our city - that the Lord would do a great work in peoples hearts, and that the power of Christ would free people from the bondage of sin and death. Pray that they would treasure Him more than anything else this world would seek to give them, and please pray for us- that we would be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit, and that we would be filled with His strength as we go out and share Jesus during these events.

As a side note, I just got done reading a book called "A Gentleman in Prison", which is the story of a Japanese criminal named Tokichi Ishii who came to know Christ while in prison. While he is awaiting his death by hanging,he writes down all that the Lord has showed him, and I must say, it is a powerful book. In my next couple of posts I will be writing about his story in more detail, as well as some things that I have learned from reading it. I promise it will be sooner rather than later : ) !

Blessings,

Carlos