Week One Is In the Books

Drum roll, please! I guess not. Well, Thursday night was great. Rachel had kind of an odd prayer request that she interpreted as God telling her to clean out her closet. Mike said that would be a miracle in itself. Another great group of Christian men and women worked hard to do what God has called us to do -- reach Decatur with the message of hope by offering them a listening ear, a group of mighty prayer warriors to pray for their needs, and an invitation to church. So here are the totals:

• 112 completed calls (381 total)
• 62 households attend church (219 total)
• 50 households do not attend church (162 total)
• 5 households said "Yes" we will come (18 total)
• 17 households said "Interested, send me more information" (51 total)
• 55 prayer requests were immediately prayed for (216 total)

Once again, many of the prayer requests were tremendous needs ranging from drug addicted parents to a soldier in Iraq who was depressed to lost jobs. The amazing thing is that even though we are inviting people to church on May 17, we have already had 2 families who say they will be in church this Sunday. One woman called back to thank the man that had prayed for her and sent her a post card. God is doing some amazing things through this, and not just to the people of the community. Our workers are being touched by the power of God. I am excited.

If it's okay, I'll ramble on a little longer than usual. We need to be ready as the body of Christ to welcome these people into our church with love and acceptance. Many of these will not look like us or act like us or dress like us. They may not know the proper language or how to follow our "rituals." We need to simply love them like we love each other and watch God transform their lives. Southside Baptist Church, we can do this!