Work Day Saturday, August 15th

The Link Network AMT (Apostolic Ministry Team) is sponsoring a collective work effort at The Solid Rock on August 15th at 10am. Teams from all of the churches in The Link Network will be descending upon the church to lend a hand in our building project. We appreciate their support and are excited to see what we accomplish. All members of The Solid Rock are encouraged to attend. There are multitudes of tasks from simple to skilled, so even if you are not "handy" with tools or construction come on over on Saturday the 15th. We'll have plenty going on, and will be supplying lunch to the laborers.

Check out what The Link Network is all about: www.thesolidrockonline.com/linknetwork.html

Emotional Health Series

We will be spending the next few months studying emotional health as a church. Pastor Cruz has introduced the concept of being unable to be spiritually mature until we are emotionally mature. He has brought out many ways that our emotions affect our relationship with God and with others. Carrying around unresolved emotions can hinder us and prevent us from fulfilling our purpose.
Pastor Cruz recommends the book "The Emotionally Healthy Church" by Peter Scazzero. He is basing much of his teaching from the book because he feels it is an excellent guide to the church on this subject. You can purchase it at www.amazon.com for around $12.
Pastor Cruz will be speaking on this subject on Sunday mornings and Tuesday evenings until he feels it has been covered sufficiently.

Almost there

The sanctuary (auditorium) is mostly finished. we're cleaning and arranging right now. We hope to be holding our services in there soon, possibly this week! It looks so different. Fresh and open are words that come to mind. It just feels like there's an expectancy in the air. I cannot even imagine the depth of the experiences and growth that will happen in that room. The room itself is not a magic forum for God to work in, but it is a place where His people gather together to celebrate, grow, and be refreshed. That opens so many possibilities!

Phase I - The Bathrooms

Phase I of our Dream project was to get one of the bathrooms comfortable and functionable. The bathrooms were a mess. Pipes sticking out of walls, the water pump occupying a corner of the men's restroom, no hot water, old fixtures, worn tile, and a rather nauseating decor.
Enter a few men and their trusty sledgehammers and we were soon down to studs and concrete. The plumbing needed replacing and had it's own set of complications. Through much hard, dirty, and frustrating work we had a small group of men who did everything they could themselves. Our ace in the hole was Pastor Schwendeman from our sister church in Salem (http://www.gracepentecostalsalem.com/). He is a skilled craftsman and lent us his expertise and did much of the work himself. We are most appreciative of all of his help. He continues to help us as we move forward with our other projects. In my future posts I will outline our sanctuary remodel, of which he was a tremendous part. We have only finished one bathroom so far. The other is gutted but still empty. We went ahead with our second phase, the sanctuary. Now that it is nearing completion we will turn our focus to finishing the other bathroom. It is so exciting to watch the transformation! One gentlemen who has been a faithful member of The Solid Rock since the 1970's remarked that the remodeled bathroom was the nicest he has ever seen anything done at the church in all of his years there. We thank God for His provision, and for the vision that He has given us to do this project with excellence. We want to give the very best we have to this community and give them a place to come and be introduced to the hope they are looking for. All of this work is for those who haven't even been inside our doors but are looking for something more. We want to have a reputation for caring for people to the best of our abilities.

We're Open!

One of the first things we wanted to do was let the surrounding community know that we are open. We invited friends to come and help as we passed out hundreds of fliers in areas near the church. We made a plan, mapped it out, assigned captains and were amazed by what was accomplished when everyone worked together.











Here are some of the volunteers checking out their map and planning the best route.



On the fliers was an invitation to join us later for a picnic so we could meet some of our neighbors.





Our very competant grill chefs were prepared to serve up hot dogs and hamburgers when the hungry volunteers and neighbors descended.

We set up a volleyball net and some corn toss tournaments. It really was a very successful day getting the word out that The Solid Rock is definitely open!