Busy Day

Well, I just finished one of my busiest Sundays in a long time. That’s
not to say it wasn’t a good one. It was just busy.

Presentation at Bethany

This morning, I had the priviledge of both preaching and giving my church
plant presentation at Bethany Baptist Church in Harwood Heights,
Illinois. Rob Nelson, the pastor, has been a friend of mine for the past
four and a half years through a pastor’s prayer group that he and I are
both in. I also consider him a mentor, and if I were to look to someone
as my pastor here in Chicago, he would be it.

Rob has presented me to his church board to consider us in their budget
planning for next year, and they approved us pending congregational
affirmation, so today, we were introducing ourselves to the congregation.
It was a good experience for us.

The one tricky part, though, is that Bethany has two services.
I’ve never preached at two services, and Bethany has both of them back to
back, so 15 minutes after service one ended, the second one was getting
started. I’ve never done that before.

Anyway, I think it went really well.

After the service, they were having a luncheon to report on a recent
mission trip that many of them had taken to Guatemala. The food was
wonderful, and so was the conversation even though we had to leave early.
I had a meeting to get to back at NWBC.

Meeting at NWBC

Then, at 1 pm (I was late, so it was more like 1:20 pm), I had to be at a
Leadership Team meeting. It was a good meeting, though, and we were able
to talk about some pretty good things and make some pretty big
decisions.

First Anniversary Celebration Service

Today was also the first anniversary of the Hoi Than Niem Tin –
Chicago (Vietnamese Faith Community Church in Chicago). Pastor Phu
(known as Andrew to most English-speaking Americans like me) was a major
leader of a house church movement in Communist Vietnam, but God called
him to Chicago to start a new church. They meet in the NWBC building, and
today, they turned one year old as a church.

I went to the service today as a friend, as a member of the North Chicago
LEAD Team, as a member of the Vietnamese Task Force of the Midwest
Baptist Conference, and as the pastor of the church that hosts their
church. Andrew gave me the priviledge of praying thanks and blessing over
the offering and for God to speak through him in the sermon.

Even though I understood next to nothing of the whole service, it was a
good experience that encouraged me once again to realize the power of the
gospel to reach people regardless of cultural background.

After that, there was a meal downstairs in the Fellowship Hall.

Add all that together and I’ve been going non-stop since 5:30 this
morning!

It has been a busy day, but I have been seeing God at work, so that’s
been really good. His name is to be praised!