The Arlington Project had a great first gathering

I am so excited and encouraged by our prayer gathering last Friday. We had about 65 folks packed into our home and backyard. Great church planting lessons in flexibility! Many thanks to all who attended, brought dessert, brought coffee. What fun! It was clear that many of us did not know each other well, but we pressed in to prayer and listening to God together for the sake of the community he is building. I am excited to see how our prayers bring us together in mission. I wanted to update you on a few things:



Handouts
At the end of the evening I gave you 2 handouts: “The Unbusy Pastor” by Eugene Peterson and “a short history of Redeemer Church’ by Tim Keller. I gave the Peterson article because I want us to dialogue and wrestle together about my job description as your pastor. We are together in mission but you are calling me to lead the charge. I look forward to our conversations about Peterson’s insights and what we think is best for Arlington. The Keller article provides a case study of a church plant. What things do you like about Redeemer’s history? What gets you excited? What would you do differently? Redeemer has done so many things well, what can we learn from the values that shaped their choices? It is important to me that we have core values that shape our choices.



The handouts will be posted on the outside of the window of Southgate 108. If you did not get them, stop by and pick one up! Please read the handouts before our next gathering. If you have thoughts or responses, feel free to email them at any time or to post them on my blog (more later).



July 9
Our next prayer gathering will be July 9, 7:30pm, Trinity Baptist Church 1815 N. Quincy Street. I will give more info on the format when we get closer. Just wanted you to be able to save the date!!



Trinity Baptist Church
Yesterday Tom and Patty Downie, Laurel and I attended the 11am service at Trinity Baptist Church. We were warmly received. I was asked to give the pastoral prayer-- on the spot. (Ian Hassell asked if I can pray when I haven’t had time to write it out first-- love those Anglican jokes J). They are very open to us renting their building. It is nice, but small (probably seats ~100). We will gather there to pray and talk about it on July 9. Please pray for wisdom and discernment. It is a wonderful open door. We need to know if God wants us to walk through it.



Blog
I am trying out lots of different media as we think about telling our story. You can find a podcast of Saturday night sermons on the TFC website. There is a page on the TFC website dedicated to info on The Arlington Project which is found under ‘connect and serve’ then ‘satellite congregations’. I will try and keep letters like this posted on that page. I also have a very small blog at davidmartinhanke.blogspot.com On it I will try and post info about TAP and also other snippets. I have created a facebook group called ‘The Arlington Project’ but it has no information on it right now. I would appreciate your prayers as we think about telling our story well-- to those inside the church and even more, those outside of it. Thoughts? Post ‘em on the blog!!



Saturday Night Potluck
This Saturday night is our monthly potluck dinner. It starts right after the service-- 6:15pm. I would like to invite you to attend. We need to take advantage of every opportunity we have to connect, talk, and get to know each other. This structure is already in place and is lots of fun. Bring a dish to share. I buy 15 or 20 pizzas for the kids. We’ll provide lemonade and water. This is a great chance to see what we are doing on Saturday night and to get to know our community a little better.

I am excited about the journey we are on together: soon to be good friends, taking on an impossible task, watching the power of God. Pretty fun.