Skate Park News -- Part 3

This is the third in a multi-part posting from the Janssen / Skate Park Small Group.

When we went to the skate park on June 7, we wanted to share the Gospel with the kids there. One of the ways of doing this is commonly called, "open air preaching." The idea is relatively simple: stand in a public place, speak loudly, and share the message of Jesus Christ with as many people as possible.

Sometimes, to get attention, it helps to be speaking to someone directly, so other people can hear a conversation going on. Many times, through chatting with someone, the questions and thoughts that people will have about the message being spread will be answered or addressed through this channel. That is where CJ came in.



CJ is a young man, about to turn 19, who does not believe in God, Heaven, the devil, Hell, or any of the other tenets of Christianity. He said that he only wants to live for today and doesn't care about what happens after this life. So, we took the time to speak to him in an open-air format and walk through the Gospel with him.

You may be thinking, "Why would you want to talk to someone who has these beliefs if he isn't going to listen?" First, you never know when the Holy Spirit will move in someone's life. It is possible that through this preaching, CJ would repent of his sins and put his trust in Jesus.

Second, what you can't really see in this video is the two to three dozen kids who were standing around, sitting on benches, and eating the food we served up. Even though CJ may be fixed in his beliefs, these kids were listening to the serious message of the Gospel. Afterwards, in speaking with those kids further, they understood the basics of our faith. Some of them, as we could see, were being affected by God's Word being preached, and we hope for their salvation.

Third, hecklers and people who oppose what is going on can draw a crowd. People draw in more people, and a person who may not, "go with the flow," can entice more people to show up. Some of CJs friends walked over to where we were when they saw him talking with us.

Remember that when you share the Gospel with someone, you may not be sharing it to only that person. Eavesdroppers, passers-by, and other people around the area may be listening and get convicted by the Holy Spirit.

And please remember to pray for kids like CJ. May God work on his heart and save his soul.

Skate Park News -- Part 2

This is the second in a multi-part posting from the Janssen / Skate Park Small Group.



I know what you're thinking--this doesn't look anything like the skate park. And you would be right. But there is a story behind this photo that is worth sharing.

A couple of weeks ago, Christian and Denise learned that they were pregnant. This was a miracle in itself because they were told by doctors that they were unable to have any more biological children. Unfortunately, though, about a week later, they suffered a miscarriage.



It became a very tough time for Christian and Denise, with lots of questions, heartache, and tears being shed. If you or a loved one has ever gone through this kind of event, you know that the roller coaster of emotions is a tough thing to bear.



As the group met one Saturday to finish up the planning for the event for June 7, the group asked Christian and Denise if they needed anything at all. Our small group all loves each other and wants to help out whenever someone needs something. "As silly as it sounds," Christian said, "I've been building a playhouse for our kids and could use some help with getting it up in our backyard."



The following day after church, Pat and Mike stopped by to help get things set up. The three worked in the backyard for most of the afternoon, hammering, setting up walls, ratcheting things together, and getting the framing assembled. And, several hours later, there appeared the foundation of a small playhouse in their backyard.



Remember that our small groups are not just there to serve the community and share Jesus Christ. Make sure that you are caring for each other, for both the big and small things in life, even when the request may sound small or silly. It can make a huge difference.

Skate Park News -- Part 1

This is the first in a multi-part posting from the Janssen / Skate Park Small Group.



Last Saturday, June 7, our small group put forward our full plan in reaching out to the kids at the skate park. We started our weekend afternoon outreach by bringing them sandwiches, chips, cookies, and drinks, all for free. Our tables also had free copies of the New Testament, Bible tracts, and information about Plum Creek.

In doing this, we shared Jesus Christ with many people that afternoon, through talking about Him, getting to know the people who frequent the park, and serving them. There were also many parents who stopped by or came over from the nearby baseball diamond and thanked us for doing this work. The kids were all very grateful for us coming by, and many of them opened up to us and let us know what is going on in their lives.

By the time we wrapped up in the afternoon, we had gone through at least 2 cases of bottled water, 2 six-foot long Subway sandwiches, a huge box of chips, and several dozen home baked cookies. We gave out Bible tracts and shared the Gospel with at least 40 people, and handed somewhere between one and two dozen New Testaments to people who did not have Bibles of their own.

While we were more focused on being the Church and reaching the lost, we did get some video footage of the event. Here is a compilation and overview of our ministry to those at the skate park since March. You can also check the channel on YouTube or GodTube to see some of our encounters, which we will keep updating.

http://www.godtube.com/skateparkevangelism
http://www.youtube.com/user/SkateParkEvangelism

Service Opportunity for your Small Group

Here is the information for a great service opportunity in downtown Denver. Jason Shelton's company, Image AV, is helping find volunteers. If you or anyone in your small group is interested, please contact us ASAP, they are putting together a final count. RKShelton@hotmail.com

Hope Center, Downtown Denver
Saturday, May 31st
Meet at 8 am downtown, and then will be bused in to the school location
lunch is provided
entertainment (live music, etc) and beverages provided afterward
Project: painting the gymnasium, etc

Thanks!

The Finished Courtyard

I had posted a couple of weeks back with the 'before pictures' of the courtyard we were renovating at the local nursing home, the Castle Rock Care Center. Here are some pictures of the event, and the beautiful result.





Thanks to all three groups (Shelton, Reid, and Engquist groups) for stepping up and doing such an amazing job of serving the Care Center. I know they are going to be blessed by it!

Young Singles Wrecking Crew!

Hey -

I'm posting for our Young Singles' Journey Group (ages 18-20s). Chad Gunderson and Bryce Engquist gave leadership to this group. They have had a great run and plan on continuing. They had as many as 10 people attend.

Their service project was helping a family in Sedalia whose husband is in the final stages of cancer. The family will soon be selling their home. They did some cleaning, painting, tore down a shed and even hauled manure! The funds from the church were used to help purchase gas and food for the family.

Way to go crew!

Gary

Skate Park -- Talking With Pete

On Monday, I went back to the skate park and passed out about 48 water bottles to around 30 people throughout the park. They were grateful for the free drinks with how warm the weather is getting. One boy, Brendan, who is often there in the afternoons, saw me coming and shouted to his friends, "Hey! It's water time!" I had a crowd of a dozen kids around me within seconds, thankful for the free cold refreshments.

I shared the Gospel message with many people on that day, including Gary, a 16 year old biker, whose face showed conviction after talking about how some people die young, and Gabe, a 16 year old hackey sack player, who said that even knowing about Jesus Christ, he would still live the same life over, even if it meant going to Hell. Pray for these kids.

The video below is a chat I had with Pete, a 25 year old Roman Catholic, who said that he had 12 friends die in the last year alone. After we were done talking, he thanked me for sharing the Gospel with him, and said that he had never heard it presented like that before.

As you watch this video, think about how your small groups are sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ with people who will perish without it. I hope you are challenged by the verse at the end of the video, from Romans 10:17, which says, "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ."

Update from our group!!

So, of course I do not have our picture on this computer to post...so, I will need to post later. The best part of our group is that we have a professional photographer in the group, but we had a six year old take our picture...so, it is a bit crooked :-) Our group is working at the Oak Creek Apartments on the 21st of June. We will help seniors with chores and kind of their 'honey do list'!! This weekend, I am using the donation money to purchase diapers and cereal for the middle school project. We will be using the remainder of the money on supplies like paint for the seniors that need touch-ups!! We have had a great time meeting each week, and we hope to continue meeting about every three weeks for some sort of bible study.
-Andra Chikova

Plum Creekers in the Creek (er)

The Heldt Group, on our 3rd attempt, successfully completed a project to impact Castle Rock. We decided to help clean up the creek that runs under the bridge on Wilcox St at 2nd St. We all showed up bright and early and after some words from the organizers, we were off. While it might not have been the most noblest of projects, I think if the creek could talk, it would say, "gurgle, gurlge, swoosh" which as we all know means thank you. It was a great first step for our group to get out together. The kids had a blast and so did the rest of us.

All gloved up and ready to go

By the end, Erik and Brent were just standing in the creek. Now that's commitment!

The Joyful Journey Group

Well, better late then never. We are such slackers! Our group consists of Dave, Cathy, Dan, Amy, Linette and Peggy. We are called "Joyful" because when we get together we laugh a lot. Yes, we do the lesson also but we do have fun.

God has done tremendous things in our group. We each have grown as individuals and have grown closer as a group.

For our group project, we took the Task Force Thrift Shop by storm! We organized so fast and efficiently that they were having a hard time creating jobs for us to do. What a great feeling to have helped them.

Skate Park YouTube Video

Plum Creekers:

Here is a short video from the Janssen / Skate Park small group. This was filmed a couple of weeks ago by Christian Pruett when he checked out the park to see how to reach out to the kids. On that day, there were about 48 water bottles given out to around 30 kids around the park. Most of stayed around to listen to the Gospel being preached, and many had questions about our faith!

Please let us know what you think!

The Janssen / Skate Park Small Group

Greetings Fellow Plum Creekers!

Our service project is going to be a summer-long goal in reaching out to the kids in our community at the Castle Rock Skate Park. We will be using our funds to purchase bottled water and food during these warm months to give out to the kids who come by the park on the weekends, while sharing the Gospel message with them. Many of these kids have no adult influences in their lives, are addicted to drugs, and have never heard of Jesus Christ. They need our love and our Savior desperately.

We're hoping that we can arrange for things like our church band to come play sometimes, give away other freebies, and would love for anyone else to help join us along the way. We'll be posting some videos of how we're reaching out to the kids here soon.

The Janssen / Skate Park Small Group; Adults, Left to Right: Lavern and Mike Farina, Pat and Katie Janssen, Christian Pruett, Joe and Beth Alvarez, and Denise Pruett.

The Sundeen Group

We began our community service last Sunday by putting together care packages for the Perez family, who lost their Founders Village home to a fire on April 21st. The packages consisted of a basket full of things such as blankets and stuffed animals, and a box containing gift cards and cash. In addition to the money from the church, we received donations from our group and friends which together totaled almost $800. Our kids also got involved by gathering information about the family after the fire, and Shawn and Dee Lincoln's girls went around their neighborhood and collected an additional $600! The full (almost) $1400 went to the Perez family to help with life's necessities, as they lost just about everything in the fire.

Our next project is this Sunday as we are helping clean up a basement and get it ready for a Youth Group to meet in Strasburg. The house is the new home of Michelle Sokol's brother, who is the new Youth Pastor in Strasburg.

What a blessing it has been growing our relationships with God and with each other! We are looking forward to continuing group studies together after the "40 Days" is over. It has been so exciting to see the love of God working among us week after week! God has shown us how truly amazing He is!

The Sundeen Group; Front row: Brandon and Michelle Sokol, Dee and Shawn Lincoln. Middle row: Lisa Beaubouef, Deanne Head, Jill Copeland, Tammy Sundeen. Back row: Brett Beaubouef, Steve Head, Shawn Copeland, Dan Sundeen.

God's Gals

Sharon Combs, Erin DeRose, Erin Szczerba, Lauri Connelly, Susas Estes

Not Pictured: Sherma Oliver




I got the "you're in trouble" email from Gary. I wonder if I'm the only leader who hasn't submitted the picture yet!! Wouldn't surprise me. :-)

We have been having a great time in our group. As you can imagine, as a group of women, we have a hard time fitting in all we'd like to discuss!! We are really growing to love each other and have talked about planning a white water rafting trip this summer. We're also planning on continuing to meet after the 40 days are up.

We have chosen to support a low-income single mom with 2 kids. One of the kids attends South Elementary where Erin DeRose teaches 4th grade. He has epilepsy and struggles emotionally and socially. His mom, Sophie, was blown away when Erin told her we want to help her family. We will be using the $335 to pay for family counseling sessions and Sophie could not be more thrilled. She said this is the most important thing for her family right now.

Plan C...

The Heldt group is at it again. We are going to join in a city effort to clean up trash from one of the creek beds running through town. If you are eager to get out and serve again, feel free to throw on a Plum Creek shirt and join us. Here's the details...

What: “Spring Up the Creek Day”
Where: Festival Park (corner of Second and Perry Streets in Castle Rock)
When: Saturday, May 3rd. 9 – 11:30am (with “celebration” to follow if you want to stick around)
What is provided: instructions, map, gloves, trash bags, dumpsters.

Hopefully we will have a follow-up post this weekend!

Rachel

Weekend at Bernie's

Hey Everyone...

This is the Partridge/Pitsch group. We have had a great time growing together during 40 Days of Community and are planning on staying together, too!

Our service project is this coming Saturday, May 3rd at a man named Bernie's home in the Meadows. Bernie and his wife are senior citizens who are in need of some extra help this spring. We are helping them with their yard work, staining their deck, making some meals and other miscellaneous spring clean-up projects.

We are planning on using our Plum Creek funds to help pay for some of these projects as well as helping to purchase some craft items for a local program that works with children who have lost a parent or sibling in the recent past.

We are from the top (L to R): Angie and Dan Richardson, Matt and Andrea Pitsch, Andrea Seely and Nate Stokes, Charlene and Stevan Tewell, Colleen and Sam Shumate, Amanda and Gary Partridge.

Combining Forces for our Project

Our group is teaming up with a couple of other groups, and renovating the outdoor courtyard of the nursing home in town, the Castle Rock Care Center. We plan to make a beautiful spot for the residents to spend summer days outside, and to build relationship with the Care Center to be involved with them in the future also. (for those of you who read our family blog, this is a repeat :-))






It's inspiring to see what a huge impact it can have to just reach out and do a little something for the people around you. I just heard a speaker who was talking about reaching out and serving even when the need feels overwhelming, say, "You can't do everything. You can't do nothing. You CAN do something. What are you going to do to impact the world?" I hope our Journey Groups can life our lives this way.

Rachael S.

Road Block

Well... the owner of the car wash is not interested in being part of our campaign. He will not let us be there and says he gets enough business without our $300 in three hours promise. So our plans are currently on hold. Please pray for direction for our group. This is our second time being shut down. We will make a positive impact in this community even if the community is resisting it!

Rachel Heldt

Coming soon to a car wash near you!

I guess we don't have a real group name, but Mike likes to call us "the BEST group ever." Anyway, we are heading out to the trenches to serve our community this weekend. We will be at the coin operated car wash on Wilcox this Saturday from 9-12 (or until we run out of quarters) washing cars of those in our community. Mike picked up $330 in quarters from the bank today. That's a conversation piece right there! We are looking forward to posting pictures and stories of our time together!

Rachel Heldt

BTO: formerly known as the Vinson Group

Represented are the Goin's, the Cellar's, the Gerlach's, Ms. Norton, Mr. Myhill, the Gibb's, the Campbell's and the Vinson's.

Respectfully,
BTO
Formerly known as The Vinson Group

The Engquist Group

Hi, everyone. This is the Engquist group. As you can see it looks like some in our group have halos but we know better. The truth is the light of God just shines brightly on all of us.

The Cooley Group

Hi everyone! Just wanted to introduce our group and put up our picture. God has certainly blessed us with an amazing group of people that we can do life with. Although, we are definitely going to have to spend some time coming up with a better name for our group.

Possible Service Idea for Your Group

Hi!

If your group hasn't come up with a service idea yet, we have one to pass along to you. Share Colorado is to a food distribution on April 26th at the Douglas County Fairgrounds, it's a worthy cause and they would love the help. For more information, contact Neal Thompson at nealth3@hotmail.com.

What an impact we have the opportunity to have on our community through all our different acts of service and love! Isn't it amazing to be a part of something so great?! It's tremendous what we can do when we all have the same heart and vision.

Can't wait to hear all the stories!
Rachael S.

He calls us friend...

This last Journey Group meeting we got into a discussion around friendship. We asked each other about the real friendships we have in our lives. We asked ourselves 'what kind of friends are we'? This led to a time of reflecting upon our meaningful friendships with non-believers. Do we have any non-believer friends? What kind of friend are we? A good one? A not-so-good one?

I have continued to think about my friendships with both believers and non-believers. What kind of a friend am I? Am I truly loving them with the friendship that Christ showed/shows us?

I remembered a letter that I wrote to my oldest son on the topic of friendship which I felt like sharing with our group and community.

You can read it by clicking here.

Thanks in advance for taking the time to read it- I hope it challenges you as it continues to challenge me.

Michael
On behalf of BTO

Shelton Group...what a great looking group of people!

Here is the 'family photo' of our group, minus the wonderful Thompson kids. We are super blessed to have been brought together to 'do life' with each other!

The Gathering - A Special Weekend

3 years...one email a week. This is our marketing plan. I hesitate even saying that. The idea of Christianity and marketing in the same sentence makes me nauseous. Over time our email list has grown for our "Gatherings". Some people come over on Saturday weekly, some monthly, and some only on special occasions.

I abused our email list last week. Yep, I strained and sent out two. Here's what happened...

My sister and her husband Danny are stationed in Norfolk, VA. Two weeks ago, Danny was serving on his 4th tour in Iraq when he was made aware that his father in WY. suffered a massive heart attack. After fighting to get home, he and my sister were able to make it out and see him before he died.

Friday and Saturday would be the last days Kari and Danny would spend here. After a week of funerals, obligations, grieving, I had this sense that they needed to spend Friday with us and just wind down. I told them to come over, that I'd call a few friends and we'd play some cards.

Subsequently, I turned around and emailed my community. I briefly relayed the situation and told them we would be hanging on Friday in addition to our normal "Gathering" on Saturday.

Friday evening arrives and our community, friends, and neighbors show up in droves. 25+ people on a days notice bring food, drinks, and children....Awesome!

We're about half way through the evening, all sitting around the card table, and my neighbor, Joe, who gathers with us regularly stands up.
He says, "I don't know if this is out of place or not, but on behalf of all of us, Danny, we are so sorry for your loss. We don't know why these things happen, maybe so you can be out of Iraq and here with us, we just don't know." He proceeded to raise his glass, and simply said, "A toast to your Dad's life."

We briefly offered our condolences, and Danny, a very non emotional guy, glances at me. I soberly whispered, "Welcome home, Danny." What I meant by that, and I think it echoed the look on his face, "Welcome to our community."

We went well into the early morning hours. A neighbor I haven't seen since December, gave me a hug and said, "Man, you don't know how bad I needed this." (Now a new member of our email list)

The funny thing is, we only had about 6 at our "Official Saturday Gathering". I think the title of the lesson was "Because We Need Each Other." Apparently, most of us already learned that lesson the night before....

-Jeff

Just a heads up!

The Vinson group (which has just been renamed) wants to thank the other groups who have jumped out there with group photos- very nice.

Get ready as we are close to capturing the true essence and beauty of 'BTO' formerly know as the Vinson Group. I think you will all be quite impressed. Probably not as impressed as the Heldt's photo or the 'Gathering'!

From this point forward, we'd prefer to be known as BTO (Better Together Overdrive) formerly known as the Vinson group, which was formerly known as the artist Prince.


Lots of love,

BTO

"The Gathering" 1000 Days of Community

Picture: A bunch of our children posing during our neighborhood "Gathering"

As some of you know, The Gathering is not experimenting with the idea of being in close community. We're in our third year of living in close connection with friends and neighbors. Mimi and I were so frustrated a few years ago. Because we were deeply involved with our local church, we noticed a polarizing effect. We were not close to our neighbors. Although pleasant niceties would be exchanged, you always felt like you had the plague. This is what Pastor Doug talks about when he has to divulge to the other strangers in his golfing foursome that he is "a Pastor". People panic. Neighbors become more defensive and less apt to open up. If we're honest we don't let our guard down either, do we?

So a handful of us who were of the same mind just decide to have church at our house. We had no intentions of building a church, but being the church. Our Saturday evenings are filled with great music, food, drink, scripture, sacred communion, tears, and laughter. More often then not, our evenings turn into early mornings. There are evenings where the holiest thing we can do is open up lawn chairs and start a fire pit in the middle of our Cul-de-Sac. The Jesus dialogue spills. We become closer as people who follow, and people who don't. We live so connected to one another that we simply cannot hide our flaws - we either help each other deal with them or love one another in spite of them.

The other night, I was seeing our last friend out of the house. As I closed the door and turned around, I paused. With a slight shake of the head, almost in disbelief, I whispered to God "There's nothing else I'd rather be doing with my time..."

- Jeff and Mimi

Vinson Group Coming Online

Cool blog! Hope to be posting a picture soon...

Here are some ideas that we've discussed for our group and possibly linked up with other J-Groups:

• Ministering at the Castle Rock Nursing Home
• Women's shelter
• Creating a venue for high-school musicians to perform as their are few opportunities/venues (to engage them and their families)

We had a group BIG IDEA, of taking over the lease on the Harley Davidson building to open a youth oriented center to minister to the kids in our community: for the church and un-churched. Now that's a God-sized idea! (which might require 2 weeks of the church's giving)

Blessings,
Michael Vinson
www.worldorphans.org
www.fallen-scales.com

The Heldt's Group is in the Hizzy!

Have you seen a finer group of people in your life? Okay, be nice and take that as a rhetorical question.
We have been blessed with an amazing group of people from different vocations, different points of life, and with different stories. We can't wait to continue to get to know everyone better as we look to get out and serve the community. (not pictured: Erik and Brooke Dienberg)

Welcome To Plum Creek Community Church's Better Together Online Forum

Hey guys thanks for joining the online communication discussing all that is happening in our Journey Groups.  

We would love to see posts sharing what your group is thinking about doing for your community service project.

We would also love to see the pictures you are taking of your groups.

Here is the first picture that we have received it is Tim and Mike's group.  Thanks for being the first to send it in.