On a personal note, the last few weeks have been a great exposure to the diversity of the Assemblies of God here in Nor Cal.
Two Sundays ago I had the opportunity to talk to people about our ministry at Family Community Church in San Jose. FCC is a very contemporary church reaching young adults and professionals by the droves. They’ve added over 700 in weekly attendance over the last two months.
That afternoon, I was invited to preach in a Fijian church (First Fijian Assembly of God) that meets here in Palo Alto. It was great–they’re a wonderful church! We were especially honored by their gifts of Fijian leis to us. Interestingly enough, they make leis out of dyed tree bark in Fiji. Very nice.
Last Sunday I was able to share at Oriential Christian Center (a Chinese church) that meets down in San Jose. It was the first time I’ve ever preached with an interpreter. I kind of like it!
And to show you how connected the Body of Christ is, one of the people I talked to at FCC gave my website to a friend of his who works at Stanford. He contacted me and we had lunch yesterday. While talking, he mentioned that he had a Fijian friend he was trying to minister to, and I was able to connect him with the Fijian church I preached at!
How wild… God has got a way of hooking things up. He’s definitely got a systems perspective!
By the way, we’ve been experiencing great favor in our attempts to schedule services and connect with pastors. Right now we’re preaching in a different church every week through March, and we’ve got tons of 1–1 meetings planned.
As a result, we’re already at the 70% mark of our mandated monthly support! It looks like we’ll be able to go full-time on campus sometime this academic year. Yippee!
Also, it looks like we’re going to have around 30 people crammed into our apartment for a Thanksgiving lunch tomorrow–almost all of them Stanford students!