This past Sunday we launched our first Home Fellowship meeting with six people present- five adults and one wired twenty month old toddler.  I have to admit that I had trouble sleeping on Saturday night due to feeling both excited and anxious.  Although this beginning group is small in number, we share a commitment to pursuing Jesus, to sharing His good news with others, and serving this community in His name.  From day one it is obvious that God is already drawing us together as a spiritual family and tuning us into what He desires to do in the Burlington community.

As we were beginning on Sunday, I was reminded of what Jesus said in Matthew 18:20: For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. Throughout scripture we see God moving through the seemingly few to impact many:

*God tells Abraham that He will bless him to be a blessing to the nations.

*Gideon and 300 men defeating an overwhelming force of Midianites.

*Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego standing courageously for God in Babylon.

*Jesus selecting a small band of 12 apostles to run his ministry- the “B-team” by ancient religious standards.

*The Apostle Paul teamed with Barnabas & John Mark and later Silas and Timothy planting churches across the Roman Empire.

I also could not help but recall a similar group of six people who began meeting and “doing church” in an apartment in New Brunswick, NJ during the summer of 2004.  This group grew into what we now call the Point Church.

Please continue praying for us…

*Pray for  several people have expressed interest in joining our “core group” here.  For a few of these individuals and families this would involve transplanting their lives to Burlington.  Please pray that God would give them clear direction.

*Pray that God draw others to our Home Fellowship- seekers and cynics.  Ask God to make this group a spiritual family where people can see Jesus living through us and be drawn to know Him.

*God has definitely opened a door to teach English to refugees.  Pray for wisdom in bridging the language barrier, the Muslim-Christian barrier, and learning how to best serve the refugee community as we host a brainstorming & planning meeting on Sunday, March 27.

*Christin and I are serving as “family friends” to a Bhutanese family through the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program. We’re having them over for dinner tonight.  Please pray that God will show us how to best serve them and help them adjust to this new life in America.

*Pray that God would show us how to best represent Jesus to a community that is disinterested in church, resistant to the gospel, and has misguided ideas about who Jesus is and what he is about.