Ramona park study

I started an informal BibLe study at a park in a rough part of Long beach. I am tagging along with a guy, Calvin , as he runs a weekly program for young kids at this and several other locations. While the kids go to Calvin i have an informal study with the parents, mostly moms. The community around the park is Hispanic and poor. This park is in a rough area as i said and a you will read about now.
The other day as we were getting ready to start the program four teens were walking directly in front of the stage when a cop car came out of nowhere. They were quickly pinned against the car with their hands on the hood. The teens were obviously being questioned for something that they were suspected of doing.
Calvin who was running his program along with music was asked to turn it down. Calvin kept running the game with this going on ten feet from the little kids. I tried to keep doing my study, but it was kind of pointless with the distraction that was going on...kind of distracting. I was saddened and commented to the parents how hard it must be to live there. They agreed. It was for me a reminder of why i am here.
I once read a book by a pastor who wrote that he was saddened when he met a young couple who were pastors who had decided to move out of the city because "God would never want us to have our kids grow up in that kind of environment."
That is one of the reasons that i am here. I heard God saying to me right then just as clear as the day i read it..."Who will go to the city for me?" Who will go to the hurting places for me?" While i was sitting there, while all this was going on, i was reminded of that story.

Soft launch

This is a term used in church planting circles for starting your church without a big splash. The idea here is to just start and eventually have a big promotional launch at a future date. Our official launch date is October 21st. We will do one service at 9:00am. As for the big launch date. It looks like december 24th will be our "Big Splash". I am working on a sweet promo to get into people's hands to let them know about the service.