A Building Merry Go Round

We have broken ground on our new building. We should be in it by Sept.1.

Valley Christian Church is buying our building. Their minister is Kent Turpin. Kent was raised LDS here in the valley. He was baptized at Southside about 15 years ago. It was Kent's dream to preach. He had preached for us about once a month. He then preached part time for the Orem Church of Christ for several years. I recommended Kent for the full time job at valley about 3 years ago.

And now, Kent comes back "home" with his church! I love it when people are equipped for ministry then sent out to do ministry!


Why don't we do this more often? The job description of leaders is to equipp people for ministry. We need to do more mentoring in the kindgom.

It is one of my dreams of Southside that we become so effective at equipping people for ministry that we will add to our full time staff in the future from within. A person would be taught, discipled, equipped for ministry, and all within the local body. Is that possible?

It was in the first century.

A great footnote to this story: A good friend of mine, Scott Warren, is here planting a Baptist church. His group is buying Valley's building! Everyone wins! I think God smiles when his people work together!

Baptism stories from this past Sunday

Sunday, Meita and Mindy were baptized in our second assembly. Meita is the mother; Mindy is her daughter. Their first Sunday with us was Feb.4th - our F.A.N. Day (Friends And Neighbors). Patrick invited his neighbors. They came! And came. And came. And now, they have made Jesus Christ the Lord of their lives! The power of an invitation! A simple, "Can you come with this Sunday?" "Come to small group with me?" Never underestimate it!


Susan was also baptized into Christ, along with two of her children. Susan comes from an conservative LDS background. She has baptized three times in the LDS (each time her family moved, they ask her to be re-baptized into "their" group). She said, "I just want to owned by Christ!" What a beautiful statement. We didn't ask her to be baptized; she came to this decision by a moving of the Holy Spirit.

It was a great Sunday!

Back to Blogging

Several have asked me to pick up the blog again. I admit; I got discouraged with the lack of comments. (I confess; I read Cope's blog with 65 comments and I compared and found me lacking). I always seem to be doing that - this game of comparing. I compare my church attendance, baptisms, programs, salary - against other ministers, churches. Do you ever do that? When you come out ahead - you feel better; when you come out on the short end of the stick - you feel like a looser.

SO - we begin anew with a new mindset. I'll just do my thing and not compare this blog with anyone else's blog. In fact, I'm beginning to do that with other areas - I'm not going to compare my family, my church, my ministry with anyone else. Okay. There is a lot of peace in that kind of decision!

Just finished reading "And The Shofar Blew" by Francine Rivers. Every minister should read this book! It is the story of a man building a mega church and the effects it has on him. Very powerful.

Also reading "Simple Church" by Tom Rainer. Great book. Our small group is reading "The Jesus I Never Knew" by Philip Yancey. Wow. The leadership book I'm reading right now is "The 360 Degree Leader" by John Maxwell. What are you currently reading?

Our new small group is a book club. We have about a dozen who have signed up! Our first book was "The Last Sin Eater" by Francine Rivers. Great book! Our next book is a classic - "This Present Darkness" by Frank Peretti. Seems a good way to promote the reading of Christian function. The response has been encouraging.

Welcome back to the blog.