Workin It!

This past Saturday we had another ARK Project for our students to participate in. For those of you that missed out...sorry...it was truly a GREAT day. We had planned to work at our church annex building. For those that don't know, this is our old church building. And when I say "old" church building...old is certainly an understatement. This old building has been a bit neglected recently and is really showing it's age. Some people might say that this makes for less than an ideal building for youth ministry purposes. We are really working hard to breathe some life back into this place and this weekend I feel like I really saw it take in a huge breath of fresh air. First of all we had a great turn out of both students and adults to help out. People were buzzing all over the place. One group was painting in the hallway connecting the sanctuary and the fellowship hall. Another group had the daunting task of going into the quarantined sanctuary to do some general cleaning and organizing. A third group took on the sign area at the front of the building. I was amazed at the progress that was made. The sanctuary was totally cleaned out and reorganized. The front sign area was dramatically torn out, replanted, and given new life! And the painting in the hallway was nearly completed. These three projects were completed so quickly and effeciently that some people were even able to move on and begin cleaning out some of the other flower beds out front. As if this was not enough to make for a great day, most of our students then went to the Schwartings house for a mexican meal, some video games, and a really intense game of capture the flag. This was a day that certainly demonstarted that service is anything but a burden when it is done for the Lord. We not only accomplished a great deal of work, we had some great fun and laughs along the way, we were able to encourage numerous people throughout our church and community, and we were able to share the sweet fragrance of Christ with each other and people around us. I would dare say that a day of play at the park could not have matched up to the fun and excitement of our "work-day"!

The new sign and new plants out front.

An upclose shot of the new sign.

I am pretty sure that this sanctuary has not been this clean in years!

This is all the...stuff that came out of the sanctuary.

This is the hallway that was desperately in need of a coat of paint.

Looking much better now.

And I just could not resist showing this to everyone. This is Landon's "Head Stand". I was pretty impressed. Anyone want to try and top him?