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• At T.G.I. Friday’s (where I just started to work part-time as a waiter), I had a section of two tables only, but in the brief couple hours of lunch, I managed to make over $30 in tips from only $140 in sales. That means I was making people happy and they were tipping me more than 20%. Man that was a good feeling!
• As soon as work was done, I talked to a core member of our church who has decided to go with his wife and kids to another new church in town. He was supposed to be our drummer for the week, so I spent all afternoon trying to reschedule another drummer and plan a time for practice. None of it came together until about 7pm, and I didn’t get back from practice till after 10:30pm!
• Though I got 4 hours of sleep and a late start this morning for church, I prayed and asked God to help me have a positive attitude despite the potential stresses of the morning (our first Sunday in the swanky Holiday Inn downtown.) He answered the prayer by giving me an absolutely incredible worship service for me. I was really sensing His presence at work in me and in the people who came. I felt great about it. (Even though we had some big issues with the sound system and the computer).
• When service was done, I met a man who volunteered to join our setup team for next week!
• But soon after that, I encountered some people who had been completely frustrated by the hassles of today’s setup and tear-down process with a healthy dose of fear regarding the financial future of the church.

All in all, I had a great weekend personally, but I’m surrounded by frustrated people, and I feel responsible for their frustration.

Lord, teach me the lesson you have for me in this quickly so that I can bring some healing and restoration to others and repair some relationships. Give me the ability beyond myself to organize the systems of the church well. And Lord, please meet our financial needs.

Last Sunday was our Grand Opening service as a church and I am excited to report that we had between 140-150 people there. We never got an accurate count, but this is how we came up with those numbers:

• 24 Elementary School Kids
• 6 Babies in the Nursery
• 9 Children’s Ministry Workers
• 100 Bulletins handed out (when we ran out)

I’ve tried to be conservative and stick with 140, but my wife is pressing me to say 150! and I’m usually the one who does the exaggerating!

If you want to hear the message I preached or watch the video, it will be posted here soon or you can get to it by visiting our church audio page.

God is bigger than we imagine.

My coach told me a couple of months ago, “Remember, Jeff, no one loves this church more than you and Jesus.”

I was getting kinda frustrated because of the number of people I had been trying to recruit and the slim number of people who were responding. He told me that to remind me that no one would care about the church like I do, but that Jesus cared about it more than even I did. That really helped to encourage me.

And Jesus does care about this church.

On March 18, we had our final preview service and I had the joy of preaching to a crowd of about 15 adults. The very next week, I had the privilege of preaching a message to a crowd of over 100. It was utterly mind-blowing to me!

If you were there on Sunday…

I just wanted to say that if you were there on Sunday, I am so grateful for you. You could have spent your Sunday morning in many different ways, but you chose to come out and be a part of our Grand Opening Event, and more than that, you chose to take a risk and see what God might be doing in this brand new ministry.

God has something really great in store for us, and I believe he wants us to experience it together, but that isn’t all. I think the biggest thing he has in store for us is for us to find our identity in the process of helping other people to discover how much God loves them.

We are just beginning a journey together. It will be a bumpy ride at times, but it will certainly be an adventure.

If you have been praying for us…

You also deserve a special thanks. There have been so many of you praying for us and supporting us financially, that I really am humbled. I’m afraid I will miss someone here, but I just think you all deserve thanks. You know why:

Thank You

Jennifer Asinugo, Mike Atwell, Nellie Aujero, Alexandrina Balanean, Charlie & Lea Battleday, David & Carole Beckwith, Jim & Deb Cartwright, Brian & Melissa Chupich, Sonlife Community Church, James & Katheryn Cross, Herb & Paula Frost, Gloria Greene, Jodi Hanson, Gerald Hawthorne, Dorothy Herschelroath, Rynn Hill, Mark Jacobsen, Mike & Jill Kaminski, Rhonda Kerr, Gary Krebs, David & Stacy Laneve, Chuck & Amy Larish, Larry & Claudia Lasiter, Dan & Mary Martin, Mark & Linda Mikels, Keith & Marian Mikels, Sadie Mikels, Jason & Brooke Miller, Dr. & Mrs. Tom Miller, Marion Mockler, Tom & Chris Nalian, Rob & Chris Nelson, Mark & Amy Peterson, Stephen & Jill Puett, Ken & Cheryl Reynolds, Gary Rohrmayer, Dorothy Samorajski, Greg & Laura Shackleford, Jim & Wendy Sheely, Austin Smith, Jeff & Debbie Spencer, Lorraine Spencer, Joel & Becky Sutton, Josh & Valerie Thomas, Grant & Betty Tregay, Tommy & Bonnie Troup, Zack Turner, Mike & Tammie VanDeripe, Cindy & Rick Veith, Gloria Walker, Richard Wollard, Meadowland Community Church, Tim and Lisa Beavis, Bethany Baptist Church, Community Reformed Church, Tony Suitor, Kathy Abretske, Northwest Baptist Church, Irene Portokalis, Merrill Avenue Baptist Church, Hannis & Kim Thompson, First Assembly of God in Lafayette.

If I’ve forgotten someone, just send me a reminder email or post a comment, and I’ll put you on the list too.

Anyway, we had some really neat things happen Sunday and we learned some more good lessons.

Marketing

Because our Grand Opening is this coming Sunday (the 25th), we didn’t market last week as much as we had last month. I did send out a cool postcard to all those on our mailing list.

Here, you can see the postcard we mailed out.

Also, because of how long the signs took to put together last time, I had our signs professionally printed, and I set them up the day before. Here’s what one of them looked like.

Also, you might be interested to see the banner I set up on the corner of the school’s property.

I got all the signs put up on Saturday including an additional banner on some columns in front of the school.

Also, on Saturday, Josh came over and helped me load up the truck so that we didn’t have to do any loading on Sunday morning. It made everything go so much more smoothly in the morning.

Morning Preparation

Because last month’s morning got off to a slow start, I asked everyone to be at our house at 8:30am this time. Everyone was there by 8:45 and we were able to pray together before loading up the truck.

Yes, I did say truck! This was our first day to use the truck, and it was also our first time using the equipment that came from Willowbrook Community Church. Their sound equipment is much more elaborate than what we had been using.

Somehow we did get a little delayed at our house. I think the prayer time took a little longer than I had thought it might, but that’s not a bad thing. Anyway, we got to the school at about 9:15, and then unloaded everything.

Attendance

Our total numbers weren’t much more than they have been for any of our other services, but something about it felt really good. It especially felt good because between last month’s service and this one, three members of our worship team stepped down. However, we made up the loss in numbers with quite a few new faces.

The coolest story of the morning was one family that was on their way to visit another church when they saw our signs and recalled our TV spots. So they decided to stop on in and check us out.

Here our numbers:

• Children – 12
• Adults – 20
• Total Attendance – 32

Sermon

My morning message was entitled God Is Love and the best part of the message is when I took the “love passage” from 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 and asked people to consider substituting “God” for every instance of the word “love.” Here’s the verse from the NIV:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. — 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

I then asked people to consider which of those promises was God’s promise to them for that morning. Try it yourself.

However, I failed to get my MP3 recorder set up properly, so I didn’t get a recording of the service. I’m kinda bummed by that, but what are you going to do?

Lessons Learned

During our debrief lunch following the service, we discussed some lessons learned for the next time. Here they are:

• We need to get some extra equipment
  • 1/8″ stereo mini plug cable
  • 3 Speakon cables (2×25′ and 1×50′)
  • smaller box for AV cables that can fit in the cabinet
  • a mobile cart for our computer and projector so we don’t have to use the microwave stand from the cafeteria.
  • Latex Gloves for the Nursery
  • a hand truck / dolly for getting stuff off the truck better.
  • Trough or cooler with ice for water bottles
  • Bread bags for people to take the donated bread home
  • More water bottles
• We need to darken the room (the screen was getting washed out by the light coming in the back windows)
• We need to make up some cards for nursery workers to easily communicate to parents what happened with their kids (what snacks they got, if they took a nap, if their diaper was changed).

Well, that’s about it. Next week is our Grand Opening. I’ll write another post on our plans for that.

I’m not sure why it was such a struggle to get people to come to our house for a meeting on Sunday night, but Sunday morning seems to work out a lot better. We now gather for breakfast followed by a time of worship songs and interactive teaching, and for the past two weeks we have had pretty good attendance.

Another benefit has been that we are able to have a second meeting each week to focus on planning. For some reason, having two weekly evening meetings also seemed like a hardship, but now, having the morning gathering on Sunday, we can have another meeting to focus more on the planning end of things.

I’ve been feeling pretty good about it all.

Last Friday, we experienced a great success in ministry. We served people free mugs of hot chocolate and coffee in front of Wal-Mart. It was a great experience.

It came to me on Black Friday

The whole idea came to me last year on the day after Thanksgiving (“Black Friday” as it has been called) while I was standing in line at a Best Buy store in the bitter cold of November in Chicago. I don’t even remember what was on sale that I thought was so important that I should wake up at 3:30 am and stand in line from 4 am until 5 am. I don’t remember what I was waiting for, but I remember how cold it was.

As I was standing there, I saw some people holding cups of coffee or hot chocolate, and I saw some ambitious types passing out flyers to the people standing in line, and I got the idea for a servant evangelism campaign. Servant evangelism, by the way, refers to a ministry where believers simply serve other people because the good news really is good news. It is nothing like traditional types of evangelism. It’s sharing the good news by doing something good for someone.

My idea was to go to the stores on Black Friday next year and give people a cup of hot chocolate with a little note saying that it was a free gift from our church. I thought about it because I was cold, and I really wish someone else had been walking down that row offering people free hot drinks!

Reality Is Sweeter than Dreams

This year, since I’m in the middle of a church planting venture and my level of freedom to take big risks has been expanded quite a bit, I determined that I wanted to put my plan into action. I shared the idea with our launch team, and even though we were all concerned about the possible expense of it all, the idea shifted from a me idea to an us idea.

The final idea was to purchase travel mugs with our name on them so that we were giving people something of value they could keep with them as they shopped rather than something they would look to dispose of quickly. We decided to set up a station in front of the newly opened Wal-Mart on Lafayette’s southside and to begin not at the “Black Friday” stampede time, but to go at 9 am when the shoppers would be less obsessed and might actually be able to stop and talk with us for a few minutes. We also decided to give away a $25 gift card to Wal-Mart so that we could entice people to fill out a registration card. Finally, we decided to have both hot chocolate and coffee available for people.

From that point on God worked all the pieces out perfectly:

• The older Wal-Mart in town rejected our proposal, but Kris at the prime target new Wal-Mart told us that it was the coolest idea she had ever heard and thought it would be a great blessing to their customers that day.
• Angie, the owner of the nearby coffee shop that donated coffee to our information meeting, agreed to also provide coffee for our giveaway. As we later discovered, she gave us her best coffee that day—coffee which retails for over $27 per pound!
• DiscountMugs.com ended up providing the best price for our mugs. We got them for under $3 each including a rush order, printing on both sides, and shipping! In fact, the mugs arrived two days early! About 5% of the mugs were damaged, missing or unusable, but we are still waiting to hear from the company if they will do anything about it. Nonetheless, the mugs we received looked great!
• Jen and Katie (yes that Katie) washed nearly 550 mugs by hand to make sure that they were clean before we gave them to people filled with hot chocolate.
• overnightprints.com printed 1000 beautiful postcards for us at an awesome price so we could have some informational piece to hand out. Those came early too.
• Laura and Kyle joined Jen and me at Wal-Mart while Jen’s mom came down to watch the kids.
• Jen and her mom boiled maybe 30-40 gallons of water throughout the day, and both Jen and Laura took turns shuttling coffee and carafes back and forth to the Euro Cafe across the street.

At the end of the day

We arrived at Wal-Mart just before 9 am, and were passing out mugs of hot chocolate and coffee within minutes. By 5 pm, we had handed out over 500 southside church travel mugs, received 195 registrations for the gift card contest, and took $0 in donations despite a number of people who really wanted to give us money! We also got to meet a number of people who were really astounded that we were doing what we were doing, and a few of those people are currently looking for a church.

All in all, it was an incredible day. God kept us safe, gave us favor with Wal-Mart and Euro Cafe II, led people to our table, and even made sure we had all the mugs, postcards, hot chocolate mix and everything else that we needed to have a great day.

Oh, one more thing. I know I already mentioned it, but it really should be mentioned again. Jen washed 550 mugs, and boiled nearly 40 gallons of water in addition to shopping for the best hot chocolate mix, getting the tablecloths, getting huge insulated containers, and much more. Send her a note of appreciation if you can.

See my Tabblo>

It has been a while since my last post here, but that’s been for a good reason. For the past month, I’ve been working on getting ready for Southside Church’s first public information meeting. We held it last Sunday evening at McCutcheon High School here in Lafayette.

For the past month, we have been putting together marketing materials, soliciting donations, securing the location, and organizing the service. We passed out by hand maybe 800 invitation postcards and mailed about 100 to our mailing list. We put flyers up at local businesses, we sent out email invitations, and we talked about it to everyone we knew.

It ended up being a really good evening. Here are the details:

• It was September 10, 2006, 6:30pm – 8:00pm in the choir room at McCutcheon High School.
• Tarah Kitchell of Tender Loving Childcare (TLCC) provided the children’s program.
• Doug Griffin, Kurt Kincanon, and Chip (?) provided the music.
• Buffalo Wild Wings donated 250 wings.
• Euro Cafe II donated about 6 thermal carafes full of gourmet coffee.
• LA Fireworks donated table coverings and such.
• Chick-fil-A donated 150 brownies.
• The Carpenter’s Son bookstore donated at least $100 worth of merchandise!
• One count had over 40 (43 I think) people in the main meeting room and we also had 11 kids and 3 workers outside with the children’s program. That put our total at nearly 60 for the evening which was exactly what we wanted in terms of numbers.
• Special guests were Brad Bush, pastor of Maple Ridge Community Church and chairman of TEAMM (Tippecanoe Evangelical Association of Ministers and Ministries), Gregory Hackett, pastor of First Assembly of God, Justin Hutts, associate pastor at Battleground Bible Church, and Gary Rohrmayer, director of Midwest Church Planting. My coach Rich Wollard wasn’t able to make it so he sent us a video clip that got lost somewhere in the tubes of cyberspace.

We sang some songs, some guests spoke for a few minutes, I gave a vision message, and then I entertained some Q&A. After that, everyone filled out a “level of interest” survey, we had a closing song, and Greg Hackett gave some final encouraging words and a closing prayer.

All in all, it was a great evening! I plan to post some video of it soon.

Thank you for your prayers.

Click To Play

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We have a new house!

This morning at 9:30, we signed the final paperwork to close on our new house. There still are some things the builder is doing to put the finishing touches on it, but we have started moving things over!

Please join us in prayer that God would make our new home a central point for fruitful ministry in Lafayette.

It turns out that the number one thing on the heart of Jesus was submission to the will of his Father. So what does it mean to share the same passion as Jesus? What does it mean to be passionately submitted to the will of the Father, and why do we find it so hard? I’ll deal with that in a later post (I hope to get my sermon uploaded to my podcast soon.)

Anyway, the church is pretty healthy and is raising money to support their missions budget for this next year. Last year, they raised over $20,000, and this year they are hoping for $30,000!

Thank you for your prayers for us. It looks like we will soon be having a new church partner and perhaps some individual supporters as well!

Praise God!

If you think of us tomorrow, please pray that God would give us favor with some key members of the congregation there and that we could have some kind of partnership develop between us and Hillside!

Praises:

• Jen and I have signed final approval paperwork on our house. As soon as the building permits get approved, they will start the work. Praise God for helping us make those decisions.
• Greg is continuing to tell people about us and get us contacts with people moving into the area. Praise God for helping us meet him!
• Packing and move preparations are coming along nicely, and we plan to make the move on January 2! Praise God that Jen enjoys packing!

Our Top Ten Requests for December.

Here are our top ten requests for this next month.

• That our priorities would be God’s priorities.
• That God would prepare the hearts of key people in Laf. to receive the gospel.
• That our funding would jump to the next level soon.
• That our final month at NWBC would be filled with grace.
• That our move to Laf. on Jan 2 would go smoothly with good weather.
• That Charlie would have good good-byes with his friends here in Chicago.
• That God would guide our decisions about our new home.
• That we would be able to finalize our church name and incorporation.
• That we would have wisdom raising our kids.
• That God would continue to work miracles for his own glory!

The Leesburg

• $120,000
• 2037 square feet.

The Coolidge

• 1618 square feet
• $90,000

Elevation

First Floor

Second Floor

The Taft

• 1737 square feet
• $105,000

Elevation

First Floor

Second Floor

The Clemson

• 2582 square feet
• $120,000

Elevation

English Cottage Elevation

Floor Plan

The Townsend

• 2771 square feet
• $130,000

Elevation

Craftsman Elevation

English Manor Elevation

Floor Plan

[The Auburn]

• 3183 square feet
• $135,000

Elevation

Farmhouse Elevation

Southern Classical Elevation

Floor Plan

Our Dilemma

Here’s our dilemma. The Auburn house would be absolutely wonderful both for our family and for the sake of the new church ministry. There is a dedicated home office space downstairs by the door, but there is a huge area upstairs for the kids to play in while the adults are talking or having a meeting downstairs. However, the house is really big, and Jen and I are concerned that we might seem to be pretentious by having such a large house while living off the support of others-who likely have smaller homes for themselves.

The Others

The Townsend and Clemson houses are really just toned down versions of the Auburn house. We would enjoy them too, but they both skip the office (we still aren’t sure we need that), and the Clemson has one less bedroom.

The Taft and Coolidge houses are both the functional kind of house. Everything we really need is in these two houses. Jen and I both grew up in homes without much more than what these two houses have.

And regarding the Leesburg, I just think it looks really good. It’s a ranch style home (one story), is economical, but we haven’t seen any floor plans yet.

None of these homes have basements, but one could be added for only $30,000!

So.

So Jen and I are trying to figure out whether we need to stretch ourselves a little bit more financially so that we can get a “dream house” that would be great for both family and for ministry (core group meetings and larger Bible studies) with the potential downside of people thinking negatively about us. We are especially concerned about some of our supporters resenting our apparent affluence.

Or whether we should grab on to one of the more economical and functional houses, save ourselves some potential concern over money, and avoid the appearance of materialism to those we are trying to reach.

Pray and Comment.

Please pray for our wisdom in this decision, and please comment or email me to let us know what you think.

Quick Notes

• We were able to stay with Jen’s cousin and her family. They are so gracious and generous each time we visit. Praise God for Mark and Michelle Withers.
• We were able to meet a group of families who have been passionate about a new church in Lafayette for almost a year. Praise God for our meeting with the “Pondside” couples.
• We were also able to meet a family that has recently moved from California and was part of a BGC church plant out there. They are really excited about being on the ground floor of a new church, and the kids were even giving me suggestions on what the name of the new church should be.
• Jen and I found the place where we want to live. We want to move to an area called “The Commons.”

Prayer Requests

Here are the two biggest things Jen and I are praying about right now. Please join us in prayer for these things.

Pray for God’s guidance for us and the “Pondside” couples.

We had the chance to meet with three families that have joined together to start a new church in Lafayette to intentionally reach people with the good news of Jesus. They have been meeting together for a while now and have adopted the temporary name of “Pondside.” They really seem like great people, and if they choose to partner with us, it would likely be an incredible combination.

Pray for us to get a home in “The Commons.”

In driving through the different areas of Lafayette this weekend, Jen and I really fell in love with a neighborhood called “The Commons” that would be not only a great place for our family but also a wonderful launching-point for the new church. Lots in “The Commons” are going quickly at about $40,000 and homes that would work for us are between $130,000 and $160,000.

We really need to get loan approval first before we can make a decision, but if we can make a decision next month, our home could be ready by early Spring. Buying an existing home is also an option, but most existing homes are more expensive than new construction right now.

All of you know at this point that we are on our way to Lafayette, IN in the near future and hopefully most of you have received a full prayer update in your regular mail box at home—if not please respond to this and let me know and I’ll make sure you get one soon!! We have been praying for each of you on a regular basis too and are excited to hear about what has been happening in each of your lives.

We have just a few exciting updates since our last regular letter that I thought you’d like to know about.

1. We still have a long way to go in raising our support, but God (and many of our friends and family) have been so very generous already. It’s been wonderful!! Pray for God to continue to bless this.

2. We and Northwest Baptist (where Jeff currently pastors) have decided that we will move in January, although everyone is graciously allowing for some flexibility there. We’d like to have at least 80% of our support raised by then. Pray for the necessary support and all the logistics with a move. We aren’t sure if we will go to an apartment or straight to a house when we get there so there is much to figure out regarding that. We are excited to have a date!

3. We have 3 churches that we will be presenting our Lafayette church planting proposal to in October, Northwest Baptist (October 2) and two other Chicago churches (October 9 and 30). Pray that it is received well and that God would bless us with serious prayer support, financial support, and even some great Lafayette contacts.

4. Jeff spoke with a team leader of a small group in Lafayette just last night. This small group is looking for a pastor to plant a church in the area. They have about 4 couples attending the group and a list of about 40-60 people who are “ready to go” when they have a pastor. We, and they, need much prayer to determine if this is a good match or not. Jeff had a good conversation with them last night and we may meet in person the weekend of September 25. This is a really exciting possibility, but we need much wisdom about moving forward with it or not.

5. We hope to travel to Lafayette from Thursday, September 22 to Sunday the 25th, to see the area, look into housing and meet in person with a few contacts. Pray for safety, great meetings, that we see and hear all we need to see with both people and housing, and that we make a few new contacts in the process.

Thanks so much for praying!!

Jen

This month (tomorrow) I’ll be fasting from computer / TV / radio use. If you think of me, pray for me that I’ll be strong through the day and use the freedom from media to really hear God’s voice.

I’m truly grateful for them allowing us the freedom to minister here and do our fundraising too. I think it is providing a great opportunity for this transition to go well.

Therefore, I have been really wondering what God’s will is for us during this transition, and I think I have received an answer from him.

Tonight, I was just taking my 30 minutes in prayer, and as I was praying, I was asking God why I am so drawn to distraction. Really, computer programming has captured my attention in the last year, and I keep coming up with ideas for ways to improve the church’s computer systems. Then, I really want to implement them ASAP.

So I was asking God why it is that I am so drawn to that, and he reminded me that computer stuff is fun for me, and it is an easy way for me to get a sense of accomplishment, but tonight, he revealed something new to me about it. You see, the way it works for me is that I will get a flash of an idea for something that should be done to improve something, and then I will start brainstorming ways to make it happen, and then I will be so interested in it that I will jump into it and put all other responsibilities on hold while I work on that.

However, the real thing is that computer projects like that give me a sense that I have a mission, and so God asked me, what my mission in the church was? Was my mission to improve the technology of the church office?

Instantly, I had a thought in response. My mission is to leave a legacy of spiritual hunger for God.

Now, that is an incredibly bad way of wording it, but the point is that I want to leave this church and the people of this church with a strong sense of hunger for God. They don’t need to feel hungry for my ministry, for sermons, for a particular song, or anything else. They need to feel hungry for God.

I feel energized and ready to tackle this challenge. And knowing that I have this challenge in front of me, I feel empowered to avoid some of the distractions.

To that end, these are some initial thoughts for what I should be doing over the next couple of months.

• Invest energy in making sure the Sunday service is a great experience for people—that it leaves a good taste in their mouths for God.
• Teach messages that proclaim the greatness of God and our need for him.
• Spend personal time giving people individual challenges to evaluate their own need for God.

I may have to add to this list as the weeks progress, but let me ask you to pray for me that I will keep this mission in front of me, strategize it well, and be an agent of people becoming more hungry for God.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled!”

Pray for us as we present this to our church.

There are some areas of Indianapolis that are absolutely booming with growth. It truly is remarkable to see that on the north side of the city, there are some counties with the highest growth rates in the nation. On the south side of the city, there is nearly as much growth as well. Jen and I have been praying about and considering the city of Indianapolis as a possible target for our church plant, so we went down there this weekend.

It was a good trip. We got to spend some time with Jen’s college roommate and her husband (they let us crash at their place!) and we also got to visit with the pastor of an MBC church plant in the area.

I was surprised by a few things on our trip:

I really liked the city of Noblesville to the northeast of Indianapolis. It had a really quaint downtown square around the courthouse, and when I bought some Chai from a local coffee shop, the people inside were really friendly. I had the chance to chat with a couple of schoolteachers in the shop there, and they completely raved about the quality of their school system.

I also liked the village of Greenwood just south of Indianapolis. That’s an area that is experiencing a good deal of growth too. I had the chance to talk with a realtor there who told me that the south side of Indy as much more “laid back” than the north side of Indianapolis. The people on the north side were a little “snobby” in comparison.

The main areas we were supposed to look at didn’t really impress me much. There was Zionsville which is an incredibly beautiful area, but the homes there are absolute monstrosities of capitalism, the small downtown seemed to be geared toward the upper echelon of society, and the demographics claim the median age is 39 which is nearly ten years beyond Jen and me. Those aren’t bad things, but the potential for us to relate effectively to the people who live there is much lower than somewhere else.

We also were planning to consider Lebanon, but on the advice of some people we talked to down there, we realized that Lebanon presently is a city that seems to be “caught in the middle.” It is the county seat, but it is still relatively rural in mindset. Though Zionsville is booming in the southeast of the county, Lebanon itself isn’t experiencing much growth yet. In a few years it might begin to have some growth, but it isn’t happening yet.

Finally, we spent just over 24 hours in Lafayette, and I was actually surprised how much resonated with me in that short amount of time. There were aspects of the city that reminded me of other places I have lived. It had aspects of Peoria, Denver, and Victorville. I honestly really liked it. It’s a completely different feel from Noblesville and Greenwood, but it might be just what we are looking for.

Jen and I are going to continue to pray about it all, but she is getting really impatient about us picking a place and moving forward with it!

• Jen’s dad was assigned to work on Friday even though he was supposed to take the day off, so we couldn’t leave the kids with him.
• We were supposed to have a meeting with Pastor Bill at Liberty Bible Church, but he got sick and had to cancel our meeting.

Nevertheless, we had a really good time. We met with a Real Estate agent who, though he wasn’t too interested in having another church starting in Chesterton, was really encouraging about the character of the town. He showed us on a map where to go to look at houses that were selling at the median selling price in the area, so after we dropped the kids off with their grandmother to take naps, Jen and I went back out to see those homes.

We were impressed. The amount of home you can by for your dollar is incredible (especially compared to Chicago!). Also, a large number of homes have the design and neighborhood that is just what we would be looking for. In terms of a place where we might want to live, it would rank pretty high.

However, we still need to talk with some pastors in the area to see about the spiritual condition of the town and whether there is a segment of people who are effectively unreached. I should be getting some of those meetings in next week.

It’s another situation where there are already many churches, but the potential for growth is much higher considering that Chesterton is becoming more and more of a Chicago suburb.