Monday, Monday

Yesterday was a long, but good day! I think the tiredness factor was due to my big trip this weekend to Georgia... But, sometimes you have to pile a bunch of stuff together and make a crazy week out of it. I'm sure you've all been there!

First, I went to work at my part-time job at the HoneyBaked Ham Store near Knoxville Center. I've worked there for about 6 weeks now selling holiday hams, turkeys, and gift certificates to local businesses and manufacturers. Having the job allows Emily and me to not take a salary at this time from the funds that we are raising for our new church's financial needs... We want to be good stewards of God's funds and provide for as much of our financial needs as possible, therefore freeing up money for some of God's other purposes.

My job at HoneyBaked is an interesting one that puts me in contact with a ton of people in the area, even though it's usually on the phone! I also deliver lunchtime catering to our customers on most days.

A cool thing about my job is that I work with some really nice people. Most of them don't go to church, and so I've had some cool opportunities to talk to them about The Ridge and its values, and how we're going about starting a church. I learn every day more and more about why folks around our area have chosen not to go to church, and I believe more and more each day that Ridge Church is "on target" for what Emily and I moved to Knoxville for: "to be a community of people transformed by Christ, reaching out to share Christ with others."

Monday afternoon, Emily and I met with Grant Standefer, the Executive Director of the Compassion Coalition. I was connected to Grant through Jim Thompson, the Executive Director of the Coalition. I was connected to Jim through Max Reddick, the Senior Minister at Fountain City Presbyterian Church here in Knoxville. Max is a great guy who gave up a couple hours one afternoon last week to share with us what he knows about the area (he knows alot!).

The Compassion Coalition is an awesome ministry connecting over 150 churches in the Knoxville area to local government and non-profit agencies for the purpose of serving our community. It's a great concept that is long overdue, and it sounds like every city in America would do well to copy it!

As you can see, networking when you're planting a church is a pretty cool thing... There are alot of people out there who want to help those in need and reach our community with Christ's love. Every day, Emily and I are more glad to be here and more excited about continuing to serve our city in the future.

To top off a great, but long day, we had a great time at our "Man Night" at Spicy's in Powell. Some of you guys out there mentioned that you couldn't make it, and we missed you. Stay tuned for our next guys' thing... We'll have another one sometime soon.