Church Happenings... and a Puppy?!?

Hello Friends and Family,

          I'm really sorry for the major slacking on our blog updates! It has been crazy as we continue to get settled in, yet go full force into what God has for us out here. Let me give you a few updates on some of the stuff going on out here in northwest Colorado. This is the “Novel” version and Suzanna will come out with a “Picture Book” post with some photo’s documenting our adventures! So, for those of you who hate reading there are better things on the horizon…

NRCC- Sunday Mornings and General Church Development

First, let me give you all an update on how the North Routt Community Church is coming along.

Growth: It has been an exciting couple months as God begins to bring together a great community. The Church has been growing, although with some fluctuation between some weeks. Although, it’s never just about numbers, it is exciting to see the community that is starting to gather with us. There have been many weeks where we have to bring out more chairs, with a couple weeks pushing 60 people, with a full parking lot and a packed house! If we start having more people, I won't know what to do... Ha, just kidding! kind of...

Development (Church Mission): More importantly than just growth in our numbers, is how NRCC is developing as a church. That is my main goal and passion. In mid-June we had a leaders meeting after service and we went through the concept of Church mission. Trying to answer the questions, did God give the church a mission? If so, what is it? It was a great conversation and the meeting went great! I proposed that the mission of the church is to be disciples (to become like Jesus) and to make disciples calling others to a transformational relationship with Jesus, thus attempting to fulfill the great commission. Dealing with the “gathering” as a body to exalt our God and encourage one another to become more and more like our lord and savior AND our “scattering” going among our community to live like Jesus did and share the good news of grace, hope, love and reconciliation offered through Him. We want to call those near and far to put their trust in Jesus and continuing to walk alongside them, showing and teaching them what it means to follow Jesus in a relational discipleship process. Our leaders had great feedback and seem to be on board with this simple mission to be disciples and make disciples.

Preaching: Man, preaching every week (actually twice a week with Monday nights) is hard! But it has been incredibly rewarding. God has been teaching me how I should not take it lightly. He is reminding me that I am representing Him and His word and I better not try and twist it to make people happy or avoid the claims of scripture that are hard. For those of you who don’t know, I have had opportunities to preach at a few different ministries over the past 3 years but I never have preached back to back weeks before my coming here and oddly enough 3 years ago I used to be terrified of speaking in front of people. 3 years ago I didn't want to have anything to do with preaching. But it is funny how God slowly coaxed me into this thing. He has continued to shape me in this gift and give me joy in it! I am very thankful that he pushed me into this area of ministry, that if left up to me I would have avoided. 2 weeks ago we made it through an entire series about Jesus called the “I Am” Series (not so clever, I know…) about the I am statements of Jesus found in John’s Gospel. This past week I introduced a new 10 week series on the Church where we will look at the biblical church and try and discover what God has called us to as his people. I am very passionate about his topic and I have loved studying it more and more and I am really excited about how God will show up in our community and hopefully empower us to better be his Church, rather than just attend it! Last Sunday we shared in communion as a church for the first time, which was very exciting and meaningful for me to share that with these wonderful people! We will take communion as a church every month from now on, although I would actually like to do it every week (In my opinion we could never preach the gospel to ourselves too much!!) and we will try to move toward that.

Monday Nights- Young Adult Ministry

          We are continuing our young adult ministry through NRCC which has been incredibly fruitful and I love how God is choosing to work through our simple little meetings together.

For those of you who don’t know the general premise of our meetings together.

• We worship- We worship with a few songs in the beginning and it is plugged in worship which is pretty advanced for us in North Routt.
• 15 minute Teaching- I teach a short lesson that is discussion driven with a few questions to lead us into a time of group discussion. All the teachings are geared toward discovering what it means to be a devoted disciple of Jesus Christ.
• Discussion- We break up into tables of 5 or so and discuss and process the aspect of             discipleship that was just taught.
• We worship some more- Then we finish with a song or two.

        God has been working through our discussion and discovery process. We have had a few people come who are unsure of this whole Jesus thing and defiantly a little skeptical and searching. The discussion has led to some great opportunities, even for me to follow up with someone one on one and hear his story and present the bigger picture of the Christian world-view and the broader narrative that is written throughout scripture… the good news that God wants relationship with us even in spite of our brokenness and sin! So, please pray for continued opportunities and for hearts to be soften and receptive to God’s spirit!!

Children’s Ministry is up and Running- Suzanna and Company Are Awesome!

        After weeks of development and conversations our children’s ministry is up and running for our handful of kids. We wanted our children’s ministry to be intentional and not just shove them in a room so their parents could relax. We wanted it to flow out of our mission, to be disciples to make disciples and we think this can begin even at a young age. A woman from our church had the idea of teaching the kids a lesson that correlates with Sunday’s message so that there is continuity between what they are learning and what their parents are hearing on Sunday mornings. So we have crafts and a lesson that portray the “big idea” or biblical concept from the sermon on Sunday. Then we send the kiddos home with a few questions they can ask their parents to continue to unpack the truth they learned at home with their family. We want to encourage spiritual formation in the family dynamic. We are excited about the possibilities of these kind of interactions, which hopefully bear fruit in between Sundays and inside homes. Suzanna has been organizing the volunteers making sure there is always 2 or more each Sunday, and her and a couple other girls have been developing and teaching the lessons. 

Puppy???- I mean really, how long did you think that would take?

We got a puppy!!! Yep it’s official and he is officially adorable. His name is Scout, he’s 10 weeks old and he is a border collie/ lab (we think) mix. We adopted him a few weeks ago from a shelter in Fort Collins, north of Denver. We love him but HOLY COW, a puppy is a lot of work!! They are like furry little infants, only we can’t slap a diaper on him. At first he needed to be let out every 2 hours, so we weren't getting good sleep for a while. But he can almost sleep through the night so we are no longer zombies.  Here is a pic to hold you over until Suzanna puts together our next “picture book” post.

The Blooms are Headed Back to the Flatlands- Indy Bound!!

First off Grace Community Church is awesome! Let me explain why. Each year Grace, hosts a national (maybe global) leadership conference called Leadership Summit which is put on by Willow Creek Church, outside of Chicago. I was able to go last year as Grace Intern and this year they have generously chosen to fly Suzanna and I out for the conference and almost a week of personal development with my 3 mentoring Pastors at Grace (David Bell, Keith Carlson, Aaron Elliot). This will be the week of Aug 4^th- 9^th. This is such a blessing for Suzanna and me to be poured into for about a week. Since we will be in Indiana we will take the week after the conference to spend time with friends and family. We are so excited!

So like I said this is the Novel(y) version of our blog post and Suzanna will follow this up with a picture book version to show you some of the stuff we have experienced (Mostly animals, and nature stuff but hey who are we talking about here?)

Thanks for your love, support and prayers. God is doing some cool work in Clark Colorado and we are just happy he has let us come along for the ride!

David & Suzanna Bloom