Sunday morning started out foggy and moist, but the fog burned off after about 60 miles and the sun turned things very warm. By the time I took this first pic of the wheat field it was already in the mid 80's. The landscape was changing from flat to rolling hills and it was a beautiful morning to be riding. My first destination was the town of Wray, Colorado. You can imagine why I wanted to include that. I know many of you will think I'm old enough to be in a museum and now you have proof, but treat me nice because I also have a bank! (Don't I wish!) Ingrid and I visited this town back in 1990 and we remembered that there was a church there, but when I checked on the conference web site it didn't list one. Now I know why. I found the church. The road sign is still there, but the church is vacant. Lots of spiritual applications come to mind with this picture. I will say that most of the town looked like it was heading the same direction.
From Wray I rode 150 miles to Brighton, which is just north of Denver. Rex Bell has been the pastor here for about 18 years. He was out of town and so I met with Todd Belleau (I need to recheck the spelling on that) and his son, Caleb. Todd is the school board chair and the Brighton Church puts a major emphasis on outreach through their school. The school is pre-K through 10 and has about 130 students currently. It has been higher in the past as is the case with most schools. The Brighton church is the only sponsoring church and it requires a major portion of their finances. Rex Bell holds two garage sales every month and raises $800-1200 each sale to support worthy students. That's about $24,000 a year, but their worthy student cost is closer to $80,000 plus a subsidy of another $100,000. That's commitment to education. They do have many non SDA students and this has been a rich source of baptisms for students and parents.
As you can see it is a very pretty church in a prime location and the school (last pic) is very nice looking as well. The challenge is to find ways to reach the community and draw more active young families into the church body. It was a great visit. Thanks Todd and Caleb! Now I'm off to Berthoud, which is only about 45 miles to stay with Clay and Selene Peck who are the lead pastoral couple at Grace Place.
Total miles thus far = 8,550.
No comments:
Post a Comment