The Weekend Recap

I just returned from painting my new apartment for 12 hours to find that over 100 people visited the blog today. Holy Cow!

So the services yesterday were wild.

CC North Bay is just a stinkin cool church. It was a little slice of heaven yesterday. As I looked around the room it was such a unique cross section of humanity. Grey heads and 5 kids in the nursery. Married couples, singles, teens. Folks from many nations. Conservative folks dressing well. Some folks with bald heads and skull tattoos. All worshipping Jesus and fellowshiping together. Saved by grace, not by works; yet all one in Christ. I felt that if I had died yesterday afternoon, heaven would have seemed to be a repeat of the morning. I feel so grateful that I can encourage folks to walk with Jesus.

Liquid has turned into almost totally a church for the San Rafael street people. We had our first incident yesterday when a woman, obviously pretty loaded, was very upset that I said that we were forgiven totally by the grace of God, not of works, but simply because of Jesus. She started yelling at me while I was trying close my message on ‘Grace’ out. Another guy, Dusty, who is a real burly guy started yelling back at her and for a moment, I thought it was going to get ugly. She left and I prayed. Instead of playing bass for the final worship tune, I ran outside and tried to talk to/love on this woman. She was all over the place and told me that I ‘was listening to the wrong voices’. Pray for ‘Mrs. Wallace’ if you think about it.

Looks like the Lord is opening up the door for us to start doing our midweek publically. We have about 25 people crammed in an apartment for our midweek ‘Community Group’. With our youth group starting, we were wanting to go public. We are in dialogue with a local Mill Valley Church for us to meet there on Thursday nights. Keep in in prayer.

We still need a worship leader. The people continue to worship Him despite that fact that I’m leading worship. Pray for them.

On top of it all, I’m in the process of moving and my beloved bride has me painting everything. We’ll be in the new apartment by the end of the week, less than a mile from where the church meets. We are excited by there is much to do.

God bless you all

Quick Update

Good evening everyone-

Another Sunday down here. I arrived back home at 10 pm from all the days festivities. There is soo much happening it’s silly.

I’m going to give you all the quick recap so I can rush off to bed by 11 pm.

Calvary Chapel North Bay is rocking this morning. The sanctuary was packed today. It is kind of crazy. Had a bunch of kids in both the nursery and the kid’s church. Numerically the fellowship is growing. It is encouraging to see people enjoying the fellowship. It’s more encouraging watching them enjoy Jesus and each other. I feel humbled and a bit scared. My prayer has been that we would have about 100 people by the end of the year (which to me would be insane being where we are). Maybe join me in praying that His Word would run forth with power. And please please please, pray for a worship leader.

Liquid is just a sweet minstry. It’s about 70% homeless folks. I love it. One of the guys, Jamie, is 3 days sober and very excited. We prayed for him at length tonight. I love serving these sweet folks. So not normal ‘church’. Praise the Lord! I had someone (not locally) asking me about if Liquid was going to be a Calvary Chapel. I see what the Lord is doing there and just chuckle. It’s 15 folks worshipping the Lord. 10 are homeless and the offering basket had $1 in it. I’m sure everyone wil be rushing to put us on the website! But honestly, what a sweet ministry. Beautiful and heartbreaking. I believe that Jesus is very comfortable hanging out at Liquid (and He’d especially enjoy the Cup O Noodles and coffee).

On the homefront, a ton is going on. We will be moving into Mill Valley in 2 weeks. When we moved to Marin some 9 months ago, we got the cheapest apartment we could find just to get settled. Now that we are established, I have a job, and the church is up and rolling, we felt very strongly that the Lord wanted us to move down to Mill Valley. He provided a nice townhouse for us to move into and some folks to take over our lease here in Novato. Pray for the transition down to Mill Valley.

Much love to you all and I’d love to hear what God is doing in your lives.

God bless
Daniel

New Church Planting Blog

Hey Everyone-

I’ve gotten enough requests from pastors who like the articles on the Calvary Church Planting Network website and want a forum to discuss the topics that I’ve set up a blog for it

Here it is
http://churchplantingnetwork.wordpress.com

Stop on over and feel free to comment.

God bless

Trying to Catch Up

Hey Everyone,

So yesterday (Sunday) was a whale of a day. I left the house before 7 am. Had a blast of a service with Calvary Chapel North Bay. Left Mill Valley at 12:30 and headed up to Sonoma to play at the Sonoma Salute to the Arts outdoor festival with Michael LaMacchia’s Organic Jive Collective and then back to Marin for Liquid at 7. I arrived home at 10 pm, pretty shot out, but I wanted to crunch and post the days sermons. I crawled into bed a bit before 11 pm. Thus the life of a church planter.

Things are going well all around. The summer in churches are always a unique time. Most churches just hope to make the bills through the summer with the the idea of ramping everything back up for September (post Labor Day). We’ve had a great summer overall. The Lord has really been solidifying our core team of folks. When we began 7 months ago, it was just Chuck Campbell (CC North Bay’s Assistant Pastor) and myself. Now it is the 2 of us, plus Pete Crowl and Dave Allingham. Dave’s son, Seth, should be up in about a week and he’ll be assuming the role of Youth Pastor. We still need a worship leader for Sunday mornings. This need is ampliied each week when I arrive at Liquid and Timothy Jason (Neuenshwander), along with Mike, Tanya, and I start to practice for Liquid’s worship service. But in seven months to have the Lord put a solid core team together is just amazing. There are also a number of fabulous things happening. We have a Wednesday night Community Group which has just deepened our family. We do a last Saturday of the month Men’s and Women’s get togethers and they have been a blast. Overall, CC North Bay is right where it needs to be. Once we have the worship leader in place, we will begin to make a huge push to connect with our community in a unique way. We are soo close to being at that place where we will have all guns firing. I’m excited, but impatient.

Liquid, on Sunday nights, is a bit over a month old. It is starting to take shape. We are right in the center of downtown San Rafael, right across from the local soup kitchen. Each week, we’ve had a hodpodge of folks roll on through. Some stay, some just grab some coffee and a treat and leave. But everyone hears the Lord being praised and the Word explained, even if just for a second. All the folks involved are excited about the ministry and we all realize that it will take some time to establish, but it will get established.

Calvary Church Planting Network is rolling along. We recieved our first donation and opened up a designated account for it. The website has been getting hit up numerous times each day and I’m getting emails and calls from all over the country. We are praying through coming alongside one new work specifically (more details to follow once we are in it) and I’ve been enjoying writing articles. I’ve been talking with many pastors around the country and seeking their input on things to incorporate. I’m hoping to put together an educational mp3 for church planters. Included will be David Guzik’s Church History series, Wayne Grudem’s ‘How to Interpret Your Bible’ as well as a number of other messages that will be important in educating young pastors.

Visit the New Church Planting Blog HERE

As you can see, lots is happening. And yes, I’m still working more than 20 hours a week at the day job as well as playing 2-3 gigs a week. Obadiah is a joy. He has his own MySpace page, www.myspace.com/obadiahfusco . He is our little prayer warrior and worshipper. At church during worship, he has taken to raising his hands. It’s very sweet. He prays with us all the time and last week he played worship with me at our Wednesday night Community Group. Lynn, my bride, is just the sweetest. He walk with Jesus convicts me. He is all over her.

I’d love to hear how you all are doing.
Don’t be shy…
Leave a comment.

Also if you have any ideas on articles, links, or resources for the Church Planting Network, let me know

Maranatha!
Daniel