Another birth at Christmas

As I mentioned in our Christmas letter post Jeanne and I have been involved in planting a new church (satellite) in Rancho San Diego. We are a multi-site church with one staff for all locations. For those of you who don't know where that is: east of  La Mesa, south of El Cajon at the very east end of Hwy 94.  So about 15 minutes due east of our house. We started by renting space at the large Edwards Theatre complex in the heart of the Rancho SD mall. That was a good beginning, and yes, we set up church and break it down and put all the gear for kids and a sound system for the "worship center"  back in two large trailers each Sunday.

 The only disadvantage to the Edwards space was that we couldn't just enjoy visiting after church because we had to breakdown quickly to make way for the incoming movie patrons. God provided another place for us (a story in itself) at the nearby Cuyamaca Community College across the street from the mall. Above our church "dualie" pulls into the loading area of the brand new multimillion dollar Theatre Arts building where we now have our services with no pressure to leave quickly!

Our first service was Christmas Eve. Gotta have a Christmas Tree!!  What a blessing to have this opportunity.
Jeanne helps decorate the foyer.

 Here we set up another theatre in the complex as an infant to 2 yr old care room.

Fran and our greeters welcome families as they arrive.  My favorite is the princess in tennis shoes!

Here you see the whole complex (and our goofy youth pastor) as you near the main theatre we use as "worship center" or "Adult Auditorium".

Here is JC Navarro our pastor in the center with the really ugly Christmas sweater and members of the worship team.

Yet another greeting as you pick up your program with sermon notes, flyers, the ususal...

Now we have seating for nearly 300 in a beautiful new auditorium that would otherwise not be used on a weekend.  Thank you Lord!!

 In come our new growing congregation. We had about 200 Christmas Eve.

Worship team music is always live. This is where I help out on a rotation basis. I LOVE IT!!

After service is Coffee...

...and sweet fellowship. Time to get to know each other better as we encourage each other to find and follow Jesus.  Amen!