Sunday, February 03, 2008

A Fabulous Harvest Sunday

What a great Sunday it was at High Pointe! The initial target goal for Harvest Sunday was $138,000. The amount given? $77,000 in contributions today, with $102,000 pledged to be given within the next six months. This makes for a total of $179,000, which well exceeds our goal. I could not be more thrilled. The congregation really responded and clearly was touched. This will give us the jump start that we really need to get started in our evangelistic outreach to the community. To all who gave today, thank you, thank you, thank you. And Kim, people loved hearing the story of you and your family.

This weekend we looked all around for houses. We have many factors to consider, including the cost of the home, neighborhood, gathering places to reach out, proximity to the church, proximity to other memebrs, school districts, a floor plan that will allow us to entertain a lot of people, resale, and a lot of other factors. We are still undecided. Right now we are looking at builders. If our house sells, then we can look at established homes too.

One struggle will be living in the neighborhoods of "the Jones." who make up so much of McKinney, in order to reach out to them, while not submitting our children to brutal, unrelenting materialism. I grew up in Edmond, which was highly affluent, so I can help our kids through some of this, but would hope to spare them from some of it.

We have been so warmly received. Clearly people are excited about us coming. One family, the Fosters, have generously offered to let us stay in their home for 4 months while they are in their home in California. They have a lovely home and were so nice.

Sunday at lunch we ate with a lot of the young families, and in the evening we went to two Super Bowl parties. I was glad that the Giants won. It made the Cowboys loss to them look better, and I was getting sick of hearing about "the best football team of all time."

Becki goes back to Liberty tomorrow morning, and I will stay here until Tuesday. I have several meetings lined up, and some more house hunting. To our Liberty friends, we will look forward to seeing you again soon. To our High Pointe friends, thanks for a great weekend!

2 comments:

Meriann said...

James,

I haven't met you, but sure have been excited for your arrival to McKinney, Texas. My family and I sure enjoyed your visit this weekend. I have no doubt you will find the perfect home for you and your family. We also have a three year old daughter, so we look forward to her joining classes with ours. Take care!!

James Nored said...

Meriann,

Thank you so much for the warm welcome. We will very much look forward to meeting you and spending time together. We had a great visit. Look forward to times together in the future. God bless.