Top 5, week ending 05/18/13- motorcycles in the prison yard, Charles’ rod and reel, etc.

Charles, who runs the kitchen, with another fish.

Here’s the top 5 for last week.

1. Jonathan and David go to Kilby Correctional. Last week, David and Jonathan ran to Kilby Correctional, where they helped lead / teach reentry classes for men coming out of prison. The Village is one of the few housing programs that can house current inmates with the Department of Corrections, helping them make transition before they are “free.”

2. Jonathan and David and Leslie ride the Harleys into Baldwin Country Prison, Georgia. A few days after the Kilby trip, the two added Leslie to the mix and headed to Baldwin County. In order to gather the crowd into the prison yard, the two were allowed to ride their bikes through the yard, around the dormitories, and build a crowd. Then, they were able to share Christ with the 700 who were there.

3. Charles Griffin gets a new fishing pole. Charles cooks three meals a day in kitchen that runs three meals a day, seven days a week… On his days off, he goes to the fishing pond about a mile from our facility, where he routinely catches fish like the one in the pic above. This past week, the staff chipped in, bought him a new rod. Thanks, Charles, for everything you do!

4. David and Leslie get engaged. The story of how these two staff members met is so strange you’d think it’s purely made up (by the way, he leads the men & she leads the women in the housing program at The Village). I’m sure you’ll hear about it sooner than later, as soon as we get Leslie to share her story at The Grace Church. Anyway, the two were engaged last week during staff meeting. The wedding happens sometime in June. More to come.

5. The Leadership Lunch roles out next Wednesday, May 29, 11:30 am! This is way to connect with local business leaders, neighborhood leaders, and ministry / church leaders. This once-a-month event is always held on the final Wednesday of the month. Details are here.

By the way, if you can’t make the leadership lunch, we have an Open House scheduled the following week on Saturday.

Top 5, week ending 05/12/13- neighborhood connections, brainstorming, windows… final stage pic!

Here’s the top 5 for last week. As always, these are written in no particular order of importance- just 5 things for which we’re grateful.

1. Connecting with the neighborhood. That’s Jason and Dot planning a few events about to roll out over the summer… Here they are, we’d love to see you there:

• The leadership lunch- on the final Wednesday of each month.

• Open House- on June 8 and August 10.

Jason has taken the lead in communicating with people in the neighborhood- he’s taken our wonderful neighborhood president, Ms. Cook-Bibb, to lunch; he’s been knocking on doors… we look forward to seeing what happens here as we all work together.

Ms. Cook-Bibb has been a fan of The Village from Day 1- and we’re a big fan of hers! We’re thankful for her years (read: decades) of work in the neighborhood, and grateful for the opportunity to work with her and our other neighbors.

2. Staff brainstorming… from 04/29 and 05/06… We had a few great staff meetings where a few ideas that had been sitting on the back-burner took some shape. The neighborhood connections are one of these… More to come!

3. Our new stage is done. Truthfully, it’s been done for a weeks- we just haven’t posted the final pics. This is a great tool we’ll use for 12-ste meetings, on-site church services, classes, and other ministry-equipping opportunities.

4. Our windows are installed in the cafeteria / multi-purpose room. A big thanks to Bill Mathews {I spelled his name the way he misspells it }, who provided us with the glass in our multi-purpose room (same room as stage is in- window pictured above behind Jason and Dot.

The window is crazy-cool, and the picture doesn’t do any justice to it at all. It makes the entire wall disappear and completely joins the inside to the outside. Thanks, Bill!

5. Bill replaced a broken door on the men’s hall, as well. Sounds like a small deal, I know… but it’s a full-glass door, let’s a major amount of natural light into the men’s residential hall… and it was free, saving us hundreds of dollars. We’re grateful, again, to this friend of the ministry for his help, for making our space more beautiful.

Top 5, week ending 05/04/13- A hole in the wall, neighborhood partnerships, and more

Here’s the top 5 for last week- as always, it’s in no particular order of importance, just the order we thought to write it out!

1. Brannon published his book! For the past year, Brannon has run Sozo Birmingham from the offices of The Village, where he is a staff member. More recently, in the past month, he has launched a prophetic school that meets bi-weekly on Thursdays. In conjunction with the school, he’s published this book (pictured) that is the basis for his classes. You can buy his book on Amazon.com, by the way.

2. The audio for his classes goes live this week. That’s right. We recorded this past Thursday, so you’ll find the feed on The Grace Church podcast.

3. We knocked a hole in the wall in our cafeteria / dining all / multi-purpose / everything room. Turns out, a friend of a friend, who has now become our friend, is providing free glass from his company! This sounds like a small thing, but a glass wall will turn a dungeon of a room into a life-giviing place to study, eat, hang out, and learn… Thanks, Bill Matthews!

4. We’ve scheduled the next Open House at The Village for 06/08... you can get the updates from the calendar on The VIllage site. This is a time to invite the neighbors and others to see what we do and where we do it.

5. We’re also planning a “leadership lunch” for the final Wednesday of each month… at 11:30 am. This one hour event will provide an on-ramp for us to meet other ministries and business leaders, as well as for them to meet us. It’s also on the calendar.

Top 5- week ending 04/27/2013- Furniture give away, church updates, podcast, and a hole in the wall!

Here’s the top five for last week:

1. Our furniture closets are empty! We regularly receive donations from local furniture companies. The deal is that we can give the stuff away, but we can’t sell it. The only issue we ever have is… well… we can’t give it away fast enough! It keeps piling and piling and piling.

This week we were able to empty the closet(s). More like two full rooms of stuff stacked to the ceiling. Leather sofas. Matresses. Tables. Dressers. Sofa chairs. Gone.

We sent it to another ministry who helps people in transition (FireHouse Shelter).

Why? Because it’s more blessed to give than receive. And, we know we’ll receive more, have space to receive it, and be able to give again.

2. The church’s incorporation papers are done. Though a separate organization, The Village will be heavily partnered with The Grace Church, which is set to launch in the near future. You can read more about the church at its website.

3. The church podcast is up. This means that the classes we teach at The VIllage (i.e., Sozo and Prophetic School) will be available there in the near future.

4. We knocked a hole in the wall in our dining room. On purpose. Seriously. It’s now not so gloomy. We’ve opened it up to the outside back porch area. Be sure to peak in next time you’re over.

5. Pray. We’re brainstorming ways to network some of the area pastors around The Village’s home base on Whitmore Drive. I believe that together we can all do more.

More to come!

Top 5, the week ending 04/20/2013- a new van, stage complete, Prophetic School, and more

Here’s the top 5 for the week ending 04/20/2013 (last week):

1. David trained, served, and now will continue ministering with Bill Glass Ministries / Champions for Life. This is a group that works “behind the fence” to minister in prisons across the country. David has been ministered to by this organization- and, through a providential set of circumstances (involving a motorcycle, a string of unique relationships, and God’s timing)- he will be ministering with them.

2. Honda brought the Odyssey last Wednesday! This is a van that was awarded through a grant submitted earlier this January.

3. Our stage is done. The TV is up (for multimedia during classes). The speakers are hung. The walls are painted. Everything’s a go. You’ll notice this when you come for Sozo training, equipping seminars such as the Prophetic School, etc.

4. Several of our staff participated in The WellHouse‘s Ride for Freedom. In fact, our own Heath Holifield was instrumental in organizing and pulling bikers together for this event, which rode through the Alabaster area last Saturday, raising funds for and bringing awareness to the human-trafficking situation.

5. The Prophetic School (Thursday nights) hit week #2 and is rolling strong. This week we’ll begin recording and placing the audio online at The Grace Church’s media feed / podcast. By the way, you can get the full scoop on the training here.

Related articles

• Top 5- week ending 04/06- another grant, the Indy, new stage, and more (welcometothevillage.wordpress.com)
• Top 5, week ending 04/13- Neighborhood clean-up, stage lights up / TV down, ministry training and more… (welcometothevillage.wordpress.com)

Top 5, week ending 04/13- Neighborhood clean-up, stage lights up / TV down, ministry training and more…

Here’s the top 5 for last week at The VIllage.

1. Neighborhood clean-up day with a smashing success. In fact, our Neighborhood President posted about it here on FaceBook. You can hit her up if you’re on. She’d love to hear from you, I’m sure.

2. Our stage lights went up… but our TV came down. That’s right. The electrician knocked it off the wall somewhere in the process. Good news is that we have lights on the stage now. Bad news is that we have no TV to display the words. Good news is that we’ll have a newer one courtesy of the crash coming soon. We’ll post pics of the completed stage next week.

3. We’re grateful to the people at Shades Mountain Baptist, once again, for their continued support of The Village. This past week we received another support check from them. They’ve been with us since the beginning. And, it’s times like this that remind us that we’re extremely grateful for our ministry partners.

4. The outdoor area  near the basketball court took another step forward this week with the addition of more fence, a few arbors (that will provide shade when the roof goes on). Again, this is part of a larger project that will have a basketball court and an outdoor walking path. Thus far, we’ve used recycled and donated materials on this project.

5. Prophetic ministry rolls out week #2 this Thursday. This “number,” then, is an announcement of sorts for this new class that is being run by Brannon Nix in conjunction with The Village and The Grace Church. You can learn more about times / dates on this post.

Related articles

• Top 5- week ending 04/06- another grant, the Indy, new stage, and more (welcometothevillage.wordpress.com)

Top 5- week ending 04/06- another grant, the Indy, new stage, and more

Here’s the top 5 for last week at The Village.

1. We received (another) grant from The Caring Foundation. This foundation is the charitable arm of Blue Cross /  Blue Shield of Alabama. The grant will help us continue with the basketball court, plans for a walking trail, and outdoor area… this is part of an ongoing project on our property.

2. Prophetic ministry training started this week at The Village in conjunction with The Grace Church. There’s a post about this on The Grace Church website that will give you more details on how you can join this training opportunity.

3. The stage goes in at The VIllage. For the past 15 months that Whitmore Drive has been our home (we moved in on January 1, 2012), we’ve used the cafeteria as a class room- as well as dining hall. Finally, we’ve built a small stage. That’s a pic attached to this post. We have lights coming this week- and have already updated the stage since the shot you see. This is a great tool for us and will likely make the top 5 again next week- just warning you ahead of time!

4. Honda gave us tickets to the Indy. Honda of Alabama has been a contributor / supporter of The Village for about two years, now. We’ve received a few grants from them (financial help), as well as a van that is expected to arrive any day now. This week they emailed and asked if we wanted tickets to the Indy at  Barber’s Motorsports- where they were a sponsor. Thanks, Honda!

5. We welcomed a new staff person to The Village this past week. Ralph Brier, who helped found The Grace Church, is joining the crew. You’ll hear / see more from Ralph over the next few weeks as the podcast makes its way here.