Close to decision

Once I was dreaming of planting a church, but I had plenty of dreams a friend to talk about it and a great wish to fullfill them but so far to be fullfilled, that I could only pray about them. I felt there was like a lost link between the dreams I had and the condition I was.
As I told in previous post, a pastor friend of mine could move close to my town and joined us to these dreams, but also got his church assistance and after that we started not only to pray and dream but also to pray and plan.
We have talked about planting a church in north side of Sao Paulo, we have plenty of churches here in my region, some presbiterian churches in north side of my city, but it is hard to find one that dare to have a better communication to reach souls and to dare to implement agressive vision.
And now we are planning to plant a good alternative here. In Mandaqui, a neighborhood in north side of São Paulo. Our region have few commercial and business centers but we have plenty of houses here. People live here and works in other places of our city.
After previous conversations we are foreseeing the date of February 17 to make our first meeting, we are planning to congregate in this first meeting families that once had a very close commitment to some churches but, after some sad experiences are not so like now.
Until February 17 we have 3 concerns:
- Our group: We are counting with three families for our kick off: seven adults, three children and three babies. We are also inviting more three families to attend first meetings. We are looking forward to consolidate our group from 10 to 20 people and starting some outreach events for unchurched.
- A place: Here in Brazil it is not as common to find cafes that should receive our meetings, even more when we have families with children and babies, for our first two meetings we are planning to make in my appartment and later we are searching for meeting rooms at hotels of our region.
- Our children: We have now four children with 6 years average, and the families we are inviting are also in their beggining too. For first meetings we will search for help in order to entertain our children while we consolidate our group. After, when we start outreach events we ourselves must be prepared not to entertain but to reach children also.

Well it have been very exciting days, but days which I feel so dependend on God, we need Him to be the first in all process, and for this case I ask for your prayers.
As soon as we walk ahead, I will share our news.

A good quote to start up 2006!

With this new year I started to read "Leadership wisdom from unlikely voices", a very nice book for emergent leaders, so far I have liked very much. Dave Flemming have collected many good quotes and I would like to share one here:

"It is far easier, though not very easy, to develop and preserve a spiritual outlook on life, than it is to make our everyday actions harmonise with that spiritual outlook. That means trying to see things, persons and choices from the angle of eternity; and dealing with tem as part of the material in which the spirit works" (Evelyn Underhill)

Actually I don't think to develop a spiritual outlook on life easy, for me, seeing things from the angle of eternity is a real challenge to me. I believe that our great spiritual conquests have this condition behind.
Anyway that is a great challenge for me this year.