Finally Summer
An update from Eric Baldwin, Planter of River City Church in Pittsburgh
Our Launch Team meetings are underway and we are meeting on Sunday nights. Pray that God would send the right people to be on the team to help River City get started. We are grateful to partner with a Sunday school class from Pathway Evangelical Free Church of Beaver Falls, PA who will be helping to cover childcare through the summer. It’s been a huge blessing to have some local churches who are supporting what God is doing here.
We are meeting every Sunday night at a local community center to work up to the launch of River City Church this fall. We had been averaging about 15 people, but last weekend we asked for prayer that God would add to our number of people on the launch team. We saw this prayer answered when we had three brand new people show up on Sunday night! They had heard our advertisement on the radio, looked at our website, and decided to come. One of the couples is also returning this weekend and bringing a friend.
One of our big prayer requests is to have a place to meet for church on Sunday morning. Thank you for praying for us to see the building that used to be a record store. The building is in a perfect location, but it will probably be too small and too much work to get it usable for Sunday morning church services. We are continuing to pursue other routes such as meeting in one of the local schools. Pray that God would open the doors for a location for us.
Thank you to everyone who has prayed for us during our travels. We had a great time at Grace Community Church in Newton, KS, and Elliot loved flying on an airplane. We were able to learn more about their church plants and spend time with Jay Nickless, who is on staff as the church multiplication pastor. I talk every week with Jay and he has been helping me walk through the five phases of a church plant which I blogged about here. I am so thankful for this church and other churches that have come alongside of us in helping to start River City Church. To those of you who have taken part, or who will take part, in the “baby shower” for the church launch we are very grateful. It is exciting to see God move things in place to make the church possible.
Lastly, the first Swissvale Farmer’s Market was a huge success. Seven people from River City came to help pass out water bottles that had our logo on them. It went so well that we ran out of water and had to go buy more. Over the four hours we gave away 200 bottles of water and many conversations with people about our new church.
Thank you for supporting us. We appreciate you,
Eric for Leah and Elliot, too.
