08-10-2006
Dear friends and family,
Family
The children have been out of school now for about 5 weeks and things have changed quite a bit around our house. Naíme and I both had a routine that worked around the kids’ school day, but that has become a thing of the past. The solution we have come up with to keep these energetic children busy while preserving mom’s sanity is to homeschool them during this summer. Naíme took the initiative to buy some summer workbooks that our local public school recommends and she has been using them with the boys to keep them mentally active this summer. This has been a great experience so far and we look forward to keeping it up until mid-September when school starts up again.
We are also trying to spend more time this summer focusing on character issues. Since the boys are at home all day during the summer months it gives us increased opportunities to both recognize and work on some of their weaknesses.
We came back two weeks ago from Mallorca after a two-week vacation. You may remember that about two months ago I was the guest speaker at a family retreat of one of the churches from Palma – the church where David Barceló grew up. A family there offered their house, pool and car for us while they went out of town to enjoy their vacation. With little money we were able to enjoy ourselves and get to know this little Spanish island. Stephen preached at the church in Palma three times, and we were blessed by the brothers and sisters there.
Church
We our general assembly this past June… and it was a lively meeting. As I am somewhat unaccustomed to these meetings in which people intervene and speak their minds freely, I was caught off guard at times. There were some awkward moments as things were brought up that we did not foresee as pastors. Nonetheless, the Lord gave us grace and I believe that the meeting generally speaking was a success.
One of the things we were able to do in that meeting was to approve 2 deacons for office. This was a challenging process for different reasons, but we are thankful to the Lord for Toni Massons and Bladi Díaz who will be serving the church as its first deacons. We pray that the Lord would help them establish the deacon ministry in our church and that soon we would be able to recognize others to work along side them.
Another important result of the general assembly is that we passed our new church constitution which holds to an elder rule with church consent form of government. This represents an important change with reference to our original constitution which placed the governing responsibility on the whole congregation with the pastor being more of an administrator/teacher without any governing authority. Another change along similar lines is a change from the single-pastor model to a plurality of pastors. This is already a reality in our church as Matt Leighton and I share the pastoral ministry, but now this principle is reflected in our church constitution.
Please continue to pray that the Lord would give us greater unity as a church. The diversity of backgrounds and theological convictions continues to be a challenge. However, we are comforted to know that God is knows what He is doing as he brings people together into the membership of a local congregation. No one is here by accident—not even the pastors.
We love you all dearly,
The Phillips family
Dear friends and family,
Family
The children have been out of school now for about 5 weeks and things have changed quite a bit around our house. Naíme and I both had a routine that worked around the kids’ school day, but that has become a thing of the past. The solution we have come up with to keep these energetic children busy while preserving mom’s sanity is to homeschool them during this summer. Naíme took the initiative to buy some summer workbooks that our local public school recommends and she has been using them with the boys to keep them mentally active this summer. This has been a great experience so far and we look forward to keeping it up until mid-September when school starts up again.
We are also trying to spend more time this summer focusing on character issues. Since the boys are at home all day during the summer months it gives us increased opportunities to both recognize and work on some of their weaknesses.
We came back two weeks ago from Mallorca after a two-week vacation. You may remember that about two months ago I was the guest speaker at a family retreat of one of the churches from Palma – the church where David Barceló grew up. A family there offered their house, pool and car for us while they went out of town to enjoy their vacation. With little money we were able to enjoy ourselves and get to know this little Spanish island. Stephen preached at the church in Palma three times, and we were blessed by the brothers and sisters there.
Church
We our general assembly this past June… and it was a lively meeting. As I am somewhat unaccustomed to these meetings in which people intervene and speak their minds freely, I was caught off guard at times. There were some awkward moments as things were brought up that we did not foresee as pastors. Nonetheless, the Lord gave us grace and I believe that the meeting generally speaking was a success.
One of the things we were able to do in that meeting was to approve 2 deacons for office. This was a challenging process for different reasons, but we are thankful to the Lord for Toni Massons and Bladi Díaz who will be serving the church as its first deacons. We pray that the Lord would help them establish the deacon ministry in our church and that soon we would be able to recognize others to work along side them.
Another important result of the general assembly is that we passed our new church constitution which holds to an elder rule with church consent form of government. This represents an important change with reference to our original constitution which placed the governing responsibility on the whole congregation with the pastor being more of an administrator/teacher without any governing authority. Another change along similar lines is a change from the single-pastor model to a plurality of pastors. This is already a reality in our church as Matt Leighton and I share the pastoral ministry, but now this principle is reflected in our church constitution.
Please continue to pray that the Lord would give us greater unity as a church. The diversity of backgrounds and theological convictions continues to be a challenge. However, we are comforted to know that God is knows what He is doing as he brings people together into the membership of a local congregation. No one is here by accident—not even the pastors.
We love you all dearly,
The Phillips family
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