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 West Central Summer Blast Days 2006

 

	West Central Summer Blast Days—A Huge Success! Our “West Central Summer Blast Days” has come and gone, and by all measurements (that matter!) it was a huge success! Last year, working with Larry Whiston & Jan Foland of the Off Broadway Family Outreach, The Parousia Network conducted a “Vacation Bible School” at the West Central Community Center. While it was good, it was thoroughly "religious" (centered around the theme of "A Day In The Life Of Jesus"). While it was well done, and several neighborhood kids attended, I walked away from that experience sensing that we were still doing "religious box" things, only in a different box. So when we began planning for this summer's activities our team agreed that we should de-emphasize the "VBS" and focus on a broader theme, namely, "Making Good Choices." Rather than using a pre-packaged VBS curriculum (which every church in town buys from the same distributor) we asked Teen-Aid of Spokane to create five daily lessons built around "Making Good Choices."  Teen-Aid is a local Christian-based abstinence education organization which writes sex-ed curriculum for use in public schools. Leanna Benn and Brian Mossey took to this project like a fish to water and did an absolutely superb job. They interspersed the lessons with testimonies by individuals who shared how their lives had been affected by good and bad choices (People like our friend Chuck Evans, who spent 20 years in and out of the prison system as a felon until God transformed his life and is now a prison chaplain. The kids loved him!). My wife, Gale, headed up a team which provided arts & crafts for the kids. And we brought in local athletes  (such as Winston Brooks & Tony Skinner, former Gonzaga players) on three days to share with the kids how good choices got them to where they are. On the days when the athletes shared we arranged for the Community Center to bring in 50+ kids from their on-going day-camp to listen in (one of our long-term goals is to build a close working relationship with the Community Center so that we can cooperate on some joint projects)! The week of daily activities was a success and even the Community Center took note of what we were doing, allowing us to hang a 4X10 foot banner about the week on their fence outside the Center (something they just don't usually do!). The week culminated in a Neighborhood Block Party on Saturday in Canon Park. On Thursday evening several of us, including Neil Gamble who came up from Oregon to help out, gathered at our home for prayer. During the prayer time the Lord delivered a prophetic word through Kitty Shipley. Kitty looked at me and said, "The Lord is about to do some amazing things in West Central, and it isn't because of you." Ouch!  Isn't it amazing how God can stick His divine pinky finger right into the sore spot of our pride and twist so it hurts!  If that wasn't enough, a few hours later at around 2 AM God placed an exclamation point at the end of His prophetic word - I came down with the nastiest case of stomach flu I have had in ages! I spent Friday on the sofa too sick and weak to do anything but watch Fred Rogers re-runs on PBS (I was too sick to turn the channel!). By Saturday morning I was "alive" and vertical, but functionally worthless. I attended the block party, ran what errands I could to help, but spent most of my time sitting in a chair, handing out flyers and watching God do miracles around me. I watched as Jesus went "net fishing" in Spokane. A net consists of many strands woven together into a single functioning unit. You can't understand this block party unless you understand that this is what God did. Jan Foland & Larry Whiston of the Off Broadway Family Outreach kicked off the Block Party by leading 40+ people on a "unity walk of love" through the West Central neighborhood on Saturday morning. The Spokane Dream Center sent their Men's Discipleship group to help with set-up, setting up tents, hauling supplies, etc. The Lord's Ranch sent men to help out. Truth Ministries (an awesome ministry to homeless street people in Spokane) sent people with Health Department food cards to run the kitchen and serve food. Another ministry sent a portable stage and sound system for the music & concert. Calvary Baptist Church sent their men's singing group (The Gospel Cavaliers) to perform. Bruce & Alice Preston from Post Falls, Idaho came and brought people from their house church to help out. Jim Helgeson came and taught kids how to do "spin art." Volunteers did face painting and helped kids with arts & crafts. Another volunteer filled balloons with helium donated by someone else. We raffled off two boxes of groceries supplied by The Women's and Children's Free Restaurant which serves meals to women in crisis (and their children). And on went the list (did I mention a bouncing castle for the kids). But the really awesome "surprise" was the response of the neighborhood.Our park permit was for a gathering of 300 people. Little did we know. Mike Zorn & his kitchen crew fired up their grills & began cooking BBQ chicken and hot dogs around noon, with a goal of starting to serve around 2:00PM. I left to meet Scoob Serious at the airport (can't have a rap concert without an artist!). I returned around 2:30. As I pulled into Canon Park I heard myself audible exclaim, "Holy Moly! We're not going to have enough food!" The park was full of people. The pictures which you can see on the website don't really do justice to what I saw in the park. By the end of the day (we stopped serving between 4:30 and 5:00) we had served 1,000 plates of food. We estimate that we served 800+ people - nearly 3 times what we originally planned for! Mid-way through the afternoon, with a food line that seemed to grow rather than shrink, I spoke to the crowd after raffling off a box of groceries. I reminded them of the story when Jesus fed 5,000 people with a couple loaves and fish. "I've looked at the crowd and I've looked at the food, and now would be a good time to start praying that God would begin multiplying some food!" I was being half-serious! But the food didn't run out until everyone who wanted something to eat were served, and all was well (OK, there was some left over, but not 12 baskets full!).  Shortly after 6:00PM Scoob Serious began his concert and did an awesome job both with music and with the story of how God delivered him from a life sentence in prison. Several hundred kids & others listened, and afterwards dozens responded to his call. At the end of the day we were exhausted. I left before clean up. I simply couldn't go any further!  But we knew that we had "hit the bulls eye". How? My wife overheard a neighborhood woman comment to a friend, "This is exactly what this neighborhood has needed for a long time." Yep, God had let us "hit the bulls eye." Our goal was not to be "religious" in the park, but to connect with the neighborhood in a meaningful way and to lay the groundwork for neighborhood transformation. It was a beginning, not an end. We have over 100 response cards to follow up on, and I am now planning a follow-up dinner in September to invited people to come, eat and talk about "Safe Houses of Hope & Prayer" (what we are calling house churches in the neighborhood).   And the River flows on . . .