Meet the Children's Director

Ok, this is kind of old news. But it's good stuff! Amanda Peck signed on board to be our children's minister. Amanda comes to us from Cincinnati, OH where she was a Kindergarten teacher in the public school system there. She has an educator's background and is constantly looking at what we're going to do with kids through that lens...She sees children's ministry as a chance to help spiritual form our shortest church members! I'm excited to have Amanda as part of the team.
So that's the 4 of us on staff. Me, Laura Shibut (administrative genius), Aaron (creative arts genius), and Amanda (small people genius). I'm excited to move forward with these people on the team. God brought to us who we needed!

This picture of Amanda is pensive...I think. Or thoughtful...but I think she was going for pensive.

Area 10 has one more preview service in the Byrd

We're in the Byrd tomorrow (after all this rain!). Come on out. 10 A.M. It should be a good time. If you can, plan on going out with some people for lunch afterwards.

Cartwheels and Coffee gets some pub in the RTD

The Times Dispatch, the local paper ran a great article yesterday in the Metro Business section. Thanks to Louis Llovio for some fine reporting. The article mentions the church a little which is nice. There is another article for the church that is coming soon.

Perhaps the funniest line in the article is where it says that I might be a "genius".

I have now been called a "genius" and a "fixture" by local media. That's nice. I'm a genius that hangs around a lot I guess. I'm like a really smart lamppost or something. Nice.

The truth is, my wife is the genius behind Cartwheels. I really just work for her.

I am humbled as I remember this great truth: Behind every great man, is a woman rolling her eyes.

School Supplies for the kiddies

I'm amazed at God sometimes. You'd think that would get old but it really doesn't.

I'm amazed by our launch team.


This past Friday, our church (with a few more turned in today!) delivered up over 70 school bags full of school supplies to kids that need them at Fox Elementary. The principal emailed me and was thrilled. I had hoped we would get that many, but I wasn't sure we would.

One of our launch team members, Sommer, when I told her how many bags we had as of Tuesday (14!) said to me, "you need to ask the launch team again to step it up." So I did...and they did.

Over 70 bags. God is good. This is fun. Thank you to all who rose to the challenge. You are truly loving our city beyond reason.

The first practice service is a success!

Yesterday, Area 10 showed up at the Byrd Theatre for our first practice service and it was a blast.
We had volunteers helping with set up, sound, lights, children's ministry, and all that. The place, once it was all set up, looked amazing. The worship band sounded great. It was an exciting time. We had several people join us for the first time which was pretty awesome. I'm always surprised when people find us, even if we've done no advertising whatsoever, for that service.

Thanks to the launch team, who are doing the heavy lifting here to make it go. We had our share of technical glitches, but it's nothing we can't get worked out. Thanks also to Todd, from the Byrd, who helped us immensely with our setup.

We have 13 days to work on the details until we do it again. I can't wait.

Area 10 collects a ton of food!

The big food drive happened this weekend. It was incredible. On Saturday, a volunteer army walked the streets and stationed themselves at Ukrops and collected up bags of groceries.

All totaled, we delivered up just over 2000 pounds of food. 1 ton of food!

The food bank was thrilled today. It was awesome to be a part of this. Want to hear some cool stories? Check this out:

1) We planned this food drive months ago. We decided that we would go door to door to deliver fliers for the food drive. On Tuesday night August 19th, we hand delivered 4,000 fliers. We choose that date, pretty much arbitrarily.
That same day, all day long, channel 12 broadcasted from the Central Virginia Food Bank. They made a plea for people to help. So, that same night, residents of the fan and the museum district got fliers for how to help. Coincidence...maybe...but I'm just going to call that a God thing.
2) The volunteer teams that delivered the fliers and collected the food were pumped. Several of them reported back about how well it went and excited they were. Some of them, talked to residents who gave food, and who had already heard of our church at the byrd...word is getting out. That was pretty cool.
3) One lady told us at Ukrops what a great idea this was. She said by us collecting at the store, it made it so easy for her to donate.


I want to say a big thank you to a few groups. One is Velocity Church and Area 10 for handing out fliers. Second is to Journey Church for helping us collect all the food. You all were amazing and really stepped up to this thing.

And finally thank you to my fellow Richmonders who were generous with some food! In slow economic times it would be easy to stockpile, but you all stepped up and showed a love beyond reason here in the city. THANK YOU!

Disclaimer: No groceries were injured in the taking of this grocery bag picture.

The Food Drive!

We are doing a food drive this weekend. The Central Virginia Food Bank needs food and we want to help. We have an army of volunteers that are going from door to door through the museum district and the Fan (on the east west streets only!) to collect canned goods tomorrow morning. So if you live in those areas, put some canned goods on your porch by 8 a.m. tomorrow and we'll come get them and take them to the Food Bank.