Day 4 - A Day of Growth & Service

Today we exercised the gift of serving! This morning we enjoyed studying Colossians together. Then one of the pastors of Gospel Grace,  Jonathan Albright, taught on the need to understand the culture in which you are serving and proclaiming the gospel. He did a great job, and he made it very clear that regardless of cultural differences, the message does not change. The need of all people is the gospel of grace! These workshops have been very, very helpful. The entire team has been greatly encouraged, strengthened, and equipped through these workshops! We are very grateful for the leaders of Gospel Grace and their investment in our lives.

After lunch, our team split up and we served in different venues. Six of us went to the Kopp's house and painted a detached garage, fence, and scrapped the side of their house (preparing to paint it later). There are a few pictures of this project for you to enjoy below. The rest of the group, led by Abbi Gregory, cleaned a church facility that Gospel Grace Church is using this summer. They deep cleaned this facility for over 3 hours! I will get some pictures to post tomorrow...the progress was pretty amazing! By God's grace, I believe that our teams serving the brothers out here was a great encouragement today. Again, everyone served with joy and eagerness. There was no complaining but just an eager desire to serve. It is such a joy to serve with these young men and women!

Tonight, we went up to a Mill Creek Canyon just outside of SLC. We worshiped around a campfire, had some s'mores, enjoyed one another, and heard a great sermon from Lucus Counterman from Ecclesiastes 12. He challenged us on the brevity of life and the necessity of passionately pursuing God NOW! Lucus is a dear brother. It has been a true joy to get to know him and the other brothers out here. He has an evident love for Christ, for the city, and for the students who have come here to serve. I praise God for these brothers.

The team is doing well. Each day we come back spent and ready to sleep. But each day there is a genuine desire to love Christ, to exalt Christ, to grow more in Christ, and to serve Christ tirelessly. Please continue to pray for unity, genuine love for one another, and opportunities to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. It seems like each day God is giving us opportunities to spread the gospel! The Lord is kind to hear and answer prayer, so please continue to intercede for us!

Enjoy the pictures - thank you for praying - we are eager to see what the Lord is going to do in the next few days!

Justin - for the SLC team

 Ruth & Kaitlyn Painting 

 Joel & Karis having fun together :) 

 Justin & Katy at Mill Creek Canyon

 The project at the Kopp's House

 Ben & Dan "deep cleaned" the baptistery!

 Brianna cleaned the pews

 The crazy cleaning crew! 

 Destroying a really sketchy dog house at the Kopp's house

 Lucus Counterman preaching to us at Liberty Park

The crew painting the back of a shed

Worshiping at Mill Creek Canyon...it was a might chilly :)