This past Sunday in worship, I spoke about my visit to Shreveport, Louisiana and how inspired I was when I met Donnie Brook, an incredible woman with a heroic story. 

We were also reminded that according to a Gallup survey, Shreveport is the most "Christian" city in the United States.  Specifically, 98% of those surveyed indicated that they were Christian.  This topped every other locality in the country.

This Sunday, we are going to change gears pretty rapidly.  I am going to share my experiences on the West Coast, in San Francisco and Seattle.  In contrast to Shreveport, they are the most un-churched cities in the country.  I am looking forward to sharing some stories of two churches who have found way to do ministry in the midst of challenges that we, at the edge of the Bible belt, may struggle to comprehend.

To understand their world, I am looking forward to discussing a passage in the book of Ezekiel.  In the eleventh chapter, God promises that he "will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh"  How does God do this?  We don't necessarily have to travel to the West Coast to deal with this.  Every one of us have met folks with that heart of stone.  Sometimes we meet that heart when we look in the mirror!  As we will see, right here is God's greatest miracle; changing out our hard hearts and softening them into something that carries the hope and compassion of Jesus himself.

As we will see, there is a lot of "hardness" to the world of ministry on the West Coast.  But we will also remember that our neighbors in the West don't have a monopoly on those hard hearts.  Jesus has plenty of work to do on us.  Come join us on Sunday morning and we will talk about this some more.

See you in worship!
Pastor Pete