This morning, I had the privilege of spending time with the staff of Fifth Reformed Church in Grand Rapids. They allowed me to crash their staff meeting long enough to share about Tapestry and what’s going on with us. For the past few months, two elders from Fifth have taken me under their respective wings and we’ve been navigating a promising course of mutual blessing.
It was a great experience and I truly felt welcome by the staff (which doesn’t always happen with my organic church talk). Thanks to all who made it happen and participated. I truly appreciate your time and ministries.
After this, I drove back to the Ramada Plaza on 28th St. where I re-joined my friends at Thrive! When I walked up, my friend Aaron greeted me with a hug and told me that they’d just returned from the mall where they passed out propaganda (I mean cards) from the Branch (Chris and Andy, you are sell outs – ha ha). On one side of the “cards” was a reminder to set your clocks back an hour this Saturday…which is a great reminder, and also coincidentally is the same date as the UofM/MSU football game to which I implied that they set it on that date to buy MSU a little more time on the scoreboard (remember 1991)…but on the back side was times, name and directions to the Branch.
Now, I appreciate Andy and Chris’ desire to bring in more people to their community, but this really rubbed me wrong. Why can’t we just focusing on building honest, loving relationships and allowing God to draw people to Himself because they see Him in us?
Anyway, I will be back at Thrive! tomorrow morning to see Brad Fieldhouse, and try to catch up with some other friends (like you Doug).
shalom
Chad M. Farrand 