December 15, 2009 Dear Friends of Jesus Christ, It is helpful, we think, to compile this reflective assessment for 2009, which chronicles in hard number and facts, some of the work done at the Boiler Room this past year. We could not do this without you and your obedience to the Holy Spirit’s prompting to support us in prayer, finances and partnership; anything and everything good and right and true that emerges from this community is because God is who He says He is, and because He’s chosen to work through us. We are beyond grateful to Him, and to you, and we hope you’ll see evidence of fruit in this report. (For those of you with limited time, pages 22-24 of the assessment will give you a quick snapshot) We all know that numbers as well as stories can be tweaked to tell different versions of what happened, and we’ve tried to be prayerful as well as rigorous in our reflection. More hours of prayer this year, more teaching at the love feast, expanded boundaries for prayer walking, all are part of the Kingdom advancement. We hope they suggest a sense of the scale of the work that God is doing. But because this battle is not against flesh and blood, and because God is always working and moving and planting and harvesting—sometimes we get to see it with our very own eyes, and sometimes we do not. There were countless interactions and moments of real learning and clear glimpses of hell and sweet moments of shalom. How many cups of coffee did the interns pour for Dave and anyone else who stopped by to visit? And how many hours each week did the interns spend in God’s word, or cooking dinner for our neighbors, or fixing their cars, or taking kids to pick apples at an orchard? How many miles did they drive this year, taking people to the emergency room or FIA or DHS or to church? More importantly, what was talked about over those countless cups of coffee? What effect did being taken to pick apples for the first time have on Marquise? What do our neighbors think of God now? What do we? We who have been in this neighborhood for several years sense a palpable lifting this year especially, in the darkness that hangs over this area. It is lighter here. People who have lived here for a while comment on it. This is not measurable. This cannot be quantified. And. This is more trustworthy than any number, because this means that light is breaking forth here, that the darkness is less dark, and that God is on the move. This is what gets us up each morning. This is work worth doing. Thank you for doing it with us. We look forward to where God will lead us all in 2010. ::tony and jenn:: sbrassessment09.pdf2009 Assessment_files/sbrassessment09.pdfshapeimage_2_link_0