Every summer seems to be flying by faster than the prior. It’s hard to believe but it’s nearly half way through summer 2021! Regardless of how this summer pace has been going, we are thankful to be mask less, socialize outside our immediate household and see one another within 6 feet: what a change a year can bring. Believer’s Church Duluth has been aiming to make the most of it through our fellowship, service and Bible study opportunities.

Book Study

In June we kicked off our book study on Disciplines of a Godly Man and Disciplines of a Godly Woman. We were able to get off site and enjoy the Street Level Garage where we meet for dinner and then break off into men and women’s groups with discussion regarding the chapters we cover. Topics have included the gospel, discipline, marriage, and submission.

This past month we tried a new style of small group discussion following our viewing of the Saturate series by Jeff Vanderstelt. These evenings consist of teaching and video’s based on Vanderstelt’s book with the subtitle: “Being Disciples of Jesus in the Everyday Stuff of Life”. The new style of discussion entailed breaking off into even smaller groups with a list of questions that each participant was given the opportunity to discuss and then coming together with our groups for a large group discussion. This unique discussion style afforded a more robust discussion in smaller settings while allowing for each group to share their insights corporately.

Bible Study

We continue to march through the book of Jeremiah on Wednesday’s when we aren’t covering either Saturate or Disciplines of a Godly Man or Woman series. This past Wednesday we covered Jeremiah 33 looking particularly at God’s mercy and desire to love His people; this was particularly timely on the heels of our Romans 3 study the Sunday prior as we were reminded of God’s love and forgiveness as something we are never deserving of or able to earn but only by grace!

Additionally, we had a two week mini-series on prayer by Pastor Jesse as a break from our study through the book of Romans. We looked at both the why and how as it pertains to prayer and it’s vital importance to both our survival and joy. It was helpful to be reminded that Jesus Himself didn’t try to do life without prayer and the difference between saying prayers and praying to God.

Fellowship

Lunch and dinner are back in full swing with some wonderful tasting meals where we are able to come together enjoying our basement café space without the construction zone. The plumbing project during May and June was finally completed and our kitchen is back in order without any dust, pits, or piles of dirt to impede our space! Most recently, however, we were able to come together for 4^th of July at the Street Level garage with a game of Fishbowl, Slip ‘N Slide, and fireworks.

Service

Street Level participants have been busy during the past month doing projects at the Street Level Garage and adjacent house. Projects have consisted of painting, flooring and landscaping. Additionally, WOTS participants have been working on getting more distribution at local businesses and locations throughout the Twin Ports.

Media Ministry and Community Group are continuing to meet on a regular basis on Sunday’s. Community Group has been taking advantage of the good weather on Sunday afternoon’s and getting out to local parks to give away drinks as a means of reaching out to whomever God brings along our path that day.

Thank you for your prayers for us both as a church and individually. Please keep our upcoming rummage sale in prayer for later this month. This event is often ranked among a highlight of our year where we come together for some great fellowship, service and outreach both to our community and beyond. Please pray we’d have right hearts, good weather, and the event would draw people to the love of God.

-Matt

The human heart is extremely fickle, especially when it comes to weather. We Duluthians beg and plead and hope all year round for Summer to come, and boy did it ever. The first few days of June saw 90 degrees and those who complain when it is too cold can now be heard complaining that it’s too hot. Typical.

Soaking in the Sun

The nice weather has allowed us to get to work on a variety of outdoor missions. The covenant community camped overnight, and the following morning we cleared trees, put in a culvert, and built steps to the outhouse.

Also, Community Group brought the coffee trailer to the zoo for their Mother’s Day event. This is the second time we’ve been a vendor, and our relationship continues to build. They seem to like us and we like them. In addition, Community Group is systematically going door-to-door from one end of the city to the other with church fliers. They never know who is going to answer the door, or if they will at all, so it keeps them on their toes.

Street Level officially ended their semester and have continued to meet at the Garage for work nights and fellowship. A lot of changes are taking place on the property. We cleaned the Upper Room for visitors, and are preparing the rest of the property to be used for Street Level’s regular meetings, fellowship and events this coming fall.

Face to Face Fellowship

With the lifting of the mask mandate and social distancing, we can finally see each other’s faces and sit by one another at the same table for meals. It’s a subtle thing, but it has renewed our spirits and encouraged more authentic fellowship.

We’ve not only enjoyed seeing our own faces again but we have recently enjoyed visiting Believers’ Church Menomonie. We shut the doors of Duluth to come down on Memorial Day weekend. The cross-church fellowship takes on new meaning and significance after a year like 2020.

Prayer, Please

On Wednesdays we continue through Jeremiah and on Sundays we’re a few chapters into Romans. We are just beginning new men’s and women’s studies through Disciplines of a Godly Man and Disciplines of a Godly Woman respectively. Please pray that with all of this teaching we would both absorb and execute and not be “hearers only.”

Also, we would appreciate prayer for God to lead us individually and corporately this Summer to make the most of opportunities as they come—to take chances and be bold for His sake. Thank you for any and all prayer—we’ll do the same!

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–Kelsey

Hey! We’re still grooving along up here in the Northland! As we wrapped up the school year and the cold months, we continue to move more of our focus into summer endeavors.

Street level Adventures

We continued our weekly bible discussions and our Friday night movies this past month. On occasion, we were also privileged to meet up with the other locations. We had some digital studies/discussions and we all got to caravanned down to river falls for a day retreat. It has been awesome that we were able to get to do all that! The discussions were great with a lot to think about long after it was done. It was just so nice to spend time with those from the other locations.

Wots released another issue that we got to fold and staple together at the garage. Do you know what’s cool?! UWS had just started allowing Student orgs to set up information tables again when we were finishing up this issue! Like WHAT?!! So we were able to give students magazines on campus again!

It’s been a fun last month of the semester for Street level. To finished the year, we had a night of playing a mash-up of some social distancing games (like Pictionary and Charades).

This summer we plan to go on some different adventures together. Next week we plan to walk to a park to play frisbee golf! After an afternoon of adventures, we’ll head on back for a fire and devotional to rap up the night. In addition to once a week meetings, were planning on having a workday once a month to prepare for the fall semester. Movie nights will still continue once a month as well. 

Church Happenings

At church, we finished the Anatomy of a Christian Series and started to go through Romans on Sundays. Depending on the week you’ll find us continuing our rotation through Jeremiah, men’s/women’s studies, and Horizontal Jesus by Tony Evens. In addition to that, we also watched Free Burma Rangers. If you haven’t seen it, highly recommend it! And get this. WE GET TO SING TOGETHER AGAIN!! This month we were able to start to have that be a part of our corporate worship again. It has been such an awesome gift.

 As many of you know we had our international bingo night. The night couldn’t have been complete without some talent acts and some costumes. And you guys joined in! It was fun to see all of your comments and photos! We also started having dinners together again on Wednesdays. I can’t say it enough how nice it has been to have more opportunity to spend time together again!

In terms of outreach, every week we’re going out into the community in hopes to meet people. We’ve been primarily going door to door with information about our church and putting up posters. This past Sunday, we got the opportunity to set up the coffee trailer at the zoo for a mother’s day event. It has been a great way to get out there!

Prayer requests

We’re gearing up quite a bit this summer. As we continue to head into our summer plans of fellowship, outreach, and serving opportunities please pray that we would continue to be what it talks about in John 13:35.

Greetings to all from Duluth; spring is finally here, and it’s a beautiful 45 degrees and cloudy. Unless of course you’re in Menomonie, River Falls, or Cebu where its likely 40 degrees warmer! We have found that springtime in Duluth, though a bit dreary, makes summer all the sweeter. All jokes aside, we have had some beautiful days, great opportunities to get out and meet people, and have had a very busy month.

All About Missions

Street Level Duluth got to join up with Street Level Menomonie to drive down to Tennessee to roof a church. They drove straight through and had a full week of hard work, good fellowship, and sleeping in the church. It sounds like it was a great time to serve together and get to see what God is doing in another part of the country. They were able to get a large roof done along with a few other projects despite having some rather precarious weather. While they were hard at work in Tennessee another group from the church got to drive down to Louisiana camper-style to serve a few different churches. It was also a full week of fellowship and getting to serve others, whether we were sanding a floor, painting, siding, digging a hole, taping and mudding with a bazooka (wait, what?), or installing the worst designed door-closers ever!

I am sure both teams would agree that it was great to be able to get out and serve Jesus on a mission trip somewhere different, even in the midst of a pandemic.

However, this is never to be to the neglect of our mission here, at home, in Duluth. So, on Easter weekend we had a chance to get out and serve our community by setting up a candy giveaway tent and the mobile coffee trailer at the zoo for their annual Egg-stravaganza. I believe there were roughly 1,200 people that came to the event, all of whom walked by our tent/trailer and received information for the church, whether by flyer or word. It was a large group effort to prepare for and execute the event as the opportunity came suddenly, just weeks before the event date. The event went very well, and there could be more possibilities of setting up there for future events.

All About Service

We have continued to get into a groove with new service opportunities between community group, media ministry, and repair/rehab. The Easter outreach provided a great opportunity to see these three groups work together to put on the event. We all have a part to play, whether designing a flier, printing them, prepping the trailer, bagging candy, loading the trailer, planning the event, or handing out the candy/coffee and engaging with people. Though these ministry groups serve different purposes, it is important to remember that we are on the same mission with the same purpose. We have also been continuing our Sunday lunches and get to serve through the kitchen to ensure we have a chance to spend time together and share a meal together safely.

All About Teaching

We have still been going through the Anatomy of a Disciple Series on Sundays, continuing to learn how God, through His word, often uses body parts as an analogy of how we should be living as His disciples and as part of His church (the body of believers). On Easter, we heard an Easter message from Pastor Jesse about resurrection, and how no other event in history had as far-reaching implications as the resurrection of Christ.

We are continuing to rotate through Jeremiah, men’s and women’s studies, and “Horizontal Jesus” by Tony Evans on Wednesdays. We just finished a six-week Friday night marriage study going through the book “Sacred Marriage” by Gary Thomas. It is a really good book that looks at how your marriage should be focusing more on serving God than serving yourself or simply having a “nice and happy” life. Though our marriages should be creating happiness and joy, that is not the primary purpose of it.  

Prayer

You can continue to keep us in your prayers, we may be a small fellowship, but we have big plans to be making more of an impact in our community, and Satan does not like that. Please pray that we would stand firm in our faith, resist the devil in our thought life, and have boldness to engage with our community, neighbors, co-workers, and each other. Also, that we would do what we do because we love God and each other and want to see His will done in our lives and in the church.

Adam

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Up here in the Twin Ports, our February flew by. It came in like a lion with a mean spell of finger-freezing, face-numbing, below-zero temperatures. We’re talking more than -20 degrees below zero, for multiple days in a row (yikes!). We bundled up, muddled through and reminded each other that suffering builds character. Then, just like the sisters sang in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, “You’re about to forget the whole thing, but one day, all at once, it’s Spring!”

Sorry to start a blog post jabbering on about the weather, but it’s what we Midwesterners do best. On top of that, springtime in the North has got to be the most hopeful time of the entire year — it’s hard not to talk about! Our snow is finally melting, the birds are singing and after enduring a year of COVID-19 safety precautions, we’ve been able to be together as a church more than ever (still six feet apart, of course). Here’s what we’ve been up to.

What we’re learning

On Sundays, we’re deep into our Anatomy of a Christian series. Here’s a fun trailer we made to promote it. Throughout this month, we covered the Tongue, the Heart, the Stomach and the Lungs. They’ve all been really helpful, but my personal favorite was the sermon on the Lungs.

In the Lungs sermon, Justin talked about how the Bible describes Christians as being athletes. We’re running on a race course that we didn’t design, like an Ironman race. It’s crucial that we accept what God sends our way as a spiritual workout and let it develop the endurance in us that He intends it to. How else are we going to get the spiritual equivalent of rock-hard abs? It was a great reminder and seemed to be exactly what a lot of us needed to hear that week. I recommend giving it a listen.

On Wednesdays, we rotate between three different topics: Tony Evans’ Horizontal Jesus series, men’s and women’s groups, and the book of Jeremiah. When we split into gender-specific groups, the women are going through a series by Lauren Chandler called Steadfast Love, and the guys are going through a series that draws on the Navy Seal experience to further explore the Christian life.

How we’re getting to serve

With the start of the new year, we were able to start up a few new ways to serve on Sunday afternoons. Throughout February, we continued this and are getting more comfortable with the new schedule.

Some of us are in Community Group. These folks go out into the community, talk to people, give away treats, pass out flyers and more. Others are in Media Ministry. This group produces print materials, hones in our social media game, updates the website, makes videos and works on Burning Dog Radio. Last, but certainly not least, is our Maintenance Crew. These gentlemen fix anything that needs fixing and make sure our church building stays ship shape.

Fun and fellowshipping

Members have been able to reserve RavenFed for hangouts, which has been really helpful. This means we get to do things together indoors (remember, -20 degrees below zero outside!), knowing that everything is disinfected, safe and COVID-free. Recently, we took advantage of this perk and I learned how to play pandemic-friendly rummy with three separate decks. I did very well for a first-timer, thanks for asking.

We’ve continued serving lunch on Sundays after church. It has been nice to have the time to talk to each other without getting hangry. (That’s when you get angry because you’re so hungry, for those of you who don’t know.) We were even able to pick a sunny Sunday and go on a hike together as a church.

On the Street Level front, Monday meetings in the garage continue on. We’ve even been able to meet a few new faces. We hosted a retro video game night, and I found out that Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater is definitively not as fun as it was in the 7th grade. Also, we’ve started having Friday Movie Nights complete with pizza and popcorn in hopes that we can reach more students. Even when nobody shows up besides us, they are a great way to end a week.

Please keep praying for us

If you feel so inclined, we’d love it if you’d pray for us. Particularly for help with staying connected with each other, meeting new people in our community and enduring to the end of this pandemic well. It’s easy to get crabby and ungrateful because things aren’t ‘normal’ yet. But God is still doing very cool things and I don’t want us to miss them. 

Thanks for spending the time to catch up on what we’ve been doing!

-Claire

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Bible Studies/Teaching/Preaching:

The core of our time together as a church is teaching and preaching and Bible studies. It’s a huge part of what makes us tick. And lately, there’s been a wide variety. While Pastor Justin was guest-teaching in Menomonie early in January, Pastor Jesse taught on a Wednesday and Sunday about worship and persuasion, asking us to consider: who or what do we worship and are we compelled to share the desperately-needed truth of the gospel with those around us? A few weeks later, Pastor Tim visited from Menomonie and toured through the challenges to Christians found in Colossians 3. Routinely on Sundays, after finishing the ever-intense yet hopeful book of Revelation, Pastor Justin is turning our attention to a series of lectures on the basics of Christianity in the format of “Anatomy of a Christian.” So far, we’ve covered the Head, Mind, Ears, and Eyes and learned of our need for transplants, proper alignment, and barriers to and results of bona fide spiritual seeing and hearing. On Wednesdays, we alternate between the book of Jeremiah, men’s and women’s studies, video discussions around the Horizontal Jesus series, and shorter teachings with small group discussions.

Fellowship:

Bingo night.  After so much relative separation, we got pretty desperate and Bingo was the perfect solution!  The game itself is actually quite dry, but throw in a crowd full of twenty-to-forty-somethings dressed like elderly folk, add a nice meal of fish sticks, potato wedges and peas, and you’ve got yourself a party!  But the real party didn’t start until we decided to live stream the whole thing and invite friends.  Having people join from literally around the world was a special treat and it was a night to remember!

Sunday lunches started.  After a long break, we brought back Sunday lunches – meals that are fast to make and a snap to eat.  This allows us to linger long after the sermon, having communion, discuss with our neighbors what the sermon prompted in us, what’s going on in our lives and what God is doing through it all.

Super Bowl Party. A small group was able to gather the afternoon of the Super Bowl for a sweet time of enjoying one another’s company.  It was bring-your-own-snacks and overall a simple event, but it was a great opportunity to be together and catch up on the goings-on in each others lives.

Service:

Kitchen training.  After some at-home required reading, Matt led kitchen volunteers through the ins and outs of the “Church Lady Law” in a brief in-person meeting.  The training provided very practical help in keeping food and people safe – allowing us to serve one another and guests with the care required to make meals an enjoyable aspect of church life.

Community group and Media Ministry started.  Through posters, online presence, neighborhood events, and more, two new Duluth ministries seek to make sure the community knows we exist. Collectively, we’ve already had several meetings, including crossover between the two groups as these are intended to work hand-in-hand with each other, doing whatever we can to give the Twin Ports area the clear option to say “Yes, I’ll come to that church,” or, “No, I won’t,” rather than the recurring, “Never heard of it.”

Street Level.  A meeting with some SL Menomonie folks just before the start of the new semester rolled into in-person weekly dinners and Bible Studies at the Garage. The Garage, Street Level’s next-to-campus meeting space, was recently re-insulated. It is reportedly toasty warm now, making the space even more welcoming to guests and regulars alike. In a key aspect of both online and local ministry and advertising, the Word on the Street magazine crew has been continuing the development process and recently submitted ideas for the next issue.

Prayer Requests:

It’s exciting to move forward, but each step certainly comes with challenges. Pray for our spiritual integrity, that we wouldn’t be intimidated by what the world or the devil or our Lord sends our way.  That we’d be ready for what’s next, faithful in the not-in-public-sight elements of our lives, open to be helpful and helped by one another, and able to minister to the people around us.

-Karla

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