What is 3 months amongst friends?!

It it has been 3 months since I posted anything here...and I am ok with that. 

In honor of time, I want to tell you about our church's up coming milestone.  On September 19th, we will be 90 years old.  I know that it isn't all that old in the grand scheme of things, but to me, that is something to celebrate.  We were a church plant started in one of the fraternal social halls here in town.  Manteca was a small farming community known for its cows and butter...that is how it got its name (la mantequilla is butter in spanish).  After someone misspelled the word on a train ticket, they changed the name to the misspelling...Manteca (which means lard or fat in spanish!!)

Now we are mostly a commuter city.  There are still cows around and rows and rows of Almond trees and wine grapes...but mostly we are a city full of commuters.  My prayer for our church during this time of remembering is that while we remember the past fondly, we use our past as a springboard into the future calling God has for us.  Most of the farmers are gone, but we can make a difference in the lives of the people who spend most of their life in their cars...driving back and forth to the bay area to work.   

We were a risk taken by a handful of men and women on September 19th, 1920.  We can still take those kinds of risks, not knowing if we will be here for our 100th birthday, but knowing that the risk of extinction is worth the gains we can make for the Kingdom of God...if we will only take the risk...here and now!

Happy Birthday Northgate