looking back and ahead

I just came in from walking some friends out to the gate (after a lovely evening of "Idol Gives Back" and some homemade tangelo sorbet), and the two guys hanging out next door yelled over that our place is looking nice.  We should have more like ours on the block, they said.

All of which I interpreted as a way of saying that it's nice to live in a neighborhood where people invest in making it a beautiful, delightful, life-giving place.  There's a new billboard on the corner about the pain caused by gun violence, which reminds us also of the pain already caused by murders on our block.  

So, I feel like tonight is a good time to celebrate our house.  As a sign of hopefulness for more beautiful things that might be cultivated in the community.  Check out how far we've come since we moved in:

I've been excited about real progress we're making toward opening a coffeehouse in the neighborhood--a place for our church to practice hospitality, and for community to gather around tasty, hot beverages.  Tomorrow, we're going to embark on our first real look at some real estate.   Kinda cool to think how things might just grow, as we seek to figure out what non-traditional presence of "church" might be most needed and useful in this crazy, diverse community.

It's good to be here.