April 2008

Hello Friends!

OUR TEAM IN ACTION
This month, we saw our team shift into high gear. All of us were working with God’s grace and enablement! Roy lead the Grace-in-Motion teams that rocked 2 worlds simultaneously early in March as a record turnout made a powerful impact. Tim, our trumpet player, saw God break-though at his workplace, Alta Mesa Middle School. They heard the good report from last month’s effort on the Bella Vista campus and summoned us to do an assembly on their campus mid-April and a Night of Worship to boot! The weR1 Band continues to sacrifice countless hours to facilitate Faith Going Public as the Lord opens many doors for us to minister. (More on that later.) Laurie, Eric, Deni, Derek, JoAnne, Karen and myself all wrote articles for the Track Record which is due out in 2 weeks. Natalia and Hellen are getting the Prayer Tent wheels spinning as the May 1-10 prayer week ramps up. Derek is running the 8 week DVD course, ‘Tracking with Transformation’ at his workplace and reports that people are embracing the Kingdom mindset of filling the city with the presence of God! Laurie is deepening our connection with those who want to impact education by meeting personally with them and helping them unpack their identity and nurture creative, new ideas. Deanna, Kenn and Grant are getting The TODAYCARD.NET site functioning (over 4000 cards were requested this month alone!). Tyler is revamping the ReddingTransformation.com and WER1NET.net sites, getting them ready for thousands of ‘hits’ as people register for the GRID this month. Karen has never worked harder, coordinating tons of details, like the development of the GRID, the editing and assembling of the Track Record and polishing letters like this one. Unfortunately only enough money came in to cover half her salary, and 60% of mine, so pray for provision. As you can see, this has been ONE AMAZING MONTH! Your prayers and actions have gone from creating innocent ripples to generating some mighty tidal waves of GRACE!

TOUCHING 20 PASTORS WHO LEAD 10,000
My game-plan this month was to spend time connecting one-on-one with pastors and leaders. Since the GRID of the city is slated to launch mid-April along with the Track Record quarterly, it is imperative that they see this work as an “US” thing, rather than a “Redding Transformation” thing. Why? Because this project has the potential to release and empower thousands of believers citywide in connected prayer and action. Each of the 144 miles that comprises Redding can be actively reached on an ongoing basis! It also has a grace on it to provide prototype-inspiration in other communities. The Body of Christ in our area will see itself differently starting this month as a new system of ‘seeing to it no one misses the grace of God’ is established. The stories will be publicly declared as many water, plant and reap all over town. The GRID provides the visual-aid/practical-piece, the Track Record shares developing stories, the pastors encourage and commission, the saints do the work of the ministry together!

By the time this reaches you, I will have met with 17 pastors who shepherd 7000+ local, ‘mobilizable’ Kingdom warriors. The response has been enthusiastic as we talk about building up the GRID together with their people dotting the map. This project is WAY beyond what I could hope to do alone – or even what they could try to accomplish with their congregation alone.

MEN OF PEACE OPENING UP PLACES OF MINISTRY
The invites are rolling in for us to speak, play music, lead, join and transform all over the place now. Our team presented 2 hours of practical ideas to pastors who came from various places throughout the US, Mexico and Australia at Bethel’s School of Transformation this month. I was pleased to accept an invitation to emcee the CareNet banquet (in May) with Kris Valloton keynoting and close to 1000 area leaders attending in Red Bluff and Redding. Trinity Alliance Church had us share on a Sunday March 16th, and we have accepted the invitation to lead worship at Westside Church for the month of April. A church in Anderson wants us to come speak on May 18 and leaders from the CHURCH in Red Bluff are connecting with us this week in preparation for a citywide season of prayer down there mid April. (Let’s stand with them as they contend for transformation and spiritual breakthrough there.) The Fairgrounds has summoned us to play the Pepsi stage, Friday June 13 at 9pm for their larger weekend crowd, and the 4th of July FREEDOM FEST organizers are “delighted” to have us return to play at their event - our city’s largest community event!

SEEING THE NEW DAY
I was so encouraged to witness with my own eyes the local Body truly going public around town this month, all on their own! Four years ago it wasn’t like this, but THIS IS TRULY A NEW DAY! Shasta Lake City ran their OWN prayer tent season during the week of Easter with fabulous results. Hope Baptist held a street-level festival with live praise, the Bridge Church had 500 show up for a helicopter drop of 10,000 eggs resulting in many contacts to lovingly follow up. The River Fellowship gathered by the Sundial Bridge on Easter Sunday and filled the air with music and sharing! All these events and many more were held outside of church walls and in the midst of the people.

COME JOIN IN!

April 11, Alta Mesa School, Fundraiser Dinner 6 pm, NIGHT OF WORSHIP 7 pm.
April 18, OPEN AIR WORSHIP CONCERT during Kool April cruise, 6pm Trinity Lutheran on Hilltop
SATUR’08 week of prayer, May 1-10.
• National Day of Prayer at City Hall: noon, May 1 & 7 pm, April 30 with WeR1Band
• Celebrate Recovery Night of Worship with WeR1Band (May 2, Neighborhood Church of Redding)
• Prayer Tents (May 6, 7, 8) on the streets around the region
• A “single-mom” focused Grace-in-Motion day (May 10, 9 am-1 pm)
• Downtown fest (May 10 north plaza, downtown mall) with testimonies and worship on the streets (Details soon at www.weR1.net and reddingtransformation.com)
Also, every Thursday 12-1pm, Redding Library, Prayer for the Region

The momentum is building, the picture is becoming more and more clear to everyone. Action plans and new structures are being built on a firm foundation laid in prayer over the years. New doors open daily. Pastors are praying together and I’ve run out of room here to share about the 9 marketplace contacts made with people like our DA and Superintendent of Schools this month. Believe me, it’s all good!

Natalia and I praise God for the high points and tough parts of this month. We continue to grow in learning the walk of faith. This month we celebrated an anniversary - a “sweet 16” years of marriage! God is good & faithful always.

Blossoming,
Jon & Natalia Thompson

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