Our Service Schedule

Greetings from Duluth!  It’s so awesome to be a part of this.  God is letting us participate in some cool things, indeed.  Our weekly schedule starts early Sunday morning with a class where the group is learning about the Holy Spirit. We’re learning about his work in the world in general, in calling all people to salvation, and in those who are being saved specifically.  Pretty neat stuff.  Next is the Sunday worship service, which consists of singing praise to God and learning from the preaching of his word.  Jumping to Wednesday, our privilege is to gather together in the evening and let our vocal cords loose again in bringing him praise and tune our ears and our minds and hearts to learn from his word as we study the Old Testament.  Can you believe we get to do this?!  Ah, but there’s more…

Street Level – UW-Superior Update

Street Level is the college-age group, which focuses on ministering to UW-Superior in particular, meeting regularly on campus Sunday evenings, and just off campus at Big Apple Bagels every Tuesday for a meal and Bible study.  They recently had a retreat where the topic was Discipleship.  It was a great opportunity to connect with the Street Level members from Stout and River Falls, too.  Most recently, they had a super Halloween bash at the Moss residence, complete with caramel apples, pumpkin carving, and some all-out costumes to boot!

The Community Group

Community Group is a group of not-so-young-anymore 😉 servants at church who still want to do something! Thankfully, church leadership has devised a plan to keep us engaged, serving Christ, his people, and the Duluth community at large.  On a rotating basis, we do seasonally-appropriate tasty treat giveaways at different locations in the city.  Whether it be ice cream in summer or a bowl of hot chili in the fall, it’s a great way to get out and meet our neighbors near and far, and a good opportunity to make at least a few minutes of their day more enjoyable, (but hopefully a much greater impact than that).  On other Sunday afternoons, we’ll meet in someone’s house for a shared meal and video discussion, or head to a local hang-out and beat each other at board games and watch various team beat each other in a good football game.

Other Happenings

Outside of those two specific groups, the church has regular all-church workdays, some volunteers who teach monthly Sunday church to inmates in Superior’s county jail, occasional men’s and women’s Bible studies, and various other goings-on.  Did I mention that for most everything we do, there’s time before and after to hang out, eat food, laugh, pray and cry together?  Praise God that he lets us in on what he’s doing – changing us and changing the world through all these interactions, large and small.

JFB Duluth: End of Summer Wrap Up

Summer has ended, and three weeks from now there will be snow on the ground. Yikes! August was a busy month for us here in the northland. Our big events started with our church bike ride to Lester Park, stopping at the New London Café for lunch in between. Next, we had our church workday, making the church look fresh one coat of paint at a time. To wrap it up, Duluth had a great time camping with the rest of the JFB family in Danbury, WI at Camp Croix. Thanks be to God for keeping the weather nice when we needed it!

Teaching

We just finished up 1 and 2 Peter and are now moving on to the book of John, learning who God is through his son Jesus Christ. For our Wednesday night studies, we are in the book of Psalms, learning how David handles his struggles by putting his faith in God. As for our Dinner and Bible Study nights, we just finished the Great Exchange series and starting Francis Chan’s Forgotten God series.

Street Level Updates

Towards the end of August, Street Level printed 850 copies of Word on the Street with their new (used) printer! The first week of student’s coming back to school has been a great success and have met more students than we have in the past, roasting s’mores, handing out ice-cream, slacklining, and playing multiple games. For the month of September, Street Level is meeting on campus on Sundays from 5-7 pm and for the semester, meeting on Tuesday’s at Big Apple Bagels! Upcoming Street Level events include our canoe trip on the Brule River and still in the works is Open Mic Night at Big Apple Bagels.

God is on the move, and so are we! We can’t wait to see what God has in store for us next!

Recent Stuff

What’s New

Teaching

Greetings from Duluth!

It’s hard to decide where to begin with everything that’s been going on in our little fellowship up here. God has certainly stirred things up, and there’s a lot to anticipate, be thankful for, and pray for as our summer progresses. We sent our first official Duluth team to Kentucky in mid-June for a week-long building project at Bethany Christian Mission Center. In all respects, we believe the trip was successful.

Not only were we able to replace an entire foundation for a crumbling building, but the unity and camaraderie that grew amongst our group was one thing we didn’t have to leave in the mountains. Being a small church naturally provides some closer bonds, but there’s something deeper that happens when you live, work, laugh, and cry together on mission 24-7. We were encouraged by seeing the passion and work being done through Bethany, and no doubt will continue to think and pray for them in the years to come.

New Ministry Group

Upon our return, we started right into a new endeavor called “Community Group” that we’ll be doing on Sunday afternoons. This group is comprised of several people who are not involved in Street Level Ministries. The mission of the Community Group is pretty simple: go out into the Duluth community and see what God will do!

Our tentative plan is to head over to a local park, grill out, and rub shoulders with whoever we happen to meet. We’ll also set aside time to hang out a local coffee shop right down the street from church at least once a month. We may even pass out ice cream on the street corner right outside of the church building to better connect with the neighborhood right around us. The anticipation is high as we wait to see what will come of this, so please pray for God’s will to be done and for fruitful interactions with those we meet.

Fund Raising

June ended with Street Level hosting their first-ever garage sale. They held it at the church and also served breakfast and lunch to the community. Street Level is planning on taking a mission trip this spring to a ministry in David, Kentucky (about an hour from Bethany), and all proceeds from the sale are going toward this endeavor. It’s exciting to see them branching out as a ministry and being blessed in all they are doing. Please pray for the planning, preparations, and ministry involved in this upcoming trip for Street Level.

Upcoming Event

One final note: we have our 10th Anniversary Celebration coming up on Saturday, July 14th. We’re going to block off part of the street in front of the church and host a party to celebrate being planted in Duluth for 10 years. We’ve invited the community for free food and music, and we’re hoping many of you from Menomonie will come as well. Pray for people in the neighborhood and community to join us for this event, and that we as a church will be blessed in ministering to Duluth in the next 10 years as well.

Annie

Coming up

Please continue to pray for us as we are gearing up for our first domestic missions trip to Kentucky! This has been a big undertaking for JFB Duluth and God has been blessing us throughout the planning and prepping. Please pray for both the team leaving to the field as well as those of us staying behind tending to the church. This is Duluth’s inaugural trip, we’re excited but we’re also preparing for the warfare that comes along with any kingdom work such as this.

A Change

Some other pretty cool news for Duluth is that we’ve officially moved our Sunday services out of the coffeehouse and up into the sanctuary. This has been a good change for all of us. The shift in setting helps bring a new perspective and life to what had become the comfortable norm; change is good. The move has added a whole new dynamic to how worship goes as we are not using the stage. All the instruments are on the floor with the pews facing in on themselves around the front area.

It’s been great to have a tight knit, family feel with the worship and the teachings. It seems that we’ve been seeing a lot of new faces Sunday morning as we continue our study in 1 Peter. Therefore, the influx of new faces might be due to the move or perhaps because it’s finally getting warmer up here in the frigid northland; either way it’s been a blessing to us.

Coffee

Speaking of blessing, Curbside Coffee has begun as we go full swing in blessing the community. We’re giving away free coffee to commuters travelling on Wednesday mornings. It’ll be cool to see some familiar faces this summer!

On Campus

Street Level has been very active this summer even though a large portion of the students have left campus once the semester came to a close. Street Level’s latest adventures have consisted of… taking a walk. Where? We don’t know! It changes week to week as the group treks around the campus and throughout the city to predetermined, but undisclosed, locations and events. It’s been a fun ride so far and it’s exciting to see what God has in store for Street Level and all of JFB Duluth moving forward!

We’re continuing to learn how to hear the Spirit and respond to His leading. It’s been neat to see the growth that God allows us to see and be a part of, God is good. Thanks for all of your prayers!

–       Seth