Here are scenes from:

• Sunday afternoon worship service, July 6

  Sunday afternoon the church met in regular worship with almost 50 individuals present. Several families in the church are still on vacation and thus traveling to other places. But with the public schools beginning their fall term around August 7, the vacation season will rapidly come to an end and folks will be settled in to a regular routine. Attached is the hyperlink to a photo album with some representative pictures of the worship service.

  08_07_06_Gottesdienst

  I continue to be amazed at the number of visitors that we have each week in the services. This week saw an increase of visitors who are native Germans and who have interest either in the church and / or in participating in a Protestant worship service conducted in English. I'm beginning to realize just how critical our church's internet site is for outreach. Most of these people learned about the church by going to our web site. A special word of thanks goes to Samy Rungiah, who maintains the web site for the church.

  Gradually established patterns of worship are coming into place so that everyone can have a clear sense of how the worship pattern will flow. The music is a balance of contemporary Christian choruses and traditional hymns from the Baptist Hymnal. See the attached pdf file, July 6, 2008A4.pdf, for a copy of Sunday's church bulletin. Solomon Idemudia, our music director, and I are quickly developing the ability to easily plan together the worship services so that everything is developed around a common theme. We now have a weekly choir rehearsal established at 7:00 to 8:00 pm on Friday evenings so that the members of the worship team can plan their schedules to be able to attend. Friday nights in Germany don't have the same cultural significance that they do in the U.S. We need to find a pianist who can play a keyboard instrument. This would add to the music in the services. You should hear Solomon play his African drums! It is amazing how he uses them in worship. When we move to the Nathanael Kirche the first of September, we also need to secure the help of an organist, since this church has a nice organ that can be used in the worship services.

  At that time also, the worship service will return to the old time of 2:00 to 3:30 on Sunday afternoons. This will make the schedule easier for families with children and for those who drive long distances each week to come to our church, some up to 40 to 50 miles away.

  The Wednesday evening service, 6:30 to 7:30 pm, is now established and people know to plan their schedules in order to be able to participate in this service as well. Taking a clue from NC Baptist church tradition, we have established a formal Prayer List for prayer concerns. We spend time on Wednesday evenings praying specifically for these concerns, and then also a segment of the Sunday worship service is devoted to this. Although new to some of the members, everyone has responded very enthusiastically to the church doing this. Members are encouraged to place the prayer list in their Bibles and to pray daily for the needs mentioned on the list.

  Little by little, the motto established earlier by the church and posted on our web site, " A Church that Cares," is being turned into reality, rather than just being a promotional slogan. And the excitement about the new direction for the church continues to grow and spread to others beyond the core of members who have stuck with the church through thick and thin. That bodes well for the future of IBC church Cologne!

  Sunday's Sermon: "I'm a Child of the King" based on Rom. 8:12-17

12 So then, brothers and sisters, F40 we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh — 13 for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! F41 Father!" 16 it is that very Spirit bearing witness F42 with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. (NRSV)

Prayer requests: '

1. That we can gradually reclaim most of the former members, almost a 100 people total, who have left the church over the past five or six years out of dissatisfaction with the way things were being done. A growing number have indicated interest in returning to the church once they see that the past troubles are indeed in the past and aren't going to plague the church in the coming days.
2. For Calvin and Betty Ann Hogue, the founding pastor of the church, as they finish up an interim in Stockton California and begin finalizing plans to return to Cologne to begin an interim here the first Sunday of September. God is miraculously making financial provisions to pave the way for their return until Claire and I return in January to begin as regular pastor of the church.
3. That the mission team from the Virginia Baptist Mission Board, who will be with us August 4-11, will have safe traveling and a productive week helping us create greater awareness of the IBC church throughout the Cologne Bonn metropolitan area. We have numerous outreach activities planned, along with some sight-seeing activities to introduce them to a city whose beginnings reach back in history to 57 BCE.
4. That Claire and I will be able to find an adequate apartment to live in before we return to NC on August 14. This will make things much easier to know what items to ship from NC to Germany, as well as have a place where Calvin and Betty Ann can stay during the time they are here in the fall. The apartment search gets underway in a serious fashion this week and hopefully will be finalized in no more than two weeks.
5. That the process of applying for the German Visum (visa) to live permanently in Germany will go smoothly. We will begin that process before leaving on August 14, and then have the first six months of living here beginning in January to complete it. It is a complex process involving meetings with a CPA (Steuerberater) to calculate national health insurance costs, taxes etc. along with government officials at the immigration office. Because most of our income will be derived from retirement funds earned in the US, rather than from in Germany, additional complexity is attached to the process.

During a special business meeting after the worship service Sunday, July 6, the IBC church Cologne voted unanimously to extend a call to us as pastor of the church beginning immediately. And we accepted the call by the church, feeling God's leadership to serve the congregation. We will return to NC on August 14 to finish out our final semester of teaching and to dispose of our house etc. in preparation to move to Germany at the beginning of January. During the fall, Calvin and Betty Ann Hogue will serve as interim pastor until we return in January. God's working in all of this have been overwhelming and exiting beyond words.

We hope you enjoy these pictures.

Lorin & Claire

Please note a correction to our German home telephone number; it was incorrectly listed at the beginning.

IBC - International Baptist Church Cologne  
Pastor Lorin Cranford
Postfach 800518 
D - 51005 Koeln


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