God has been working overtime in our lives preparing us for what it just over the horizon in Miami. There are many things in the works here that God might use to bring new life to many and we are excited about it. We will just highlight a few of the recent happenings and share how they are steps in the development of much to come!

• Urban Resurrection’s New Home!!! - As we highlighted in our last update we were able to find a great office with adequate space and a great location! We are directly across from the city basketball courts and the space allows us to have a office space, large meeting room for small groups of discipleship, a guest quarters and it even has a small kitchen for cooking classes and a bathroom with shower for guests. We have been putting the office to good use already and it has improved our working environment tremendously. It allows for more visibility to the broader neighborhood and a new level of legitimacy to our work.

• The U Rez Board of Directors! - We officially have a board now and we had our first meeting on August 2nd. It was a very full day with all of the members getting to know each other, hearing about Urban Resurrection in detail and getting down to the nitty gritty of how to make Urban Rez a better more solid organization. We now have 5 board members but are looking to expand that number to at least 7 with more community representation in the remaining slots. This step was huge for our team and really significant as it was basically the new birth of our organization! 

• U Rez Volunteers in da House!!! - We started our first annual volunteer orientation on August 5th! This six week orientation is designed for us to get to know our potential volunteers and for them to get to know the ethos of U Rez and if/how they fit into that flow. We are really excited to have 13 people coming as it will expand our ability to reach more youth for Christ and develop our organizations capability tremendously with the right mix of talents, gifts and character! At the end of the six weeks the volunteers will know if we are a good fit and so will we so please pray for this time of orientation that God would connect our hearts to the people He wants involved with U Rez and only those people. 

• VOICE & UJIMA Initiative - The VOICE aspect of our ministry has continued to move forward and our core group of community leaders on Carter Street recently decided to officially call our group the Carter Street Block Club. Our first order of business as CSBC was to start the Ujima Initiative. Ujima, meaning collective work and responsibility, is our way for empowering neighbors to help neighbors in practical ways. The first event was held last Friday night and we called it our Hurricane Preparedness Party!!! We got the whole street involved and had a BBQ at which we talked about how we can organize as street to be ready for the hurricanes when they come our way. As a result we developed a Special Needs committee who will find out who needs extra help in case of a hurricane such a those who are elderly , have small children, are home bound by physical restrictions or health, and so on. We also developed the Asset Committee whose job it is to find out what we have already in case of a hurricane like: who has generators, who has a chain saw (for cutting up fallen trees), who has safe storage places for equipment or supplies, etc. and finally we are developing a phone tree so we can make sure we connect to each other before, during and after (cell phones only) a hurricane. We are excited to see some people step up into leadership roles on this one and even more excited to see neighbors helping neighbors! That is part of  what Christian community development is about! Please pray for deeper commitment and broader reach among our neighbors and for the opportunities it will give us to share Christ with them verbally as well as showing them. It is show and tell time! 

• BEATS Kickoff!! - We are getting ready to officially Bring Eternal Arts to the Streets of the Grove on Sept 5th when BEATS has its first official open mic event! We are pumped for this and have a great line up of artists who will keep the flow going with our graffiti wall, break dancing, hip hop, and spoken word artists coming along to help get the youth excited about this event and what is to follow! Of course, the best thing about BEATS is that it will be the youth themselves who will headline and perform. They will showcase their talents as they express themselves in creative but safe ways and we in turn will be able to communicate the Gospel through the same medium of urban art! Please pray for this event, we are still in need of the funds to purchase the needed insurance and it ain’t cheap! Also pray for the youth that 1) they will come out to the event and 2) that many of them will like it and get more deeply involved and 3) that some might be shown the missing link in their lives and connect to a meaningful life with Christ!

• CCDA Annual Conference! - It is almost here! Yes, the Christian Community Development Association will be having it annual conference right here in Miami and we are stoked to have them! We pray that this will be a much needed boost to our local ministries in Miami and that a new awareness for what God is doing here will be exploded onto the scene. Our team is involved in making it happen as part of the host committee and we would love to see you here! Check out the details at www.CCDAMIAMI08.org for more information. If you, want to be involved but you cannot afford the conference fees you can volunteer a min of 10 hours during the conference and get in for only $25!!!! Just check out the VOLUNTEERS tab for more info on that. Hope to see you there!!

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