Right now the manuscript is in the hands of three major Christian publishers and soon will be with a fourth. We are in the process of writing, re-writing, editing and tightening up the prose. I intend to follow this process all the way through to completion. If in the end no publisher feels that it is financially viable for them to publish, I have committed to spend the money personally to self-publish. I believe in the message more than I ever have. I have two very well-known and respected authors who have agreed to endorse The Hospital Church already and I am working toward a couple more.

Pray as we move through this process. I am convinced that it is completely in the Lord’s hands and I am just moving with Him a step at a time. If you would like more information about the book feel free to contact me at James@celebrationnet.com.

Also since the first of the year I have had contact from a church in Reno, Nevada.  I have offered to go to Reno to meet with the leadership team and help them strategize and plan how to proceed.  It is possible that I will be going up there this Spring.

I was contacted by the Director of Communications for The Willow Creek Association. They were interested in writing an article about the Hospital Church in their magazine.  Within the week I had spent a couple of hours on the phone with the writer.  The article will be coming out in mid April and will be going to 1000's of churches from all over the globe.  It is a tremendous opportunity to get the message of The Hospital Church out there.  I am so thankful to The Willow Creek Association for their interest and for their willingness to tell this story.  I pray that many more churches will be moved to investigate this kind of ministry and to learn to be equipped on how to minister more completely to their people.

November 3-4 we held our first Hospital Church Conference. Conference might be too grandiose a term.  Retreat would probably be more appropriate. Anyway, we had a tremendous week-end with the churches that attended talking about making the church a "Safe Place" for people to tell their secrets and experience emotional and spiritual healing.

Thanks to Chuck and Sally Youngman who participated in a panel discussion about the problem of sexual addiction and the need for the church to be ministering in that area.  Also, thank you so much to Joyce Gardnier and Sue Fiihr who participated in the panel discussion about the problem of sexual abuse against women and their ministry in that area at Celebration.  These are both issues that are rampant in the lives of both believers and non-believers.  The church ignores them to the detriment of God's people.  Thanks also to the worship team members from Celebration who led us in worship as well as to the group of single adults who went just to give their support and encouragement through the week-end.  All of these people traveled at their own expense and their presence made the experience more meaningful than it ever could have been without them.

Each of the churches that were there said that they wanted to go to the next step and move toward making their church a "Safe Place."  In the future, I look forward to partnering with each one of them to help and encourage them in any way possible.  There is a possibility that within the next months I will be traveling back to Oklahoma to spend time with some ministry leaders as a result of a contact made this past week-end.  We want to be "faithful with a few things" and trust that God will "give us charge over many things."