Grace-period

We spent the day with our friends of Inner Metro Green this past Sunday.  This is a small missional community in Lancaster city which we stumbled across but find ourselves drawn to.  There is nothing fancy about them.  They rent the sanctuary from an existing church.  They are young and old, married and singles, men and women, black and white.  There was no band, just a single guitar.  They spend time in worship, share the Eucharist, and then a member of the community gives a message. For this first Sunday of Advent, Keith provided a message from a passage known as the Beatitudes . Blessed are the meek... What does that even mean?  My grandmother says that God cares for the ignorant and their children.  Is that what it means?  God takes care of those unable to care for themselves?  Doesn't God give us gifts to use?  I can fix.  I am a problem solver.  I am a little bossy sometimes, but I usually know the...

With a word, God could make it all better.  Does He even need to say the word?  Could He not just think it?  Yet, He stays off in the distance, at arm's length.  What does He wait for?  Doesn't He know how bad it is?  How the heart aches and the spirit pleads for peace? Being sinned against causes pain.  A decision shatters dreams.  Separation from those loved stills aches.  Trudging thru the mess can become exhausting.  Yet, He waits. If Francis Chan is right, then God wants to change me more than my circumstance.  Great.  What is He trying to do?  I thought He loved me? While I sit, moaning quietly in the still blackness, there is a Whisper, "Call her."  And I do. She suggests that I be kind to myself and even kinder to others while I am hurting.  Sounds annoying and frankly too difficult, but she loves me so I will try.  Waking the next day, still feeling the pangs...

As my husband and I continue our search for a closer church, we are amazed at the differences in the Body of Christ.  We have met stoic, solemn believers and flag waving expressive believers, integrated churches, monochromic churches.  None more Christian than another, just different in their expressions of faith.  That doesn't bother me, but as I read about the early church gatherings, I wonder if we have lost something, the sense of unity and connectedness not only with God but with each other.  They wanted to be part of each other so much that one church would send some of their communion bread to the next as a way of being present with their brothers and sisters. Well, since this week was a visitation Sunday, we checked out a different church in our area, ACTS Covenant Fellowship .  One of the coolest things about ACTS was the kids.  There were kids EVERYWHERE!  They were sometimes a little rowdy, but they were loved.  Families sa...

Blog Carnival: Community Community is getting to be a buzzword that hardly seems recognizable.  It has become permanently connected with a metrosexual worship leader at the hip church which has an outreach into some impoverished place.  But is that community? Yesterday I wrote about Facebook's social networking site.  Did you know that there are more than 300 million active users and that 50% of their active users (returned to the site in the last 30 days) log on to Facebook in any given day and that the average user has 130 friends on the site? Is that community? Do we really have a community or do we talk so much about it and request friends by the busload because we desire it intensely? We were made for community.  Creator said it was not good for that first man to be alone.  Even Creator was not alone.  We need to walk with others.  We need our village.  We need them to not only walk with us a...

This Sunday we went home to hang out with family and friends; we went to church.  The message, Real Frienship, was rooted in Proverbs 27 . George's first comment was, "What if the EFFECTIVENESS of my life is related to the QUALITY OF MY RELATIONSHIPS/FRIENDSHIPS?"   He proceeded to talking about two of the barriers to real friendships: our busy, cluttered schedules and the nature of friendship. I want to talk about how this relates to Facebook. I am an active FB'er.  But did you know that there are more than 300 million active users and that 50% of their active users (returned to the site in the last 30 days) log on to Facebook in any given day and that the average user has 130 friends on the site?  All this information was obtained from the FB site so you can check it out yourself . I have 251 friends.  Of my FB friends, my mom has the fewest with 16, but one of my friends has 1,101! One of my friends, tho he is more of an...

This dude articulates many of the reasons I stay in 12 step meetings- What Churches Can Learn from AA Meetings  by Mike Ellis Want to see God doing crazy stuff?  $30,000 in 18 hours.  by Jon Acuff Raised enough money to build a kindergarten in Vietnam. Now working on their second-while clothing a metrosexual worship leader. Clothe this metrosexual worship leader. Amazing young woman who is making a difference.  I am jealous and proud all mixed in together. the Journey Thought provoking videos- The Prosperity Gospel from The Global Conversation on Vimeo .

The Armchair QB had a bye week this past Sunday (for all you non football speaking peeps, that means I took the Sunday off and chilled). But this week, I have been thinking about "church." My husband and I have been visiting churches near us, seeking to connect more within our geographical area.  It isn't that we don't love our church.  Our church has grown us into the people we are today.  In fact, I am grieving the thought of leaving, but it is definitely nice to not be gone from 7:30am till noon every Sunday morning (Baptists, ignore my whine.  I know ya'll like to do church all day long!) My church is Hershey Free.  We fell into it.  Terry was invited by a friend and wanted to go to this church tho I had decided that was not something I needed in my life.  Despite my closedminded-ness, I went because he threw out the ultimatum: we try church, or we can just get a divorce. God showed off how crazy He was from the beginning and continues ...

Do you ever feel lost? I think it is the crummiest of feelings.  There is an awkwardness and uncertainty that just keeps you off balance.  There is a sadness and longing for those happier, more secure times.  There is a lack of visibility, a lack of clarity that causes time to creep along painfully. But then there are moments when God soothes, scooping you up, reminding you that He is there, in the midst of the fog and pain. Last night, a very dear 5 year old was telling me about where God was, "up there," while pointing emphatically to the ceiling.  Never one to miss the opportunity to play with this sweet boy, I responded with feigned surprise, "Upstairs in the bedroom?" "No, up THERE," he squirmed trying to point higher as he came out of his seat.  "Up above the attic, above the roof, above the clouds, in heaven!"  Seemingly satisfied with his explanation, he sat down.  But then, his father leaned in. "So, Brock, is God here w...

Blogging One Word at a Time...today's word is Remember Today has been a yucky day.  Maybe it is the time change messing with my sleep.  Maybe it was the full moon.  Maybe it is my hubby going back to night shift.  Maybe it is....a million other things, but I am stuck in a funk.  Somewhere between tired and sad, I find this blandness.  No use fighting anymore.  It's all uphill anyway.  Resistance is futile.  (No wait, that's the Borg.) So what is a person to do when nothing seems right and everything seems out of place? I choose to remember. I remember what is was like before...before Him...when all was black and every day was a rerun... And then I remember the process, the thawing, the recovery, the discoveries: In the midst of this unsettledness, a friend wrote to me, "God usually is up to something when there is chaos, and chaos is not crisis. We don't like chaos. We want control, but God calls us to be people of faith w...

We hung out with the Metro Green crowd this week. One of the things I really like about this community is that it seems less like "this is God's due hour for the week" and more like "this is a time we refocus on, synchronize with God and then we get back to work." I know I haven't been with them for all that long, but that is just my take. There is an authenticity that my husband and I appreciate. Today a community member, Sara, spoke on "What is Love?" This topic is as wide and vast as the human experience across time. Two things struck me tho. First, to be true, love has to hurt. This was actually a quote from Blessed Mother Teresa who probably knew a thing or two about love hurting as she served, and loved, the poor and dying in Calcutta. I think of the hurts I have felt as I loved a child, from the pain of labor to the labor to raise him, to the pain of letting him make mistakes. I think of relationships that are changing, that hurt becau...

Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? Mark 8:18 Got my bifocals today. They, thankfully, don't look like those above. That pair looks like they belonged to Ben Franklin, the inventor of the bifocal. Even with the no line progressive lenses I bought, I have to nod my head looking for the right part of the lens thru which to see the appropriate distance. It is awkward. I am not feeling it. But it did make me think about my vision, my perception of things. Do you ever think you are right? I like to be right. I like to be right a lot. Ask my husband. I will search until I am confident in the answer. I don't mind if you can PROVE to me that you are actually right, either, because that means I will be right next time. But this bifocal adventure makes me think about my own vision, my perception, my ideals. Even in art class I used to wonder about this...do you see like I see? Are the colors and shades and shapes the same thru my eyes as thru yours? Is our percep...