And God Said "No!"

I asked God to take away my pride.
And God said "No."
He said it was not for him to take away,
but for me to give it up

I asked God to make my handicapped child whole.
And God said "No."
He said her spirit was whole,
her body was only temporary.

I asked God to grant me patience.
And God said "No."
He said patience is a by-product of tribulations.
It isn't granted, it is earned.

I asked God to give me happiness.
And God said "No."
He said he gives me blessings,
happiness is up to me.

I asked God to spare me pain.
And God said "No."
He said suffering draws you apart from worldly
cares and brings you closer to me.

I asked God to make my spirit grow.
And God said "No."
He said I must grow on my own.
But he will prune me to make me fruitful.
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life.

And God said "No."
He said I will give you life,
that you may enjoy all things.

I ask God to help me LOVE others,
as much as he loves me.
And God said, "Ah, finally you have the idea."

~Author Unknown~

When to be Cautious

4 Reasons NOT to Promote into Leadership (a talk by Steve Prokopchak, DCFI)

Be extremely cautious in promoting the one who ...

1) has major chronic issues in their life,

(long-term, habitual) drug use, financial issues, porn, lateness, undisciplined, anger, insecurity, self-focus

2) has major family issues, or

Broken relationships with parents, siblings, marriages.  Ever-counseling and never healing.

3) is not teachable. Also,

They say the right words, but at the end of the day, nothing changes.

4) be slow and purposeful in promoting someone who hasn't worked through Father issues.

Hyperclarity = Control

Faith/Understanding: You should not reduce the Kingdom to just the part you can understand. Insistence on hyperclarity = control.

10,000 Reasons

The Matt Redman song 10,000 Reasons has resonated with me before, but there is a verse in it that never shook me to the core like it did Saturday at the memorial service for my friend, Wes Carmack.

http://youtu.be/DXDGE_lRI0E?t=3m10s

Go take a listen.  Then come back.
http://youtu.be/DXDGE_lRI0E?t=3m10s







Like Wes, I do want my circles of influence to ripple outward in positive, identifiable ways.  I want my children to know that they were a priority for me, even as I pastored a church and generated income in a variety of ways. I want to have been a faithful, honorable man.

And on that day when my strength is failing . . . still my soul will sing!

Sabbath

In those days I saw people in Judah treading winepresses on the Sabbath and bringing in grain and loading it on donkeys, together with wine, grapes, figs and all other kinds of loads. And they were bringing all this into Jerusalem on the Sabbath. Therefore I warned them against selling food on that day. People from Tyre who lived in Jerusalem were bringing in fish and all kinds of merchandise and selling them in Jerusalem on the Sabbath to the people of Judah. (NIV)

In those days I saw Christians of Bend, Oregon, doing their chores and work on the Sabbath and generally keeping it busy with lots to do; full of tasks and to-do lists and sometimes their recreations also became distractions.  They were doing all this even in the holy places on the Sabbath.  Therefore I warned them about their to-do lists and productivity on that day.  People who believed in no God at all lived in Bend and engaged with all sorts of to-do's and distractions, on the Sabbath and with the Christians of Bend.

The first paragraph is from the Scriptures.  The second paragraph is pretending to be parallel, but the analogy only goes a short distance.  If it's useful to you, that's great; if you noticed that it's not 100% theologically sound, you're right.  Just dismiss it--you don't have to set me straight unless that's really how you want to spend your time.  I'd rather have a conversation about Sabbath-taking than about my attempt to apply Scripture to modern-day.

Here's what got me thinking about Sabbath rest:

In Velvet Elvis, Rob Bell writes "Sabbath is taking a day a week to remind myself that I did not make the world and that it will continue to exist without my efforts.

Sabbath is a day when my work is done, even if it isn't.
Sabbath is a day when my job is to enjoy.  Period.
Sabbath is a day when I am fully available to myself and those I love most.
Sabbath is a day when I remember that when God made the world, he saw that it was good.
Sabbath is a day when I produce nothing.
Sabbath is a day when I remind myself that I am not a machine.
Sabbath is a day when at the end of the day I say 'I didn't do anything today,' and I don't add 'and I feel so guilty.'
Sabbath is a day when my phone is turned off, I don't check my email, and you can't [reach] me."

Some of those are meaningful for me.  Some of those not so much.  I find that I am deeply impacted by the thought of being prohibited from accomplishments, productivity, and to-do lists on one day a week.

How do you Sabbath?  If you don't Sabbath at all, are you aware that Scripture talks about God really caring--that it's really important to him--that his people Sabbath?

2nd Tomato Disdain

Being honest:

My wife and I have just come off a period of fasting and we're into raw foods for a longer period.  Today I breakfasted on a puree of apples, pears, and celery, and it was DELICIOUS!  So delightful.

Then, just now, I went through the kitchen and snagged a cherry-tomato off the counter.  WOW!  What awesomeness to actually get to chew something.  Gratitude overwhelms.

Five minutes later, as I passed the kitchen from the other way, I snagged another tomato.  (here's where it gets gut-level honest)

munch-munch-munch.  scrunched-face.  "Two weeks of Raw Foods?  Why did I agree to this?"

The difference between the two tomatoes was zero.  The difference in my level of gratitude and attitude was incredible; a 180 shift into grumbling. I am the Israelites coming out of Egypt, and they are me.

Lord, help me to be first-tomato grateful in every circumstance.  Lord, help me resist second-tomato disdain.

Miss Nelson is Missing!

My Sundays are normally spent creating relationships with people.  Often we will put on a faith-building video such as the Matthew or John videos or a teaching of some sort while breakfast is happening, then we'll go meet someone who, like us, isn't in church on Sunday morning.

This morning we are visiting my parents in Spangle, and it's a Sunday morning. So we're "in church."  The pastor is gone today, and it is a pleasure to see the church taking on the responsibilities of doing church without his guidance.  "Um, I guess it's time for announcements. Did someone get asked to do the announcements?  No?  Well, are there any announcements?"

Same story with prayer requests.  The worship leader with the mic seemed entirely uncomfortable taking prayer requests, but she did a fine job.  The church organized itself into the morning's sequence with marvelously little intervention, and the missing pastor was hardly missed.  He had asked a friend to come and give the sermon, which fit just fine into the sequence of the morning.

I'm impressed. I want to create a culture that carries on when I'm missing.  Not in any very similar way to this Sunday-morning culture, but it is absolutely my goal to create a self-sustaining culture of being church SGF-style!

Friends

In the church that we came from, everybody had some idea what it meant to be in the church; it ran like a typical church and had easily identifiable roles.

SGF needs form, too; right now we're too amorphous, too go-with-the-flow.  Maybe because we're so small, maybe because we're so new, maybe because we're all friends so "leading" as if from a platform doesn't work.

When we were praying about what is needed in the way of form and roles, I felt a nudge in my spirit that I was immediately suspicious of.  It seemed pretty convenient for me: instead of being nudged to pray more, feed the hungry, concentrate on the youth, encourage more missions, the word that popped into my mind was "FRIENDSHIP."  How suspicious, how very like a false prophetic word to affirm the status quo and not call out new passion or vigor or zeal.

I said it out loud, though, and had the group test it.  Immediately the Lord provided two Scriptures:

1) "They will know you are Christians because you're friends."

The actual text says:
John 13:3 By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

and

2) " If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but am not a friend, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but I'm not friends with people, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have the friendship thing going, it profits me nothing."

(The actual text of 1 Corinthians 13 says "have not love" where I've inserted the idea of "friendship.")

What if, when this life closes and the next life begins, what if this happens: the Lord holds up next to me a checklist of Christian virtue and discipline (You know the checklist, right?  We had it in mind because we were recently rebutting together a list of Things Jesus Didn't Say, and two of them that gave us the giggles were: “"For God was so disgusted with the world that he gave his one and only Son." and "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you a checklist of things to do and not do in order to remain in God’s favor.") and finds the checklist item FRIEND--with a checkmark next to it--puts the list down, looks up, and says "Well done, good and faithful servant."

What if prayer that grows out of friendship is what counts?  And generosity.  And patience.  And hope and trust?  What if it's actually all about being friends?

Incidentally, it's not just friendship with believing, nice-looking brothers who are in the same socioeconomic status that I'm in.  It's also about befriending Samaritan untouchables--the ones who are hard to be friends with.  Loving the unlovely.

Not saying it's the final word in my understanding of faith and the proper role of church.  But it's an interesting twist.  We thought we were feeling the discomfort of formlessness, and the Lord seems to have told us that what's really important is ... being friends.



PS.  And yes, we did belt out a round of Friends are Friends Forever, as one must when talking about the subject in any length. Grin.

Embodied Beings

"We are embodied beings and not just beings in bodies"

Sir Ken Robinson wrote his book, Out of our Minds: Learning to be Creative, several years before we had our conversation last Sunday, but today I stumbled across an oh-so-pertinent section worth quoting here.

We had been reflecting on the first of the Campus Alpha videos in which the speaker advocates for a view of mankind as being triune: body, soul, and spirit.  Some of us in the room thought there was good reason to segregate our human experience into three parts, while others spoke up for a body & mind (but not a separate spirit) human experience.

Robinson describes a historical reason for how our society has got to such a place where we dismiss the spiritual and emotional aspect of our humanity:

    "In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the leading figures of the Enlightenment and of Romanticism drew clear divisions between intellect and emotion.  The Rationalists distrust feelings; the Romantics trusted little else.  In their different ways, both saw intellect and feelings as separate realms of experience that should be kept apart from each other.  The consequences of this division are still felt to this day.  They can be catastrophic and they are everywhere.
    Rationalist philosophers aimed to see through the illusions of superstition and common sense by a remorseless process of skeptical reasoning.  In the natural sciences (including physics and biology), feelings, intuition, values and beliefs were seen as dangerous distractions: the murky froth of an undisciplined mind.  David Hume, a leading light of the Enlightenment, put it bluntly:  'If we take in hand any volume of divinity . . . for instance, let us ask, does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No.  Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.' . . . If there is a force beyond logic and evidence . . . science should make no presumptions about it and take no interest in it."

10 Reasons NOT to Oppose Marriage Equality

Judgment (eating from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil) is strictly forbidden to humans.  Even when something is clearly off-limits according to the Scriptures you read, please keep your mouth closed* and let the Holy Spirit do the work He wants to do and in the order He wants to do it.  Who knows but that the Righteous Judge might render a different judgment from what you would do in His place?

Keep out of the Judge's bench.  Do not try on the robe.  Do not handle the gavel.  

*Admittedly there is a time to approach a Christian brother with a sin-concern, and to this I can only say "tread so carefully--tread so lightly--keep judgment far from you and watch your posture on that day when you do approach your brother about sin.  Oh, tread softly."

The graphic below, and the current hoopla over marriage equality, is what drove me to write about judgment above.  Is it clear to you how they're connected?  If you're going to talk to someone about an emotionally-charged issue like same-sex marriage, you must keep yourself from the black-powder of judgment or the only friends you'll have when the smoke clears will be the ones standing behind you.

I can appreciate the sense and wit of the graphic below, even if my ultimate conclusion isn't that of its creator, clearly a marriage-equality advocate.  It's worth reading and then taking careful stock of  appropriate arguments for and against defining marriage more inclusively.

"Pastor Tim Chase is a Dangerous Heretic"

H is for Heretic.  Bad cow!

I was feeling kind of left out. When I typed in "Tim Chase Heretic" on Google I didn't get any relevant results, which means I'm not famous enough to have one of the self-appointed watchdog organizations apply the H-brand to me. Yet.

CS Lewis, Bill Johnson, and Greg Boyd are some of my favorite unrepentent heretics.  I also admit to thinking highly of Tony Campolo, Ted Haggard, and Donald Miller, and--with reservation--Rob Bell.  In each of those cases I've spent some considerable time studying the accusations against them and am usually pretty alarmed at the mean-spirited videos and articles that are aimed at "bringing truth and light."  These watchdogs set out looking for dangerous heresy and found themselves in equally dangerous hysterisy. 

Then this weekend I happened to be at a church that has taken The Shack off their shelves because of accusations of heresy that have lapped up on their shores.  The Shack, heretical?  Until a month ago I hadn't re-read The Shack since my first exposure in 2008, though several times I've handed the book to friends and have recommended it on our church website: www.sgfbend.org/our-flavor.  This winter when I finally had a chance to read it a second time, I did so with a very fine-meshed theological screen.  I approached it from the standpoint of 1) knowing that it's a good and important message, but that 2) it deals with some pretty messy theological areas.  I wasn't going to burn the book if I found theological error in it (I'd already benefited too much to want to do that), but I wanted to know for myself what small error it might contain. (Remember, this is before I'd heard of accusations of heresy.)

I read it with cheese-cloth filter, alert for problematic areas.  I re-read several passages because I thought there might be a problem, but my most careful reading exonerated those passages.  To my own surprise, I had finished the The Shack and had nothing on my notepad of "problem areas."

Yesterday I read part of a heresy-rant book Burning the Shack, and I now realize that sometimes WHO wrote something is as important as WHAT he wrote.  I still feel comfortable with The Shack, in part because of the editing and writing team that collaborated on it.  I'm not at-ease with the doctrine of universal reconciliation, and I'll watch for it in any future novel I read from Paul Young and others, but this unease probably won't compel me to start a new blog called www.watchdogs4jesus.com to track my findings and alert others to slippery-slope theology.

Until yesterday I had never even thought to try a Google search for "Paul Young Heretic."  Wowie!  He is some kind of bad guy!  Curiosity.  How about the other guys we like?  Turns out that more than half of the people I've listed on SGF's "our-flavor" page are Heretics (the kind that make one capitalize the word).  The others on my list probably aren't famous enough for the brand.

Q) How do we keep ourselves safe from the deception of heretics?

A)  I'd love to know your answer to this.  I don't have a good one on me.

Q) How do we keep ourselves safe from the heresy-sniffer watchdogs?

A) Chose any one of these:

• Don't ever become famous.  
• Don't EVER admit to questioning.  
• Find the hardline Scribes of your day and only wear the colors they wear and eat in the cafes they eat in.  (Don't even think about dining with a tax collector or smiling at a prostitute!)
• Publish scathing articles about other people's heresy.  McCarthyism lives!  Publish or Perish--Scathe or be Scathed!

My dad and I were engaging this morning in a fun conversation about the heretics that we appreciate, and we decided to do some Googling to try to find a prominent Christian leader who hasn't generated a nice wad of angry heresy-accusations.  
Try it for yourself.  
Who do you follow who hasn't been blasted for heresy? 




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pretend that that was the end--that's what I wanted to say today.  I'll keep this part brief as a post-script:

Beneath the bravado of self-labeling as Heretic in the post-title, I don't want to really engage in heresy. While I believe that there are far fewer actual heretics actually doing damage to the faith than alarmists would have us think, I'm not disappointed to find that I'm still as orthodox as ever.  Here are two good litmus tests (can you affirm the articles of both?):

www.nae.net/about-us/statement-of-faith
www.lausanne.org/en/documents/lausanne-covenant

National Association of Evangelicals: Statement of Faith

• We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.

• We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

• We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.

• We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful people, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.

• We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.

• We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.

• We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Devil Hates My Kids

Last night I found my son crying in the tent-fort he'd made from his blankets.  Sometimes I ask "what makes you sad?" but this time I asked another question: "What negative phrase is looping in your brain?"

I had seen what had triggered him.  He was reading the report card and noting every area that indicated an imperfection.  Needing improvement in the "organization" department means that he's a 4th grade boy--it shouldn't mean that you put your chin on your chest and slink to your room like a beaten puppy!

So I knew what had caused him to be sad, but I also suspected that it would be something more "core" than dismay at his report card.  When he looked up at me I asked again "What negative tape is playing in your head?"

His answer stunned me.  It was almost word-for-word a negative tape that had played in my own brain for 30+ years until I did a LifeChange Weekend last September.  Did he inherit from me?  Let's break this off right now!

"It's difficult to love me."

That's my negative tape, not his, but his is very similar.  Jesus encountered me last September and helped me into a new identity.  I am no longer cursed with the mental refrain of "unlovable."  I have broken free!

Let's not have my son listen to this negative tape for 30 years and then break it off.  Let's go after it when he's a little guy.  He's just a kid.  Why does the Enemy take advantage of us when we're weak? Why attack little kids?!

There are appropriate scriptures that help answer this question.  Name one in the comments?

[If you'd like to join us for any of our Easter-week celebrations, starting next Thursday night at our house, let me know.  We'd love to include you!]

Partnering With

Being partners with something larger than yourself . . . makes you larger than yourself.

My youngest son, Daniel, scanned the newsletter from some friends of ours who foster babies* in central China.  He asked “What’s wrong with that kid?” with all the tact that 8-year-olds usually have, which is none at all.  The boy he was referring to is an orphan being cared for by our friends—in the boy’s case, he has a facial tumor that is being treated in the nearest Chinese megacity, and the article explained the cost (time and money) of treatment while asking for continued prayer for this child and the foster network.

“Who pays for [the treatment]?” Daniel asked.

“Well, the American family who wrote the newsletter does.” 

“Oh.” Silence.  “How do they get the money?”

“People give them money, and they use that money to keep living there and to help kids like the one in the picture.”

“Oh.”

I could see him pondering the costs of the procedures, the family that was dependent on supporters, the boy who would have died but for their help.  “Dad, do we give them money?”

I paused.  We don’t keep it a secret from our kids that we support people working overseas, but I hesitated because I wanted to guard against pride—to make sure I was going to tell him from the right heart.  “Yes, we do.  When we came home from China, we set up an automatic draw from our bank account so that those people would be able to count on financial support from us.  Our family is one of the reasons they’re able to stay there and help those kids.”  I found my eyes nearly tearing up and my heart singing with pride—the right kind—at being able to be partners with the work in China.  I was SO glad to be able to tell my son “We’re part of that boy’s recovery.”

Why journal about this?  I think it’s because we all need to be part of something bigger than ourselves.  If you don’t already have something that you’re contributing to that is bigger than yourself . . . I could introduce you to my friends in China, but it’s not about these particular friends or that particular work.  Do find some way to give your life away.  Partner with people who are giving their lives away.  I don’t believe Jesus was joking when he said that whoever loses his life would gain it—he knew that’s where the real life is found, in the giving away and losing.

*These friends and their network of Chinese families foster-care babies so they don’t die in Chinese orphanages.  Sometimes the babies do die, but if so they die being held in love, which is not something they cannot expect in the orphanage.  We are honored to know these amazing people and affirm the importance of what they’re doing with the life God has given them.

Saving Your Marriage--Where's Your Treasure?

Years ago in a place far away I helped convert a young man.  He and his wife had not been married very long.  They were having problems in their marriage....

So I said to the guy, "Okay, do you want to save your marriage?"

"Absolutely."

"How much?" I asked.

"It's the most important thing in the world to me."

"Then we have a chance," I said.  "Tell me about your life."

"Life is really good.  Business is booming, and I'm moving up the ladder.  I love sports and spend a lot of time playing sports with my friends," he said.

Indeed, he was a superb intercollegiate athlete; he held several records that may still be in the books for all I know. So he liked to play sports with the guys, and the plain fact of the matter is he was pretty invested in all areas of his life--but he was giving very little to his marriage.

So, given my very direct approach to marriage counseling, I said, "Okay, I think I see the problem.  Here's the problem:  Either you're a liar or Jesus is because Jesus says wherever your treasure is--wherever your investment is--that's where your heart is.  So you tell me your heart is in saving your marriage, but all of your treasure's going someplace else."

The challenge was issued and the man had to decide for himself whether he was going to go back and invest in what he said was most important to him....

Jesus says "Where's your investment?  Where's your time?  Where's your money?"

~Randy Harris, Living Jesus p111

Every Church has a Focus

Every church has a focus.  It's unrealistic to say that your church focuses on teaching the Word, AND worship, AND prayer.

Photo Credit: Majed sultan Ali

It's much more legit to say that your church worships, teaches the Word, serves the poor, but that it really focuses on prayer.  Or you acknowledge that your church prays, and worships, and teaches, but its real focus is on evangelism.  Whatever--just get it that every church does all the elements of church but generally has a primary focus.

So what is the focus at SGF?  We worship . . . sometimes with singing . . . and we promote worship events that happen around the city, but it's not a focus.  We teach the Bible . . .  occasionally . . . but mostly we subscribe to a handful of podcasts and read faith-building books and tell each other where to find good spiritual food.  We serve the poor . . . feebly . . . but it would be impossible to pretend that it's a focus.  We support missions . . . yeah, not so much as we'd like to.  So what IS the focus?

The foyer.  We're really good at the part of church where we say "Hey, how's that situation with your mom?" or "We need to connect with you--want to come for dinner sometime this week?" or "Hey, I'm feeling down--can you pray for me real quick?" and all the meaningful and meaningless chatter that happens in the church foyer.  Sure, we do all that other stuff that churches do, and Christ is at the center of all, but we're really focused on the foyer.

Passion and Intention

Did you folks steward this weekend well? It's only "your weekend" inasmuch as your car is "your car" and your finances are "your" finances. In my mind, I am simply a steward of the time and money that the Lord puts into my hands. I don't have any sense that the Lord will micromanage you--how did you use this hour/day/month? --how did you spend that money? But there will be a day when the works of our hands, the time that we spent, and the money that we invested (or hid or squandered) will be accounted for. There will be a day of "Well done, good and faithful servant."


Friday we drove home from Portland to catch RAW at Eagle Mountain. Saturday evening we had neighbors over (I invited 10 neighbors for an Asian BBQ). Four households plus the Yatomis (thanks for supporting us, Ys!) came, and we invested some time building bridges of relationship with them.

This morning I came to the coffeeshop (I'm still here but heading home soon). No cool conversations to report. But I do feel good about the intentionality of my time. This is the sort of life I want to be leading: intentional, outward-focused, Kingdom-minded. 

Do we share this passion, you and I? What are you passionate about? Is it something I can support you on--I'd love to celebrate with you!

And I hope that you'll celebrate with me that I am living (intentionally and passionately) the lifestyle that I'm called to.

Hungry?

In the natural you become hungry when you don't eat.

In the spiritual you become hungry when you DO eat.

Are you hungry?

Related questions & comments (suggest more?)

• Is it even a valid question to ask "Are you the good kind of satisfied or the bad kind of satisfied?"
• We will hunger for what we feed on! (choose your fill wisely).

The Church Inaction

Look at the church in action!  Inspiring!  Uncommon.


Look at the church's inaction.  Harder to see.  Tragically common.


It's hard to see the church inaction.  Most churches, after all, meet once or several times a week and maintain a schedule of events.  Is that the Church in Action?

Shepherd's Gate Fellowship doesn't meet all together each week, so there's no camouflage for our inaction.  If we're inactive, it's painfully obvious.  But if we're active, it's visible and strong.  It's an unintended side effect of not meeting weekly.

SGF Saturday, July 2012

July 7th is a Shepherd's Gate Fellowship Saturday.  This is open to friends and friends-of-friends of SGF, and please get back to me at sgfbend@gmail.com with a headcount if you're coming and/or bringing friends.

Theme/Venue/Time:

We're doing India on the River as our theme--you'll see why below.  We'll be down at the Deschutes at a location to be disclosed (yes, it's a surprise, and no, we haven't been there before).  From 10:30 to 3:30, roughly speaking.

Fun:

We'll rent Standup Paddleboards and bring canoes and floating islands and bocce balls and nice things to eat and drink and have fun.  We mean to do it up "right" with Karen's gala tent and streamers and tablecloths for the tables and torches and bean bags and whatnot.  Feel free to bring high expectations.

Churchy-Content:

At the river, I'll provide three printed-out prayers from the Apostle Paul.  As you move about and talk with others during the day, offer to pray one of those prayers for them, substituting their name in the appropriate places.  I'll put the printed prayers in ziplocs so that if you need to be on a standup paddleboard or kayak to pray, that's okay.

At some point I'll gather people (it's optional, but I hope you'll want to) to talk with a guest of mine about her work with Indian women who are rescuing others out of the sex trade there.  Please read ahead about the organization that she founded, The International Princess Project.  Later on I'll gather a group (also optional) to help me find what the Bible says about certain topic (and no, it's not gay-marriage).  I'll bring Bibles to share around, but if you bring your own that's all right, too.  I think this research will lead to "fruitful" discussions.

Kids:

This is an adults-only day at the river, and all our kids and the kids of our guests will be welcome to participate with our Children's Weekend Bible School, provided we give the WBS team several days' notice on how many kids to expect.  They'll be taking all the big kids to Juniper Pool and their home-base will be the Chase's house that day.  Little ones can stay at the house with adult supervision and play in the sprinklers.  We'll drop kids off an hour later than usual (10:20) at the Chases' house and return pick them up at 4:00.

Food:

The church will provide the main dishes and drinks for this day.  Everyone who comes should bring a side or dessert--though it's possible we'll be making it more organized and having an Indian food-theme to go along with the decor and whatnot.  That would be way cooler but would require someone with the vision for it to step in and organize that aspect.

~Tim and Janet

Fear itself

FDR: "So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes..."

Fear is bad.

But only if the object of your fear can do you no harm.  The more it can do you true harm, the wiser it is to fear it.

Trust isn't wise.

Trust is only as wise as the object of your trust.  The more it is trustworthy, the wiser it is to trust in it.


Do not be afraid, but trust wisely and well.