Feeding Time!

We started our Advent Bible Study last night, and if my counting is correct, there were 19 of us there. I was happy to see more than 12, but with a Sunday attendance number of 140, you would think a few more would have showed up.  The real bummer is this is Advent! Let's look forward to the coming of the King together!!

This got me to thinking about the purse party I had on Monday. I know it sounds strange, but stick with me and see where I'm going before you call me crazy and click onto something else. I sent out an email to 30 people, had the event posted on Facebook, made phone calls, and sent out 25 postcard reminders. Had about 35 people coming until the day of the party got here. Slowly, through out the day, the calls started coming in. I ended up with 7 people that night. We had a nice time and I was tickled that they showed up, but my point goes a little deeper than that.

As a church, we expect the Pastor to feed us. This is Biblical (John 21) and it's their job. It's also their job to make disciples of Jesus Christ! Tell me how that can be done if you are showing up once a week and expecting your tank to get filled, and last you for the week, on I might add, a 15 minute feeding? We are setting ourselves up to die from malnutrition!

The problem is not what we are getting fed on Sunday, it's what we are feeding ourselves Monday through Saturday! The sheep have their job to do too you know! It's our responsibility to eat! Anyone who lives on milk, still being an infant, is not acquainted with the teachings about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish between good and evil. Heb. 5:13-14

Here's the deal: It's the Pastor's job to serve up Word, hot and fresh every Sunday! It's also their job to ensure that there are other feedings going on during the week to feed us hungry sheep!

Sheep of the church, it's our job, right, and responsibility to eat. If we refuse to study, apply it, pray some during the week, join a small group and dig deeper with others, theres not much the Pastor can do for us!

So when we talk to your fellow sheep, and hear things like I'm not getting fed, and we know there are feedings going on during the week, cuz we're at them, and don't see them. We might want to remind them that drinking milk is fine while your an infant, but if you want to mature in your faith, you have to train yourself and start eating the meat that's being offered.

Just my thoughts from this side of the street!

There is Room!

Church was eye opening for folks this Sunday. I know this because I heard them talking about it afterwards. Preacher man is talking about the 5 requirements of being a member of the UM church. Yesterday he talked about being present, we promise to come to church, support it with our presence. So towards the end of the sermon, he asked one side of the church to get up, and move to the other side. This left one side empty. Preacher man said, See, there's plenty of room for more! 


We can't just sit around and wait for people to come to church. We have the attitude that they see the sign out front, if they want to know more, they'll come in. I think you can see by this example, No, they will not just come in. It's part of our job, as members of the church, to ask people to come with us. Not just show up at church, but to bring them and to sit with them, and to show them around.

Now, Preacher man explained that there had been times before he was Preacher man and he was just dude, that he had asked people to church with him only to have the Preacher do something really off the wall and dude sat there embarrassed. He said he wouldn't do something off the wall, but having everyone to one side of the church is border line, I think.

The point is this friends, our churches are dying! People aren't coming cuz they feel compelled to be there. They need to be asked! Look at it this way, when we don't ask people to come to church, we are denying the Good News! We aren't letting the Gospel be heard! It's like saying Jesus, I love you and all, but I don't want to force someone to hear that you love them, and died for them, and that they are your beloved! What is that about? It's our job as Christian's, to get out there and make a difference. Jesus is the only thing that can make a difference, I promise you that! So what are we waiting on? To feel comfortable about it? Get over it and get out there and find someone that doesn't have a church home and ask them to come with you to church on Sunday! What's the worse thing that could happen? Beside Preacher man doing something off the wall?

  

Salt & Light

I was reading a blog this morning by James Emery White and he had some really great points that I wish I had thought of first! I have been thinking, reading and praying about the  "culture wars". We have always been in culture wars, the folks who have forgotten that or haven't yet learned it in history need to do some research and see for themselves. I understand that you are tired of the talk about same sex marriage and how you feel that NC is now an evil state because of the way they voted against it. I'm tired of hearing how I'm the problem and I read a Bible that's out of touch with the way we live now! Adam Hamilton may be the pastor of the largest UM church in the US, but he does not speak for me! Also, the "Christian's" that yell and scream, "Your infringing on my rights" need to learn something about grace. Yelling at people has never won much that I can think of.    


THIS is where you can read White's blog. I'm going to just comment on it and say that dang, this guy is good and I happen to believe in what he's preaching. We, as Christian's, are called to be salt and light. Not acid and bulldozers! I like what White says about salt being important to keep meat from going bad. The meat (being the culture) is going to go bad, if not eaten, that's what happens. So the church is full of salt and it is to be used to arrest, stop, halt, social decay! That can't happen if the salt stays in the shaker. We have to penetrate the culture, which means we have to have a stance, understand why we believe what we do and get out there.


The other point I really like is that Jesus was offensive! I love that! He offended everybody, all the time! There are tons of preacher's out there that are wanting the lime light, they want to be seen as hip and popular. They stand on the fence, don't say enough about anything controversial, and have taught people to say, "Who am I to judge!" (Preacher man should blog about that topic!) The bottom line is Jesus dying on a cross for everybody's sin! He didn't just die to die! It was because of sin. Jesus took a stance, said what was true, refused to bring in the big guns that he had at his disposal, and he died an awful death! FOR SIN!  


Our goal is to remove every barrier that exists between such persons and their acceptance of the scandal of the cross…except the scandal of the cross!


Sin is the same today as it's always been. It hasn't changed because we have become this new smarter generation of people. We are still called to be salt and light, not acid and bulldozers or pansies and yes-men! 

Impressed!

It's not that I'm easily impressed or that you have to walk on water to actually get a rise out of me. What I will say is that I've heard more preachen' than most folks my age and with my sorted background, which means I listen, check facts and passages to ensure what your telling me in the truth. You know by now that I call a cow, a cow and frankly don't care if it upset's the powers that be, cuz I'm taken my orders from a higher authority. 


I've shared with you that my three top spiritual gifts are prophecy, exhortation and shepherding, in that order. Persons gifted in the area of prophecy have the ability to proclaim God's truth without compromise.    


Now, that being said, I've been impressed! I am so impressed that I'm going to copy and paste Dr. Timothy Tennent's, President of Asbury Theological Seminary, blog right here on my blog. What he has to say is simple and to the point and it's something that our churches need to heed: Please welcome to the blog Dr. Tennent...

Auld Lang Syne and 2012: The Year of the Prophet?

In what has got to be one of the cruelest twists of history, Robert Burns (The great bard of Scotland) was the author of some of the most powerful and thoughtful poetry ever written by a common pen (To a Mouse; A Man’s a Man for a’ That;  Scots Wha Hae, etc…).  Yet, the one poem he is most known for is his very forgettable song, Auld Lang Synewhich is often sung at the turn of the New Year by highly inebriated people.  It is likely Burns actually took an old poem by the same name and merely re-worked it a bit, since it lacks his usual poetical power. The phrase “Auld Lang Syne” is a Scots phrase meaning, “old long since.”  I recall this phrase because it does call us to remember – and that is the theme of this blog entry.  Indeed, this is my deepest prayer for the church of Jesus Christ in 2012.

Walter Bruggemann, the Old Testament scholar, observes that the main function of a prophet is to awaken the spiritual memories of the people of God.  The church in the West is plagued by spiritual amnesia which has cast us into a perpetual state of forgetfulness.  I sat in a Christmas Eve service this year in a United Methodist church in Maryland where the pastor had clearly forgotten the Gospel (no difference between believing in Jesus Christ and believing in Santa Claus, the pastor cheerfully declared, because it is not about ‘facts’ and ‘history’ but about child-like faith and believing!). Perhaps you’ve had a few experiences like this as well.  I sometimes leave church filled with joy and the memory of God’s mighty deeds.  Sometimes I leave church angry and upset.  Why the difference?  It has nothing to do with the style of the service (contemporary or traditional, modern or liturgical).  It comes down to the capacity of the pastor and leadership to invoke the memory of God’s mighty acts and apply that to our lives today.  Today, at almost every turn we meet Christians who have forgotten.  We forget the apostolic message, we forget our beginnings in God and we forget our final destiny in the New Creation.

The value of recollection – of remembering the “old long since” -  is crucial to the life of the church.  It is surely one of the great challenges for men and women preparing for full time ministry.  How do you awaken the spiritual memories of the people of God?   It is the church which must remember God’s mighty deeds (See Psalm 77 for a great example of this).  I think Bruggemann is pointing out to us that this kind of renewal cannot happen without the re-kindling  of the prophetic gifts.  The pastoral calling will always be central to the life of ministry.  But we desperately need a generation of prophets.  We need men and women bold enough to remember and to call the church to remember.  In so doing, they will touch on the moral nerve of the Old Faith.  We need that prophetic capacity which is the dogged refusal to forget.  A little more prophetic courage is not only good for the church – but it helps the world to see that we really are different.  We are not mere peddlers of religious commodities, we are bearers of God’s word and mediators of his divine presence.  I don’t know about you, but I’m praying that 2012 be the year of the prophet.

To that I say AMEN and Amen! 

Dr Fred!

I do believe that Dr. Fred has done it again! I read his blog on why mainline church giving is down and I think he hit the nail on the head yet again! He mentions that giving to charitable organizations is up over this past year, yet giving to the church is down. Is it because there are organizations that do a better job at doing what the church was called to do? For example, I will use my time running the soup kitchen. We did a better job at feeding the hungry than the church did, however we were supported by the church and 98% of my volunteers were church goers. Did I try and take the giving dollars from the church? No, but I told the churches and their people that I was doing what the church was called to do, so support me! They did and as far as I know they still do. 

But tithing is something you really don't hear a lot about in the church anymore and I want to know why not. One of the coolest things to ever happen to Preacher man and I was when he started really tithing. We really couldn't afford it, with his business being so new and me just starting to work for the broke soup kitchen. Something that Rev. Rick said, seemed to have gotten into the core of my husband and it wasn't letting go. Rick said to test God on it. He also said, if you weren't tithing, you were stealing from God. Ouch!

This time of year is dedicated to what the mainline church calls "Stewardship". They sorta ask for pledges without really telling you why you should give. There is no meat to chew on or anything to prompted us to even think about giving. No one is telling us the blessings that happen when you give, or how God changes you and really starts rocking your world when you trust in Him. I'm pretty sure it says a tithe, a tenth of your income!

How much do you tip your server when you go out to eat? How much doyou blow on Starbucks cuz you can't make coffee? How much are you going to spend on useless gifts this Christmas? Check out what Dr Fred says and see if you agree!

http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Minting-the-Mainline-Frederick-Schmidt-11-14-2011.html#.TsLUHULkV4g.blogger 

Material Stuff!

You know I am all about sharing stuff that pokes me in the eye, so today is no exception to that rule!


Then he told them a parable: "The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, 'What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?' Then he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and then I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.   Luke 12:16-21


Is this not one of the most boring stories ever? It all about the farmer and what he has, how great his crop is, what he has done, and the good time he is going to have. Did you see it? But God... I was glad to see that God spoke to break through this false security of this rich farmers plan.


I believe this story teaches us a lesson on God's response to our attitude towards material possessions. It warns us not to place our security in them. In our day and time, so much of who we are is identified with what we have. We spend our entire lives and a ton of energy in a frantic pursuit of it. It causes stress related illnesses also known as burn out. It also causes us to become fixated on the self. Maybe it's telling us more.


Maybe we are being alerted to the reality that our judgment is taking place now. Within our own hearts we are being judged by the Holy Spirit. Bergan and Schwan say The judgement is tragic if we are guilty of neglecting and closing ourselves off to the kingdom that is already present within us and totally accessible at every moment. 


The greatest sadness is not death; it is to have missed life.


Consider these things for yourself:
- What is it that I gather - riches, degrees, prestige?
- What have I built to house my "treasures" - roles, positions, buildings?
- What have I stored up as my security for the future - reputation, wealth, power, relationships?


Mine has changed through the years, it had to. Yet, I still have gathered. I am storing up a false sense of security, but it's not as bad as it use to be. To God be the glory!

Shortcuts

The Perfect Reader (aka Asbury Reader) covers Matthew 7:13-23 and they are using the Message. I want to share this with you, not in it's entirety, but at least some of what jumped out at me.


Don't look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don't fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. The way to life - to God - is vigorous and requires total attention.  
Be wary of false preachers who smile a lot, dripping with practiced sincerity. Chances are they are out to rip you off some way or other. Don't be impressed with charisma; look for character. Who preachers are is the main thing, not what they say...


What comes to mind for me is the easy stuff in life that we think get's us closer to God. Sitting in church on Sunday doesn't make you a Christian (or get you closer to God) anymore than sitting in your garage makes you a car. I am sure I will use that until the day I die! But think about it, did you get through school in 15 minutes a day? Does showing up in a kitchen make you a great cook? If you stand beside someone with great hair, will you have great hair too? If you answered yes to any of these, you need to stop reading this blog and call someone, heck call me, I need to hear about this! 


When I got serious about seeking God, I had to get real about a lot things I was doing that were shortcuts. One of the shortcuts I was dependent on was a study Bible. Now, there is a time for study Bibles, so don't send me comments about how much you love your study Bible and won't give it up! The Disciples Bible Studies are a perfect place for these Bibles. They give you maps, pictures and commentaries. Which is where I want to stand for a minute. 
Commentary = someones thoughts on the subject...someone other than you... = shortcut! When you read scripture, things will jump out at you. When that happens, you need to sit with it for a while and ask the Holy Spirit, What's up with this part of scripture jumping out at me? Then just listen and see what happens. Here is where the problem begins, we have to listen and we have to be still...and know that God is God and you are not. 


I decided I really didn't care what the commentaries were telling me, cuz that's not why I was in the Bible. I was in there to find out what God had to say to me. The Bible is the Living Word of God, people! That means He wants to talk to you, personally, without all the shortcuts. However, if you want to hang on to your shortcuts, God will let you. He will also let you sit in the garage making engine noises with your mouth! But you will still not be a car!!!   

Hope

One of the really cool things about going to seminary besides what you learn and who you meet has got to be The Reader! For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, I will explain. For those of you that know what the reader is, you may skip to the next paragraph. The Reader is something that JD Walt, along with scads of other crones, puts out every semester so that we can read scripture together. There is something so powerful and moving when the body of Christ reads the word of God together. Not like you see in some churches, where you recite what's written on the big board in front of you. More of, this is what we're reading, read it sometime today, ponder these things and be blessed.


This semester they have decided to spend sometime with Matthew, today was Matthew 4:1-11. This is when Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert. I love this scripture, mainly cuz this is when I see that Jesus is tempted and by the Word put's the tempter in his place. It gives me reason to believe that if Jesus shows me how to do something, by golly, I can do it! As The Reader puts it This Word in not a spelled-out Word; it is a lived-out Word. God's method is a Man. Jesus is God speaking to the man in the street. He is God meeting me in my environment, a human environment. He is God showing his character in the place where our charters are formed. He is the human life of God. Is that not the richest thing you have heard today? It is for me.   



God came down to be with us in Jesus. It's that simple and that complex. To me, this story shows me hope. It shows me that God wants to be with us and to help us. Does that mean that satan is going to leave us along? You can bet your bottom dollar it does not! If it means anything, he's going to come after you harder and stronger. That's how I judge if I'm in the middle of God's will, cuz all hell is coming after me! 


Hope; to believe, desire or trust. It's something that is hard to come by anymore. A lot of people don't have much to hope for. In this day and time, when they can tell preachers there will be no prayers at ground zero on 9/11, where is the hope? When they tell us the mosque at ground zero shows tolerance on our part, where is the hope? When they throw that word at us, tolerance, where is the hope.


I tell you what friends, my hope is in Jesus Christ! I WILL be praying that someone at ground zero does pray! I WILL say NO, when I feel like my religious rights are being stomped on! I WILL say no to tolerance, because Jesus wasn't tolerant! He called a sinner a sinner. Will I be popular? I doubt it. But they will know how I feel and what I believe, Cuz I am not ashamed of the gospel! 

Lightness

I'm quit happy with today weather if I do say so myself! As I write, it's 75 degrees with a 56% humidity and a lovely breeze blowing at about 12 MPH. HOWEVER, I must also report that the mosquitoes are still alive and waiting for me to step foot out the back door. I have found that I must don on sweat pants, a tee shirt and spray down with Deep Woods Off before I can even water my plants. This would be one reason I like spring better than fall.
I talked the other day about being dust and breath, and I wanted to say a little more about that. Breath brings to mind lightness and airiness. A breath can be heavy, but the breath we're wanting to chat about is divine and light. Benner says Ego wants permanence and importance and is disdainful of anything that is here today, gone tomorrow. But from dust we come and to dust we shall return - everything passing nothing even to be remembered. (p.31) I believe that this is a place where we need to hang out and think about. We need to look at the heaviness in our life and see it for what it truly is, weight!
What in your life is keeping you from being light as a feather? Is it the push for more stuff, money, bigger car, prestige? Can you take any of it with you when you return to your dusty self? When we acquire our weight of possessions, they keep us held in a non-journeying position, which ends up not going anywhere. Don't you want to be going somewhere other than where that exercise wheel takes you? Isn't there more to this life than getting stuff, and going in circles? Then when are you going to jump off the track? Maybe when you have the answers? Do you even know the questions?
A key to all this is being an empty vessel that the spirit can fill, not a container that's already so full that nothing else can fit in. I find myself full of myself. My plans, my wants, my thoughts and agendas. All that needs to be emptied out, the weight dropped. But it's so hard sometimes isn't it? I do believe that if we would worry more about our own emptiness, we would see the more we drop the lightener our load becomes. When the load get's lighter, we are able to move freer. When we find we can move, the journey will begin. 
Preacher man and I have chosen to lighten our load. The process started about 7 years ago, when we said Yes! to God, really before we knew the question. The load isn't as light as it needs to be, but it's lighter than it was. We are loven the new lightness that comes with saying yes, and  loven the mystery. 
I get so tired of hearing: God is good, all the time, all the time, God is good. Know why? Cuz God ain't just good, He's GREAT!             

Second Chances

I was reading this morning in 2 Peter 2:1-22 and was blown away with somethings that I discovered from this. I did some digging on the fall of the angels way back when, and this is what I found. The angels were the first and most magnificent of all of God's creatures. They were under the rule and leadership of Lucifer, who's name means "light bearer". The angels were free, pure spirits and had been given the gift of free will. God tested this freedom with an ultimate choice. Some of the angels failed and were cast into darkness. 

Lucifer

Michael

We don't know for sure what this test was. St Thomas of Aquinas suggests that it was one of pride, the motive of which was excellence. The angels were created in the purity of grace and weren't prone to sin. Their rejection of God was a free choice. But they only had one chance, pass or fail.
This hits me like a ton of bricks, right smack in the chest! I have been given a life time to make choices that turn me away from God and towards my selfishness. If it had been left to me, I would have been in the darkness a long time ago...But God! See He had this plan all along I bet to save even me! He knew my bending towards pride, sin and self righteousness! All along, he knew. So when Jesus came and died on that cross for our sins, he died for all of them, past and present and future. Not just for me, but you and dang, everyone on the planet! That is so much sin, I can't even image the weight of that, cuz mine is heavy enough to blow my mind! 

Through one sin of rejecting God's love, the angels were condemned. I, who have repeatedly rejected his love through sin, am allowed to continue to live and am given many "second chances."

Know what you Know!

Israel

I told Preacher man yesterday that I might need to take a break from blogging. I seem to be in a mood lately and I'm a bit bitety. He seemed to agree, which made my mood a little darker, but then I thought, this is who I am and you have a choice to read or not. I also got up this morning and for some stupid reason, read the newspaper. Let me ask you this question. When you think of Madrid Spain do you think they are a nation of Catholics? I mean most Spanish/Latin American people are right? Do you know that Madrid is having riots to protest the Pope coming? People, it's time to get smart and buy the amino for your weapons, plant the seeds that will feed you, learn to cook (Leigh), get a few chickens and a cow, cuz it's going to start happen over here sooner than we think. We are living in a cotton candy factory that envelopes us with good words and visions of change that never really go the way they should. They next thing we know we are covered in sticky crap that won't come off and every bug in the neighborhood is after us.
We are living in a time when we better start knowing who we are and what we stand for. Just because you go to church doesn't make you a Christian, anymore than sitting in your garage makes you a car. We've talked about this. Yet we seem to be happy with "Playing Church". I pray over our church ever Sunday before services with a gal and I told her this very week that I was done playing church! I want the word preached to me from the Bible. She told a group of us last night that she's tired of having her ears tickled for an hour once a week! I almost feel out of the pew! Preach it girl! 
The Pope and the Orthodox prelates are meeting to see how they can find ways to bring their churches closer together. They are seeing that the global village of Europe is making a choice to live without Jesus in it's mists and is saying, you can leave. It is becoming harder and harder to be a Christian in Europe, and I pray for the Church. I also see that the tide is turning in our own country, faster than most of us even want to notice, especially if you live in the grand Bible Belt states. There was a mosk (I don't know how to spell it!) built in Jonesboro Arkansas, very near Arkansas State University when I was there in the early 80's. I thought nothing about it...now I do.
My point is, you better know what you know, cuz the time is drawing near where persecution will be happening. The thing I want you to understand is you will stand before Jesus and you don't want him to say "I never knew you." 
It is time to stop playing church, church! It is time that we get on our knees, flat on our faces and cry out to God! "Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner!"       

Dinosaurs?

This is the simplest thing I have ever seen on how the Dinosaurs died, it makes perfect since, but don't go thinking about it too hard, cuz you'll have a hard time with the whole shovel idea. On a surface level it could have happened. It's simple, to the point and it make since.
It's how we get with our spiritual life sometimes, comfortable with what we believe, where we're sitting in church, what the preacher always says about Jesus loves you and believing the surface stuff. We plug in for our hour on Sunday and don't get challenged by what's being preached, but that's ok, cuz challenge would mean I would have to do something, and I'm way too busy to mess with growing spiritually! Theres no money in that!! If you challenge me, I'll leave and go to another church!
Know what I say to those folks? Can I hold the door open for you?
It is our responsibility to grow up in Christ! Being a grown up means doing things for your self, like thinking and acting! Being an infant means you get fed milk and when you don't feel good you get picked up and patted on the back, till you make this noise than feel better. Church is very good at feeding milk and lots of it. It's good at telling people what we all should be doing; feeding the hungry, going to jail to see those folks, giving what we think we can afford and loving each other. BARF! Have you ever fed the hungry? I have and it's not as glorious as I hear then telling me it is. Have you gone to jail to visit anyone? I have and it's hard to carry on a conversation about Jesus loving them through a phone looking through glass! I am always hearing stuff about church being "The Acts 2 Church". Those people sold everything and gave it to the church! Not what they thought they could afford!
Does this make you uncomfortable? It does me. I don't love feeling uncomfortable, but I do like that it spurs me to do something. I use to run off and just do, now I'm spending more time in His presence so that I know what I'm being called to do.
I gave a testimony last week and I got a thank you card from one of the folks that was there. Part of me thought, Wow, that's nice! and another part of me thought, What?! I don't share because of what I can get out of it, I do it cuz Preacher man asks and God says Yes! I do it, not so much because of you, but because of what Jesus did and is still doing in and through me. I've been challenged, not by man, but by God.
So when you get comfortable where you are, you can just about bet that God is calling you to more. Are you listening? Is there something inside you thats restless and searching for more? Me too. Think I'll keep digging to see where I end up, don't worry, I have longer arms than the dinosaurs so I'm pretty sure I can climb out!
Peace Out!     

Bitter Fruit

Picked some cucumbers yesterday. Not all of them are in the shapes of a smile. Not all of them are big and yellow either, which is credit to the cooler temp's and rain that we've been getting. When a cucumber plant get's stressed it grows in a crooked shape (smile), turns yellow and tastes BITTER! There is nothing worse than a bitter cuke! Well, there is, we just are going there this morning. I peeled the skin off the straight little green dude and gave it a taste... not bitter! This is truly a good sign and I hope to be able to invite Bee's to the flowers so I will get more than a handful of fruit. 
We have a Bee Keeper at church, he just got started this year and I'm sure it's been a hard one. The Bee's weren't at my yard much, cuz they were hanging out at the hives trying to keep them cool. I'd like to raise Bee's someday. Not so much for the honey, that would be great, but more to help the pollinators out! Now that's a community that works together for the good of all. Wow, maybe the church should pay attention to Bee colonies, and stop trying to act like cucumbers! 

Jesus Left that Place!

We have cooking to do for Sunday school class today. Once a year they open all the classes up so people can walk around and see what the others are doing. It's like the bigger church when we steal people from other churches and say we are growing. You know church swapping, this is Sunday school swapping, lame! Anyway, we are going to cook a Hawaiian Banana Nut Bread, thought about doing Cheese grits but it's so messy and how would I keep it warm for an hour and blah, blah, blah! Also need to get to the post office and mail some pickles to Maggie in NC, and we must get some to Jim in CO cuz he makes my labels! Then we'll maybe go run around down town to see what's up in the antique shops.

I had an eye opening experience last night to what life has been like for Preacher man and I gotta say, Lord have mercy! Then this morning, I'm reading one of the blogs I follow and there it is, God talking to me! I go have my time with God and once again, he says look here! I'm telling you people, when you get real and open with God, He will speak volumes to you, especially when you would rather rant and rave about your sorry state of affairs! 
So the blog was about Matthew 15:21-28. Jesus left that place... He had been hanging with that lovely band of righteous fools, the Pharisees, who believed they had the "inside track" to God. Jesus was leaving more than a physical place, he was leaving an attitude. He had to get some "fresh air". Then this Canaanite woman comes along and starts yelling at Jesus, Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon. Jesus kept on walking. (I feel like that woman a lot, Lord! What are you doing? Have mercy on us Lord!!!) Jesus is revealing that her faith is great! (Really?) Jesus was showing her cry for mercy was genuine and real, where he had just come from, those dudes didn't cry for mercy, they had it together and were following the action plan laid out by some 'I got my stuff together' leader! I love how Harper puts it, The woman was willing to settle for 'crumbs' from Jesus, whereas the Pharisees and scribes had refused to accept the whole loaf. They didn't need Jesus' bread; they had made their own bread. Jesus had to leave that place and go to where people were hungry for whatever God would give them. Isn't that rich? I'm sitting going, Yeah!!! Leave Jesus, go somewhere else where people will listen. Then it hits me, Jesus is asking the same of me, to leave my state of presumption and become the seeking woman! 
See, I know what I know, and I'm not done learning. I am seeking and learning how to just BE and it's not always easy. In fact, it plan just gets hard. I don't have it all together but I feel like I'm doing what God is calling me to. So when I have to be submitted to the Pharisees I get a little bent about it! 
So Jesus is saying Leave that place, within myself and keep seeking after Jesus! Yet the Pharisees say, look at our lovely cool-aid, won't you have some? I am satisfied with the crumbs that come my way, cuz I know who made the bread! I will not drink your cool-aid!

Run you Over!!!

www.cumcrogers.com/alex-blog/

This is the link to a new blog that I think you might enjoy. It's been a long time in coming and I gotta tell ya, I pretty proud of him for doing the first one ever! For those of you that don't know Alex aka Preacher man has stepped into the world of blogging and I'm pretty tickled about it. You will have to remember, he is a Preacher so he won't be giving it to you like I do, but he can bring it, so check him out and leave him a comment. By the way, it is a good thing to leave comments on blogs! Reason why? It let's us know we aren't just going on about something and no one is reading. Hint Hint!  


I feel as if summer is over and I'm sure it has to do with activity going on over at the elementary school across the street. We live right between the enter and exit ways and we drive trucks. What am I talking about? Well, when you want to turn, you get into the turning lane don't you? Some people believe that you can actually drive for miles in the turning lane with your blinker on and that this is seen as Okay-Doky! It maybe in other parts of the county, but in front of our house...you better get out of my way pilgrim! I will run you over!! 


This brings me to the thing I want to talk about. When did this country become so self focused? I am at fault in this area, but not as much as others. Preacher man has got to be the most patience, nice, person I have ever been around. He opens doors for people, even when he's in a hurry, he says please and thank you even if the person is nasty, he just goes at a different speed that most of America. What he demonstrates is what use to be called "Southern Hospitality" and I miss it. 


Now it isn't completely dead in the south, but I don't know if I consider NW Arkansas "South"anymore, mainly cuz of what Wal-Mart has done to this place. Granted, it is one of the only places in Arkansas that is growing and making money and doing well, but, we have thrown the baby out with the bathwater for economic growth. We have also become very self focused and what's in it for me like! So today, I'm going to go to the Creek with a different attitude, one of serving and please and thank you. I might even make someone wonder where I'm from! But do not drive in the turning lane in front of my house, cuz I will run you over!!!!