Aren't Smartphones the best? OK, they aren't better than Jesus, but you can bet they are a lot easier to carry around than your computer!
I have been thinking about getting a Kindle, so I can read whatever I want, whenever I want. I got the Kindle app on my phone and I downloaded cool stuff like Whinny the Pooh and I found this free book called "Why we eat our own". It's by a pastor in Colorado named Michael Cheshire. He and a group of friends stated The Journey Church in Conifer CO. Anyway, this book has started to change my life, and I gotta tell ya, I needed it.
Preacher man and I are leaving the Methodist Church. Surprise! In hind sight, everything we have ever done has lead us to leave and jump out there for Jesus in a totally new and different way. Things like starting our own business, running a soup kitchen, running boards, cleaning churches, leaving all that you know to go to seminary, healing and wholeness, prayer, and flat out having to love Jesus and each other into every moment.
For the past three weeks, we have hurt, but we have also healed. I have wanted to reach out and smack a whole lot of folks, but Jesus had something else in mind.
Forgiveness. It's really an easy concept when you ask others to forgive you. It is something totally different when you have to do it yourself and forgive the people you would rather run over with a lawn mower!
Here's the deal: All I have to do is allow Jesus access to my heart and he will work the forgiveness stuff out.
So the grains of sand in my hourglass are still running, and I don't want to waste anymore time with unforgiveness, self righteousness or justification! So I forgive you Sylvan Hills UMC and all the people that make you what you are as a church!
In 4 days, we will be out of here and I want to thank the Jepko's, Smith's, Shadle's, Clarke's and Christina for being the heart of Christ to Alex and I. We could have done it without you, but I'm so glad we didn't have to.
My heart breaks when I think about leaving my sweet, crazy neighbors! The meals, treats, talks over the fence, and just allowing me to be me has made our short stay here so much funner!
We came back to Arkansas to be closer to our folks. So that's where we are headed, Heber Springs. We are not leaving ministry, it will just look different from here on out. You can still contact us the way you always have. I'm signing out of blogging, until we get set up in the new digs.
Peace out! Forgive!
and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. ~ Romans 5:5
We drove out to the airport last night to pick up my dear sweet friend Perla, who flew in from Colorado Springs to spend Thanksgiving with us. I believe the plane was blown here as that arctic blast moved into the area. In fact, they landed 15 minutes early, but couldn't unload because there was a plane in their spot.
I haven't spent much time at this airport, so I was unsure where we were to meet the disembarking plane people, so I followed the crowd. I went to the point where they have signs that warn you if you go any farther an alarm would sound, and there I waited.
I found tears were forming and I couldn't put my finger on why. Granted, this was Perla, who had shared in and was huge part of my soup kitchen days. I hadn't seen her in 7 years, yet we usually talk once a year. So maybe I just missed her and was excited to see her again.
Then it hit me, Perla is part of God's success story in me. I had the bull by the horns when I ran Manna and Perla stood right beside me! Do you have someone in your life that made history with you? Then you have a Perla too.
As I look at her now, I see her hearing God as we speak. I admire how she has stood for what God has called her to and I know she is one in a million.
Perla and I fed the hungry together for about 3 years. We laughed, cried and grew together because that was God's plan. I believe He still has something in mind for us even if I don't know what it is.
This year, I'm thankful for a God who has put people in my life that remind me that I'm not a failure, that I can do ministry, and that God is bigger than all the ones who say differently.
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?
Life has a way of stretching us, have you noticed it? When we're being stretched, we think it's only us that is being pulled on in that way. I have found that when we share life with others, we find that we have either been pulled that way just days or weeks before, or look out, it's just down the road!
Sometimes we are pulled to a breaking point and I have been thinking about that lately...why do we resist? What is so ingrained in us that we have to hold on with both hands as we are being ripped from end to end? It's crazy! It's painful and you know what else? It's usually where the growth comes from.
We all have anxiety in our life and we all deal with it in different ways. There is a large amount of our lives that are all about the uncertainty and what the future holds, and it can cause us to freeze, or break.
I have been waiting for years for someone important enough to notice me and my giftings. I have taken enough classes and spent enough time at the feet of great teachers to be one myself, however no one has seen that light that has been shining on me...not even me. Now Preacher man has and that's one of the reasons he sees me as a partner in ministry with him and not just the Preacher's wife. I do like hiding under that title though, it offers a great surprise factor!
I Skype Sister Rachel about starting on my Practicum. I had filled out all the forms and wrote down everything I've done and learned. She looked at me and asked the greatest question ever... What are you waiting on?
So I encourage you to stretch with life, there is probably a really good lesson behind it. Don't let it freeze you up or put you in a corner. Try bending a little, like the old trees in a wind storm. When they bend, they don't break so easily.
I pray for the grace to be in God's presence, in all of my doing Lord - Help me be.
So does that mean I sit around reading books thinking about pie in the sky? How would I ever get anything done? The yard would be a mess, I'd never shower, (that sounds ok for a few days) and Preacher man wouldn't have any clean clothes!
To be in God's will and presence... at all times. That's a tall order, or is it?
I believe God wants me to have an ordered house - it's good for Preacher man, it's good for when people come over without calling 2 days in advance. I mean, God is a God of order, so this makes sense to me. However, I don't believe he wants me to be all crazy about it like my friend Anne use to do. She would vacuum and them jump on furniture to keep from flattening out the carpet. That's crazy! God doesn't want me to get sucked into the doing, he wants me to be about it. If something comes up, I'm free to stop and be with what came up.
I have found that at times, (long ago) I have become too ridged in doing. It then becomes more about doing the task than being with God. It can be at work or just here at home. I forget that my job is to take care of this home and Preacher man. I don't want to do it so I'm miserable, I want to find the joy in being about the care.
It's the Mary and Martha thing again! Martha was too involved with the doing when it should have been more about the being with Jesus. They probably thought Jesus was going to be around for years and years. There would always be time to be at his feet.
I have my whole life to figure this being thing out, but I don't want to put it off till the last minute. I want to be about keeping an ordered home and being with Jesus while I'm doing it!
Does God ever sneak up behind you and scare the beegebee's out of you? Okay, wait, maybe scare is too harsh of a word for what I'm looking for. How about, pokes you in the eye? Yeah, now that I think about it, poke me in the eye is what he does to me a lot. Let me splane.
See, I've been busier than a one arm paper hanger lately. All this moving and unpacking, setting up a home for the Preacher man and all, it can wear a girl out. I am also trying to make some friends, just some, not a whole lot, so I want to be available when someone says You wanna go... I asked last week if they had everything they needed for VBS this coming week. Well, as a matter of fact, they needed someone to help the music person with the hand motions to the songs and with corralling kids. This seemed like an easy enough thing for me to help with, so I said sure.
To make a long story just a little shorter, I am now helping the music person with the hand motions to the songs for VBS this week, I'm going to help make and serve sandwiches at Brother Paul's soup kitchen tomorrow, I'm going to my first ever circle meeting on Thursday, having the chair of the trustees and his wife over for dinner on Friday, going to the youth and parent meeting on Saturday and getting Preacher man out of town for his BOM meeting on Sunday. THEN, I get a call from Sister Rachel, who I had talked to yesterday, telling me that she has changed her mind and she wants me joining her group this fall. To top it all off, I'm reading this book called Wayfaring and I come across the part about Being to Doing, that's when God poked me straight in the eye! Listen to this;
It almost seems as though we don't know how to deal with the possibility that we are unconditionally loved, just as we are, and that our many efforts to please others and even to "do God's work" make not a scrap of difference to his love for us.
Argghhh! I know this, I've known this, well, for a while anyway! Am I the only person on this big blue planet that forget's this stuff?!!!? I go from nothing to too much in 5.6 seconds! So, I just want you to know that I do it too, okay?
Now the issue is, how to stop it before it becomes this crazy every week!
Have you ever really been grateful for friends? I have different friends and I'm grateful for different reasons for each of them. I love the fact that I still have friends that have hung with me after 30 plus years! I mean, we just have to do a time of catch up and we pick up right where we left off. I have newer friends that have seen me through healing's and growth that make them "old soul" friends. Then I have friends like Anne, who are sister's born from a different mother that has been disowned and then re-found in a different part of the world. Anne came to see me today and to help me get it together and put away in the right spot. See, Anne was born with the gene's that I really don't have, the decorating gene.
I mean this is crazy, Preacher man and I moved in here on June 26th, it's been less than a month and I have the main floor of the house ready to receive visitor's! If mom hadn't come and helped me unpack and if Anne hadn't shown up and put things where they really look like they belong, I would have been happy just to blog everyday and look at stuff hoping it would get the hint to put itself where it belongs. But the beauty of this moment is knowing that I am not defined by my stuff!
Over the years, I have gotten rid of tons of stuff, literally! I still have a ton, but I am getting freer at letting more and more of it go. I think a good example for me was when Preacher man said we needed to get rid of the couch and chair we had since we first got married. I loved that furniture! It was out of date, and needed to go, but I thought it held some special force that kept the world spinning in the right direction. It did not. The reason I know this, is I no longer have the furniture and the world has not fallen apart!
If you have never failed, you have never lived! CLICK and see what brought it home for me today. I have failed, and I bet a dime to a dollar, I'm not through failing. You know what's cool about that now? I'm getting ok with it. See, I think that when I fail, I open up some how to what God wants to do in my life. I get a humble spirit, which is really getting hard to find now a days, and I'm more apt to say things like, Sure, why don't we move that couch in a strange, never seen before positions. Then I get blown away when it looks good there!
It takes friends to show you sometimes that you really don't have it all together, but that maybe they could help! It takes seeing a video about others who have been told they are never going to amount to anything, before you see that maybe you could do something with your life. I beginning to see, that living in this moment really is all that is important! To be present, to be available.
Well, today is the day that Preacher man becomes Senior Pastor at Sylvan Hills UMC. I guess it happened last night at midnight. I can tell you I did not hear anything "going off" as I didn't sleep worth a pooh. Preacher man, likewise did not sleep much, but who can blame us, we have never been this way before. We had everything in the world to worry about and at this minute I can't seem to think of any of them. One of the cool things for me was a gentleman came up to me after the service and said Your the first Pastor's spouse we have had in...well a long time! I love the fact that I'm not following a beloved Pastor's Wife! Thank you Lord!
Preacher man and I served communion together this morning. Now, this wasn't our first time serving together, but it was the first time we severed this church. We had our little name tags on so everyone would know what to call us. Preacher man had asked that everyone wear their name tags, however we found out this isn't a name tag wearing church! BUT, they all had stick-on name tags and we were able to call each one by name as they came up for communion.
That's when it started for me, I was overcome with pure joy. It has been a long 6 years getting to this point. Not all of it was easy, but not all of it was hard either. But 6 years is a long time to be working towards something. To keep pushing on. Muscling by. Praying your heart out. To look into the eyes of every single person that came through that line and to love them without even knowing them. I started tearing up. It was an awesome moment, that's for sure.
I'm not saying that everything is going to be rainbows and sunshine from here on out. In fact, I bet you a dime to a dollar that the battle lines are being drawn right now. I do know that the Gospel offends. I'm ok with that! The way I see it, if your doing something right, it will be tuff. When it's easy, that's when you should be worrying. I mean God open's the doors but He doesn't force us to walk through them. We still have to show up and do our part, and that ends up being work. I think a lot of churches have forgotten that. They are looking for easy, they have gotten soft. I think that's one of the reason's the UM church is in the mess it's in right now. We haven't done the hard work that is required of Kingdom work. Have you ever been on a easy mission trip? If it's easy, they call that a vacation! OMP, that's a hard working mission group of people right there. Our youth just got back and they are wiped out. Jesus work isn't for the wimpy at heart. Just listen to the news, we are under attack! So you might as well get ready people. It's time to get real, or stay home. Me, I'm rolling up my sleeves, putting on a ball cap and leaning in big time! Anybody with me?
I am in such a different place! I mean I'm still physically here, in Rogers, but I feel like I've been moved to a high plane or something. It's good, sad, life giving, exciting and strange all wrapped up into one. The only thing I know to call it is different.
I remember when the end of the spiritual exercise class came, I was in a place like this. It's big and spacious with a nice breeze blowing through your hair. It's like when you go on a two week vacation and about day 6 you get that your on vacation and you start to really enjoy your time instead of running from place to place. I imagine that retired people might feel this way when they get that they are retired.
So yesterday, Preacher man preached his last sermon at Central UMC to first service and he did an awesome job. One of the ladies from that service said she loves the way he preaches cuz he makes being a Christ follower, doable!
I had a conversation with God while I was running a few weeks ago about Preacher man's last day as Preacher man at CUMC and I wanted something special for him. The SPR (Staff, Pastor, Relation) was getting him a cake and having people bring cards if they wanted to, but something special is about non-material stuff to me. So this is what God told me to do. Pray over him, lay hands on him and pray over him! Ingenious! God is so smart!
We love us some folks at first service, not to say that we don't love folks in the other services, but there something about that group. I knew that if I started this praying thing up, that they would join in. So after the last song, right before the benediction, I walked up beside Preacher man and said to the congregation, He doesn't have any idea what I'm doing. Silly man asked me if I wanted to give the benediction! I told everybody, that where I come from, when someone leaves to go on a mission, or is appointed to another place, we all gathered around them and lay hands on them and pray over them. I invited them to come and do just that and I would pray. It was the most awesome thing that I have been apart of at the church! People were crying and hugging after wards, it was just awesome!
So it's done now, our time at CUMC. It was real, and it was fun... and now it's time to go have fun somewhere else. The one thing I leave this place is something I leave everywhere I go and that's my laughter. See, I'm real, all the time! You hurt me, I bleed. You hug me, I hug back. You cry, I cry with you. You take the time to reach out to me, to know me and my heart and I reach out to know you. Life is short people and we need to slow down and spend time with each other. To the lovely people at CUMC that did take the time, I loved laughing with you and getting to know you! I will carry you in my heart, always. You will be the people that we started with, that we talk about when we say things like "Remember that first appointment and those people?" We grew here! Now it's time to go grow somewhere else. This will always be our first church. Thanks!
Have you ever been creeped? Do you even know what that means? I believe it's very similar to being stocked only maybe nicer, maybe? Preacher man is being creeped on FaceBook! Let me back up and explain.
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| SHUMC Parsonage |
Sylvan Hills UMC found out yesterday that Preacher man is going to be their Preacher man. There was a little write up on us and an adorable picture of the two newbies! That's about when it started, a few emails started coming in and friend requests on FaceBook. The first one was by the Youth leader, Rachel. I found out that she lives across the street from our new home (parsonage) and asked her to take a picture and send it if she didn't mind. I mean just look at that thing! SO, the next thing I know, I'm having dinner with my dear friend Vicki and I get this text: My youth kids are all creeping Alex (aka Preacher man) on FaceBook. They are so excited. They have found out that he loves missions and rides a motorcycle and to then, this is the coolest thing ever! This my friends is being creeped.
This youth group is going to know more about Preacher man than the adults when we show up! They are so excited, and that blesses my heart in a way that I wasn't really ready for. See, I know what this man can do. I know how talented he is with his hands and mind. I have seen him fix things and load washers into the back of a truck all by himself. He's got skills! But... I also know what God can do through this man. Seen worship services that he has developed, heard prayers that he has prayed, seen him with Holy hands lifted to give praise to God, and tears that have come because someone has touched his heart in a way that surprised him. So when a group of youth are already excited about what this man brings to the table, just being who he is, this rocks my world!
Click here!
Gratitude!
What does it mean to you? How do you go out into your day and see it, show it, embrace it?
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| A cast of lungs |
I'm grateful for my lungs today. I woke up at three this morning and said a prayer for Teddy. Teddy is a woman that I have never met in person. I know her only through my dear friend Anne. Anne and Teddy are sister mother-in-laws, their kids married each other. Teddy has been at Duke University since before Thanksgiving waiting on new lungs. Her's are killing her, so to speak, and it has taken until last night for her to receive a new left lung.
First off, I'm blown away by the function our lungs preform for us! God out did himself when he made these bodies that we run around in didn't He? Then to think that we have the ability to take one lung out of a body and put it in another body... Dude that totally flips me out! And don't get me started on the heart!
Second off, I only have a very small idea how Teddy must feel as she has to think about and work hard at breathing. I have cold/exercise induced asthma that is controlled by an inhaler. I do get a little whacked out when it's hard for me to breath!
So today, I'm grateful that I quit smoking over 12 years ago, that I can run, and that I have two lungs that seem to work pretty well. I pray this day that you remember Teddy in your prayers and thank God that you have good lungs and that they found a new one for Teddy!
One year ago today, we woke to snow falling! It had started at about 2:30 am and continued through most of the day, or at least till around noon. We ended up with 24 inches of the white stuff on the ground. Now Preacher man and I know what to do with snow. Having spent time in the great white north, wait, that would be Canada, I mean Colorado. So the great white west, how's that? We know how to drive in it and how not to drive in it. We know how to move it, play in it, complain about it, enjoy it and flat out have it around for about 6 or 7 months of the year. Arkansas, not so much.
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| Fuzzy picture of Anne |
The reason I bring this up is because I'm going to be able to go for a run without fear of slipping on anything slick today...at all. In fact it's above freezing. The thing about being "snowed in", it gives us a chance to be forced to take some down time, time that we don't take for ourselves at any other time really. We are all so busy, being busy and productive that we have to wait on nature to dump on us in order to take a needed break. That's just crazy!
Anne called me this morning wanting to know if I could work her shift tomorrow. She's with her daughter in Little Rock, spending some well needed time with her. To me, this is important. It's like snow time with family. It's not about me working more hours so my paycheck is bigger, which cracks me up cuz I don't think 32 bucks is going to make it or break it. What's important is being at a place where I can help someone make time in their life for something important. Almost like being a snow day for Anne. It's about making sacrifices for others.
So today, while I run my little 3 or 4 miles, I'm going to thank God that he put Anne in my life. Not so much because I can help her, but because of how she helps me grow!
Thanks Anne!
Aren't Smartphones the best? OK, they aren't better than Jesus, but you can bet they are a lot easier to carry around than your computer! 
