Feeling drawn to post

Hey there everyone. Long time no post! LOL. I have been going through some stuff (good stuff) here and I am feeling led to post about it. In 2001, 2 months after John and I were married, we found out that I had a brain tumor. A rare, non cancerous tumor called an Acoustic Neuroma. We cried for about a second and then went to work finding the best doctor to remove it. We found him in California. So, we packed up and headed out to LA for a 3 week long journey. Before we left, a few friends of mine from New Hope gave me a journal for the trip. I still have it and read from it sometimes. I have never shared it with anyone. It was a scary time for me. It took us 2 days to get there and I wrote with passion about, what I was sure, were the last few days of my life. It is sad stuff. I was just beginning my journey at that time and was not strong in my faith. The day before the surgery, after some testing, the Dr told us that he would have to remove my auditory canal to completely remove the tumor, as it was larger than they thought it was. There was no chance that I could hear again. I thought that this was a small price to pay. Over they years following the surgery, it has become something that I prayed and prayed that there could be an answer for. Talking to Dr. after Dr. the general thought was, "Get over it, it is not that bad. It is just a slight inconvenience." Well, my guess is that they all can hear just fine. About 2 years ago, I found out about a hearing device called a BAHA that was made for people just like me. It was an exciting thought, but at the time, people who wanted it had to pay for it. Things changed with the device and insurance companies were starting to pick up the cost, so me and John looked into it. We started out, last year, fighting our insurance. We were at the point in December, where our next step was court, when we found out that we were changing insurance companies. Well, we were upset for a moment, but I trusted that God had it in His hands. Sure enough, my new insurance is willing to pay for the surgery and hearing device. It is an amazing answer to prayer! We are going to Columbus on the 26th of this month to have the surgery. We will come home a couple days after and go back for 2 2 week apart follow up appointments. At the last one, the Dr. will decide how much longer we will have to wait before fitting the actual hearing device. I cannot wait for that day! We are feeling incredibly blessed! Praise the Lord!

Common Men, Common Calling

"God chooses the humble, the lowly, the meek, and the weak so that there's never any question about the source of power when their lives change the world. It's not the man; it's the truth of God ans the power of God in the man."

I have read and reread this paragraph. What are your thoughts about this? I cannot even begin to tell you what this makes me feel like. Mostly humble and foolish. Humble to think that God could use ME to change this world. Foolish to EVER take ANY credit for the things I do here.

Who am I?

I have been questioning lately, if I have what it takes to be strong for Jesus and work with others to help bring God's Kingdom to Earth. As I am reading this book (slowly as it might be) the thing that sticks out in my mind is how quickly this whole chapter of life takes place. The time that John baptizes Jesus until His death is only a few years. He calls His disciples, who were no one really, taught them, and set them off in that short time. They were not scholars; they were not priests. Is that why He called them? We have been learning on Sundays, that Jesus seemed to like to shake things up. He challenged what the Jewish people KNEW at that time by telling them that He was the way, He is the light, He is the vine. He turned it upside down. Look at the amazing things these men did. I mean, we know them. We know their teachings. Their lives have changed the world forever. But, they started out as nothing, no one, they started out like me. They trusted Jesus. The followed Him. They emptied themselves. So, why do I question myself so much....when I can see myself in them, those who were directly chosen by Him.

Twelve Ordinary Men

I am going to start reading this book today. I felt like it would be a great book to read during the Disciple sermon series. Hopefully, you can read along, or if you have already read it please join in. Even if you have not read it, I hope that I can share some interesting information from it. Thanks!

Back to normal

Life is officially back to normal this morning. Kaileigh, Dylan AND Tyler are now back in school. The tree is down, though it never got decorated this year. I would say the decorations are down, but they were never up. John is back to work. And I have some time alone in the house after a very rough Christmas season. I don't know about you all, but I have not even had time to THINK about reading lately! But, a new year is here and things are settled down now. Time to get back on track. So here is the big question of the day: Should we continue to blog about Shaping of Things to Come? Should we start a new book? I know that most of the people who were reading Shaping are probably way farther ahead than I am. Plus, I am having a hard time REALLY getting into it. But, I guess it is up to you. Hopefully I can get some suggestions. I have some ideas, This Beautiful Mess (from Paul), the second Brian McLaren book (in the New Kind of Christian series), or I found a book that sparked my interest called 12 Ordinary Men which might tie into this sermon series? Maybe something different? Share your thoughts........

Friendship

OK, so not exactly from a book, but more from a chapter of my own story: Can we talk about friends? What is a friend? Do we use the term too loosely? What are your thoughts?

Childhood

What were your favorite books when you were a child? What are your childrens favorite books? Although kind of hard to see the picture, mine was a book called "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go" by Richard Scarry. It is a cute book, and there is a little golden bug on every page that we used to huddle around and try to find. My kids love all of the Veggie Tales books. Tylers favorite books, when he was little, were Pokemon books. What great memories!

God, the Creator of Pleasure...........

OK. I don't know why this hit me while I was reading the Shaping of Things to Come. I mean, I guess I could have figured this out, after all, I know that God created all things. So, some people cannot connect God with our daily lives. Some people cannot feel God in pleasure. Is pleasure selfish and therefore sinful? God created the things in us that give us pleasure. Our taste buds, our skin, even our likes and dislikes. Here is what I think.... God wants us to feel pleasure. He wants us to enjoy our lives. Can pleasure LEAD to sinfulness? Absolutely. But that is because we fail to see God in those things that make us pleased. We fail to see our pleasure as a gift from Him, and therefore misuse and abuse it. Those are just my thoughts. What are yours???

What Are Your Thoughts???

Please check out one of my older posts....Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. What do you think about the comments that were made???

Shaping of Things to Come....

I love, in this book, how they talk about the well in the center. To summarize, if you are a farmer and have livestock on a small farm, you would fence it in, to keep your animals with you and other animals out. If you are a farmer and have miles and miles of farmland, it is impossible to fence that in. So how do you keep your livestock from running away? Put a well in the center. Animals do not travel far from a water source. OK. Now think about church. In the past, church seemed to be the farm that put up a fence. We are in, they are out. What we want to be is a farm where you are never out, just a little further from the "well", which is Jesus and the Gospel. The closer that you are to the center well, the more Christlike your journey is. I desire to be close to that well. I pray that God leads all of closer and closer to the center. I pray that he allows us to see all of his people, not as being non-Christian or Christian, but as being a little further away from the center, never out. Gods grace reaches all over and covers all of us.

HUH?

OK. I have always been one that is true to myself, not ashamed of my own limitations and not embarrassed by most things. Can I just ask if I am the only one who is having a hard time reading this book??? It has been my understanding, in the past, that when one is defining a word, they take the word, and use smaller, easier to understand words to explain it. It seems that in this book, I get excited...like OOOO I finally get an explanation of what incarnational (just as one example) means....then they use other huge words, that I do not know what THEY mean, to define it????!!!!???? I am feeling inadequate. Maybe this book just wasn't made for the stay at home mom who hasn't read much besides Veggie Tales: The Chicken Noodle Soup~er Bowl, for the past few years!

Happy Birthday!

Happy 5th Birthday Kaileigh! Finally older than Dylan again! I love you sweetie!!!!

Outside the Walls

Page 23 begins to paint this picture in my mind. They talk about a man named Brock Bingaman that opened up a shoe store (his great passion) to serve the community and to begin to blend the secular and non secular lives. A shoe store fitting people with the love of Christ and a snazzy pair of sneakers! From that point, they talk about different places doing the same sort of thing; a bar, an art gallery, etc. Moving outside the walls of the Church. Moving out of the "come to us" mindset. I cannot help but get a picture of a downtown. A street full of shops. Some owned by Christians, some not. Blended beautifully. Owners of shops getting to know the people in the community. Helping to serve their needs. What would your shop be? Help me paint this picture.

Error

Just wanted to clarify, I misspoke in my last post. I was not in Chapter 2. I was in the Second Section of Part One. Confusing. Thought I was almost where I needed to be for tomorrow nights meeting! I was wrong. Oh well. I will use page numbers from now on!

Chapter Two: The Heartbeat (The Shaping of Things to Come)

This hit me like a ton of bricks. "Mission is not merely an activity of the church. It is the very heartbeat and work of God." Our hearts beat to send blood through our bodies to keep us moving, functioning, living. Without it, we do not exist in this life anymore. So what does being missional mean? I have read through what a missional church is not.....attractional, dualistic, and hierarchical. So, where does that leave us? It seems so simple, it leaves us with the picture of what Jesus and the disciples were, what they did, how they preached, and how they lived. At least, that is what I think of and picture in my mind. But, how does that fit into where we are? How do we move from the "come-to-us" into the "go-to-them" church? What are your thoughts on this?

Happy Birthday!

I know I am writing a book blog, but I just have to wish my Dylan a happy birthday! He is 4 today. So, he and Kaileigh will be 4 together for 12 days! He is my angel!

Just an interesting FYI about this years Burning Man

SAN FRANCISCO - After the signature effigy of the Burning Man festival went up in flames four days ahead of schedule, festival-goers vowed to rebuild the 40-foot icon by Saturday's planned climax. But not everyone was disappointed by Tuesday's incineration.


The alleged torching of the wood-and-neon figure by a San Francisco performance artist has cast light on the disillusionment of many who feel the annual celebration of radical self-expression has lost touch with its spontaneous, subversive roots.

"People have been trying to set that thing on fire for years," said Hugh D'Andrade, a San Francisco artist who attended the festival for many years. "This is not a new phenomenon."

Organizers trace the first Burning Man back to a 1986 party on a San Francisco beach where Larry Harvey, who still runs the festival, set ablaze a crude 8-foot wooden figure.

Since then, the event has evolved into a weeklong gathering of nearly 40,000 people who descend on the Black Rock Desert in northwestern Nevada around Labor Day each year to celebrate countercultural creativity.

In San Francisco, especially, Burning Man has emerged as a kind of underground high holiday as legions of so-called Burners devote the rest of the year to choreographing fire dances, decorating art cars and building elaborate interactive sculptures.

The event has become such a mainstay of the city's cultural calendar that Burner parents in 2005 unsuccessfully urged the San Francisco school board to postpone the first day of school so their children could attend.

But the rise in Burning Man's popularity has also brought a backlash.

In the immediate aftermath of this week's unscheduled burn, gleeful expressions of approval for the alleged prank rained down on blogs and Internet forums.

Some comments came from conservative posters ready to mock anything carrying a hint of hippiedom.

But many originated from self-described former attendees complaining that Burning Man has been spoiled by crowds of "yuppies" and "frat boys" mostly interested in doing drugs and ogling naked participants.

Steven Black, a 40-something librarian at the University of California, Berkeley, has attended Burning Man 11 times. But even though he had a ticket this year, he said, he didn't go.

"What has happened here is giving pause for a degree of introspection and reflection on what it means to burn this man that is perhaps long overdue," Black said.

According to Black, Burning Man's huge crowds have attracted heavy law enforcement attention to an event that was originally meant to be an exultation, leaving him feeling "less secure and less free" than if he had just stayed home.

Paul Addis, 35, of San Francisco, who is accused of setting fire to the Burning Man, posted $25,632 bond and was released from jail in Pershing County, Nev., on Tuesday. He was arrested on suspicion of arson, illegal possession of fireworks, destruction of property and resisting a public officer, according to the sheriff's department.

Known on the city's art scene for playing gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson on stage, Addis has apparently had long-standing gripes against the festival. In a letter published in a local alternative newspaper in 2002, a person using the same name complained about the imposition of rules he felt were spoiling the event.

"Those rules and judgments, such as what art is permitted in B(lack) R(ock) C(ity) and radical free expression's outer limits are determined in line with what will make the most money for B(urning) M(an) and generate the fewest potential controversies in the media," the person wrote.

Law enforcement officials said they did not know Addis' whereabouts after his release. Calls to a telephone number listed for him in San Francisco were not answered.

A spokeswoman for Burning Man organizers did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Despite the criticism, even disenchanted Burners like D'Andrade haven't completely written off the festival.

"When I first started going, they already said it was over," said D'Andrade, who went to his first Burning Man in 1999 and designed the ticket for this year's event, though he hasn't attended since 2005. "New people are still getting a big blast of all the positive elements that have made it what it is."

___

On the Net:

http://www.burningman.com

Chapter One (The Shaping of Things to Come)

What struck you in this chapter?

Chapter One (The Shaping of Things to Come)

I think that we all have a deep seeded desire to feel and be accepted for who we are. No one wants to put on a mask and walk around pretending to be someone they are not. That is why, I think, things like Burning Man are such a huge movement. Think about it, imagine that you are gay, or an alcoholic, or a prostitute, or a drug addict. Where do you go to feel accepted, loved? Church? I highly doubt it. Why not?

Imagine that you were in Jesus' day. Where would you go then? Maybe to Jesus? I think that I would. He never turned anyone away. He never made anyone feel unwanted or unworthy. So, if we are Christians, why are we so unaccepting of others? Why have we gotten such a bad reputation? If we are Christ followers, why do people who need it most feel that church is the last place they would go for acceptance and love? Shouldn't it be the first?

What can we do about it?

Book 2

OK. I am moving on to our next book. The Shaping of Things to Come by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsh. I cannot wait to start this book. I will go back to the second and third books by Brian McLaren when I am done reading this one.

Anyone read this one already? Any thoughts?