A new issue of the weekly community group newsletter is online.
I try and publish it each Monday — running a little late this week. (of course it’s naturally geared more towards encounter peeps – but hope it’s useful for you as well.
Category: community
Two years ago…
Mike Blythe shared his latest KMZ file of Jos, Nigeria yesterday.
Going back and looking at the sites make me start thinking about my trip to Nigeria.
I went back and looked at my blog posts and realized two years ago exactly I was nearing the end of my two week stay there.
Thought this was also interesting…
Nearly two years ago today (on a Monday afternoon — Oct. 9th) I was enjoying church with a group of people who didn’t speak my language and met in a warehouse with dirt floors and wooden benches.
Yesterday we did shopping in the morning and then went to a church at the Motorpark.
The Motorpark is basically a large field where people bring their cars and wait for riders to take trips across the country.
You can probably find a ride to any part of the country if you’re willing to wait for enough other riders to make it profitable for the car owner and driver.
The church at the Motorpark meets in a large building with wooden benches and dirt floors. Their numbers are few, but they’ve doubled in size since last year.
The church was large in size years ago before fighting broke out between the Muslims and Christians. The church dispersed after that but everyday a group of women would continue to meet in the afternoon and pray for God to work.
Now their numbers have at least tripled and they are excited and on fire for God.
The latest from Lanessa
My friend Lanessa has shared more on her situation including a thanks to all who have been praying for her and caring for her. Thought each and everyone of you who have been praying for her would like to know. Portions of her thoughts are below. You can read the complete update on her blog. (oh and yes – her boys are all named after the super heroes you see below :-))
I have been meaning to write this for a few days, going over what I would like to say every night as I go to sleep. This trial in my life the last month has shaken me spiritually too, not just physically. To wake up one day in a hospital room, nurses buzzing around you, IV’s in you and then to have a doctor you don’t know come in to tell you you had brain surgery was mind blowing, then to realize you can’t talk, can’t walk and your head has been shaved was even harder…
To those that couldn’t make my side, your prayers meant just as much. Thank you for believing that Christ could pull me out of the brain swelling and surgery alive. I have been learning to ask specifically to God what I am needing, and your prayers of hope and healing is exactly what I need….
Did you know we have had meals come every other night since this started?
Did you know I had girls I hardly know lend me a changing table and glider for the baby?
Did you know I now have formula and diapers till Clark is a year old?
Did you know women would come and play and do crafts with my children?
Did you know I had babysitters come anytime I needed, for long hours?
Did you know we never had to worry about $ for Jason’s gas and food?
Did you know I had churches all over the US praying for me?
Did you know I had a flower arrangement or gift sent to me every week?
Did you know I had a nurse make a CD of Christian singers she thought I would like?
Did you know I had my OB doc bring me a smoothie I wanted as a surprise?
Did you know my whole Sunday school came to pray over me?
Yes, they wrote an article in the paper about ME, but this trial has been about YOU, the person who cared enough to come, pray, and encourage. Thank you.
Editing for time
You know, I really hate editing — especially when it relates to someone else’s work.
Each week Thomas and I do our podcast and I always make a point to never shorten or cut the interviews we do with folks. After all, our goal is to share their story with folks and hopefully they’re something the listeners walk away from and talk about with their friends.
Along with the interviews, Thomas and I normally chat about the interviews/stories at the end of the show. I always enjoy the chats and wish time permitted us to really delve into these stories like we might do if we were sitting in a living room together. I think almost all of our podcasts could lead to a discussion that lasts over several hours.
However, due to the space-time-continuum, bandwidth and our listeners available time, I do my best to be sure our podcasts only last an hour in length. Which means that if we do a 30 min interview we have roughly 22-25 minutes to introduce the show and then to discuss the interview at the end (our musical clips take up 5-8 minutes usually). If we do a 45 min interview we end up with maybe 10 minutes to do all that.
Here in lies my frustration. I have trouble picking which part of the discussion might be more beneficial than others. If we really are “Free Range Christians” or “Open Source Christians” I hate the idea that I might be limiting the discussion when I go back and edit our discussions.
There are so many great points that Thomas brings up but I end up having to cut much of our discussion due to the “self-imposed time crunch.”
I also run into similar issues when leading a community group.
Everyone has a story to share. And I love hearing those stories. I love people sharing their stories (hence the podcast). Many people have examples in their life that relate to the discussion — but I also have to consider the time constraints other people in the group may have. That time constraint comes into greater play if its an early morning and people have to head to work — or a week night when folks have to head home so they can get to bed.
So what to do? I dunno. But I do hate editing — and thought you should know.
The Church is…
Here’s another great tidbit from Tall Skinny Kiwi & Phyllis Tickle (who by the way will be at The Great Emergence Conference in Dec.). The quote was featured in Tall Skinny Kiwi’s talk at GodBlogCon and comes from Tickle’s latest book The Great Emergence (need to get me a copy of that!)
…the Church, capital C — in not really a thing so much as it is a network in exactly the same way that the Internet or the World Wide Web, or for that matter gene regularity or metabolic networks are not “things” or “entities.”
I love that! It goes right along with the ideas/thoughts that I have running through my mind right now in preparation for “speaking” at encounter on Oct 12. We’ll see where it all leads me/us.
The Universal Declaration of Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights from Seth Brau on Vimeo.
Thomas shared this on the nanolog. I love it! Excellent!
However I find myself asking more and more — what really are my rights? What can I really demand? Is it “fair” to say that each of these rights are God given rights? Or is it better to say that these are “man given rights?” I believe these are rights that we should fight for for others — but are we really being Christ-like when we demand these rights for ourselves? Can the two co-exist?
In America we have the American Declaration of Rights and we claim that all our rights come from God. But do they really? Does God really promise life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — or is that us just trying to claim the place as God’s chosen people?
I really do believe that as Followers of the Way I should fight (I use that word loosely) to ensure everyone has these rights — but just not sure that the “American Way” is “The Way.” If we viewed every day as a gift — and worried less about what I wanted or needed, perhaps we’d be better off.
What about you? Do you think Christians should demand these rights for themselves? Should we demand them for others? And can the two co-exist?