Notes from the Trail

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There is a fantastic article/column in an Australian paper by Hugh Mackay about community. Backyard Missionary wrote about it over on his blog. The word community has made a comeback in some church circles in the past 10 years, and our church actively seeks to develop biblical community in our small group ministry. We also seek as a church to impact our overall community through involvement, prayer, service, and ministry.

Mackay says this in his article:

Doing something with your friends is great. Singing in a choir with people like you is therapeutic. Turning up for events at your child’s school can give you a wonderful sense of being part of a community.

But “community” is a tricky word; it can be used to make us feel good about the herds and tribes we belong to, while blinding us to the needs of the neighbors who surround us.

I think too often churches today tend toward isolationism, creating tight-knit “communities” that actually become somewhat exclusive religious organizations. They do not create or send a Welcome! message to the people of their town or city. Rather, it seems that most folks on the “outside” view churches as closed, or “planned” communities. If you didn’t get in on things early, it’s too hard to jump through hoops to fit in now.

How can any given church affirm a message of not only “you are welcome here” but “you are wanted here?”

Black

by Ted Dekker

Dekker begins this colorful trilogy with the novel Black and tells the story of a young, aimless 20-something who begins having dreams. Strange thing is, he can’t tell which is reality – and when he’s really dreaming.

One world that he finds himself in (while dreaming in the other one) is our present day reality. Another world is a vibrant, sensory and spiritual-filled world in which he is told that the other world (ours) is part of the “histories.”

Dekker creates a compelling plot, and I’ve got to say that I’ll be reading the next installment. Speak up first for dibs on my copy before I list it on Amazon.
A great series for Potter fans that are experiencing post-series grief syndrome. (PSGS). ;)

See more about Black

Funny video, and thanks to Lou for giving me the heads up! Although I laughed, I felt dirty for doing so.. ;)

What do you think this series is saying about the meaning of the word “Christian” in our culture?

Over the past two days, I’ve realized why that silver, extremely sticky tape is called “duct tape.” It’s not “duck” tape. For one, mallards and the like don’t slow down long enough to tape them.

It started over a week ago when we had our house leveled by a company called $999 House Leveling. In short, DO NOT use them. They will not return phone calls, and without going into the gory details, we can not recommend them to anyone in good conscience. If you want to know, email us.

However, we can say that they ruined our air conditioning ducts under the house. Crawled all over them. Smushed flat. We didn’t know for a couple of days, and it finally dawned on us that the house wasn’t cooling like it should. It took us a few days because it happened during those rare days of cool, spring-like weather. (I think the Lord sent it just to calm our frayed nerves.)

Thanks to a new friend, Justin Dreyer, we now have round AC ducts again. He and I crawled what felt like 10 miles under our house the last couple of days, cutting the ducts apart and putting new ones in. I saw things no homeowner needs to see. Like the jawbone of a small animal and what looked like a petrified human ear. (Have they found Jimmy Hoffa yet?)

Justin and I had some great conversation under the house. It usually went something like this:

Can you reach that?
Reach what?
That.
Hold on… no.
Oh. Well, can you see the metal clippers?
Uh, they’re under your butt.

Anyway, we are so thankful for Justin and Amanda. They’ve only been in town for about two months and already, they’ve gone waaaay out of their way to help and serve us.

If you need any home improvement or want to turn your home into an energy-efficient dwelling, call Justin. He’s amazing. I think he has figured out a way to heat and cool your home on sardine juice. I’ll come along to help… and bring the duct tape.

Jeff Kapusta got me with a one-two punch today as I reviewed Bloglines for his latest entries. The first one was about the issue of trusting God and how his church has learned to trust deeply and more. I’d encourage you to read his post about a few experiences his church had with learning to trust God more.

He also posted about his experience at youth camp with the Lifepoint youth. Here are three of his thoughts (you gotta read the others too!):

1. You’ll find yourself questioning the future of the free world.
2. You will be convinced that your generation was the last to receive a brain.
3. You’ll either grow younger or older just being around them. You choose.