Traveling Mercies :: The Gift of Community :: 5.23.10 May 25, 2010

Our last night of this series.  As we wrapped up our study in James, we found some very specific instructions to us about how to live in community.  He talks about how we should be supportive of each other with our prayers, with our openness, with going after each other when we start to slide away.  

After opening with a couple songs (“Filled with Your Glory” by Starfield and “Rain Song” by Day of Fire) John shared a sermon that opened up that word to us.  He encouraged us to take prayer seriously and to not shy away from praying BIG prayers.  He used James 5:13-20 as his text.  It says…

13-15 Are you hurting? Pray. Do you feel great? Sing. Are you sick? Call the church leaders together to pray and anoint you with oil in the name of the Master. Believing-prayer will heal you, and Jesus will put you on your feet. And if you’ve sinned, you’ll be forgiven—healed inside and out.

16-18 Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with. Elijah, for instance, human just like us, prayed hard that it wouldn’t rain, and it didn’t—not a drop for three and a half years. Then he prayed that it would rain, and it did. The showers came and everything started growing again.

19-20My dear friends, if you know people who have wandered off from God’s truth, don’t write them off. Go after them. Get them back and you will have rescued precious lives from destruction and prevented an epidemic of wandering away from God.

It was also Pentecost Sunday.  So following his sermon we watched the following video: Pentecost scripture.

Pentecost is the day in which we remember the entrance of the Holy Spirit to dwell among God’s people.  Jesus had been promising his disciples that the day would come.  That in his physical absence from earth, the Spirit would come and bring comfort, encouragement, and passion to his followers.

The video shared the scripture describing that first appearance. And ever since that day, the Spirit continues to be present in our lives if we will be open to it. That doesn’t mean tongues of fire were about to appear on our heads, or that we were going to start speaking in different languages, but it does mean that he is able and willing to work in and through us.

We spent a few minutes exercising some of the things James thinks our community should be doing. As usual, we did that in a very non-threatening way.  So we had Nick up leading some songs just with his acoustic guitar – so if all of this was totally out of your comfort zone, then you could just focus there and sing along.

But if you were willing, we encouraged you to find a partner and do two things with them:

1 – pray. Ask each other what prayer requests exist in their lives, and then pray for those requests. Outloud ideally, but you could do it silently if that will make it possible. We provided a prayer to use if they were not comfortable winging it.

2 – confess your sins. Share (outloud) those burdens you’ve been carrying, and then pray that God will forgive you. Know that what you say to each other in this sacred space is to not be shared with anyone else. Just between the two of you and God. Again, we provided some liturgy they could use if just sharing was too uncomfortable.

If they did’t feel comfortable doing these things with a partner, we encouraged them to at least take a handout and consider lifting these prayers and confessions silently right to God.

Also, John was in the back of the room. He had some anointing oil. So if someone had something burdening them that they would like to ask for God to heal (physical, emotional, spiritual, etc.) then they were to just approach him, share with him their request, and he prayed over them, using the oil to make the sign of the cross on their forehead.

We prayed that the spirit would move and then people broke into pairs and started.  It was a beautiful time – people praying, crying and being anointed.  The room was a humm with whispers and song and it was powerful for many.  Following that time, we came back together to sing a couple more songs: “The Heart of Worship” by Redman and “Hosanna” by Hillsong.

It was a good night.  

Here is our current prayer request list. (Anyone can ask for prayer, just let me know! You can talk to me or drop one of our prayer request cards in the worship space Drop Boxes.)

:: Holly Stockburger will be undergoing weekly treatments on Thursdays from 12-4ish for the next 10 weeks. Please lift up her family that takes her to chemo and stays with her. Pray she can balance health and work and family.

:: Eric and Tina are expecting their first child! So far, so good. Please keep everyone’s health in your prayers. We’re 34 weeks! Eric’s dad Theo is feeling better, and is having some tests done to figure out why he’s been sick so often – pray they can figure it out!

:: Pray for Christa and her sons

:: Nathalie, Andrea & Tony S, Amanda B and Randall F are all looking for new jobs – pray God will open up the right opportunities.

:: Pray for Syd Kiser’s sister (Ellen) as she fights Breast Cancer. And for her daughter and her family – they’ve been going through a rough patch for a while.

:: Pray for Lyn K as she struggles with pain and the side effects of cancer treatments. Also pray for her Niece, a 17 year old with what they think is Crohn’s Disease.

:: Pray for Amanda B’s mom who is going to have to stay in rehab afterall. She’s having a rough time. Pray also for Amanda who’s dog is very sick (like her baby), who is having some health issues, and is looking for a job.

Traveling Mercies :: The gift of FOCUS :: 5.16.10 May 19, 2010

There is so much that would distract us from God’s love and purpose in our lives. And when we come right down to it, all of that is just junk in comparison. James suggests that we can’t have both. We can’t choose the junk and God – we have to be willing to let go of the junk so that in God we can be complete and focused on what’s really important.

We started the night out with a couple songs: “Yesterday, Today & Forever” by Vicki Beeching and “Foreverandever, Etc.” by David Crowder.  We watched the following intro video: you can watch it if you want.  And read our verses from James for the night:

James 4:1-10
1-2Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from? Do you think they just happen? Think again. They come about because you want your own way, and fight for it deep inside yourselves. You lust for what you don’t have and are willing to kill to get it. You want what isn’t yours and will risk violence to get your hands on it. 2-3You wouldn’t think of just asking God for it, would you? And why not? Because you know you’d be asking for what you have no right to. You’re spoiled children, each wanting your own way.

4-6You’re cheating on God. If all you want is your own way, flirting with the world every chance you get, you end up enemies of God and his way. And do you suppose God doesn’t care? The proverb has it that “he’s a fiercely jealous lover.” And what he gives in love is far better than anything else you’ll find. It’s common knowledge that “God goes against the willful proud; God gives grace to the willing humble.”

7-10So let God work his will in you. Yell a loud no to the Devil and watch him scamper. Say a quiet yes to God and he’ll be there in no time. Quit dabbling in sin. Purify your inner life. Quit playing the field. Hit bottom, and cry your eyes out. The fun and games are over. Get serious, really serious. Get down on your knees before the Master; it’s the only way you’ll get on your feet.

John shared a sermon all about how to make this kind of focus a reality in your life.  And we responded first by singing “One Pure & Holy Passion” together and then with a time of prayer (shaped by our verses) with time for silent reflection in between.  It went like this…

God, we read in James that so much of the negative in this world happens because we want our own way. And we fight to have it – this selfish nature in us is always getting in the way. We ask you now to help us see where in our lives we have gone too far and been selfish…

God, we read in James that we lust after what we don’t have and we often risk everything to try and get it. We are spoiled children, wanting our own way. We ask you now to help us identify those distractions in our lives that we hunger for instead of you…

God, we read in James that we tend to cheat on You and your love, and that the more we grab a hold of the world, the more we become enemies of yours. We know you are a jealous lover, and you offer far more than anything else we can find. We ask you now to help us focus in on your blessings and recommit to your love and your love ALONE…

God, we read in James that if we will draw near to you, you WILL draw near to us. Come near, God. Give us the strength to say no to evil and the sin that haunts us. Give us the courage to stop doing the things that hurt you, and instead may we honor you with our choices. Give us the focus we need to be serious about this relationship we have with you. Give us that pure and holy passion to know you and follow hard after you.

Because the truth is – This world is empty, pale and poor compared to knowing you, God. And Better is one day in your courts, in your presence, in your love – than thousands elsewhere.  Amen.

Then we sang “Better is One Day” by Passion Band and “I Will Not Forget You” by Waterdeep.  It was a good night.

Here is our current prayer request list. (Anyone can ask for prayer, just let me know! You can talk to me or drop one of our prayer request cards in the worship space Drop Boxes.)

:: Holly Stockburger will be undergoing weekly treatments on Thursdays from 12-4ish for the next 10 weeks. Please lift up her family that takes her to chemo and stays with her. Pray she can balance health and work and family.

:: Eric and Tina are expecting their first child! So far, so good. Please keep everyone’s health in your prayers. We’re 34 weeks! Eric’s dad Theo is feeling better, and is having some tests done to figure out why he’s been sick so often – pray they can figure it out!

:: Pray for Christa and her sons

:: Nathalie, Andrea & Tony S, Amanda B and Randall F are all looking for new jobs – pray God will open up the right opportunities.

:: Pray for Syd Kiser’s sister (Ellen) as she fights Breast Cancer. And for her daughter and her family – they’ve been going through a rough patch for a while.

:: Pray for Lyn K as she struggles with pain and the side effects of cancer treatments. Also pray for her Niece, a 17 year old with what they think is Crohn’s Disease.

:: Pray for Amanda B’s mom who is going to have to stay in rehab afterall. She’s having a rough time. Pray also for Amanda who has a pinched nerve and for her job search.

Traveling Mercies :: The Gift of Wisdom :: 5.9.10 May 12, 2010

This night was all about wisdom – and it was also Mother’s Day - I think that fits pretty well together!  Mothers are wise aren’t they?  Even if they made lots of mistakes along the way, they stand at the other side of hindsight and have a large perspective.

When we started planning for tonight, I was reminded of a very wise mother that many of us are familiar with. She said things like: “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”  That’s right – Forrest Gump’s mother, played by Sally Field, was just chop full of wisdom. Here are some more examples. Stringing them together somehow makes them even more profound….

“My momma always said you can tell a lot about a person by their shoes, where their goin’, where they’ve been.”
“Momma said there’s only so much fortune a man really needs and the rest is just for showing off.”
“My Mama always said you’ve got to put the past behind you before you can move on.”
“Mama always said, dying was a part of life.”
“My Mama said, God is mysterious.”
“Mama always had a way of explaining things so I could understand them.”

So that night we explored this wisdom.  The kind of wisdom we receive from our mothers; the kind of wisdom James encourages us to embrace; the kind of wisdom each of us is carrying around; and to get us thinking, we heard from the wisdom of Rob Bell through one of his Noomas.   “She” – You can watch it here.

We had started off with a couple songs: “Unchanging” by Tomlin and “All We Need” by Charlie Hall.  Then after the Nooma we split into discussion groups.  Everybody got a sheet of paper with the following questions and scripture…

GROUP DISCUSSION:
-          How has your experience with your own mother shaped your perception of God?
-          Rob said, “Throughout the Bible, God is described as compassionate.  In Hebrew, the original language of the scriptures, it’s the word ‘raham.’  This is also the word for ‘womb.’  So God is compassionate.  God is womb-like.  This is a very feminine image for God.”  Do you think of God as male or female?  Why is that?
-          Who are some of the women you see reflecting the creativity, diversity and variety of God?
-          Can you share a story of a time your mother made a sacrifice for you?  How was it Christ-like?
-          What’s one of the pieces of wisdom your mother impressed upon you as you grew up? 

Read James 3:13-16
Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here’s what you do: Live well, live wisely, live humbly. It’s the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts. Mean-spirited ambition isn’t wisdom. Boasting that you are wise isn’t wisdom. Twisting the truth to make yourselves sound wise isn’t wisdom. It’s the furthest thing from wisdom—it’s animal cunning, devilish conniving. Whenever you’re trying to look better than others or get the better of others, things fall apart and everyone ends up at the others’ throats.

 -          Have you ever found yourself making these mistakes?  (being too ambitious, boastful, or conniving just to look wise)  What happened?

Read James 3:17-18 
Real wisdom, God’s wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.

-          Do you associate wisdom with getting along with others? 
-          Have you experience someone who is “gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings”?  How are those traits seen as wise?
-          “People don’t care how much you know till they know how much you care.”  How does this quote help connect wisdom and kindness?
-          What is one area in your life that you need to exercise more wisdom? 
How can you go about making that change?

It was a beautiful night and we had a small crowd, so each group took their chairs and went and found a spot outside.  They worked through the discussion, said a closing prayer as a group and dismissed from there.  It was simple and powerful.  It was a good night.  

Here is our current prayer request list. (Anyone can ask for prayer, just let me know! You can talk to me or drop one of our prayer request cards in the worship space Drop Boxes.)

:: Holly Stockburger will be undergoing weekly treatments on Thursdays from 12-4ish for the next 10 weeks. Please lift up her family that takes her to chemo and stays with her. Pray she can balance health and work and family.

:: Praise for Tina Lambert – her eye surgery went REALLY well and she’s already mostly recovered!

:: Eric and Tina are expecting their first child! So far, so good. Please keep everyone’s health in your prayers. We’re 33 weeks! Eric’s dad Theo is feeling better, and is having some tests done to figure out why he’s been sick so often – pray they can figure it out!

:: Pray for Christa and her sons

:: Nathalie, Andrea & Tony S, Amanda B and Randall F are all looking for new jobs – pray God will open up the right opportunities.

:: Pray for Syd Kiser’s sister (Ellen) as she fights Breast Cancer. And for her daughter and her family – they’ve been going through a rough patch for a while.

:: Pray for Lyn K as she struggles with pain and the side effects of cancer treatments. Also pray for her Niece, a 17 year old with what they think is Crohn’s Disease.

:: Pray for Amanda B’s mom who is going to have to stay in rehab afterall. She’s having a rough time. Pray also for Amanda who has a pinched nerve and for her job search.

Traveling Mercies :: The Gift of Restraint :: 5.2.10 May 3, 2010

As our series continues, we looked at a big chunk of James, chapter 3 this week.  We considered our speech and the power that is in our mouths to bless or curse.  We thought though how we’ve experienced those blessings and curses and hopefully we did some positive things to address those wounds and correct those wrongs.

We opened up with a couple songs: “Beautiful One” by Tim Hughes and “Made to Worship” by Tomlin.
We used a video to get us thinking along the right lines - watch it here.
Then we jumped right into the scripture…

James 3:3-12
A bit in the mouth of a horse controls the whole horse. A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds. A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it!
It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell.
This is scary: You can tame a tiger, but you can’t tame a tongue—it’s never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer. With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth!
My friends, this can’t go on. A spring doesn’t gush fresh water one day and brackish the next, does it? Apple trees don’t bear strawberries, do they? Raspberry bushes don’t bear apples, do they? You’re not going to dip into a polluted mud hole and get a cup of clear, cool water, are you?

James 4:11
Don’t bad-mouth each other, friends. It’s God’s Word, his Message, his Royal Rule, that takes a beating in that kind of talk. You’re supposed to be honoring the Message, not writing graffiti all over it.

We handed out paper and pens.  We started out thinking about the positive side of our words – of what happens when speech is used for good.  We had everyone think of times in their lives when they received positive words of encouragement and what that felt like or meant to them.  Then we invited them to write a note of such encouraging words to an anonymous person in the room.  Imagining what they would like to hear when they were having a bad day or going through a struggle, we had them write those words down anonymously, and place them in a basket in the center of the room.

Then we took a look at the negative, destructive side of our speech.  We looked at a couple studies about the negative bias of the brain – that we value and hold onto negative words much more than we do positive words.  That in our intimate relationships, it takes 5 positive comments to outweight one negative one.  That we even have more words for negative emotions than we do positive ones.  As humans we really struggle with negative words – I think that’s one of the symptoms to this Sin disease we all fight against. 

On a second sheet of paper people wrote down the negative words that they have heard which have haunted them in their lives.  The little comments that stick in our memory.  The things we say to ourselves that are negative.  Even the things we’ve said to others that we regret.  They held on to that paper for now.

We talked some about how Jesus also experienced both negative and positive words, reading through several examples found in the Gospels.  And even though Jesus had every right to strike back with his speech, he showed restraint.  He put love first in his word choice, over winning an argument, over pride, and over his own glory.  And that’s the kind of speech we’re called to.  

As believers, we’ve got to learn to do a better job controlling this very powerful muscle. Because often we’ll only get one shot – you’re the only bible some people will ever read – what will they learn from your speech?  Will your loved ones testify to your character when you’re gone?  Will what people heard from you in your life be a blessing or a curse – you have to decide that every time you open your mouth.  Will you exercise the gift of restraint when needed or will wish you had thought more before you spake.

In response, we invited people to do 3 things.  It was communion Sunday, so after John set up that experience, people could 1st – stop at the shredder.  We set up a shredder in the middle of the room.  They could choose to let go of those negative words they wrote - to put them in the shredder and see and hear them be demolished.  In turn they could receive the forgiveness of Christ through the elements of communion – the Great Exchanger of bad for good.  Then lastly, they picked out of the basket one of the sheets of positive words.  We hoped that they might stick them somewhere and read them often.  That when they begin to be tempted by those negatives, they might instead turn to this simple slip of encouragement and fight the negative bias of our humanity.

We sang a couple songs as folks moved through these steps: “Your Love is Deep” by Jamie Smith and “You are the Light” by Steve Fee.  Then John wrapped the night up with a few more thoughts and we closed with “Fields of GRace” by Big Daddy Weave.  It was a good night.

Here is our current prayer request list. (Anyone can ask for prayer, just let me know! You can talk to me or drop one of our prayer request cards in the worship space Drop Boxes.)

:: Holly Stockburger will be undergoing weekly treatments on Thursdays from 12-4ish for the next 10 weeks. Please lift up her family that takes her to chemo and stays with her. Pray she can balance health and work and family.

:: Praise for Tina Lambert – her eye surgery went REALLY well and she’s already mostly recovered!

:: Eric and Tina are expecting their first child! So far, so good. Please keep everyone’s health in your prayers. We’re 32 weeks!  Eric’s dad Theo is pretty sick right now – pray he can get well!

:: Pray for Christa and her sons

:: Nathalie, Andrea & Tony S, Amanda B and Randall F are all looking for new jobs – pray God will open up the right opportunities.

:: Pray for Syd Kiser’s sister (Ellen) as she fights Breast Cancer. And for her daughter and her family – they’ve been going through a rough patch for a while.

:: Pray for Lyn K as she struggles with pain and the side effects of cancer treatments. Also pray for her Niece, a 17 year old with what they think is Crohn’s Disease.

:: Pray for Amanda B’s mom who is going to have to stay in rehab afterall.  She’s having a rough time.  Pray also for Amanda who has a pinched nerve and for her job search.