five things
Ready?
Spiritual Formation
I’m starting to notice pockets of genuine spiritual formation emerging within our little community. Things like…
…true discipleship. No checklists, choreographed meetings or baseball diamond flow charts. Instead, people sharing the journey, God centered exchanges and authentic life change.
…all things in common. Borrowing the pick-up, moving help, help with a business start up, financial needs met.
…use of gifts. A glimmer of people finding their place, and stewarding what’s been invested in them for the benefit of others and the glory of God.
…permission to journey. A member of our community mentioned to me that they chose to forgo participating in communion a few weeks back because they didn’t feel they were in the right head/hear space. She said that if it had been any other church, she would’ve felt guilty for not taking part…but…because she made that conscious choice she said that she was empowered to sort things out internally. Beautiful.
Presently, I’m feeling very encouraged. Adding to the mix is this excellent article entitled ‘6 Reasons not to Quit.’
Video
Speaking of spiritual formation, there are some neat little clips of Dallas Willard, Richard Foster and others sharing wisdom on the subject here.
Chris Seay from Ecclesia Houston is video blogging personally and within a group. The group blog on Advent has some good stuff.
I’m not a political philosopher by any stretch, but, YouTube’s participation in the US Presidential Debates in my opinion was terrific idea. Talk about leveling the playing field…
Thinkerlabs.ca
Jer posted a boatload of open source artwork courtesy of Westside Kings’s Church and the artistic stylings of John Gerrard.
Americans Nick and Josh from the Nick and Josh Podcast fame have challenged Jer and I to a a podcast duel. Not sure what it will all entail, but I’ll keep you in the loop.
9 Years
Sarah and I celebrated our 9 year anniversary yesterday. Part of the celebration included the viewing of Hairspray of which Sarah’s aunt was the vocal coach. On the Joe scale of 1-10: 8. Not a bad flick. It was fun, entertaining and because I’m a sucker for 50/60’s kitsch the eye candy tremendous.
Reminder
A good friend of mine reminded me over the phone last week of a Eugene Peterson quip that classifies pastoral work as ‘blue collar’. How true. Needed to hear that.
Filed by Joe at July 26th, 2007 under Uncategorized, Ideas to Share, Creativity, soundtrack of life, video post, Current Reads, Current Sounds
Hey Joe and Sarah!
Happy Anniversary!!!
I got to check out your blog more often. You have come across some of the same things I’ve been seeing - ie the Andrew Jones thing at Wheaton.
Are you part of the team putting together the documentary on emerging in Canada? I’d really love to see that when it’s done and like to have some conversations about it.
Blessings
M
Comment by Michael Krause — July 26, 2007 @ 8:53 pm