Reflections on a snowy Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving Mandy and I went up to South Lake Tahoe with some friends. All of us live pretty far from our families, so we became family for one another. We arrived on Wednesday and left on Saturday. We played lots of games (Cranium, Balderdash, poker and foosball), went to a casino (where I lost $14), ate a lot of food, and had some good worship and prayer time.

The adventure really began on Saturday morning, when we got ready to leave. It started snowing sometime during the night, and continued as we were leaving. We finally decided that it was best to just stay where we were. (The fact that I got a flat tire added to this wisdom). It quit snowing around 3:00, then the owner and his friends showed up. We saw this as a sign that we had overstayed our welcome. We left a little before 5:00. Four hours later we had gone 20 miles! Good times!

Anyway, a few hours after that we made it home. I was ready to get off that mountain. Aside from the long drive, it was a great trip.

More Eldredge

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners.

Jesus

John Eldredge paraphrases it this way:

God has sent me on a mission.
I have some great news for you.
God has sent me to restore and release something.
And that something is you.
I am here to give you back your heart and set you free.

Hot Sauce Evangelism

Stumbled across this a few days ago. Good read.

http://toyblog.typepad.com/lemon/2003/07/_hot_sauce_evan.html

NBA

It's basketball time again. Here are a few websites I like to peruse when I have a chance...

www.nba.com
www.hoopsworld.com
www.realgm.com
www.insidehoops.com

Enjoy!

Solomon's Porch

I got my latest issue of Cutting Edge, Vineyard's church planting magazine, in the mail today. There is a good article about a church in Minneapolis called Solomon's Porch. The following are a few quotes I thought were pretty good. The magazine's not online yet. When it is, I'll add a link to it.

The congregation, which was planted five years ago, today numbers 300 and is thoughtfully engaged in what they call “experiments” in being a “holistic, missional, Christian community”.

Community is not the endgame for me. The endgame is for us to become a people who are able to live out the aspirations and hopes and dreams of God in the world. I don’t think that’s possible to do without being in community with each other, but “community” is not the goal. We think it’s essential for people to live harmoniously with each other and with God, but that’s not the end of the game.

In terms of living in missional ways together, we talk about wanting to become “kingdom of God horticulturalists” – people who look around and can see the kingdom of God growing in a variety of species, recognize it, describe it, participate with it, and join in helping it grow. Part of that means asking ourselves, “How have we been brought together? What gifts and abilities, opportunities, desires and skills do we have that God has orchestrated for some particular way in this world?”

Our primary supposition to everything we do is figuring out how we live as a good neighbor. Living as a good neighbor is, for me, the missional call of God embodied at a grassroots level in a people.

www.solomonsporch.com