Monday Morning Update 4/24/2011

Well, it's been a long while since I've posted a Monday Morning Update. Life as a teacher, mom, church planter, and student is keeping me too busy to write blog updates on a regular basis. Hopefully life will slow down soon, and I will be able to write more often.

Yesterday we had the opportunity to help host a community Easter egg hunt at The Collin County Adventure Camp. Hundreds of people attended this amazing event. In between hiding eggs for the different age division hunts, the family and I had a few minutes to canoe out on the lake. Grace and I enjoyed racing around the lake together. I confess that she seemed to want to mostly race around the part of the lake where all the teenage boys were. It was super to see many of my students and friends from the community.

This morning was a glorious Easter Sunday at The Crossroads. My favorite part of Easter is the hum of expectancy that envelopes the room as people arrive. Everyone expects to encounter God's holy presence on Easter and they come ready to worship. I would like to discover a way to help our congregation have that same level of expectancy and recognition of God's holiness throughout the rest of the year.

The worship set was a little longer than usual today. I think the extra time was well worthwhile. That, coupled with the usage of visual media, seemed to help the congregation be more engaged than usual in worship today. Shawn's sermon on the story of Easter was amazing. I love that he has to tell the whole story of the death, burial, and resurrection in great detail because some people in attendance haven't ever heard the complete story. It is amazing to know that God is using us at times to be the first ones to share the story of the Savior.

After services we ate lunch with friends in Anna. With family out of state, they traditionally open their homes to others who are without local ties. While I am grateful to serve God in Texas and love our life here, on the holidays I do miss our family back home. I greatly appreciated the hospitality and good food.

For those of my readers who regularly pray for our ministry, here are our current prayer needs:

1. We are relaunching our youth ministry next Sunday evening. Please pray that God will move in mighty ways among the teens in our church and in Anna. Pray that God will raise up leaders from within our church who will be willing to help with this critically important ministry.

2. Pray for strength for our family. 3 years and counting with the house on the market has left us completely exhausted. We have been struggling with a very tough season of doubt and discouragement. We have questioned God greatly on why we are still in Sherman when we need to live among our people in Anna. Pray that our house will sell quickly and that we will be able to live life again as a normal family, without the need to maintain a continually spotless house. My children are ready to have hobbies besides cleaning house from top to bottom every night. They are tired, frustrated, and discouraged.

3. Pray for our city. Pray that God will unite the churches in Anna to work together to reach the city with the gospel. Pray that God will pour out his spirit and draw people to himself. We are hungry, desperate for his presence. Pray that he will make himself known in our city.

We deeply appreciate your prayers. We are well aware that without the prayers of others, we would be unable to do the ministry to which God has called us.

Happy birthday Katie

My middle daughter, Katie, turned 11 this week. We celebrated with a brief birthday dinner on Wednesday night at Genghis Grill in McKinney. The real fun, however, took place last night. For many years, I planned elaborate parties for my children at which they were generally miserable. I finally figured out a few years ago that going low key and opening up our home is what makes the kids happier.

Katie invited several friends to spend the night, but only two were able to come. Her three things that she desperately wanted to do at her party were: have a water gun fight, bob for apples, and glamorize teddy bears. So that's exactly what we did. As the night progressed I tried hard to freeze frame the moments in my memories. There were many magical moments to process and having a bad memory means that I have to work hard to store information for later.

Early in the afternoon, I stood on our deck and watched the girls spring into the air on the trampoline, squealing as they squirted one another with the water guns. Apparently for preteen girls squealing is their trademark sound. Then the bobbing for apples made me laugh till I cried. The girls finally started sticking their entire bodies into the tub of water to chase down the apples. As they raised up dripping like drowned rats with apples hanging from their teeth, I couldn't stop giggling.

Glamorizing the teddy bears was a much larger project than I anticipated. I spent most of the evening cutting open bears and sewing on tummy patches, paw patches, and large flowers. Imaginations bloomed as they picked out jewels and fabrics. We giggled lots trying to decorate the bears to the girls' satisfaction.

After darkness fell, Shawn built a small fire down by the creek to roast smores. We used the super-sized marshmallows for the smores. The girls couldn't even get the smores into their mouths. The magic of the evening was complete as we laid on the trampoline with sticky faces and fingers watching the trees blow in the wind and the stars twinkle in the distance.

Katie is a beautiful gift to our family. God blessed her with a kind heart and a gentle, loving spirit. It was an amazing treat to get to be a part of her party and hang out with her friends. What a magical night!

Starfield in Concert

I had a great time last night at Dallas Baptist University at the Starfield concert. Having the opportunity to worship with my daughter Grace was a beautiful thing. I enjoyed spending the evening hanging out with her - eating at Chick-Fil-A, doing homework together at the college library, then waiting in line and enjoying the concert. Her heart for worship is amazing. The fun part is that as a drummer, when she gets totally lost in worship she moves from lifted hands to drumming on the seats and stomping on the floor to create funky beats. A more thorough review of the concert itself can be found on my worship blog: larissasworshipthoughts.blogspot.com

Recess

Everyday at 10:30 revival happens in first grade. I announce to my small students to put away their things, grab their jackets and line up. Bored, glazed over little eyes pop open, as they jump from their chairs and sprint to the door. I force them to walk in a calm, straight line all the way down the side of the building until we reach the end of the sidewalk. The instant their tiny feet hit the grass, they are allowed to run. When their feet touch the turf, screams of joy and delight erupt. They run at full speed across the field to the playground equipment. Their plots thicken the air as they debate what games they will play.

When I watch them run, I am reminded of a couple of verses of scripture. The first is Philippians 4:4, "Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again--rejoice!" These kids understand joy. They erupt with pleasure when they are set free every morning. I have been set free from sin and the grave, I need to be showing more joy in my life! Seeing the joy these kids experience makes me hungry to cultivate that character trait a little more in my life. I have a lot of quiet joy, but I could stand more exuberant excitement about the privilege of following Christ.

The other verse is Philippians 3:14, "I run straight toward the goal to win the prize that God's heavenly call offers in Christ Jesus." My students are goal oriented, whether they are trying to get to the monkey bars, the swings, or the tether balls. They run at absolute top speeds, trying to break the speed of light on their way to acquiring their desired location. Lately I have been watching their determined burst of speed and wondering what my life might look like if I ran after God with that same intensity and passion.

Just a couple of thoughts from the playground: Live joyfully, run harder.

Be a Tool

In a recent sermon, Shawn spoke from Romans 6:12, "Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God." He pointed out that an instrument is actually just a tool.

My brain ran away from the sermon on its own little tangent for awhile. BE A TOOL. I have a toolbox. It has many things in it: a hammer, tape measure, screwdriver, pliers, etc. What if my tools tried to tell me how to do my remodeling projects? What if my screwdriver was convinced it could drive nails, and my hammer tried to measure the width of the window for curtains. Can you imagine the chaos? Yet, that is what I do to God. I try to tell him the best way to use my life rather than simply living surrendered to his will. Just like my hammer is best used to drive nails, my life is best used in the hands of the Master.

Even though I may use some tools more often than others, they are all valuable. I may not often need a pipe wrench, but when the moment comes, a pair of pliers simply will not do the job as well. I thought about this application. We as believers want to compare ourselves to others and see what God is doing in others' lives and whine about how He's not doing as much in our own lives. Instead we need to recognize that we all have infinite value to God.

I used to have an old hammer whose head occasionally flew off. While duct tape improved its longevity, it finally had to be trashed. I thought about this old hammer, and realized that sometimes when God wants to use me I am not ready. I may duct tape my life together enough to get by, but it is not a substitute for real spirituality. I realized that in our lives, we have to maintain our spiritual fitness so that we are always ready whenever God needs us.

I guess my goal for today is to work on being a well oiled, useful tool that God can use in any way he desires to further his kingdom purposes.

If I said you had a beautiful body.....

If I said you had a beautiful body......some of you would sing the next line in the song, "would you hold it against me," but the majority of my women readers would snicker and laugh at the thought that their body could ever be beautiful.

Body image. It's the greatest of all struggles for most, if not all, American women. We are inundated by images of airbrushed, anorexic models with impossible plastic surgery enhancements. They assault our senses from the magazine stands in the checkout line, billboards on the highway, and the television shows on every network. Women, often under pressure from the men in their lives, believe that their value is found in looking like these models. This has led to a deadly epidemic of eating disorders and other dysfunctional behavior.

Recently browsing in the dollar bins at a local bookstore, I picked up a book filled with beautiful women - not the swimsuit model variety, but ordinary, everyday women. The book was a collection of these women's poignant stories of their journey to find peace in their own imperfect skin. Each woman was tastefully photographed in black and white alongside her story. The women were a cross section of America - old, middle aged, young, skinny, fat, wrinkled, even a breast cancer survivor. As I read the stories, I was awed by the sheer beauty encapsulated in those pages. I saw that real beauty is not the computer enhanced, plastic surgery repaired women on the front covers of magazines. Real beauty is found in a grandmother's winkled, gnarled hands - proof of a long life, lived well. Real beauty is found in the young mom's huge scar from her emergency C-section - a proud war wound in the battle to deliver a first child. Real beauty is large and small, light and dark. Real beauty is seeing yourself and the women around you as a unique and special part of God's creation.

On my way out, I walked past the latest Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition and shook my head. The woman on the cover did not compare in beauty to the stories I had just read and the pictures I had just seen. Fake and airbrushed, she did not hold a candle to the real beauty I had witnessed. I was saddened that our society has been satisfied with so little for so long. We have bought into the terrible lie that beauty is a tan, skinny Barbie like figure.

I would encourage my readers to notice and appreciate the beautiful women in your life today. Compliment them, encourage them, and love them. Begin with the beautiful woman in your mirror.

Monday Morning Update 2.13.11

It was my week to lead worship in Kids' Cove, so I practiced the music late into the night Saturday. Sunday dawned bright and warm, gorgeous weather after the arctic blast last week. I was experiencing the early signs of a migraine - confusion, disorientation, and memory loss, but I was confident that God would still make himself known in spite of my weakness this morning. Unfortunately I lazily neglected to download and study for the Bible story, planning to wing it since the lesson is all video based.

During set up we had several minor technological difficulties. Small things like the sound and video were completely nonfunctional. However, we ironed out the bugs, EQ'd the mic, checked the video feed, and prepped for services. I started services with a couple of fast songs, trying to energize a sleepy group of children. Our family sweetheart dance was Saturday night, and the children all seemed a little tired. I finally got everyone up and moving by the end of the second song.

We watched the video lesson, a western themed story, set in the town of "Whopperville." About 5 minutes in, the sheriff was interviewing candidates for a trustworthy deputy when we lost video feed. I stalled while the other workers looked for a way to fix the video. We sang a couple of songs, I babbled aimlessly about pleasing God with honest actions and honest words. We managed to restore audio, so we continued with the lesson so that I could see what the Bible story might be. I thought that when we came to the Bible story, I would be able to wing it old-school from that point.

Keep in mind that I was not adequately prepared, or I could have alleviated this problem all together. When we came to the Bible story, I was dismayed to learn that I would have to discuss King Joash and his honest dealings. Really - not Noah, Moses, Abraham, or any of the characters that I might be familiar with? But Joash. I couldn't remember who he was or what he did. I heard enough of the audio feed to piece together a story, but I won't guarantee that it was entirely factual.

We still had a good time. The kids were very patient with my crash and burn lesson. In the meantime I learned some valuable lessons:
1. Be overprepared. Know what the Bible story is - bring a Bible - and have a backup plan in case you have a major technical difficulty. It happens far too often with computers.
2. Laugh at yourself. Not taking the situation too seriously helped us make it through the morning without sacrificing anyone's attitude.
3. Love the kids. It's more important to relate to the children and teach them a simple truth about God than to get all the details perfect.
4. See #1 again.

I don't know anything about the adult service. Shawn and I haven't had the opportunity to even touch base this afternoon. I am assuming all went well, or I would have heard the news by now.

As you pray for The Crossroads, pray that God would raise up more children's workers. We've had at least 7 workers quit since the first of the year, leaving us absolutely short handed in ministering to the kids. I know that most churches struggle with the same issue, and I'm thankful that we have several committed workers. Honestly, for a church plant we are fortunate to have a great kid's program. However, we are in desperate need of about 3 or 4 more workers in order for things to flow smoothly and keep most of us rotating through only once a month to avoid burnout. I am confident that God sees the need and is working in the hearts of our people so that the need will be met. I am excited to see how God provides in this situation, knowing that he has great blessings in store.