The Little Church - Part 2

Anyone recognize this little cardboard church?  https://onlythemanager.blogspot.com/2011/09/little-church.html  I blogged about it several years ago.    We received it as a Christmas gift from our friend, Gwen, nearly 30 years ago.  It was actually just a cute container loaded with candies. I don't think it was meant to be used over and over. I am sure she didn't know we would still have it all these years later.  Mike has used it for children's sermons in Montana, New Mexico and now Wyoming.  He has hidden candies and other surprises in it, delighting kids over the years.  Our two oldest granddaughters would come to Grandpa's office and want to raid the little church for suckers or smarties.  That little church has been popular! 

But, as you can see, it is beginning to show its age.  I really hasn't noticed. But others had. This week Mike received this letter:

This fictitious  "building committee " is actually a friend named Ann.  She is so creative!.  Look what she made! 

I love that she patterned it after the much-loved cardboard church!  It is kind of like it's offspring.

It is so cool! 

The two churches get along well together.

And yes, the roof comes off on the new one as well, revealing an interior just waiting for some candy.




I love them both!  I especially love that they will always remind us of two sweet friends.

Today in Sunday School

Laura and I have been team teaching the High School Sunday School Class for a few years now. I think our original plan was to trade off every other Sunday but we rather enjoy teaching together so we are usually both there. We have such great discussions with the kids. They have a lot of deep thoughts and insights.

Today we were focusing on Philippians 4:6-7: Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses a'll understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

These two verses are loaded with conversation starters! We talked about the kinds of things they were afraid of as children as well as currently. I will not betray their confidences, but they were very thoughtful with their answers. What would you list as childhood fears?  Adult fears?  

Both Laura and I had to admit we had not quite mastered that part about not worrying. We are trying, though. How about you? 

We discussed how scary things are made less frightening when we have someone with us. We talked about the fact that we really are never alone and can always call on God to envelope us in his love, cry out to Jesus for protection or to help us endure what we must.

And then there is that part about the peace of God. Peace can sometimes seem so elusive, yet we are promised a peace that surpasses our understanding. What do you think that means, exactly?  

I am especially fond of that last part. Our hearts AND our minds will be guarded?... In Christ Jesus?  I don'think I fully understand that concept, yet it makes me feel very loved, protected even.

Do you want to share any thoughts on these verses?

One thing I really enjoyed today was seeing the boys (the girls were all on a trip to Montana) encourage one another to share their fears. It was something to witness. We have had a front row seat to see these guys mature from squirrelly Jr High boys to young men of the church. I find that very encouraging for the future of the church.

Dolphins at Sunrise

Last Sunday morning I couldn't sleep in. I'd listened to the waves for much of the night, so happy to know we were right there by the ocean. One thing I really wanted to do was to see the sunrise on the ocean. I finally got up and went out on our little deck. Although the sun had not yet risen, it was already getting pretty light out. I listened to the waves, which were pretty big by then, and just felt so happy. That's when it happend!

Dolphins!

Lots and lots of dolphins!

They were really close to the shore. In fact, I worried they might beach themselves. I couldn't believe I was seeing dolphins right from our room. I quickly dressed and made my way down to the beach, soon joined by Mike.  Although I never got any photos of the dolphins (they slip through the air very quickly), we enjoyed them for quite some time.

I can't tell you how beautiful it was but I'll try to give you an idea with photos.

Do you see the bird in this one? A dolphin had just jumped below it, almost in the spotlight of the sunrise.

Joy.

Looking at all that water, seeing the sunrise there...I felt so humbled.

Mike came up to me with his cell phone showing me the most perfect verses for the occasion. 

From Psalm 8

1 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. 

2 From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. 

3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 

4 what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? 

5 You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. 

6 You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: 

7 all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, 

8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. 

9 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

I think I need to give you more...

Well, that sure didn't do justice to the beauty and the feeling we were experiencing. I guess you will have to use your imagination.

Finally, we went back into our hotel and ate a nice breakfast with Ben and Sara in the hotel restaurant with another full ocean view.  It was a wonderful start to our day.

Mike & I found a sweet little congregation with which to worship. Mornings just don't get any better than that one! What a great start to what turned out to be a great day.  More tomorrow!

Festival of Talents

We had a fun event at our church Saturday morning. A young woman in our congregation, I will call her Sarah... because that's her name, arranged it all. Sarah went around weeks ago and sweetly asked people to share a talent, to teach a short class. Seriously, she has the sweetest way about her and no one could turn her down.

Sarah had it all organized so we each had a room or a space to teach our thing. There were three sessions and each teacher taught only two sessions and attended a third. 

I taught crochet. It is hard to teach it in 30 minutes so maybe I just set them up for frustration but I promised to be available for help if needed.

Maria taught vegan baking. I don't think there are many vegans in our church but lots of people appreciate learning ways to lower calories and cholesterol in their baking. I heard that class all got chocolate chip cookies! Maria wore a lovely dress and apron, complete with high heels. She was quite a classy looking cook. She did NOT learn that from me but I like that she is often dressed up.

There were classes on writing a will, tying fishing flies, sewing, making and playing with play dough, voice lessons and more. It was wonderful!

Eric taught the basics of drumming. Eric is an accomplished drummer; I already knew that.  I took his class and really was impressed at how well he taught. We learned quite a bit in 30 minutes. I learned why a snare drum is called a snare drum. I learned a bit about how to train your limbs to all do different things at the same time, not that my brain will ever make that a reality.  I know which drums in the set are the Toms.

I don't expect I will ever be a drummer but there were some young people in the class who seemed pretty inspired!

The event made me think a bit about talents. We all have God-given gifts but we often don't recognize them or allow them to show. Sometimes I think it is because we think we have to be among the greatest in order to use our talents.  That is just dumb but it has taken me a lot of years to realize that.

I was thinking maybe we could tell each other about some of our talents.   I will if you will.  

I am not the greatest crocheter or typist in the world, but I can type and crochet like the wind.  I usually find it easy to express compassion. I can calm almost any baby, or at least I think I can. Confidence is worth something, right? My favorite personal talent is the one that took me many years to recognize as a talent. I am very adaptable. Move me to a new environment and I will adapt. It maybe isn't as cool as being a great dancer but it has served me well. Perhaps God knew what he was doing with me.

Ok.  Your turn... Go!

A Super Christmas Program

Did any of you get to see a children's Christmas Play this year? Our Sunday School Children gave us a fun one Sunday morning. Cordelia' part was to be Super Girl!

Yep. That is right. We got to see her be a little tiny Mary one year but this year she was Super Girl. The play had all the usual characters... Joseph, Mary and shepherds and such. 

I remember one of the shepherds complaining about his friends being at Starbucks while he was there cleaning sheep poop.  It maybe wasn't your typical Christmas Play.

The play was about the Super Heroes worrying because they had heard of a new super hero to be born. Like all of us, they were worried about how the newcomer would affect them.  Besides Super Girl, we had the Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man,  and others. 

As we know, Jesus is the Light of the World. I enjoyed Cat Woman talking about those lights you can never catch.  Get it? Think flashlight shining in the floor and wall... A kitty chasing it? 

The best part of the play for me was seeing Cordelia...

And Elise exclaiming, "Delia is a Super Hero! She saves the day!" She said it all with such adoration, it was adorable. I wish you could have been there.

Happy Christmas Eve!

Pajama Party

Our church has undergone some big changes over the last couple of years. Some of those changes came with a lot of sadness and left us feeling a bit discouraged. Recently, though, we've seen healing and growth that is heartwarming.

One if the changes was a loss of a full-time youth director. She had previously done so much work and organized many great events for the kids. With her resignation came a lot of reorganization, which is not always an easy thing. What I've noticed now, a year later, is a lot of people stepping up to the plate, so the speak. 

New events keep popping, organized by parents and other volunteers. This past Friday night they organized a Polar Express Party. As with many of these events, entire families were there having fun together. We all wore our Jammie's and went as groups from one station to another. 

We followed train track to lead the way to stations where we decorated and ate cookies...

... Played in piles of shaving cream "snow"...

... Made decorations and had coloring contests. 

 I am showing close-up photos of only our granddaughters and not the faces of other kids since I didn't ask for parental permission to show the others. There were over 60 kids there!

There was a white elephant gift exchange. I was worried Elise , at age 2, wouldn't quite understand the funky gifts but a small miracle occurred as she received a My Little Pony. She was so very excited! I was so relieved!

Cordy received stationery cards and wasn't thrilled at first but later was planning how she could leave secret letters to make people happy. I love that girl.

At each "station" the kids received a mark on their ticket. At the last station they realized their marks came together to spell JESUS.  

They all sat down while Mike told a story that brought home the message that Christmas is really all about Jesus.

Then, things got wild with an indoor snowball fight. Ok, the snowballs were made out of newspaper. The kids loved it!

The adult leaders then had a contest to see which team could clean up the fastest... A stroke of genius!

I love when a congregation serves as our larger family.  In January we will be having Saturday Talent Sharing Day. Different folks will be teaching others such things as Intro to Drumming, How to Play Cribbage, Crocheting, How to Improve Your Golf Swing, and more! Doesn't that sound wonderful?  The week after that we are going cross country skiing together. 

It is so wonderful to see so many people maybe stepping a bit out of their comfort zone to do more together. Do any of you have ideas you'd like to share of events your congregations sponsor?

Operation Christmas Child

Tonight was fun.  Our congregation pulled together for a very important purpose. We were packing boxes for Operation Christmas Child!  Click on that link to learn more about this project. It is BIG! Boxes are sent all over the world to give to children who likely would have no Christmas gifts otherwise. My friend, Nicole, is the driving force behind our church's efforts to contribute to this project.

She had a group of well organized helpers who had done a lot of prep work to have things ready. In fact, last week we had a pre-packing party where we used baggies to organize health kits, candy bags, school kits, etc. Those items were then included on the tables lined up with lots and lots of presents for children of various ages. Everything as so well organized!

These gift items were all donated by people from our church. We have a very, very generous congregation and they've been donating for this project now for some time.

We gathered for pizza while the last preparations were made. I particularly liked the taped arrows around the church building. It was set up so we could pick up a box, write a note and trace our hand on the inside lid of the box, add some tissue paper, a bag of candy, a bag of school supplies, a bag of hygiene items such as toothbrushes, cloth, soap,etc,  Once we hand those things in our box we got to choose if a path to go by tables sorted by items appropriate for either younger children, older children or those in between.

Before we ever began, though, we gathered to pray for those who would receive our boxes of gifts.  Once we started, it went pretty quickly because there were a lot of us there. Nicole had told us Sunday that she needed "all hands on deck" and that is exactly what she got! We just lined up and took a box past each station. It was fun to choose the toys or other items we added to our box. When complete, we took the to the table of helpers who added a label. They passed the boxes back to others who rubber banded them and put them into bigger boxes and eventually into our church van/trailer for transportation to the collection point. We just kept the line going, each of us doing several boxes.

It was kind of like shopping as we chose what items to put in our boxes.

I choose to not publish photos of the children there, but they ranged from about age 3 on up. Its was great!

In about an hour's time we had packed 335 boxes loaded with surprises for children all around the world!  Another congregation here in town helped with the effort and brought over 40 more boxes to add to our efforts. What a great project!

Sunday at Church

Today was a special day at church.

We had a children's program, which meant there

were a lot of parents there with a lot of cameras.

That also meant I could take photographs freely.

I love Sundays.

I love being at church.

I am there an hour early to 

practice singing

on the worship team. 

It is one of my favorite times of the week!

Our son-in-law, Eric, sings on the Worship Team with me.

I love that.

He also plays bass guitar.

He also plays drums.

Not all at once, but he is certainly one talented guy!

Cordelia was in the program and couldn't have been sweeter. She told us she felt a little scared but she enjoyed it. I loved that she waved to me during the program.

Maria and Elise were enjoying it all.

Apparently Cordelia's star power was blinding to Elise.

 It was easy to take photos of my man.

I made it look like I was just taking pictures of the children.

I'm pretty sneaky that way.

Sam always, always arrives late for church.  Always.

He was pretty surprised when I turned and snapped his photo!

And here she is, our favorite little performer!

That face always makes me smile!

Seat With a View

This is the view from where I sit each Sunday morning. I enjoy having a view of the congregation. I have seen children growing up and adults growing older. I think I have watched a few budding romances.  I have seen some faces come and go over the years. I have been witness to some tender acts of mercy.  I just thought I would share my point of view.

A Woman's Heart

Last night we started a new Lady's Bible Study at our church. We are doing A Woman's Heart by Beth Moore of LifeWay. I've mentioned her studies before. We have a workbook, complete with homework, and watch a video presentation as well. It is always interesting and I enjoy the women who attend. There are women I know from our congregation as well as women from other congregations. It's really quite lovely.

Since last night was our first lesson, the video was really more of an introduction. We started out reading some passages from Exodus 25 as this study is about the Tabernacle. That sounded like kind of a boring theme at first but the Tabernacle is mentioned more than 100 times from the Old Testament through the New Testament. It must be important.

In my notes from last night I wrote this quote, "He came to us so that we can come to him." It was referred to as the theme of the Bible. I guess that is true in many ways, really. We couldn't come to God by ourselves; He initiated it. I don't always understand why we are so important to him. We mess up so much from a personal level to a global level. Yet, he does love us and wants us to be close to him. Amazing.

Are you doing any Bible Studies right now? Do you prefer to study alone or does a group help motivate you?

Build Your Kingdom Here

Build 
Your
Kingdom
Here
Rend Collective Experiment


Come set Your rule and reign
In our hearts again          
Increase in us we pray
Unveil why we're made
Come set our hearts ablaze with hope
Like wildfire in our very souls
Holy Spirit come invade us now
We are Your Church
We need Your power
In us

We seek Your kingdom first
We hunger and we thirst
Refuse to waste our lives
For You're our joy and prize
To see the captive hearts released
The hurt; the sick; the poor at peace
We lay down our lives for Heaven's cause
We are Your church
We pray revive
This earth

Build Your kingdom here
Let the darkness fear
Show Your mighty hand
Heal our streets and land
Set Your church on fire
Win this nation back
Change the atmosphere
Build Your kingdom here
We pray  

Unleash Your kingdom's power
Reaching the near and far
No force of hell can stop
Your beauty changing hearts
You made us for much more than this
Awake the kingdom seed in us
Fill us with the strength and love of Christ
We are Your church
We are the hope
On earth

Prowell Family Band

These guys will be at our church tonight at 6:00 p.m. For local readers, feel free to join us.

I'm not all that familiar with Bluegrass Music but I like music and I like any color of grass... except maybe brown.  Ha...I crack myself up.

I bet it will be a fun evening!

Church Under the Bar

James 4:8 

Draw near to God, 

and he will draw near to you…

 

As I said, Mike & I were in St. Louis last Sunday. We had gone through some tourist booklet, looking for a place to worship downtown. There were quite a few big churches to choose from but then we found a church called The Vintage Ten. We could tell from the website that it was a small group and that it wasn't fancy. We knew how to get there and we could even wear our jeans if we wanted to...and we did.

Let me tell you, I've never been to such a place to worship before. As we approached, I knew we were in for a bit of an adventure...

It doesn't look like an ordinary entrance to a church, does it?

Just inside the bar doors there sat a couple who greeted us warmly and 

pointed us toward the stairs.

When we got down there, we found a worship space set up in the middle of a dark basement room.

There were several rows of chairs set up.

There was coffee, cookies and water.

I saw no windows so they had some lights set up here and there.

People were friendly and kind.

Although we asked several people, we never really found an explanation for their church name.

Do you suppose the Vintage part is because it is under a bar...like vintage wine?

Maybe ten people started the church?

I just don't know.

Their regular pastor wasn't present so a seminary student was there to give the sermon.

He did a nice job.

A guy in shorts played the guitar and we knew most of the songs they sang.
It was really quite nice!

We worshiped.

We prayed.

We sang.

We rejoiced.

I kind of felt like an early Christian, or one worshiping in a

country where Christianity is outlawed. 

I knew that people walking by on the streets and even likely

the people in the bar upstairs had no idea a church

service was going on down there.

We knew they were above us, though.

Whenever someone in the bar used the restroom and flushed a toilet,

we could hear the water whooshing by in the pipes around us.

It really just added to the charm.

I snapped a photo of the walls when I used the restroom.

It kind of gives you a sense of the space there.

So today, while I worship in our pretty building with windows and fresh air,

I will think of the people at Vintage Ten and know that they are also

worshiping the same God at the same time, just in a different location.

Easter Collage

I hope your Easter was also wonderful!