have you stepped out

Have you ever stepped out in faith, in obedience to something you thought the Lord was calling you to do, unsure you could do it? That is where I was tonight. We launched a small group for Young Single Women at Crossroads.

It was amazing!

And, as God often does, the leader (me) was blessed AND challenged more than the attendees!

We faced the question, "are we living with reckless abandon for Christ?" For it is ONLY in Him we find fulfillment. Not in marriage, not in children, not in possessions! If we are not content and obedient right where we are, in this very moment He can never reveal His very best for us.

And so we launched determined to come out of this study with a closer walk with Jesus!

My beautiful, Godly girls!

what I learned today

At Small Group tonight, we discussed how difficult it is to understand how anyone can think the universe was formed by a blast or by chance. People talked about the meticulous way that God placed each and every planet at the exact distance from the sun and in the perfect orbit to survive. And then we talked about the fact that this amazing creator placed within each of us a void that could only be filled by Him.

We talked about eternity and how insignificant this time is that we are here on earth in comparison. And we marveled at why He values a relationship with each of us.

These are some of the many mysteries of our God. And tonight was a great time of sitting quietly before Him, worshiping Him with our discussion and delighting in Him. I learned today that the most important thing is not to just learn another fact, but instead, to become completely overwhelmed by my amazing God!

blown away

I am tired of being blown around! As I headed for work word came that the wind had blown out a phase of our electric at church. Translation= internet blown away, so I headed to a place off-site. That is where I find myself working in a restaurant, not happy that I picked a popular lunch gathering (I'm easily distracted). Working hard to concentrate!! Honest!

I am very excited about the Creative Arts Small Group tonight at the Mansfield Art Center, I'll probably add pictures to this post tonight! So, that is what I'm working on over lunch, my small group study.

I am not particularly happy with the commentaries I've been using, they all seem to contradict one another. Oh well, it should make for lively conversation and exploration at group tonight.

More detail later! Hope you have electricity wherever you are today!

gifts: today's theme

It's funny that some days there just seems to be a theme. Today's theme, spiritual gifts. My first discussion concerning gifts took place at our programming meeting. We discussed making sure that each of us are spending our time in our most gifted areas. There is no reason for any of us to spend our time taking care of an area of programming our services that we are not gifted in. We continue to evaluate and tweak our processes to insure we are at our strongest.

I lead a similar conversation at the artists small group tonight. I posed this question to the artists, "why are artists so hesitant to share their work with others if it is clear that God has gifted them with this talent?" They talked about how personal art is, how scary it is to put it out there for everyone to see. It is scary for anyone who creates as they wait to see how their work will be accepted.

We put ourselves out there every time we create. But it is something we simply must do! God graciously gifts each of His children in some way. I love it when the church helps people discover their gifts and then provides opportunities to use them! This is as it should be!!

a new visual arts team is born

I am very excited about my meeting tonight with 2 artists to brainstorm for a new Visual Arts team at Crossroads. This team will actual operate as a small group that will meet each month.

Tonight we will create the Vision and Mission for this team/small group. We will be organizing local artists in our community to provide art displays from time to time. I would also love to host a juried show in 2009. I will also propose an Easter project to begin in January if we can get it organized quickly enough.

I am very excited to invest time in this area of our ministry, the pay off is huge to our ministry. After all Art got it's start in the church - so we are taking it back for the Glory of God!!

power of prayer

I launched a new Magnification Ladies group this morning. Seven of us met at 6:30 a.m. before every one's day began.

We met at Panera Bread for coffee, to share prayer requests and life. I feel a new freedom (without guilt), since my kids are gone to invest freely in others. I took prayer journals for the girls and we poured out our prayer requests to one another. We all wrote each one down and committed to hold one another up in prayer for the next two weeks until we meet again.

I challenged them is to expect God to work, watch for even unconventional ways He may answer or begin to answer. We were all aware that God sometimes chooses not to answer for a time so we all encouraged one another to 'wait on the Lord', but to be very faithful in prayer. I wrote Matthew 21:22 in the front of each journal and asked them to investigate that little verse. Does it mean exactly what it says? Are we taking it out of context by claiming this little verse alone?

I look forward to investigating God's promises connected to prayer. And guess what? The weekend teaching just happens to be on prayer as well!

New Magnification Small Group

I will be launching a new ladies Magnification small group in September. I really want to know the girls that serve in our department better. I have very little time when we are preparing for or during services to get to know the volunteers on our teams personally.

I thought the best way to do this with the girls might be to begin a early morning coffee group. We will use journals to record one anothers prayer requests, pray for one another and celebrate answered prayers together.

Our meeting location will be Panera Bread at 2070 Walker Lake Road. We will meet the first and third Thursday of each month. The date of our first meeting will be on Thursday, September 4 at 7:00 a.m. See you there girls!