This Satuday Night
This Saturday night is our monthly family worship gathering. Our elementary kids will be in the service with us and will actually be leading different portions of our service. You won't want to miss that. It will be a very special time.
To prepare for our service this weekend you can read our Psalm for the week:
Psalm 138 and the text for our teaching time:
Genesis 12:1-9. We will be finishing up our small series on Genesis called "The Back Story".
Don't forget: C-2 is this Saturday. Contact me if you want to have your children involved in that special time. Also, our church picnic is this Sunday at 4:00. We will eat at 6:00. It will be a lot of fun and a great time sharing life together.
HAPPY 100th!
100 posts to this blog, that is. It is a bit of a mile marker for us that we have been using this space for that long. In an upcoming post I will include some of the "greatest hits" on this blog from the past months. These will be a few posts from the past several months that are still worth reading, or viewing, after all of this time.
In the meantime, don't forget:
1. C-2 (Wheatland's mini-VBS event) is this Saturday at 10AM. This will be a really special time that none of our elementary or middle-school kids will want to miss.
2. Saturday night's service will be on of our family worship gatherings and kids from C-2 will have a special part to play in the entire service.
3. Don't forget our family picnic this Sunday night. It all starts at 4:00 PM and we will eat at 6:00 PM. Please bring a side dish. Meat and buns for hamburgers and hotdogs will be provided as well as drinks.
Thanks to you who volunteered your grills. That helps a whole lot!
People Paul Needs to Thank...this week (T-1)
This list of people whom I need to thank is not exhaustive by any means. If you think you deserve my thanks I am sure that I would agree.Just getting back from vacation I must say thanks to my hosts in Portland. Laurin and Sheri (after 15+ years I finally figured out how to spell your name), y'all took great care of us while we were up in the great Northwest. You provided first rate hospitality and showed us around to all of the really cool stuff in the area. Our sadness, that comes from the great geographical distance between us, was healed by the great friendship we share and the wonderful time we had with you.
I also want to thank Joe and Mallary for taking us to Imago Dei for church, the Kennedy School for dinner and the Laurelhurst neighborhood just for fun. It was a real treat to see the two of you again. Thanks for helping in the "early days" of the Wheatland Mission. Your fingerprints are still here.
I also want to thank Matt T. for leading and planning the worship service this past week. Multiple sources tell me that worship was great. However, they didn't have to tell me that to know it. Thanks for your willingness to help in that way.
Thanks to Brad Moser. In addition to being a great friend and encourager you tackled the teaching time this past week. You did a great job, again, multiple sources keep telling me these things. But I knew you would. Thanks for being one of the teachers in our little community, along with all of the other important things you do.
Thanks to the Snodgrasses and Kings for helping care for our eldest daughter this weekend. We knew that Tatiana was in great hands and we appreciate it very much. Thanks to my sis-in-law Dedra, and my brother Mark, for taking such good care of Savannah. Also, thanks Mark for fixing her bike.
I also want to thank Rustin and Marcola (Calana's sister and her husband) for taking such good care of Harrison. He almost didn't want to come home. He had a great time with your family. It's good to have spend some time with his little cousin Rock and his aunt and uncle.
I want to thank Brad Niessen for loaning me his saws and for getting an extra bucket for our dog. Also, I want to especially thank Braydon Niessen for keeping Shelby (our large outdoor dog) hydrated. Way to go! Thanks Braydon's Mom and Dad, along with little sis Chloe. You helped him too.
Finally, two last groups for me to thank. First, those of you who greeted us over the phone Saturday night...thank you! That meant a lot even though I was a bit confused over what the message was at first. After listening to it for awhile I figured it out. That meant a lot. Second, a big thanks for all of you who have put up with our blog the past week as I post photo's and make comments about our trip. Your tolerance and affection are much appreciated!
Gratitude is such a central component of our faith. I hope this little post might make you think a bit about who and what you are grateful for. Above all, we want to take time regulalry to thank God for the gift of himself and one another.
We Are Home ... T-2
We are home and glad to be back. (In spite of the temprature which is a bit different than the very comfortable Portland clime.) Our plane landed at about 1:00 AM Tuesday morning in Kansas City. We stayed a few hours at the Smith's (Calana's sister) and then returned to Wichita yesterday afternoon. It is good to be back with the kids and back home.
We want to thank all of you who helped out with kids, dog feeding (and cooling) and all else. Calana and I had a wonderful trip. We missed being here for church Saturday night but we enjoyed worship at Beaverton Christian Church where my cousin Laurin is the worship minister.
Laurin and I are 1st cousins but grew up much like brothers. While I am sad that he lives so far away I must confess I am glad he lives in such a cool destination. Laurin and Sheri, his wife, have two children, Graham (7) and Claire (4). The whole family is included in the picture below. They were with us at the airport and saw us off.
Laurin does a splendid job leading worship and coordinates a very large music ministry including a choir, more than one worship team and band, along with an orchestra. BCC is a church of about 2200. No small task. Sheri and Laurin were wonderful hosts and took us all around the Portland area. It was an honor to get to worship Saturday night without responsibilities and under Laurin's very capable leadership. It was a good time all around.
Wheatland Phone is Dead
I love my phone. It is a very useful communication tool. I can place and receive phone calls (of course), send texts, and e-mail all in one package. I even look business like talking on a blackberry like one half of the corporate world. Alsa, the phone is with me and the charger is in Wichita. Last call was yesterday.
I'll check my messages remotely. Ooops.
At the Coast on Friday...
This is a picture of our hosts, Laurin and Sheri Hill. They took really good care of us and took us to see some beautiful scenery. This picture was shot at Cannon Beach. The Pacific is in the background.
Calana and I are running to the water. We heard the ocean temperature was a balmy 60 degrees.
Laurin, his son Graham and I are in Astoria, OR. We are on top of the Astoria Column overlooking the Columbia river and Washington State behind us. Lewis and Clark built Fort Clatsop just around the corner 200 years previously.
(Ooops! This caption is wrong. Yes, it is my cousin Laurin and his son Graham but that is the Pacific Ocean in the background and not the Columbia. We were at the Astoria Column, near Fort Clatsop, earlier that day.)
The Hill's of Portland. That is "Haystack Rock" behind them. When the tide went out we were able to look at crabs and starfish in the tidal pools that were left behind. Pretty neat.
Returning to the mothership.
This is the sunset on "Haystack Rock". Awed by creation.
Portland Weekend...more pictures!
This has been a great weekend away in the great Northwest. And, after following the weather reports in KS, I must say that we are glad to be enjoying the 78 degree heat wave up here. In spite of the great weather, and even better company, we are anxious to return to our kids and our home. We look forward to seeing all of you as well.
Here are two of our housemates here in Portland, young Graham and his sister Claire:
They have been a lot of fun and a great help to us during our stay here. As you might expect we wish they could have spent time with their cousins, Tatiana, Savannah and Harrison.
On Sunday morning we attended church with Joe and Mallary Wilson at a church called Imago Dei. They also took us to a great restaurant known as the Kennedy School in NE Portland. Here are a couple of pics of Joe and Mallary. Just in case your new to the Wheatland Mission Joe used to help us with our worship leading in the "early days". (Aren't we still in those?)
Our visit to Imago Dei was really good. This church calls itself a "missional community" and they have a commitment to planting new churches. More than anything they believe that the church is really meant to be a blessing to the world around it. I like that.
We are off to the airport tomorrow evening and back to Wichita around noon on Tuesday. Please pray that our travels go well.
We Missed Church Tonight...T-6
We actually
went to church tonight but we missed being with all of you, our Wheatland Mission friends. We are seeing the Wilson's (Joe and Mallary) tomorrow and going to church with them at
Imago Dei in Portland. (imagodeicommunity.com)
We will see you next week. God bless you all of you.
We Made It...
Kansas City Airport - small, business-like, 20 minute wait and
free wireless.
Atlanta Airport - big, bustling, carnival atmosphere, 3 hour wait and
no free wireless.
We did have a good trip from Atlanta to Portland. By the way, you more experienced travellers understand this, late purchased inexpensive tickets require some detours. Lots of reading time, lots of talk time, all in all a great time together.
Here we are in Atlanta:
Here we are at take-off:
We are off!
We are off! This is the Hill's in KC getting ready to transverse the continent. Twice.
The Countdown To 100! - T-9
This is post #91 on our Wheatland Mission blog. We will soon hit the century mark so let the countdown begin!
For this weekend...1) Continue reading the story of Noah and the Ark in Genesis 7,8,9.
2) Brad Moser will be leading our teaching time.
3) Matt Thiessen will be leading our worship time.
4) Mark your calendars for C2 (C-Squared). This is Wheatland's mini-VBS on July 29th.
5) Mark your calendars for the Church Family Picnic the following night, July 30th.
Have a fun weekend and pray for our family as we travel. God bless you.
The Spiritual Formation Workbook: What did you think?
Hey, all of you house churchers! What did you think of the
Spiritual Formation Workbook?
I would really appreciate the feedback from many of you who went through the book in your house church. What did you like about the book and what did you dislike? What was especially helpful and was less useful? Was there anything that you thought was just wrongheaded?
Feel free to leave some of your thoughts in the comment section. Thanks...
"a learning community of practicing disciples...
I want to take a moment and express my thanks to all of you who have shared your opinions and concerns with me regarding the big decisions our church needs to make regarding our meeting time and meeting place. Without an exception the information provided to me has been helpful and very graciously offered. Please continue to pray and please continue to share your thoughts and feelings about these issues with me and, I might add, with one another. There is much we learn together. As we work together in community God reveals things to us that he might not simply reveal to us as individuals. This is one beautiful thing about being a "body of believers" as Paul describes in I Corinthians 11-14. There is much I learn from you and much you learn from one another. Keep it up.
I entitled this post
"a learning community of practicing disciples...". This is a quote from Brian McLaren's book
The Secret Message of Jesus and one which I have mentioned before. I include it here to remind us that regardless of when we meet or where, we have a commission from Christ to follow him. We are to follow him regardless of our context or circumstance. We are to be "practicing disciples". This is a bit overstated but I believe it needs to be. In the church this word has been overused and unfortunately misused. It has grown to mean less and less over the years. What I want us to pay attention to is the idea of us being "practicing" disciples. That is, we are students, or apprentices, of Christ by actually doing what he says. We take his commands seriously and actually believe that he will empower us, through his Holy Spirit, to become more and more like him as we grow and mature. The end result will be that we will find it harder
not to do the things Jesus would do than it is to do them. This is an admirable goal and I believe it is God's will for each of our lives.
The image above is the Orthodox icon known as
Christ the Teacher.
In addition, we are to do this as we grow and learn together. We are to be a
"learning community". To be in Christ requires that we continue to learn and are committed to it. I seriously question whether we can be disciples of Christ if we are not committed to being learners. We don't learn mere facts about the Bible but we learn for the sake of being formed more and more into the likeness of Jesus. (Galatians 4:19)
So, to be a
"learning community of practicing disciples" does not require a specific building or facility but a specific outlook. A missional outlook that sees the church as part of God's solution to the world's problems initiated through Christ and his Kingdom. We get to participate in the Kingdom of God in many ways not the least of which includes fashioning our lives to more closely resemble his. Wherever that takes us is where I want to be. That is where I want the Wheatland Mission to be.
Check Your Calendars!
Here are some important dates coming up really soon:
1.
C2 - (C - squared) will be our special one day VBS experience for our elementary kids on
July 29. That is a Saturday and the kids event will culminate with another family service that night.
2.
Wheatland Mission Family Picnic - this will take place
July 30 at the clubhouse in the Tallgrass East Neighborhood. This will be a fun time for us to share as a community together.
3. Please pray for Calana and I as we travel next week. We are leaving next Wednesday for Portland, OR to visit family and friends. Pray for our kids too. They will be staying with grandparents in Texas, Aunts in KC and friends in Wichita. The weekend we are gone Brad Moser will be leading our teaching time and Matt Thiessen will be leading our worship. You will not want to miss that special night.
What I've Been Reading This Summer
I still have Paul Riley's biography of John Adams and I still plan on getting to it. I was inspired to read it two days ago with the anniversary of his death. Oh, yes. It was also our country's independence day. He had a lot to do with that too. Have no fear Paul! I'll be digging into that one real soon.
In the meantime however, I have been reading two neat little books. The first one is called the
The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian McLaren. I have read almost everything McLaren has written and have appreciated almost all of it. This is by far his best book and his focus upon the Kingdom of God/missional living is really inspiring. As usual he raises more questions than he answers and I appreciate that.
I would love to gather a reading group and go through this book. While inspiring this book provokes a lot of discussion about how we, as the church, are to live in our present day. The book makes one re-think his or her commitments in this world in light of Christ and the Kingdom he is advancing.
The second book is called
Praying With The Church by Scot McKnight. McKnight is a New Testament professor who writes in his daily blog called "Jesus Creed". (jesuscreed.org) This book is about the various prayer traditions within the church, throughout the centuries, and it focuses a lot on praying from various prayerbooks that have been compiled over the years. I appreciate his thoughtfulness and his encouragement to the reader to supplement their prayer life by "praying the hours" as it is called.
Islamic fundamentalists, and normal everyday Islamic adherents, stop several times a day for regular times of prayer. Regardless of what they are doing or where they are they stop, kneel facing the east and pray the specific prayers for that time of day. We should be challenged by their devotion. It should both inspire and provoke us to consider different ways to enhance our devotional life and deepen our commitment to Jesus. McKnight's book is a great help to this end.
E-Mail Chanda
IF, you want to help the Wheatland Mission out in any of the following areas:
• Greeting. Contrary to the belief of some this is not the same thing as being a bouncer.
• Communion Preparation. Simply put, we need individuals to provide bread and grape juice each week for our communion time. The set up is simple and open to everyone’s personal touch.
• General clean up after our worship gathering. Not too much to say here either. We need folks to help empty trash, vacuum floors (when needed) and moving children’s ministry tables, etc.
Each of these needs are fairly simple and don’t require a lot of time. Don’t let the low time commitment fool you into thinking that they aren’t important. We need you to help out in these different areas to make our weekly gatherings all they can be.
You can contact Chanda to get on the schedule at: chandabean@att.net
Ice Cream Social Tonight!
Our Ice Cream Social is tonight right after the service. You might want to eat before church. :)
Also, this is our family service weekend so remember that your elementary kids get to join mom and dad for the entire time tonight. We are going to share communion at the very end.
Lastly, we are still collecting items for the Women's Crisis Center through tonight. You can bring any of the following items.
Here is the list: (By the way, they do not need clothes.)
crayons
markers
paper
coloring books
coffee makers
toasters
paper
towels
toilet paper
laundry soap
body soap
See you soon!
