tangence:continuing the conversation is a new blogging space that I am using to foster discussion, share ideas and swap stories for those of us who are a part of the Wheatland Mission and for those who might be interested in what our little community is all about.
Each week I plan on providing a brief summary of our weekly worship gathering with something brief for us each to take and apply during the week. In addition, I hope we can carry on a dialogue (or a polylogue)about what we are learning together. I have also begun doing this with our new men's group that meets Thursday mornings at the Panera on Rock Rd at 6:15 AM.
wheatlandmission.com is still an active blog and wheatland's main web address. It will begin to function more like a bulletin board and less like a conventional blog. More announcement type info and less conversation. It will be useful for pointing us to
tangence and other sites and resources that are helpful.
wheatlandmission.com will still be the place to check to see if we get another "snow day".
Some of our wheatland bloggers are linked in the blogroll. If you want to be a part of that just send me an e-mail or leave your blog address in the comments on this post. Jump on in, the water is fine...
For This Saturday!
First, I am 99% sure that we will have our worship gathering Saturday night. However, remember what the Bible says about men making their plans, "if the Lord wills?".
Second, for our gathering time Saturday night I would like all of you to ponder two things:
- Read Galatians 4:19. It is a very small passage that will be key for our teaching/learning time this weekend.
- Think about one or two people in your life who really helped "form" you into the person that you are today.
NO CHURCH TONIGHT...or, Paul eats his words
Sorry all. After further examination of the weather situation and seeing several vehicles in the ditches on Greenwich Rd. (including some 4X4's) I think it is wisest and safest not to ask any of you to venture out on the roads tonight.
The combination of bad roads, falling snow that will probably continue into the night, and the distances that some of you travel I have decided that it is best not to meet. I did say last week that we will
"almost never cancel". Almost is today.
I encourage you to call anyone that you think might not look at this or receive a message from us. Thanks...
Church Tonight? ... We are go.
Yes we will meet tonight. However, please exercise caution in coming. The roads are pretty slick in places so be careful and watch out for the "other guy". If you can't make it pray for us and we will pray for all our Wheatland folk wherever they are.
Be careful.
Prayer This Wednesday @ 7 PM
Don't forget to join us this Wednesday night, at 7:00 PM, at the Tallgrass East Clubhouse for a time of prayer, worship, listening to God and one another. Call Paul for directions: 992-1540.
Childrens Prayer Jar
This week the elementary kids and I talked about prayer. First they impressed me as they recited the Lord’s Prayer without any help from me – way to go kids! Then we talked a little more about what the Lord’s Prayer means and how God has given us this pattern prayer so we can learn how to pray. The kids shared some of the ways that they pray at home. Some of them pray in the mornings, some in the evenings, some before meals and some all day long (one young pastor’s son even claimed that he will pray until the day he dies!) One of the boys shared how he prays the ACTS prayer every morning. For those of us adults who might not know this, he explained that it stands for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication.
I explained to the kids that the adults in the church would be meeting this week (don't forget Wednesday at 7:00) to pray for the church, and that they could also be praying for our church. We started a Prayer Jar where we will be keeping track of our prayers throughout the next several months. We wrote lots of prayers and placed them in our jar, and each time we meet (every other week) we’ll review those prayers. The prayers that God has answered we will write the answers down on the slips of paper to remind us that God answers prayer. And the prayers that God hasn’t answered yet we will continue to pray for. Some of the prayer requests that are in our jar (these came from the kids, not me) include:
Safe travels for Mr. Brown
A playground for our church
For our church community to grow
Our own building for our church
That we will spread the gospel
To be able to give a bible to a friend at school who just became a Christian
We also have some prayer requests for family members with cancer, mean kids at school, sports teams, and I must warn you that we are praying for one child who really wants a dog and a pet frog. I know you’re all hoping that is your son :) We’ll keep you posted on our prayer jar, but I wanted to remind you all that the kids of our church are praying, so we need to join in too!
Church Tonight???
Yes. However, please exercise caution and wise judgement in travelling to our worship gathering tonight. The roads are slick in places but still passable. We will have salt on the sidewalk at the Foundry to ensure your safety coming into the building.
If you and yours choose to stay home tonight that is cool. Do what you think is best and most safe for your clan.
By the way, by the title of this post I have given into speaking about church in such a way as to suggest that it is something that we do once a week instead of something that we are. We're
having a worship gathering tonight and there are times that said gathering might be cancelled because of dangerous weather. We
are the Church, or at least a part of it, and that is something that never get's cancelled. Amen and amen.
(This last paragraph is officially my shortest sermon.)
Be careful tonight!
Room of Marvels
Last Saturday I briefly, very briefly, introduced a book that I want the Wheatland Mission to read together and discuss in house churches and small groups. (And everywhere else for that matter.) The book is called,
Room of Marvels by James Bryan Smith. Many of you will recognize his name because he is a theology professor at Friends University and the author of the biography of Rich Mullins that came out several years ago,
An Arrow Pointing Toward Heaven.
This little book is wonderful on many different levels and I want to be careful not to spoil it before you have a chance to read it for yourself. I will say this,
Room of Marvels paints an unusual picture about what it is like to live in the community that God has created. Many of you will read this short novel in a few hours while others may take a bit longer. Even if your not a fiction reader you will enjoy this little gem.
You can pick up a copy tomorrow or anytime at our worship gathering. We are letting copies go for $5.
Special Prayer Gathering: Jan 17, 7PM
Let's gather at the Tallgrass East Clubhouse for a prayer gathering next Wednesday night at 7:00 PM. We can't overestimate the importance of praying together and it has been too long since our last corporate prayer gathering. We will continue to pray for all the many needs that we have in our community and we will also pray about our future together. I would also like us to revisit the issue of moving our meeting times to Sunday mornings.
Also, mark your calendars for February 21st and our Lenten Prayer Gathering.
Elementary class starts again this weekend
Thanks for the welcome everyone! Leigh has done such a great job organizing things in the children’s ministry area that it makes it easy to step into the role she created. And so many of you are already plugged in and doing great work ministering to the kids – thanks for all you do! (By the way, if you haven’t figured this out yet, this is Kelly posting…not Paul. I got him to write me in the permissions so I can do my own posts to keep you updated on the children’s ministry stuff!)
This weekend we will get started back into the routine with the elementary kids. I know they have been in the service worshipping with their families for many weeks in a row now, so hopefully they are excited about having their own group time again. We’ll still have the elementary kids (kindergartners and older) start off singing with their families, then they will be dismissed after music to go back to their room. We’ll be doing this on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays each month. I’ll be teaching them this week and I’m looking forward to working with some great people who are interested in helping out with this age group. Hopefully we will be able to pick up some of the great ideas that Kris and Leigh have birthed regarding service projects and ministry opportunities that the kids (and everyone in the church!) can be involved in this spring. More on that later, but if you have ideas, or a desire to help, please let me know!
And just a quick note on the youth ministry end of things….last night the Hoyers and I took a few of our middle schoolers to a great city wide youth worship service! Several youth pastors in the Wichita area planned this event and it was a great success….a neat opportunity to get kids from many different churches and schools together to worship God and pray for their community. They are planning to do these every other month, and I believe the next one will be on the first Sunday evening in March. We’ll keep you posted!
Introducting...Kelly Hayes
For almost a year now Leigh Morris has faithfully and tirelessly served the Wheatland Mission by being our Children's Ministry Coordinator. As many of you know, Leigh has done this while a student at WSU. This spring Leigh will be beginning her student teaching as she prepares for graduation in May. In addition, and most importantly, she is preparing for her marriage to Ty Kasper on June 2. Because of this full schedule Leigh has decided to pass the baton of the Children's Ministry Coordinator to our very own Kelly Hayes.
Kelly has been a part of Wheatland for a year and has been involved in different areas of ministry including participating in one of work groups, serving in the children's ministry and our Friday night house church. Kelly brings a lot of strengths to this position and experience working in both the church and the para-church.
Please welcome Kelly to the team and let Leigh know how much you appreciate her hard work this past year.
With the new year and an actual website on its way I have decided to make a couple of changes with this blog. Until our new website is up and running our internet address will remain: wheatlandmission.com and it will link to this blogspot address. However, this site will become primarily an announcement board and a means of communicating more immediate information regarding church life. So please continue to pay attention to the blog as a sort of Wheatland Mission bulletin board.
The posts that invite more discussion and are going to be at a different site which you can link to from this blog. This new blog is called, "Tangence: Continuing the Conversation". You can reach it at http://paulhill.wordpress.com (If you click on post title above, "Welcome 2007", it will send you to the new site.) This new site has more features, easier commenting, and an overall "cooler" look. The title is intentional. I really do want to continue the conversation that begins during our weekend worship gatherings and our house church discussions. I also want it to be a way for us to learn from one another. The other aspect of the title, "Tangence" should be self-explanatory.
All that being said, there is much for us, as a small, young congregation for us to talk about. This month we will be hearing a proposal from one of our working groups, we will introduce a new growth experience for our house churches, and we will all be introduced to a new person involved in the leading of our children's ministry. Lot's to talk about indeed.
A Ghost of Christmas Passed
A holiday visual pun. Even visual puns aren't that funny.
