Friday, September 30, 2005

Going to Louisiana

Posts have been few and far between recently.
I wrote the week after Katrina hit about the things I thought I should do and our community at Crossroads could do. Well not long after that I started feeling like I needed to go to New Orleans to do what I could. Here we are a couple weeks later and I am headed down to Louisiana tomorrow. We are bringing a small team of folks from Crossroads to help clean-up, pass out food and water, hang out with kids while their parents try to reassemble their lives, basically do whatever is needed. We partnered up with an organization called PRC Compassion out of Baton Rouge.
Please continue to pray for the people of the Gulf Coast. Pray for our team that we might have servant hearts and flexible attitudes. Pray that God might prepare us for whatever it is we might see and have to do.

Monday, September 26, 2005

Celebration of Discipline Part 3-Imagination and Prayer

How surprising it was to me, in a chapter on prayer, Foster spent a great deal of time on imagination; imagining answers to prayer, imagining God's power surging through you as the one praying, imagining the light and love of Christ.
When you stop and think about it makes perfect sense. In athletics, we are coached to visualize the game saving tackle, in business we are encouraged to visualize closing the big deal. I don't think I ever took the time to imagine a prayer through to it's successful completion.
As I sit here, I imagine my college roommates discovering Jesus. I imagine my mom happily remarried to a man who loves her and loves the Lord. I imagine my boys as grown men reaching out to hurting people with the Love of Christ. I imagine the students God has entrusted to me owning their faith. I imagine Gail and I, all old and wrinkly, sitting on the front porch waiting for the grankids to arrive. I imagine....Amen.

Monday, September 12, 2005

The Celebration of Discipline. Parts 1 & 2

Two lines jumped out at me from the very first page of the book.
The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.
In fact, the disciplines are best exercised in the midst of our normal daily activities.
I would love to be thought of as a deep person. I would love for that to be the case as witnessed by those who see me in my "normal daily activities." I think the ability to be deep in the midst of our everyday lives ties directly into the concept he talks about in Chapter 2 on Meditation, Otium Sanctum: " holy leisure" p 20. If I am guilty of idolatry in any area of my life it is in relation to my schedule. If I am not doing, if I am not running from one meeting or program to the next, if I am not "stressed out," then I must be doing something wrong. Foster's answer to my predicament is to "pursure holy leisure with a a determination that is ruthless to my datebook." Ouch!!

What will people think of me if I am not constantly moving? What if I exhibited peace instead of stress? What if my schedule reflected balance? Ssomeone might accuse me of being deep.

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A great tool that I have found for guided contemplative prayer is Sacred Space. It is a daily prayer site run by Irish Jesuits. I have found it really helpful in the process Foster describes as, "emptying the mind in order to fill it"

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Links worth a look

Usually, when I get pointed to a new blog and I find it compelling, I will drop it in my feedreader and just go about my merry way. I was recently pointed to Jesus the Radical Pastor written by John Frye and knew I needed to let more people know about it. John's writing is down to earth, insightful and challenging. If you are serious about living life in the way of Jesus then you need to check out Jesus the Radical Pastor.

Steve of Ragamuffin Ramblings has set up A Virtual Celebration to journey through Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline. I have read the book before but look forward to the group-think of this classic.

Last month's issue of Wired magazine offered an article on the best of the audioblogs. The recco that I have enjoyed the most is Music for Robots.

Enjoy

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Katrina

I actually started a post about Katrina last night. As I was writing it the news came on and I was overwhelmed, I deleted what I had written and went to bed.

Not sure why necessarily, but after reading Steve's post on Katrina and her victims I felt moved to do something.
So I will pray and I will give. I am encouraging our community at Crossroads to do the same. I would encourage you to do the same. Pray for the victims and their relatives, pray for the rescue workers, police and National Guard trying to restore order.
For those of us geographically far removed from the area send financial support.

Here are links to Americares and the Red Cross. I reccomend these two because very high percentages of our donations actually go to help those in need rather than bankrolling big bureaucracies.