Category Archives: Worship events

The second session of lectio divina was from Mark 8: 22-26.  In this passage, the villagers “begged” Jesus to touch and heal their friend. 

It seemed to me that this fellow had good friends.  Perhaps they saw his potential, had grown up with him and had learned to love and care for him.  They knew and understood his need to be whole.  When Jesus came to their town, they knew that Jesus could heal their friend if he chose to do it.  They were not above begging – this blind guy was their friend. 

To me this passage spoke about the importance of friends in being introduced to Jesus – loving another person enough to bring them along to Jesus and beg Jesus for help on their behalf.

The other thing that struck me in this passage was that the return of this guy’s vision took some unusual action.  First of all, putting spit in a man’s eyes seems strange.  I wonder if he heard Jesus spit onto his hands and wonder what was going to happen.  There are a lot of things that may have been going on in this scene that we aren’t informed of.  And the man’s sight wasn’t restored perfectly right off the bat.  He had to look intently before his sight became clear.  I wonder if this is a bit of an allegory of how our faith develops – at first a bit fuzzy; becoming clearer as we look intently and see Jesus more and more clearly. 

By the time I was in the third session of the retreat, I was beginning to fall apart emotionally.  This was so unlike me.  I don’t go around weeping even for most sad stuff.  We came together to share from the second and third session of lectio and I could not. 

For the third session our passage was from John 15:4, from The Message this time.  “Make your home in me just as I do in you.”

It was as if I could not hear God.  I felt confused and lost and my emotions just seemed to take over.  I felt like I didn’t know what it meant to be at home; to make my home in God.  I think I felt lonely and lost.

Later on that evening, I went back to the room where the labyrinth was set up.

Walking the labyrinth was a new experience for me.  The first couple of times when I walked it, it was ok but nothing exceptional.  I’m not sure what I was expecting.  Both times before this evening, I had walked to the centre and it seemed as if God had met me there most as I sat and prayed at the centre – just that as I prayed, the issue I was praying about seemed to sort of resolve as I sat there and I left with a lot more lightness. 

This evening, I was dealing with a lot of turmoil inside.  I didn’t even really know what it was all about but I knew I wanted to be close to God, so I went to spend some time with him. 

As I walked, I asked him, “What does this mean for me – to be at home in you as you are in me?”  It dawned on me that I had not grown up in one single home all my life.  So a physical home for me did not mean a single place that I never moved from.  As I walked toward the centre, I didn’t seem to get any closer to understanding.  At the centre, I lay down and listened for a long time.  I was crying a bit, I felt so lost not knowing why all these emotions, feeling a bit like I was a long way from home but searching for it, unable to hear exactly what God was trying to say to me. 

Then as I lay there, Jesus reminded me of Leo.  He reminded me of how we are at home in each other.  How we are most “at home” when we are with each other – just around each other, not necessarily doing anything or even talking to each other.  It came to my mind that this is the kind of  “at home” he wants me to experience with him.  He wants me to be so comfortable in his presence that without even saying anything I will know that he is there and will be truly at home.  He reminded me that I need to stay closely connected to him or I will feel lost and away from home. 

I think that part of what I was feeling was also fear.  The pressure on me emotionally over the past couple of months has been heavy both at work and at home.  I needed some emotional healing and rest and I think Jesus was providing for me just the kind of rest I needed, even to letting some of my emotional hurts work themselves out.

My bags are packed.  I’m ready to go.

Centrepoint – a prayer retreat.  This has been one of those things I have wanted to do for a couple of years.  Last year I don’t remember hearing about it.  This year I hear there will be very few of us.  Maybe it needs more advertising.  Maybe we as a church denomination in Canada need to place more importance on prayer.  Maybe it needs to be done more at the local level so there is less travel involved.  I guess I am surprised that it was not a filled up event.  Maybe I have just been hungry for this sort of opportunity for long enough that when I am offered a weekend of sitting at God’s feet, everything else seemed to need to be put aside to make it happen.

And on top of looking forward to spending some quality and quantity time with God is topped off with getting to travel all day with a friend, going to a place where I will revisit some other good friends and meet new ones, and then to visit one of those famous Krispy Kreme doughnut shrines that our Albertan friends imported from their friends to the south.

Ah what a weekend this will be!

I doubt I will blog much – talk to you next week.

That was a fun music practice tonight.  We were really going – Thomas was on the drums for the first time – that is actually intending to play them on Sunday.  Johanna was singing and playing guitar.  Molly on bass, Mark and Matt on their guitars, Janet on piano and me on my recorder.  Then in comes Nigel!  Now we are really swinging – he on the trumpet.  That was really a lot of fun and we played together well.

And Matt had written a new song so we all got to give that a try – and suggest a “cooler” title for it. 

Worship – it happened tonight while we were practicing.  We’ll see what happens on Sunday. 

This is one of the spots in our prayer room.  A place to write down prayers or confessions to be either shredded at the foot of the cross or posted on our “wailing wall”. 

I don’t know if the people of our congregation understand yet just how central prayer is to knowing God.  I mean, how can anyone know a friend if they never talk?  And how can that talking be limited to just a short hello, please give me… in any relationship that is going to develop into a deep friendship? 

My prayers used to be much like that.  I knew that God heard my prayers and I saw some of his answers but most of the time I didn’t really know much what to say.  I thought I had to be saying something the whole time I was praying and not being much of a talker – my prayers were by nature short and to the point. 

I think one of the changes that took place in me to kick start my prayer life was a sense of desperate need to pray for my children.  My position changed.  I decided that I would get down on my knees physically and pray for each one of my kids every morning.  From there things began to develop.  My whole devotional time became the starting point of my day and I decided I’d better start doing some reading if I wanted to know God better.  I began to read; not so much for information or to understand the history or context of the Bible or even to try and figure it all out.  I just read to learn more about God.  And I read other books too about some amazing people who followed him and were dramatically changed by meeting him through prayer.  God began to make his presence felt to me as I spent more time with him.  I guess you could say that my prayer time became more a time of listening to him than of me doing all the talking. 

I hope the people in our church begin to use this space that we have created.  I hope that they will find ways to talk to God and listen to him and not be afraid to get real hungry for more of God.  I think there are so many things he could give us to do in our world and in our city but we need to let him give us some sort of vision for how he wants to use his power through us. 

I guess that is one of the requests I’d better post on the wall.

 Went to the lake this weekend – to the annual women’s retreat held by our church women up at Kinesao.  Had a few visitors too from Saskatoon so on Saturday we were about 30 for the day.  The hardy ones who stayed for the overnights (in heated comfortable accommodations) were about half that number.  And the weather was absolutely gorgeous.  I stayed in a cabin about 2 minutes away from the main lodge.  We had to walk back and forth for showers and the events but we slept better I think.  We didn’t have to put up with rowdy women making shadow pictures on the ceiling.           Lots of talking, a good speaker and games and puzzles if you wanted.  I learned that Jodine is pretty fanatical about puzzles – once she starts one there is no stopping till it is done.  We had to drag her away to eat.  The only thing she is more fanatical about (well maybe not the only thing) is her hubby Lowell – lucky guy.

Saturday afternoon was free.  I went on a long trek through the woods to the west of the camp thinking if I headed towards the north I would run across a ski trail.  I didn’t.  But there are a lot of rabbit trails back in the bush and eventually I came back out to the road.  The rabbit burrows and trails were everywhere      but other than that I didn’t see more than just scat.  I did startle a prairie chicken down by the lakeshore and saw a couple different kinds of birds.  The afternoon walk was one of the highlights of the weekend for me.  I needed that alone time out in nature.  Seems I connect to God out there.  Maybe it is the beauty – a pale reflection of his glory but maybe all I can stand.  Anyway there he was and we spent some needed time together. 

The theme of the weekend was friendship.  It sounds like a “woman’s sort of theme.  But there is really nothing better than trusted friends – and some of my best friends were there. 

Just a reminder…  Journey to the Cross

Thanks to Brad for directing me here – Journey to the Cross

Today is Ash Wednesday; not a date most Protestants celebrate much.  But I feel more of a leaning towards taking the time of preparation for Easter that Lent is more seriously.  I need to prepare. 

I came across a meditation at Northumbria that spoke to me.  This is prehaps the fast we should all be called to observe – not some small token of repentance like giving up Big Macs for 40 days.

 THE FAST
Is this not the fast that I have chosen:
to loose the bonds of wickedness?
to undo the heavy burden?
and to let the oppressed go free?
that you break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry?
that you bring to your house those who are cast down?
when you see the naked person that you cover them?
and not hide yourself from your own flesh and blood?

Read the rest of the meditation here

We have been looking at our claims that God exists and that Jesus is God.  Today we began to talk about the beliefs of some of the different faiths – specifically “Does it matter what you believe as long as you are sincere/”

Came across this link today – it looks like it might be a good resource.  Maybe a good place for those who want to dig deeper.

We had guests with a fantastic story tonight over at the church.  Hearing the stories of people who have been faithful to God – that seems to be a good way for me to experience some of the presence of God too. 

I always used to think of missions evenings as a bit of a drag – and that sounds terrible since I have been the speaker at too many of such evenings.  Maybe part of that feeling came from going to tell a story about a place and a work, being somehow encouraged to tell what the mission was doing more than my story of how God was working out his will using my life and work.  I know God was at work and maybe used my attempts to relate this to others but somehow things have changed around now.  Maybe it is partly just becoming more mature in my faith to where whatever I do for God is less about the work I am doing (although, in fact, it may be exactly what God wants me to be doing) and more about what God is doing through me in the relationships I have with people.  So no matter where I find myself – here or in the Congo – God can use me somehow.

That statement is pretty convoluted!  In any case, something has changed in me to where I find it really good to hear the stories of other people’s faith.  And this evening was good.  Hearing not so much about what God was doing in this couple’s “work” in Pakistan but hearing how God worked in their own lives and hearing how God used them to affect others around them.

So I guess I would say about future missions speakers – forget the artifacts and such and speak about how God is working both in your own lives and in the lives of those you were called to serve.  Although as a kid the artifacts and the whole exotic different world that missions speakers explored was fascinating to me and God probably used that stuff too as he was calling me.