Thanks to Jenna for getting my butt off the blogger bench.

Today I spent almost the whole day doing some of my favorite things: traveling and networking.  My little dirty secret:  I actually LIKE public transit - it gives me great delight in playing the game of transferring buses, deciphering train map puzzles, and timing the whole thing just right.  Today I took Pace Bus 250 all the way from one end of the route to the other - all the way to O’Hare Airport’s Kiss n’ Fly.  The bus driver looked at me a bit suspiciously as I looked longingly into his eyes…

From there, I met Dave Rudin, who is pastor at Summit View Christian Church in Hoffman Estates, and we carpooled it the rest of the way.

It’s amazing how church planters are really most interested in the same things.  They are interested in how to bring someone in desperate need of Jesus to a place where they are ready to follow him, and grow them even beyond that to the point where they are a mature believer helping others come to know Christ.  This process of reproducing disciples is the heart of what church planting is all about.  In fact, most of my interactions with the term “church planting” have left me somewhat wanting, since Jesus never asks us to “go into all the world and plant churches” - but rather make disciples.

Today’s group conversation however centered around our own discipleship.  The process of spiritual formation and personal growth is a favorite topic of mine - especially when talking like this in groups.  It’s inevitable that people will start throwing resources and new ideas around, and I’ll start writing them down like a crazy person.

Speaking of sweet resources: check out 48 Days to the Work You Love by Dan Miller, and this sweet quote by Kahlil Gibran:

Work is love made visible.

And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste,

it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple

and take alms of those who work with joy.

For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread

that feeds but half man’s hunger.

And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes,

your grudge distills a poison in the wine.

And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing,

you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.

All work is empty save when there is love;

and when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself,

and to one another, and to God.

What is it that gets your heart racing - that makes the time fly by?  If you’re only working for the money, chances are good you won’t last long in the job.  If you just put your resume out there and hope someone bites, chances are good you’ll hate your job just like the rest of America.  But if you discover your calling - your vocation - and can think of some way in which your job fits into the higher calling, then even cleaning toliets or sweeping floors can be genuine work and worship to God!  May we all find our calling, and enjoy the work God has brought us to.

“Let us paint images of the new creation on an age that seems tumbling down.  Although the age may well tumble, our images are painted on the eternal mystery of God and, therefore, sure.”

– David Buttrick

Jesus did not leave us a model to build, but a guide to follow. We experience the life of the church not because we meet in a certain way or in a certain place, but because we learn to listen to God together and let Him teach us how to share His life. If we substitute any method or design for that process, we will end up following it instead of Him and building a counterfeit instead of the real deal.

– Wayne Jacobsen, Bodylife Feb 2002

I regret to admit that I have been inept in my blogification lately. I point the finger at my studies, and extended vacations at the in-laws. I’ve had a lot of amazing things happen lately, but no real time to reflect on them. But I have not given up! I have been keeping notes and hope to write more regularly VERY soon! In the meantime, here’s a quote that has been rattling around in my cage lately:

“The [local church] family is…like a little kingdom, and, like most other little kingdoms, is generally in a state of something resembling anarchy.”

G. K. Chesterton

“When the time for silence comes, I ask you to take up your position for prayer (and sitting is usually best for most of us) and then, having asked the help of the Holy Spirit, to be content to wait patiently, expectantly, lovingly, longingly.  Try to realize that this is all you can do for yourself.  God must do the rest.  See yourself as the parched ground looking upwards waiting patiently for the rain to fall.  You can only wait.”

– Fr Roger Schultz of Taize

Vacare Deum    - “Be free for God.”