Month: April 2009

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acts of resurrection

just a little reminder for all my fellows tapestronians (the name that i presently like the best for those who are a part of tapestry because it reminds me of pasta – sorry i don’t know who started this so i don’t know who to give credit to). the goal for this month is to not only be involved in our corporate acts of resurrection but to also be involved in individual acts of resurrection. we’ll be filling up our stonehenge-like walls with these “resurrection sightings” as a reminder of what GOD can and wants to do in the world and our lives.

anyhow the reminder is for the schedule for painting at the salvation army hope center. we will be painting:

  • tuesday, april 7th – 4-7 p.m.
  • saturday, april 11th – 1-4 p.m.
  • sunday, april 12th – 9am-noon

after we finish painting on easter sunday we will eat lunch with the residents of the hope center. if you want to bring something for the meal please contact pam – she’s the organized one.

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brief freak out moment

i was typing the announcements for tapestry tonight and i had a brief freak out moment. the reason was that there are a lot of things going on in tapestry right now. i freaked out because i worry about us getting too busy with activities. it is far too easy within the church culture to get really busy doing “church” things. i don’t think that is what faith is about. i don’t think that JESUS’ goal ever was to get people to do more and more stuff at church. yet it becomes very easy for churches to think that the goal is to get people at more and more activities. that’s when churches begin to do things just for the sake of doing things. a busy calendar makes it appear like the church is doing important things. this is why activity is often substituted for mission.

but that’s not what tapestry is about. when we started everyone agreed that the goal was to focus on helping people to learn, experience, and live out a faith that is lived out in people’s every day lives. this means doing few church activities and making sure that the ones we do actually support people in living out their faith in their offices, school, families, etc. what we do always has to be on target with our mission. we don’t want to do any activity simple for the sake of doing something.

so i started to freak out when i noticed all the things we were doing. this week we are doing four service activities, two worship services, and a small group study. in addition to those activities there are several other things happening throughout the month. that’s a lot of stuff our small church. my freak out changed when pam pointed out how “on mission” these things are. every activity that is happening fits perfectly within our mission. as a church we’re a little busy over the next several weeks but thankfully none of it is activity just for the sake of activity. what we are doing fits right in with who we believe JESUS is calling us to be.

SIDE NOTE – i made the walls yesterday and we used them at tapestry tonight. they were quite cool. kind of a church stonehenge people have already begun to fill them with sightings of GOD’s life. i’m glad to see them being used for one very selfish reason. yesterday i sprayed them black with four cans of spray paint. i didn’t have one of those spray paint handles (which i have since bought) so i controlled the cans with my index finger and thumb. this was not a good thing. it strained my thumbs and index fingers so much that i wasn’t able to type or hold things last night. it was so bad that i couldn’t even release the clasp on the dogs’ leashes. it would suck to think that i went through that for something that wasn’t going to be used. thankfully that doesn’t seem to be the true.

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the week in tweets – 2009-04-04

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is it wrong to punch an amish?

pam and i went remodeling shopping tonight. we are looking into remodeling adam and noah’s bathroom. while we were walking down the aisles of menards an amish male challenged me to shopping cart chicken. actually he was walking down a side aisle about to join the main one that pam and i were walking down. i saw him and he saw me. i know this because he looked me straight in the eyes. as he got close to the main aisle i thought he would stop. that is what he was supposed to do. everyone knows that the side aisles don’t have the shopping cart right of way. well this amish guy apparently doesn’t have to live by the rules that everyone else does. instead he just walked straight into the main aisle forcing me to slam on my shopping cart brakes (i.e. my feet). it was a pretty aggressive move for a pacifist. this of course is what threw me off and is why i didn’t say anything to him. i’m just not used to being cut off by men in suspenders.

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resurrection just gets better and better

i worked out the final plans for painting with lisa, the salvation army hope center administrator. we (tapestry) will be painting tuesday (during the day and late afternoon), saturday (late morning through early afternoon) and sunday morning (early morning till lunch). so this means that we will begin our easter celebration on easter sunday morning by painting rooms for 26 men and women who have no other place to go. not a bad way to start off celebrating JESUS’s resurrection.

it got even better today. while i was talking with lisa i asked what they were doing for easter lunch. she said no one had volunteered to do anything and therefore the residents would just put together whatever they find. so tapestry is going to cook and eat easter lunch with the residents of the hope center. matthew 25 says that when we give food and drink to the most needed in our culture then we are giving it to HIM. i believe that to be true and therefore i believe that we will get to begin out easter celebration by cooking and eating easter lunch with JESUS.

i’m pretty excited about that.

if you are a tapestrite or will be in the point area over easter and you would like to be a part of this email me and i’ll get you all the information.

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a little wall help

walls

the above image is my very simple design for a wall we can write on in tapestry over the next four weeks. the idea is that we will have places to write & draw examples of life defeating death. i want something that has some solidness to it. i had thought about using easels and sheets of paper but that’s not really as solid as i would like and easels and large note pads are pricey. therefore, i am toying around with the idea of taking two hollow core doors ($26.95 each), placing shelf brackets ($1.47 each x 4) on each bottom corner, and then painting them black (for a cost of $32.83 each excluding black paint which is 94¢ a can). i think this will give me a couple of sturdy “walls” for people to write on. an added benefit is that i should be able to continue to paint these things and use them again and again.

of course, i am open to suggestions. anybody have a better idea? i will gladly swap to something better.

SIDE NOTE – the yellowish tint of the scanned image is the paper of my moleskine.

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community service as outreach

i spend a lot of time in local businesses. the first reason for this is that i believe in supporting local businesses, the second reason is because they are a great resource for knowing the point area, and the final reason is because i hope that through building relationships with some of these business owners and employees they will be open to hearing about the faith that i believe is the way.

anyhow, today was a great step with one such local business owner. i’ve been using her store for a year and a half now and every time i go in we usually stand around and talk until it gets to busy for her to do so. she’s a great person. we’ve talked local politics, business, and faith. she knows where i stand and i know where she does. she usually describes herself as having “new agey, cosmic, oprah faith.” i’ve invited her to tapestry a few times and her response has always been “robert, i love talking with you but i don’t really fit in with that organized stuff.”

today she responded to our conversation “well i would come to that.” the conversation was concerning whether or not i had finished my message for easter. i didn’t start that conversation off, she did. she asked that question and i told her i had barely started because they biggest part of tapestry’s easter celebration would be painting the hope center (i.e. resurrecting something). i explained the whole thing to her and she asked “so are you doing this on easter morning?” i hadn’t thought of that and i think it is a great idea (i mean a really great idea). i told her so and that i would check into whether we can do it or not. the conversation ended when another customer came in the store. her final response was “well i would come to that. let me know when you have the date and time and i might even come to her service afterward.”

i have tried for 6 months to get her to come to something tapestry-wise without any success. who would have thought painting the hope center would have been the thing that she wanted to come to.

i know a lot of faith communities use community service as outreach to those receiving the service. i think we may begin using community service as outreach to those doing the service.

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april fool's


i just got fooled by sojo.net.

i get the sojourner’s email updates. i probably lean a little left of center but i still don’t always agree with everything that jim wallis and sojourners say. anyhow, the email today indicated that rush limbaugh was going to be delivering a keynote address at sojo’s mobilization to end poverty.

my first thought when reading this was “really?!?!?”.

my second thought was “REALLY?!?!?!?!?”

i just couldn’t see this happening. i’ve been gone a couple of days and out of the news loop but i still thought i would have heard something concerning a right wing spokesperson buddying up to a left wing spokesperson.

so they got me. their prank convinced me enough that i didn’t start believing anything was fake until i watched the above video. watching the video i decided that i should probably skip to the end of the email and see if this was a prank.

yep, it was. i was fooled.

SIDE NOTE – if anyone has any interesting stories of life defeating death i would love to hear them and possibly use them at tapestry this sunday.

SIDE SIDE NOTE – i haven’t pulled a good april fool’s day joke in years. i need to work on one.