q day 1

so today was the 1st day of QDC. as usual it was fantastic. the presentations are always challenging and amazing. here are a few thoughts from today.

  • i have a love/hate relationship with the presentations. i love the ideas and hearing what others have done. i am always challenged to think differently and try new thinks. i hate the fact that hearing the presentations almost always leaves me wondering why i haven’t done anything in my life.  that’s not the presenter’s fault. it is just that these people areamazing. it is hard to measure up when you hear a 28 year old who has a phd, developed an entrepreneurial plan in africa, preaches better than me, and runs a 2:45 marathon.
  • GOD always provides opportunities but for some reason they are very easy to find at this conference. every year i end up meeting someone who does something that i am sure fits withwho we are in tapestry. it happened again last night. i ate supper with a couple who are involved in respite care in their church. has me wondering about us doing something.
  • it is alway a good thing when people start quoting c.s. lewis. there were 4 quotes today.
  • GOD is doing some really cool things through HIS people. lots of stories of interesting things being done in and through the kingdom of GOD?

i’ll write specifics when i get back. i don’t really have the time or desire right now. i’m also writing this on my nook color which is a pain.

CHRISTmas and easter

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i have to confess that i have never really understood it when i have heard ministers complain about people who only come to church on CHRISTmas and easter. thankfully i haven’t heard many ministers complain about this phenomenon but i have unfortunately heard a very few. i am honored no matter when someone comes to tapestry to declare the worth of GOD. it doesn’t matter how often. some people come more often than others. others can’t come as often. that is just part of life.

the irony for me personally is that while CHRISTmas and easter are usually large attendance days for most other churches, they are typically days where tapestry has lower attendance. this is because of the average age of the people who are a part of tapestry. we are a young church and this means that the majority of “threads” are usually at the age where they need to go visit their parents’ home for major holidays.  we usually have more people at our worship gatherings that build up to the CHRISTmas and easter than we do for the actual holidays. the thing i love is that we care more about making sure we live out the meaning and purpose of CHRISTmas and easter than we do about having a lot of people at those days’ worship gatherings.  church attendance isn’t what matters to us.

my hope and prayer for you is that you live out easter in your life. the truth behind resurrection day should effect how we live all our days. if you need a church to help you remember this i can gladly recommend tapestry. 🙂

prep for easter / holy week

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for holy week i have three goals for tapestry.

  1. that we spend a good bit of time in prayer
  2. that we spend a good bit of time in serving
  3. that we spend a good bit of time in scripture

for prayer we did this by putting on a labyrinth for the community. this is hard to explain completely, it is a period of guided prayer that uses a very large marked canvas mat, some experiential stations, a british lady with a wonderful accent to help people pray for 30 minutes to 2 hours. for serving we did this by providing and serving the weekly meal for the place of peace which led to some wonderful conversations and seeing JESUS in some of HIS most distressing disguises (a teresa of calcutta saying). finally we did this for scripture by reading through the gospel according to matthew during lent and then reading through the 14th and 15h chapters of the gospel according to mark during our annual tenebrae.

adam h was nice enough to take some photos. i decided to make an animoto video of them. i’m looking forward to easter.