Biblical Community

I apologize in advance if this entry turns into a rambling mess. I am thinking at the keyboard, so my thoughts my be very jumbled.
We have been studying and talking and reading and praying so much about Biblical community lately. There is a wealth of fascinating information out there. Churches that are "doing life together" and "living out their faith" and have myriads of books, articles, conferences, blogs, etc. about how they have done it. Some with the apparent attitude that if we want to do it right, we should do it like they do. Reminds me very much of an English teacher I had my junior year of high school. His philosophy was a "free thinking" exchange of ideas. I call it a pooling of ignorance. His class very unstructured and we were encouraged to make up our own minds, at least that was what he said. Come testing time, we were asked to write a paper about a subject he had been "discussing" for several weeks. I flunked it! Why? Because I wrote my paper on what I thought, and what the teacher wanted was for me to parrot back what he had been "discussing". So much for "free thinking" Anyway, the idea that to live in organic community with the people God has placed on our local church by the model God has given some other community of believers, seems incongruous. Organic, means a more natural, local and natural organism. The cells that make up me, although the same kind of cells that make up everybody else, have been uniquely arranged by God Himself to form Katie. If I try to rearrange the cells of my body to be someone else, I pervert the thing that God intended Katie to be. Likewise, the Body of Prince of Peace Assembly is unique to Prince of Peace Assembly. If I try to rearrange (program, position, or push) the members (cells), not referring to legal members, but to regular attenders, into the form of another Body, am I not perverting what God intended Prince of Peace to be? Yet still, we do carry the spiritual DNA, so to speak, of our "parents" or those who have gone before us, individually and collectively. I love the biblical analogy of the church as the body because I can relate much more easily to how one member must work in union with all the other members to function properly. But also because the body is a stunning example of uniqueness without losing any of the commonality.
For our local church to live in community with one another we must live daily by the Spirit of God. We must rely for every cell of our body to be energized, placed, and empowered by the Holy Spirit. This is not just some religious platitude that makes us sound like we know what we are talking about, or a way to Christianize a business model, but a real life, real deal, daily dependence for every breath we take, individually and corporately.
I personally must ask the Lord every day for the strength, wisdom and courage to care about the people in our church, and to care not only with my will and thoughts, but with my actions!
It is so easy for me to just tuck away inside the house and take care of my own business (with scriptural support to do so) and never take the effort to call or get in the car and go to someone's house. I have lately started thinking that not doing so is really a form of laziness. Sloth is one of the seven deadly sins, and I can see how sloth applied to our relationships is a deadly sin for the body. Repent, and ask the Father to empower with His Spirit to do and to be all He requires. The body obeying the head in everything.

Make new friends, but keep the old...

Remember that old Girl Scout song "Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold."? I have had an awesome time at "making friends" the last couple months. I have met one of those people with whom I just "click". It is very interesting, that we both come from very different backgrounds, on opposite sides of the country, with different cultures, but we seem to understand each other at a level much deeper than you would imagine. I am so grateful for this new friend and hope that I can be as big a blessing to her as she has been to me.

Mountains and valleys

I look out my window and see the stunning landscape of mountains, snow-capped and steep-sloped. Although breathtakingly beautiful to look at, they are trecherous to climb. I sometimes compare my life to these examples of the Creator's handiwork and realize my "ups and downs" are just as trecherous to navigate, and not nearly as beautiful. My most recent example was last week. Wednesday was an "Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, rotten day" just like the children's book. Not anything in particular going on, or maybe that was it, there was NOTHING in particular going on. I was wishing I could, like Moses of old, rise up in righteous indignation and shout "You stubborn and stiff-necked people, when will you see the Father for all His is". Realizing of course, that my neck is often one of the stiffest. Anyway, it was just one of those crawl-in-bed-and-hide-under-the-covers, kind of days. Discouragement seemed to sit right on my shoulder and whisper it's ugly little lies right in my ear. We made it through the day, limping and dragging ourselves to bed. Thursday, still feeling groggy from the battle of the day before, with whispers that were not as loud nor as frequent, became Thursday evening and our Beading, blabbing and Button blankets class. My friend Brenda had sent out a text message to her contact list before class started and we had 12 people show up! Several ladies that had never been before. Oh what an encouragement that was! I have so longed to see the ladies of our community gathered around the tables in the church building chatting and laughing and enjoying one another. My Father knew just what I needed to scale that mountain of discouragement. He is so good to me. Then, already feeling such encouragement, on Monday, at a wake of all places, Larry got the news of a gentleman, who has been coming to the church for a couple of months now, accepting the Lord at church a couple of weeks ago, and no one had told us! We have prayed so long and hard about a harvest here and finally we see the fruit of God's work here. This man asked the Lord to come into his life during our "prayer circle time" at church, and prayed out loud for himself. Talk about mountain top elation!

As I review the last week in my mind and heart, I pray that my "ups and downs" would be less pronounced. That my mountains would be leveled and my valleys raised up to make straight the way of the Lord. The dramatic dips and ascents are beautiful to look at in landscapes, but do not speak of the beauty of the Lord in a life lived for Him.

Winter Blahs

Winter weather that is too cold to be out for long, but not cold enough for snow, is just a drag. I think we are all feeling a little cabin feverish around here. It has been very rainy and damp, but not quite cold enough for snow. Noah and I are waiting for a nice clear evening so we can go out star gazing. We found a cool website that just requires your zipcode and they give you a pretty clear picture of what you should be seeing in the nighttime sky. So, roll on clouds and give us a glimpse.

Our homeschool group had it's first Laboratory Science class last Saturday. Pam Fredericksen taught it. Science is a passion of hers, and she is such an excellent teacher! They completed three whole lessons at one time. It was so good to hear her talk about how God had created what they were talking about, which was an eyeball, in a perfect way. They dissected it while us moms sat in the other room. Thankfully, the preserving method did not use formaldehyde, which makes me gag, so I was able to sneak in and take a few pictures. Parents of public schooled children miss out on so much of this kind of thing. I am so thankful we have the opportunity to school our kids at home.

The homeschool group will also be doing a literature class that I will be teaching. I ordered the books this week, so hopefully we will get that started soon as well. We will be reading The Bronze Bow, a historical novel set in the time of Christ. I haven't decided how we will record what we have discussed yet. Our last foray into literature, A Wrinkle in Time, we made lapbooks. The kids seemed to enjoy that, so maybe another one. I'll keep praying on it.

I realized I didn't post our Rule #2 last week. It was "We love, honor and pray for one another" and we memorized Romans 12:10 "Love each other with genuine affection and take delight in honoring each other."

I think we probably could use another week of working on this one.

Laugh and the world laughs with you...

Sometimes my kids are so funny! A few days ago, we were watching a Ken Davis DVD. Ken was telling a story about a car accident he and his wife had gotten into, as he explained "we hit a cow doing 70 mile per hour" TJ, who is the most serious kid I know, very deadpan says "wow, fast cow". I about split a seam laughing so hard.
Our family is one that likes to laugh alot. We laugh mostly at ourselves. Laughter does good, like a medicine, Solomon wrote in the book of proverbs. We should be some of the healthiest people around, because we sure like to laugh. What a wonderful way Creator God distinguishes us from the animals. Animals do not laugh, they do not detect irony, nor do they enjoy a good pun (I know because I've tried a few on our pet rabbit, she doesn't crack a smile). Animals are concerned with only one thing...survival. Man on the other hand has been created for something much higher. To bring glory to God and to ENJOY His presence forever. What higher calling can there possibly be?

I had the awesome opportunity to practice the spiritual discipline of fasting today. I fasted and prayed for a friend who is going through a "dark night of the soul". Fasting has been one of the hardest disciplines for me to partake in on a regular basis. I am humbled at how the Lord meets me when I take the time to deny myself and focus on spending time with him.

My children get a kick out of "catching" me praying, as I usually go into the laundry room (the one place no one will follow me) and shut the door to pray. I can hear them tip-toe to the door to see if they can hear me or not. What a joy to know they will have a legacy of prayer. I have heard so many stories of men and women who can look back on their younger years and find peace in memories of mom and dad praying. I hope my children can look back and find joy in knowing we were lifting them up to the Throne of Grace.

We are finishing up Ancient Greece in our studies and moving on to Rome. I am so thankful for finding Sonlight. It really does everything I have tried to do over our homeschooling career. It gives me a solid spine of chronological (mostly) history that I can add and subtract from. Some of the readers have been more interesting than others, and some we have abandoned altogether, but overall, the literature choices have been wonderful. I wish I had known about it earlier in our homeschool experience, but Father God knew I would appreciate it more after trying it on my own, I guess.

We are also working the Apologia Science General Science book. The first unit has been quite a challenge, covering scientists and dates. We will have a unit test on Friday so we'll see how it goes. I know the kids are looking forward to something other than names and dates.

Today we began a family learning on The 21 Rules of This House. We are looking up Bible verses to back each rule and trying to memorize them. We hope to accomplish one a week. This weeks rule: We will obey God John 15:10 "If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love," what a wonderful promise!

Fresh Start

Well, we made in through the holidays. December was a tough month for us. We battled the respiratory flu bug, twice. The snuffly, sneezy, fever-so-you-can rest medicine helped us sleep it off the first time. The second time, we megadosed ourselves on vitamin C and tried to keep away from other people.
I am so thankful to the Lord for the work He is doing in us. We both really have sensed a different feeling since returning from vacation back in August. Prior to vacation, we knew we planned to stay here for a good long time, but we didn't think anyone else believed it. After returning, the atmosphere in church and in the community seems to be much more accepting of us. Or maybe, it's just our perception of how others see us. I don't know if we will ever be able to figure that one out. I'm just glad to feel more a part of the community here. I really feel like "home".
We have switched our Sunday evening service to the afternoon. After AM service, we have a lunch together then, what I am calling, "Second Wave". We are using DVD curriculum for bible study. We just got finished with God is Closer Than You Think by John Ortberg. Very good series! Next week we will start Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas. I hope even the single people from the church will stay for this important series. More and more I realize how much marriage is a reflection of Yeshua's great love for His Bride, the church. So many young people don't see any value in marriage at all. The fault for that should be placed at the feet of those of us who haven't reflected the goodness and blessing found in marriage. We have done such a poor job of showing how good it is to be married that is seems a whole generation is ready to dismiss an entire institution, not to mention a commandment of God. Lord forgive us! Give us the kind of marriages that reflect You!