Sunday @ LibertyHill

* 9:45 Engage Day: breakfast, fellowship, and community - Our God is a Great Big God!
* 11:00: Worship. Generosity. Great things for the Kingdom.
* HeartStone after the service. Taking generosity to the street.
* Teaching the boys that leaves don't get up themselves. Patience on my part for playing as much as working to get up leaves.
* Playing baseball on the front yard with the whole family. Priceless.
Lessons of the day:
- There is a difference between volunteers and servants. Volunteers serve based on their own time. Servants serve when and where needed. Liberty Hill has servants!
-Preparing messages are essential. I cannot allow circumstances to take away from what is important.
- No moving forward until facing the facts.

Sunday @ LibertyHill

* Great response on vision sermon: engaging people in the life and mission of Jesus
* Altar full of folks praying for God to give us clarity on the direction of the church
* We are not going to just be "comfortable"
* Tyler takes his small group to Starbucks to share testimonies
* Hanging w/ the family on a rainy day
* UGA football next Saturday.

Sunday @ LibertyHill

* The worship rocked!
* Lesson: the Holy Spirit and technology is unpredictable
* 9:45 small group great discussion. the discussion and perspectives are amazing.
* good response to people who are tired of playing it safe and ready to get out of the lazy-boy lifestyle and risk it for Jesus!
* Met a new person.
* Jaden got a haircut. He wanted it "spiked."
* cut grass - is it ok to cut grass on the Sabbath if you enjoy it?
* spend the rest of the evening with my honey eating my favorite dessert - chocolate ice cream.

Building or People

Jim Peterson in The Church Without Walls writes: "The First Century churches did not invent many new forms. They used this existing social structure, the household, as its basic vechicle. This is where ekklesia/church happened. The message tended to flow within a household, adn from household to household, following natural networks of relationships. There were almost no church buildings for the first 300 years of Christian history. Homes were used. Usually the nucleus of a church would be a household. In terms of forms, the church was almost invisible."
Today we feel that church cannot be done without a building. The day that being church is removed from the homes is the day that church is removed from everyday life. We turn guest into visitors and participants into spectators. Want my definition of church: Where two or more believers are living out the Kingdom of God as it is taught by Jesus.

Still Believing,

Jamey

Honesty

I have discovered many times in the church we are more concerned with being right at the expense of being honest. Being honest means we have to be vulnerable and our culture looks down on the vulnerable as weak. We can be right without being in community (at least that is what we are led to believe) but honesty requires relationship. If you go back to Genesis you will discover that the first issue that had to be overcome was not sin but isolation. So instead of creating a community of openness and vulnerability we have created a subculture of concealing our true selves. Pastors are experts at hiding. We have the language, role, and title that can isolate and conceal us. How do we create a community that is more interested in honesty than the fact that they are getting it right all the time? How do we convince people that believing is conditioned by belonging? How do we educate our pastors by telling them that spirituality is restricted by failing to be honest and real in community? I was just thinking on that today.