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Back home. Our community met last night and I talked a while about some of the things I experienced at the Allelon gathering. First we prayed the Evening Prayer together and celebrated the Eucharist. Then I yapped and we talked about what went on out there in Idaho and how that is affecting Vine & Branches - what it means for us, etc. Like I said before, I feel like I, we, are a part of a new family. That's a good thing. I think God has drawn us into these relationships. We had a good time talking about all that.
Also, I had gone out there with something floating around in me, an idea about vbcc, something I was praying and thinking about. I had shared it with some others and wanted to wait till I got back from Boise to talk to the community here about it. So I did. Looks like very soon, probably in March, we're going to begin hosting a monthly gathering in a public place. This is a step for us. It took me a while to feel it out and see if this was a legitimate step to take. I think it is. As we talked about it last night, it seemed we all felt comfortable about it - even somewhat excited.
Why? Well - 3 reasons really: It will be another expression of our community's life and worship - us being us in this other context; It will be us being us "out there" as a missional step, creating another arena where friends can stand beside us to see who we are, some of who God is, and perhaps join with us in focusing on Him; Finally, and not so insignificantly, it will not merely be about Vine & Branches Christian Community, but about the Body of Christ in Lexington. We want to "sponsor" this monthly gathering and invite people who are parts of other bodies to participate with us. So, our friends will be there, with no pressure to become a part of "our little club." We will all be cultivating a focus on God together and building each other up. Hopefully even friends from other networks in other cities close by will also join us from time to time.
Think free-form monastic liturgy - worship installations - Eucharist - interactive teaching - music for worship and not performance - singing the Psalms - hanging out and touching base with old friends and perhaps making some new ones. As cool as this is going to be, it will, by no means, become the "main thing" of our community. Our primary expression of community life will continue to be, as it has always been, the small, intimate communities that meet in homes (or other places if need be). We just felt it was time to express ourselves as a faith community in this way. I hope some of you reading this who may be close can come hang out with us sometime. I'll keep you posted on when, where, and all that. That's it for now. I just wanted to put that little update out there. Pax Vobiscum!
| posted by + Alan | 9:40 AM | |
Saturday, January 25, 2003
Heeeyyyy!! Sorry it took me so long to get back. I just now got to a computer. I'm in Eric Keck's office here - Eric is a trip - very cool guy. If you're visiting on a Thurday night you'll want to check into his garage for poker and beer - fuuunnn. We'ver rounded things up for the weekend now. Some folks are hanging around waiting to go eat. It has been a very good time. Allelon will be - is - significant. This is a new friendship - a family - bearing one another's burdens. It's a good thing. God has done this thing as a favor to many of us - and as a favor to His growing Kingdom on earth. More details later. I gotta go eat. Jason Evans is standing behind me now causing trouble - that boy needs help! I'm very much looking forward to seeing my family tomorrow. God's Grace be with you!
| posted by + Alan | 8:33 PM | |
Thursday, January 23, 2003
Sitting here in Boise, Idaho in an internet cafe with all these weird guys standing behind me watching me write this - Kevin Rains, Malcolm Hawker, Mike Bishop, T. Freeman - some known to some of you. Very cool bunch of guys. We thought we'd come look around downtown Boise for a little while before going back to eat with some other folks in Eagle. It was a good flight here - not very eventful - thank God. It is 45 degrees f. here in Boise - amazingly warmer than at home. I look foward to the happenings to come tonight, tomorrow and the next few days. I'm going to let some of these other guys blog and get off here now. We'll all keep you informed. Thanks for praying for me vbcc! I'll see you next week.
| posted by + Alan | 6:45 PM | |
Last night we had a very cool meeting. We got together a little early, due to the fact that we watched "The Last Temptation of Christ", and it's a fairly long movie. We, of course, ate first, prayed for Alan and his flight and trip to Idaho for Allelon. Then we settled in to watch the movie. It was, I must admit, pretty interesting. The best I can figure, the concept of the book from which the movie sprang was drawn from the passage where Jesus was tempted in the desert after His baptism. At the end of that passage (see Luke 4:13), it says that Satan "left Him until an opportune time." Apparently the author interpreted the time of Jesus hanging on the cross, waiting to die, as an "opportune time." It's a plausible story, for the most part, but there were some areas that I thought were rather unlikely, such as the beginning of the film where Jesus is portrayed as somewhat of a pansy, for lack of a better word, doubting His calling as the Messiah and being apparently unable to tell for certain if the "voice" He heard was God or Satan. Overall, it was a pretty good movie and somewhat undeserving of the bad rap it has garnered over the years.
By the time the movie was over, it had snowed quite a bit, so Brian, reverting back to his "head usher" days, went out and swept off all of our cars. What a nice boy he can be sometimes! :^) Oh, yeah, Liz made the most wonderful tiramisu, and gave us leftovers to take home! Yum-yum!!
| posted by #Debi | 6:25 PM | |
Wednesday, January 01, 2003
Nobody's posted here in a while. I guess we're all too busy posting in our own blogs. Here's where you can read what's going on in our individual heads: Alan, Liz, Debi, and our latest vbcc blogger, Matt.
We've all seen LOTR The Two Towers lately and have some interesting thoughts on the spiritual parallels we've seen. You don't have to push these by the way. Tolkien was a Christian ans put them in there on purpose. Of course there will always be those things that speak to us as particular people on a journey, or community.
Here is a big snip from my blog (post of Dec. 24) concerning this community, the vision, etc. It's probably just as relevant here - not that anybody reads this thing.
The other thing about having this vision is that it is always being judged by everyone around you. They don't even have to say anything - you know. "How's your 'church' going?" "How's it going with your 'thing'?" Now, what does all that mean? I can never straightly answer that question because everyone who asks it has something different in mind when they ask it. Well, not really. About 90% of them have one thing in mind - "How many people do you have now?" And when you answer whatever you answer - when I answer whatever I answer, it's me we're talking about here - you get a range of looks and comments. I don't know what to do with that. I'm sort of tired of it. Maybe that sounds bad but it's just a fact. I just want to be what we are - to do what we're supposed to do - and not answer a bunch of questions about it.
I guess part of it is that I quite do not like feeling like a dork in front of people. I don't like not having the answer that would make me look good in the eyes of the asker. And I usually don't - so that makes for some uncomfortable sessions. I know, I know, I need to get over it and just answer what I answer. Yeah, I agree to a certain extent. I also think that people who go around asking these questions need to stop being ignorant - stop being so single-minded as concerns what the answers mean - what they should be. Of course that's not going to happen any time soon. So, I'll just have to suck it up and keep giving overly complicated apologetic answers. Maybe that's education. And as I go along maybe I'll get less insecure about the answers as well.
| posted by + Alan | 12:39 PM | |