Matt Chandler is our lead pastor and he is such a gifted communicator. He was recently diagnosed with cancer and just had 1/4 of his brian removed due to a tumor. I am in awe by Matt. I love that he is going thru this time publicly and not being vague about what is going on. I think people need to see real faith lived out and not just the good sides, but every aspect of it. Matt does such a great job of keeping everyone informed about what is going on and allowing people to see how he and his family deal with this on a day to day basis. Things he chooses to tell his children, the ideas and mentality he and his wife share, and the questions they are asking. He is being so open and he given people a chance to go thru this with him and in that be able to see what the Lord is doing first hand.
"After conversion we need bruising so that reeds may know themselves to be reeds and not oaks. Even reeds need bruising by reason of the remainder of pride in our nature and to let us see that we live by mercy and mercy alone. Such bruising may help weaker christians not to be too much discouraged when they see stronger ones shaken and bruised. Thus Peter was bruised when he wept bitterly, this reed, till he met with this bruise, had more wind in him than pith when he said, 'though all forsake thee, I will not'. The people of God cannot be without these examples. The heroic deeds of those great worthies do not comfort the church so much as their falls and their bruises do (Richard Simmons, The Bruised Reed).
I love music. I love the worship at this church. I love the freedom that it allows. I love that people stand up and sing, feel comfortable raising their hands, or even to sit down and meditate to read or pray.
I attended our first meeting for our women's bible study. There are about 40 women but we are sitting in table of about 6-8 allowing for a little more intimacy. Its from 7-9 and a lot of weeks the girls get together before to eat dinner and fellowship. We are reading Ephesians and its a precept bible study. I have never done one of these but several of the women had done them before and love them. Most of the girls that had done it before said it was one of the things that they can point to and say not only increased their faith, but multiplied it. It's a lot of coloring (if you click on the link and click the picture of the workbook you can see what I mean) but everyone that has done it says that it really opens your eyes to different aspects of the word.. Each passage gets intensely broken down.. Kay uncovers context, encouraging you to look not only at the who, what, when, where, why, but also looking at how many times key phrases are used and the implications they have and why a certain word was used looking at the greek/hebrew words. More to come later after I have had the chance to figure out for myself what this will look like.
