I thought I missed something … with our new toilet paper free bidet system. No sooner had I returned daisy fresh to my bedside that I felt something hard slide down the back of my leg inside my jammies, bounce off my foot and onto the floor with a plop.
I glanced at Carol and asked her if she wanted an update. I turned on the bedside lamp and there it was! My AARP card stuck to a book cover and fell into my jammies before standing.
Never have I been “more relieved”! Never had I felt more like an AARP member. #Relieved
How to follow the will of God when faced with life’s uncertainty. The Apostle Paul under house arrest in Rome discovered the will of God working through him in the midst of a difficult time. St. Brendan, the Irish Monk of the 5th and 6th century reminds us how the Celtic Christians practiced pilgrimage in seeking God’s will by floating in a rudderless, hide covered boat, a coracle, until it came to rest at “the place of their resurrection.” Where is your pilgrimage taking you in God’s will? Can you rest in God’s assurance that He will unfold his plan through you?
PRAYER OF ST. BRENDAN
“Help me to journey beyond the familiar and into the unknown.
Give me the faith to leave old ways and break fresh ground with You.
Christ of the mysteries, I trust You to be stronger than each storm within me.
I will trust in the darkness and know that my times, even now, are in Your hand.
Tune my spirit to the music of heaven,and somehow,
Even as a sick woman touched the hem of Jesus’ garment and found healing and a new life, we can get in touch with our Creator. Prayer beads, a Bible clasped in hands or even a posture of prayer can help us as we seek God’s presence and peace of mind.
After hoards hunted empty shelves for bulk packages of paper products, this one paper product guarantees peace of mind and never runs out of supply – the Bible.
Contemporary services gravitate to 1990’s Jesus light rock, decibel metered sound and Walmart clad clergy. Worship leaders interpret “improve the service” as sing a tenth chorus while adding a dozen more projection slides.
So holds true Jesus teaching, “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)
Inked words still wet scribed on the worship papyrus are: ultramodern, virtual and space. Ultramodern worship forms a seamless union between the church building and the members’ remote experience. The days of “My pastor never calls on me” translate digitally into “My pastor is but a click away.” Video-conferenced home and small group teaching, healing and communion bring the invisible universal church to the digital. This church’s local building could hold 50 while serving a congregation of 50,000 free of the shackles of brick-and-mortar.
Beyond a church mission plant in locations like Antigua, the ultramodern church tasks its denomination to slate a mission to Mars in order to charter a church open to person of all nations … and galaxies. Churches pass out Space-X piggy-banks to remind the children that your faith can take you places.
Today on Christians Need to Know. Session 2 on Ephesians: Let’s walk together in unity so we can work together as the body of Christ. Does God really call us to build monstrous public venues destined to become the next “Lost City of Z”? Through the Apostle Paul, God shows us the continuity plan for the church, which does not embrace “big business church plant” Atlas model found in the US.
“One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism”
The mind of a US senior pastor before Sunday Services …
If we follow "teaching for testing" to its outcome, we discover in China what all those loss of privacy warnings meant ... Engagement monitoring by AI. Real time student brainwave engagement. Cashless society through facial recognition. AI is one jump away from linking human minds into a single consciousness... Coming to a cubicle near you.
The church in the US is built on a “come and pray” model. With the outbreak of the coronavirus and the aging of the US church population, Pastor Jim discusses the need to build a “Church in Place: Stay and Pray” model that allows church members to stay active in the local church ministry during times of isolation or illness.
Church in Place
Next week, we will discuss how the spread of the Christianity through Asia Minor and on to Europe, gave a “continuity plan” to the Christian church as Titus destroyed Jerusalem in AD 70 accompanied by decades of Roman persecution of Christians and Jewish believers alike.
Today while visiting the Spirit of Joy Lutheran Church, the pastor morphed the traditional Passing the Peace handshakes with "elbow bumps" and "knuckle crunches." Sanctified, along with wafers and the cup, the stations of the hand sanitizers. "May the Lord bless you and sanitize you."
Those who think the US workplace is safe from coronavirus have never sat across the cubicle from a flu stricken coworker out of PTO days.
During my years of cubicle exile, my desk has been a magnet to attract loud talkers, big sneezers and “Boy am I sick, but I used all my PTO going to Cabo! (Hack, coooough, blow)” Apparently the virus has not clicked “read and agreed” to the HR manual.
