I know it's late (2:43 am) but this time of day is my most productive it seems. After a week back of driving the Metro, I can say that I am glad to be back in the driver's seat- literally. After this summer's break, I welcomed the necessary distraction of driving a 36,000 pound, 36 foot long behemoth around in circles all day. And that, despite the fact that I may as well have been sitting in the flaming garbage pits of Gehenna, circa, Jesus' day. It would have to wait until this past week to soar into the 90's because it sure wasn't enough to have the searing heat of a sun baked pavement underneath you PLUS astronomical humidity levels PLUS soupy dewpoints in the 70's PLUS the fact that I am virtually sitting on top of a 220 degree oven (well, it's actually a diesel engine). Did I mention that there's no air conditioning?

Hung out with Dave tonight at Three Trees and was reminded that the students are back and Oxford is a circus again. Regardless, I do like it better when they are here. Was also reminded again of the dead end train ride that the bar circuit is as I observed what appeared to be (under normal circumstances) otherwise salient and composed young adults stripped of their God-given inhibitions. In the ever-present pursuit of the never-ending buzz and tawdry sexual conquests, our youth impale themselves on the altar-sword of relational meaninglessness. Perched and somewhat removed in our corner booth and downing our coffees, we could fathom the depth of the interaction at the bar from our distance.......the gestures, the comings and goings and the body language mostly pointed to hopes of "hooking up." Players hoping to score and would-be scorers getting played. I can imagine that for some poor souls, the experience of human community in their tenure in Oxford will be limited to who it was who held one's head up over the toilet. That may mark the depth of what it means to know and be known as our town continues to contribute to the creation of our future alcoholics. Good ol' alkyhol is god (one of many) here in O-Town and it charts the course of our local uptown economy. But it's not just us I know.

It's a crying shame to be compelled to rely on alcohol and other chemicals as the relational bridge that gets some people where they think they want to go. I got that ticket punched starting in 7th grade but the ride ended my freshman year in high school when I met the real Conductor. I didn't even like the effect of the speed or the marijuana or taste of the cheap beer and Malt Duck I was downing, but it got me "in" with some people. And I sure as crap didn't like having to clandestinely rescue my mother and my 4 year old brother in Atlanta with my Granny and Pap from my drug-crazed step-father while he was out selling some more of their furniture in order to support an alcohol and coke habit. And what's good about my brother now on the tracks of following in his footsteps as I speak? And what of the alcoholics to whom we presently minister in our house church? And what of my friend who came blasting through my door, weeping, falling on his knees seeking and coming to Christ and confessing to me that he was addicted to alcohol and other drugs- this only six months after arriving here in Oxford? What of the hellish isolation from his family that he experienced during his month-long detox? For the grace of God, this guy came out and hasn't used since then, (over three years ago).

I am not talking about people who can, in responsibility, take a drink and not rely on it's ability to alter their consciousness in order to enjoy the company of others. I am not talking about those who can consume and yet not need to chemically bolster their existential significance while isolating others via their drunkenness. And I don't care about toting any denominational positions on the vices of alcohol. All I need is my experience with my own and other's brokenness. I assume no esteemed pedestal for this rant either because my own folks supplied me with the booze when I was a kid.

We cannot do ministry here without confronting the false god of Budweiser from time to time. We're seeing enough to know that we need to continue to pray that, should there be a showdown, God would ignite with fire from heaven the booze-soaked altar to his glory. That's just life here in Oxford and I'm sure elsewhere too.

"Living in a community with very wounded people, I came to see that I had lived most of my life as a tightrope artist trying to walk on a high, thin cable from one tower to the other, always waiting for the applause when I had not fallen off and broken my leg."

-Henri J.M. Nouwen, In The Name of Jesus



So what happens when you step out onto the wire, drop your balancing pole-ma-thingy (or whatever it's called) and then notice the shame of your vulnerability like being naked in a dream? Instead of the applause you might have been straining to hear for so long, you finally determine they're not even looking. Or caring. Why'd you step out on that wire, you fool? You have neither the name recognition of a Walenda nor the credentials to match. Besides, most everyone's crossed over or they bait you from the other side........ and who do you think put the wire up in the first place? It's the heart that precedes the leg and the break before the fall.

Getting ready to take my 6,897 pound King James Authorized Church Altar Version and ad-minister the elements to my rather behemoth and furry peons, a.k.a., FITE KLUBB. I'll learn these jobs a thing or two. And I don't care if they all are bigger than I am..........I GOT THE WORD O GOD TO TAKE TO THEIR DAWDLY NOGGINS!

The freekin' Brownhouse rocks! Well, actually, the cats that live and hang there make it that way. What a privelege it is to be witness to the construction of the Kingdom in the way that He is doing. I know we just have a glimpse of what this is or could be and based on our time together Friday night, it's going to be something really nice and refreshingly new (at least in my experience of the Kingdom).

This is joy: that you can be about the Kingdom work, have fun, provoke one another to laughter (with the help of the fiesty Maple-Dawg) and mutually encourage one another while fathoming the immensity of what we're called to do. Thank God we've got folks who've been down the road a bit further than we. In many ways, Veritas is still sucking its ecclesiastical thumb, often rounding the corner bewildered like a wide-eyed child on X-mas morn. Am I to expect that kind of excitement will abate? Heaven forbid it.

As replenishing as this is for me and others, I relinquish the tendency toward hoarding just for me what God is doing in all of this. I know it isn't for me alone. Perhaps we are just forerunners for those who will follow. Could it be we are laying the foundation for the only authentic expression of the Church to come in a world hell-bent on neutering and sanctioning their own version of Jesus?

Short of that and short of digressing into an "us-only" mentality that serves no one, I nevertheless risk to err on the side of a prophetic unction roused within, having been stoked by what I see going on a decaying world and a lifeless Churchianity around me. While I shudder when so many fall by the wayside on this journey and the wolves infiltrate with destruction dripping from their lips, I see and know nothing compared to what God endures. But for the life of me and despite myself, he invites me to tread this way. My toes are stubbed from the rocky path and my back is studded with fiery darts (many fueled by the flames of my own captivating passions).

This is the Dance of my life that I have been invited to and I am a wallflower no more. And forgive me if I step on your feet during your favorite song.

no words

just remembrance and a hope for that coming Day

IT COULD ONLY HAPPEN HERE

Veritas Pastoral Intern Struck By Lightning
August 10, 2003

by Glenn Johnson


(Dissociated Press) I have been known to bemoan the lack of significant weather events around here this season. Ne'er more my friend.

I finally got to report a 60 mph wind gust on July 4th. Even before then, there was flooding in Oxford. A few weeks ago, some more storms dismantled a barn roof next to where my wife was teaching summer school and left debris strewn for hundreds of yards into the school parking lot. Though I do not revel in the misfortune of others, as a weather junkie, I can finally heave a sigh of "at last."

But I could have never dreamed of what happened here at 6251 Hester Road on Saturday, August 9th.

At around noon, a slow-moving thunderstorm formed rapidly over Oxford. This storm would start popping lightning and dropping heavy rain and basically park right over us. The lightning was so intense and close that we didn't often hear the rumble of thunder but only concussive explosions. At a time when this writer was rather indisposed in the lavatory, the power had even gone out three times in rapid succession because of these bolts. If I had only known that my intern was a weak conductor for the massive power surge during the second outage....

At one point, Jason had stepped into his room on the second floor to peer out his window at the storm (which is warned against during a thunderstorm but I admit to doing it as well). In mere thousandths of a second before he could become consciously aware of what had just happened, his senses would finally register: 1) the bright flash; 2) the current running up his right leg; 3) the uncanny realization that he had been struck.

Mr. Birchfield was blessed to have not been the conductor for the main lightning channel. That was why he was able to continue unlabored in his breathing, consciousness and general well being. He did, however, complete a "circuit," albeit a rather weak one.

When Jason stepped up to the window, his flip-flopped right foot rested upon the metal grate on the air register. Unbeknownst to him and few thousand feet above him, vigorous winds and updrafts in the thunderstorm were stripping the water droplets of their proper valence, shearing the electrons from the atoms and falling to the bottom of the cloud in an electron avalanche, where the heavier negatively charged electrons gather and punch downward below the cloud. This channel, called a "stepped leader" is the beginning of the strike and is made possible by the leftover positively charged protons. It pushes downward at a rate of about 10,000 meters/second. As it gets closer to the ground, it attracts contact streamers which are basically positively charged streams flowing upward to meet the stepped leader. They basically flow up any object in the area where this is occurring. This woman and her friends was severely injured when lightning struck a few seconds after the photo. This is what it looks like for a human being to be in the process of becoming a contact streamer (the hair stands out on end as a result of the protons flowing out the strands). Had Jason been in the main channel area, he would have experienced the same sensation.

There was no telling how many contact streamers there were in the area for this lightning bolt. It was a blessing that the channel that made the connection was not the streamer that made it's way from the ground into our heat pump and through the duct work that Jason happpened to be standing on at that moment. The bolt was close enough however to fill the Birchfield streamer channel with a mild electric current and give his right leg a start while busting out our power and my weather station. Undoubtedly, the major current that did make it into the house was routed by the wiring.

Well, that's the science of it. And the theological significance? After this summer, I'd say his stint as a human lightning rod is apropos.

Here are some fun lightning facts since we're talking about it:

Average number of thunderstorms occurring worldwide at any given moment - 2000

Average number of lightning strikes worldwide every second - 100

Average number of lightning strikes worldwide per day - 8.6 Million

Average number of lightning strikes in the USA per year - 20 Million

VOLTS in a lightning flash - between 100 Million and 1 Billion

AMPS in a lighting flash - between 10,000 and 200,000

The average lightning flash would light a 100 watt light bulb for 3 months.

Sunday we did something that we've never done before. We said goodbye to one of our own- Libby Marks- who's moving to Colorado. We wanted to make the gathering special and kind of give it a Libby-flavor as a way of communally bidding our blessing. I wasn't sure how it would come out, being that this was a new thing for us in our young life as a church.

In honor of Libby's penchant for hats, we made it "Libby Day" and wore the craziest hats we could find throughout the whole gathering (Dave, your inquisitor's hood was massive!). Each person brought a card with a message that she was to open only AFTER her last gathering with us that night. After eating, we sang her favorite song and took turns telling her how she had blessed us. Then she shared how much of an impact the community had been for her. Next, we coerced her to get into the "Love Pit" (our prayer circle where we lay on hands and pray) and prayed for her and blessed and exhorted her. We capped the night off with an impromptu volleyball game in the dark. It was as much celebratory as it was tearful and far exceeded my expectations for a send-off.

This is life. Despite the transitions and changes, we are learning how to live and to love more perfectly. Ain't got it figger'd out yet, but it's just grand to make the relational investments and take the risks.

Got back from a brief trip to Tennessee to see some family and was glad I did. My Granny Ruth- with whom I lived through my high school and college years- seems to be dealing with some health issues and that is hard to take. She's always been the tough, "go-get-'em" type and is now displaying minor forgetfulness, some recurring malaise and is undergoing some scans and tests. I was amazed at how much weight she has lost. She just did not look like herself (have I been away this long)?

My Granny Ruth was the main person in my life at age 15 who was instrumental in leading me into a relationship with Christ. After my grandfather died and my divorced parents decided to move out and away, she brazenly took me and my sister into her home, which was too small and looked like a faded Easter egg. My bedroom was the food pantry/TV room/laundry room (amazing what you can do with a fold-away cot). It did not help my lone but devout grandmother to have two heathen pagans living with her, especially with our inclination to innebriate ourselves on the weekends. Besides, we were invincible and knew everything.

But she persisted as best as she knew how, dropping the invites to church and talking a lot about God. I figured her to be behind-the-times, relatively uninformed and irrelevant when it came to understanding the world as it was. After all, what did a fifty-something granny know about the Cold War and the inevitability of a devastating nuclear war? Hadn't she seen "The Day After?" Who was she to tell me I needn't worry about things and that God was in control as I loaded up her closet with milk jugs of water in preparation for the coming holocaust?

At that time in my young life, I was consumed by fear. Fear of not being loved, fear of not being accepted, fear of rejection, fear of the unknown, fear of death, fear of fear. I was driven not to repulsion of things I should have been taught to avoid, but fascination with the things that were beyond comprehension....especially with the spiritual realm, which I pursued with a vigor and without any bounds. So I naturally gravitated toward the supernatural, the paranormal and the occult.

But Granny Ruth was there. She gave me the book that contained the prayer I prayed to invite Christ in my life. She noticed that something in me was different even though I had told no one for two weeks after I had received Christ. She was the nurturing presence in the initial stages of my Christian journey. She took me in, took a chance in laying down an opportunity for life and became the vessel through which God would intersect my life and say, "Here I am.....what are you going to do with me?"

I just can't believe that was eighteen years ago already.

ANUTHA NITE ON HESTER

Tis very invigorating to do church with no major agendas and spiffed up programs to have to "pull off." How do we concoct such a spectacle? What would that recipe look like?

1) Say we just come together around a baptism in the backyard and 18 people huddled around a cattle feeding trough and an approaching thunderstorm looming on the horizon.

2) Add a dash of quizzical looks from the pre-Christian neighbors.

3) Toss in a ripe, 90 lb. German Shepherd alternately circling the baptismal trough like a buzzard and diving in snout-first while the baptismal candidate is sharing how and why he came to Christ.

4) Sing and celebrate the newness of life as a community what is about to happen.

5) Watch Veritas' first intern baptize his brother.

6) Gather around a meal, have someone spontaneously share some scriptures they were discussing and glean some life-giving truths about the Christian journey (spurred by Abram's call in Genesis) and Jesus' harsh sayings about family (Luke 14:26).

7) Pray.........pray more........but begin by telling God "thanks" for all that he is and does and do it BEFORE we come with our barrage of requests........then surround and lay hands upon the girl who is going to have medical tests tomorrow............pray for those who have travelled many hours to be at the house and who must travel.........listen as the church offers spontaneous words/phrases of encouragement to the new convert (this is always cool)

8) Hang out some more.........do Sasquatch imitations from the Patterson/Gimlin film made in 1967 (yes, you've seen the famous clip of the said best filmed walking away from the photographers and looking back at them before disappearing into the Northern California woods. We started competing to see who could do the Sasquatch walk better when we went camping..........now we do it just to laugh at Jason, whose Sasquatch more favors the gait of "J.J.", circa, "Good Times").........fetch Burt, who got off work early and was upset because he couldn't make house church........hang out some more.

I know it goes against the rules, but we don't have a real beginning and ending time for our gatherings. We typically go for 3-5 hours from the point in time the first person arrives until the last person leaves. It's just what winds up happening. There's no agenda.........no sermon to prep and drop. And that's what's so cool........tonight, the community was the sermon and there were about 18 points and, though there were no "poems," there were many poetic interludes throughout the evening as we partook in each other's lives. Mostly, we don't really know what might happen and I like that.

I don't know what we're doing to deserve this, but it sure feels right.

We have yet again descended 'pon our little abode, again with two-fourths of the Birchfield clan in for the weekend. What a spankin' good time we had camping and caving in Harrison-Crawford State Forest. Cathy and I were the only two experienced cavers in our bunch. However, the six other brave souls tackled Langdon's Cave with gusto and panache and I am much impressed with their dexterity and fortitude. We have some brand new cavers to add to the fold......... Dave, Erica, Jason, Spen, Chris, Susie- thanks for being part of a great weekend together. I look forward to many more similar life-experiences with you all....and with those of you who could not be there this time. There's always more caving to do!

Got to camp in the Element, which was pretty funky and amazingly comfortable as advertised. We brought our tent and stuff, but we just wanted to do it since we could. Nice to know if our bums ever get booted out on the street we'll at least have a place to sleep.

The cap for the weekend will see another baptism at the Hester house church. Jason will be baptizing his brother, Spen, in the Veritas Baptistry (read, cattle trough), also in the Veritas sanctuary (read, the Johnson backyard). Remind me to clean up the doggie doo, will you?

The Hester house church will be off to southern Indiana in a lil' over twelve hours for a camping/caving combo trip. These caves were my regular haunts back in those halcyon days of seminary. Not only will immense fun be had by all, we'll also see that there's nothing like some adventure recreation to teach you about trust and dependency in community. And we get to do it underground, beholden to the Creator for his fancy handiworks upon which no one can improve.

Okay…..so I’ve been a blog-slacker (blogacker?) here in the last few days. I was not the first, and - I dare say- I will not be the last. Excuse? I’ve had to return our new computer but we’re up and running again now.

What a phenomenal two days at the Brownhouse! How refreshing it is to be able to gather with like-minded, sold-out Kingdom emissaries and not have to explain your requisite eccentricities and the general phreeky things you do for the sake of the Gospel. How revitalizing it is to experience belly-laughing hours after the saline streams streak your face. Where else can the level of church-planter-type buffoonery run wild as it did this weekend at the Brownhouse? Where else can one begin a weekend with unknown faces and leave as a family? And, where else can one- as the Fine, Most High Reverend Saint Allantious Creechosporous deftly pointed out- be alone in a crowd and still be “there” if you need to? And, for the Leonardo Di Sweetio minions- how’s that for a “double ring”- community and solitude all at once?

Where else can one discover the kind of hospitality such as we see at the B-house? I expect we shall all begin to see glimpses of it in our own communities to be sure…..we cannot but impart the same grace we have gleaned from the days and lives shared on those grounds and between those walls.

Everytime we all gather together from our planted locales and then disperse again , I liken it to the Church taking a deep breath in and breathing out again. This is the kind of organic/ecclesiastic respiration I think is pleasing to Jesus and much more closely reflects the purest intentions of His Church from the beginning. This kind of breathing is natural and unlabored. Let us press on with our Jesus generators as they pump out this rarified air that brings life. Let us relish this atmosphere while we can yet still thrive in it.

So we did it. We bought a new vehicular structure- a Honda Element. It is the first time Cathy and I have ever bought a "new" vehicle, replete with new car smell and such. We were long overdue in doing so and definitely needed a more functional and practical vehicle and this is it.

After: 1) our tranny going goofy in our Intrepid; 2) numerous other tidbits of nuisance things going wrong with the engine; 3) the whole Nashville Metro Police Dept. grounding their new fleet of Intrepids in April 2003 because 3 of them caught fire and Daimler-Chrysler had the nerve to pretty much deflect the blame; 4) finding a website solely devoted to disgruntled Intrepid owners documenting hundreds of complaints and finding my car's problems detailed therein.........we decided it was time to unload.

One tends to learn a lot about onesself in the process of researching, shopping for and negotiating for a new car, especially knowing that the moment you drive off the lot the thing depreciates 30-40%. I choose depreciation and a Honda to boot in place of a transmission going belly up on I-75 at 3:30 am in Tennessee.

Finally......recorded a 60 mph wind gust at my house on July 4th at 8:55 pm. In the three years that we have been here, that is the first time I have been present to witness severe weather at the Johnson digital weather station. This is only the second time we've had weather severe enough to report (the official criteria for a severe thunderstorm is wind gusts over 57 mph and/or hail 3/4 of an inch in diameter or greater). The first time we had golfball sized hailstones about 3 years ago that my wife got to see. Even though she is a spotter too, she did not call in the report as she was probably revelling in my dogs incessant munching up of the hailstones thinking they were ice cubes from heaven.

And in the three years that we've been SKYWARN severe weather spotters for the National Weather Service, I actually got to call in my report. The NWS relies on real time reports from trained spotters on the ground to verify what's going on so the public can be warned. And.....by jolly......I called in my first report! (...jump back and kiss my-seff...

PUBLIC BE WARNED!

Back from our vacation, but showing signs of wear for it........the tranny on our 99 Intrepid pooped on us, albeit 5 miles from Cathy's mother's house at 330 am on the way down. Seemed it preferred locking into 1st gear........quite an experience limping down the road at 30 mph and 4000 rpm's. So we scrambled on the day we were supposed to leave trying to find alternative transportation. We got Cathy's mom's truck, re-packed everything in plastic boxes, arranged for the car repair and left late that Monday night and finally arrived in Nantahala and set up camp at 12 midnight.

It rained every day but one but I had a good time. Cathy thought she saw a bobcat at at our camp. It looked like a fat housecat to me but I won't deprive her of the experience. I also managed to soak in rain all our clothes that I thought my double-wrapped suitcase would avoid. So our last day at camp was spent in the next town's laundry mat.

BUT..........we found over 150 carats of rubies/sapphires..........the largest I found was only 24 carats. Granted, most of the rubies I found are only of specimen quality but a few are going to cut down really nice it appears. So far, in the past three years, our total has topped 600 carats of rubies/sapphires found. My dad and stepmother came to the mine with us and within the first hour and one-half, my dad found a 40 carat ruby on his first day there and instantly became a member of the Sheffield Mine Honker Club (free bucket o' dirt for life) for the find.

Sheffield Mine is the last one of it's kind in that part of North Carolina. No other lode mine produces the native rubies and sapphires of such quality and abundance. Tiffany's actually owned the mine property there in the Cowee Valley for a while in the last century. Now it is privately owned and operated as a recreational mining venue. When I get my blog capable, I will post pikchers. It's a great spot to hang out for the family

Getting ready to go to the wondrous Nantahala ("land of the noonday sun") National Forest in North Carolina to camp and go prospecting for rubies and sapphires and spend some nifty time with the lil' lady. 'Twill be a splendid adventure as it always is. Maybe I'll come back with a 400 carat ruby. It's going to happen. I feel it......I can taste it. You just hide and watch.

Will we in Deconstructionist Christendom ever get it right? Or are things changing with such rapidity that we'd just better hang on for dang dear life? There is no cutting edge anymore in church planting circles as far as I'm concerned. It's more like a magnetic three dimensional throwing star for anyone with an axe/blade to grind. Once you think you've got a handle on it, you look down and you've got a bloody mess. But the ecclesio-scape is still roiling with change.

One thing is for sure: we're tired. We're tired of decaying hierarchical structures bent on self-preservation that have dogged churches/denominations/organizations for a good part of modernity. We're tired of the lifeless, maintenance-level Churchianity and its patron Churchians robbed of and robbing life. If you read that as a condemnation, thou shalt not be so presumptuous......I've been there. And for want of lesser, mundane things, there but for the grace of God go I.

We pine for refreshment. We long for the gentle yoke of a new paradigm that will free up this idealized Church from it's shackles like a greased piglet in a Tennessee Sausage Festival.

So as we continue to deconstruct, we simultaneously lay a foundation. We who pour in the ready-mix ogle and protectively cherish the bland appearance. The hawks circle, conspiring to swoop it up into grandeur and a nest of marketablility. Some have dared to whisper into its "virgin" ears and name it. Or call it a movement......as if it were something truly new under the sun. And wittingly or not, in the very act of naming it, they seek control over it.

Our nomenclatural efforts are steps toward finality. When I "name" you, you are marked as "this" and not "that." Our labelling compartmentalizes and minimizes. But one must also recognize the value of naming. Our ability to apprehend our cognitions and our reality depends on our sound, letter and word-forming capacity. Our knowing and being known relies on it.

But our language almost consistently and ultimately fails when we try to grip the mystery of our experience of being. Especially as "beings" who are the recipients of the loving attention of he who is Other- and more pointedly in reference to this ongoing story of the Christ seeking residence in broken human vessels. "Church" doesn't fully capture the essence of "ecclesia" in much the same way as "Word" loses its mystical impact when translated from "logos." If we call the house church phenomenon a movement, do we endanger it to the lot of past movements that have come and gone, ebbing and flowing- (such as- but not limited to- the apostolic, spiritual warfare, Charismatic, deliverance, healing and reconciliation movements)? When we see God doing something, how do we avoid hijacking it by naming it?

Consider the word fagot. Read this way, it means a bundle of sticks. Add yet one more letter "g" and you have something entirely different. In usage, the original denotation is forever lost to the culturally assigned connotation and we lose the original word meaning. Are the few who are apprehensive to "name" the simple church emergence in the West already recognizing this potential? Granted, many are calling it something (house church, home church, simple church) and those doing so express difficulty explaining what it is because of the limitations and finitude of human language and complex multiple meaning systems. We still have to have some way to talk about it though.

I admit it's arguable that by naming it we may not even imperil a real move of God. But heaven must know we don't need another model.

"Please come to my anti-nomial, anti-modal ecclesial communal structure that meets in my abode" doesn't wax inviting yet either.

an open letter to my Fight Club...

To what shall I compare with what I've found in you? To sit at your feet- gleaning your wisdom and being openly invited into the sacred ground of your struggles is but another treasure in this field sprawling before me. On the surface, this parcel of land sure doesn't look like much but it seems I've uncovered the Kingdom. You guys are reminding me that giving up all I have for this venture is the only way to go. I don't look back anymore, wondering why in the presence of the lingering protestations in my mind of those who question....those who should support me the most but only see my claim staked in what looks like a craggy, untenable thicket of brambles. But hanging out with you puts me in detector mode, scanning the crannies for more treasure. You- my new friends and constant spring of blog fodder- are the shiny gold coins in hand......a blessed spillage from the Kingdom Treasure Chest.

HOW TO KNOW GOD IS DOING STUFF IN YOUR HOUSE CHURCH

Here's how I know God is doing something in our midst. Our man, Burt, suddenly gets called in to work at his pizza joint during the time when we gather. Over a lunch a few days ago with Jason, our intern, Burt literally breaks down when he told him he was going to have to miss on Sunday.

So the Jaylord (a.k.a., Jason) takes it 'pon himself to ogernize an impromptu house church gathering before Burt went to work, replete with a meal and acquaintances of Burt who are not reg'lars at the Hester HC. So we had our first HC at Burt's ("Burtitas") and the first such one we know of in an area of town called the "Ghetto"......an area we are praying over.

That smells like Kingdom stuff to me..........

A REPOST FROM MARK PALMER'S BLOG ENTRY DATED 5-31-03

The Church Father Tertullian writes in his Apology about how the early Church gathered...

"The nature of our meal and it's purpose are explained by it's very name. It is called Agape, as the Greeks call love in it's purest form. However much it may cost, it is always gain to be extravagant in the name of fellowship...The participants do not go to the table unless they have first tasted of prayer to God. As much is eaten as is necessary to satisfy the hunger. When satisfying themselves they are aware that even during the night they should worship God. They converse as those who are aware that God is listening...After the hands are washed and the lights are lit, all are asked to stand forth to praise God as well as each is able, be it from the Holy Scriptures or from his own heart. In like manner the meal is closed with a prayer. After this we part from one another...pursuing the same self control and purity as befits those who have taken in a truth rather than a meal. This is the way the Christians meet."

Tonight, the Landing Place Community gathers for an Agape Meal. My prayer is that God will be present, and that we would leave haven eaten of truth, and not simply a meal. (Mark Palmer)

I continue to be blown away by such kingdom-mindedness in the midst of the Palmer's suffering. Blessing and cursing; pain and joy; strength and weakness.........co-existing anomalies imparting a fellowship of suffering that most can only glimpse from a distance and into which one may never fully enter.

For the Palmer's, Father, healing. For us, and in their honor, may we dine on the crumbs of truth from their table as we watch and pray.