Autumn Break

I am at my sister's house with my daughter for a week to help with final preparations for my niece's wedding on Saturday. My sister and brother-in-law purchased a house on a lake this spring and one of the bonuses this week is experiencing autumn at the lake. Each morning's sunrise reveals the lake in a different state:

In the evening the lake has been like glass reflecting the colors.

I forgot how beautiful Autumn is in Michigan. It's even more beautiful on a lake!

I have been able to fit some art time in as well. I prepped some background pages in advance:

The journaling reads: Art journaling helps me focus and exercise my creativity. It restores my energy.It has also become another point of connection with God as I meditate on His Word and express it through art. It uses all of my senses as I play with paint, paper, glue, and color.

The bottom one was done as an exercise called Scripture Excavation for the Made Course. We picked a chapter from a book in the Bible, printed it our on paper, did inductive Bible study, making notes on the paper. We then used the marked up piece of paper with the chapter printed on it as the base for our art journal page and gessoed, painted, stenciled and collaged right on top of it. New meaning to hiding the Word in your heart! Then we journaled about what stood out in the chapter ~ a significant way God spoke to us through His Word. I chose Colossians chapter 1.

I hope, wherever you are, that you are enjoying the change in the season. Every day holds new things to see!

Contemplation

Contemplation ~ a few definitions from various dictionary sources:
1. The act of looking thoughtfully at something for a long time.
2. Deep reflective thought.
3. Concentrating on spiritual things as a form of private devotion.
4. A state of mental awareness of God's being.

I've been in a dry spell lately. A time when it's been difficult to hear God's voice. When I face times like this I find it helpful to try different spiritual disciplines; different from the ones I generally fall back on. I think sometimes it helps to mix things up in order to hear from God in different ways. After all, all relationships go through times when we realize we've fallen into a rut of doing the same thing; times when comfort zones need to be stretched; times when we need to try new ways of connecting. I believe our relationship with God is no different.

"God asks us regularly to change, to grow, to step into something unexpected." Jeanette Baake

And so, I find that over the past few months I've been exploring spiritual disciplines that are more in line with contemplation ~ solitude, lectio divina, reading from the ancient authors of the faith...I don't abandon the practices that have been formative over the years ~ Bible study, journaling, prayer, and in recent years art journaling. But I have found it beneficial in dry seasons to try other practices along with my "daily" ones. And slowly the dry season experiences times of rain, times of nourishment, and I begin to hear God's voice again ~ though He has not been silent, rather I have not been listening in right ways. Is this perhaps what dry seasons really are? Times when we listen more to our own voice or to others' voices and drown out the voice of God and so it only seems that He is silent? That's worth pondering ...

Dry seasons, exploring spiritual disciplines, figuring out the hard stuff, discovering the things that make you who you are, and discovering more and more about who God is and how He relates to us, these are all a part of our journey. Our life journey, our spiritual growth journey, our growing into our true self journey. We must learn to embrace the journey.

I continue to art journal through our study of 1 John:

I have some more thoughts and art about my exploration in contemplation and will post again in the next few days. :) 

In what ways (practices/spiritual disciplines) do you find yourself connecting to God?

Currently...

Currently...
I'm studying 1 John, along with the other members of our Creative Team, for our Sunday morning worship services. We have entered the heart of John's letter, chapter 4, where John will dive fully into the theme of love. I really love it when we go through a book of the Bible together as a church. It causes us to really slow down and hear what God has for us in the book. We may see passages in a different way then we did before. We see passages more in the context of the full book then we may have before in studying topically or just looking at a verse or passage by itself. Every time our church has studied a book together God has transformed us. Now, in 1 John, we look at love. I find already that I am being transformed; that I am seeing Biblical love in a different light. It challenges me as I try to look at it in practical ways. It brings about so many questions on what love really looks like when it is lived out, and on what it is not.

And so, as I study, I make art journal pages.

Currently...

I am reading "Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art" by Madeleine L'Engle with a group of artists online. A quote from the book on an art journal page:

Currently..

I'm loving the slower pace of summer. I'm playing with art supplies, taking online art journaling classes, helping the hubby remodel our living room and dining room, cleaning out closets and the basement. Hmmm, doesn't sound like a slower pace, but it is. I'm just focused on different things than I do for most of the year. The pace will pick up the closer we get to the start of the school year. Already this past week we have started our school supply drive for our ministry to Keyser School. A few art journal pages:

Currently...

The lens for my Nikon DSLR camera is broken and needs to be replaced so I'm exploring the world of Smartphone photography. The pictures are not quite as crisp as with my Nikon but I'm pretty pleased with how well my LG Lucid takes pictures. I'm also trying to figure out how to use Instagram, but I can't figure out how to embed a photo here. I'll keep plugging on.

That's my life currently.

This and That and...Love

Thank you Julie Fei-Fan Balzer for selecting one of my art journal pages from the Art Journal Every Day Flickr pool and posting it on your blog on Friday.

 http://balzerdesigns.typepad.com.  

It was such a thrill to visit her blog, as I do each Friday, and find some of my art!

I've been in kind of an art slump since I went on my personal retreat a few weeks ago. I have the desire, I just don't seem to have any ideas or creativity lately. I don't know if the heat has something to do with it. I HATE heat and humidity. It zaps my energy and about all I want to do is read or watch movies. Well, hopefully the heat and my art slump will pass soon. I did make a page spread the other day in my altered book art journal.

I'm reading a book called "Repenting of Religion: Turning From Judgment to the Love of God" by Gregory Boyd. This book is blowing me away! We are going through the book of 1 John in our worship service on Sundays and as I study John's letter for our Creative Team meetings each week, I find that Gregory Boyd's writing is going right along with our study. Our prayer for our church as we move through 1 John is that we would connect experientially with God's great love for us and His call on us to love others, Boyd calls this love God has for us "unsurpassable".

John says, "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters." 1 John 3:16.  This is the verse we will focus on this coming Sunday as we seek to define Biblical love. This verse begins the heart of John's message about love (3:16-5:2) and our plan is to slow down in the weeks ahead and take this message in.

From Gregory Boyd:

"Everything we are in Christ, and thus everything we are called to be in Christ, is summed up in the word love. The central defining truth of the believer is that in Christ God ascribed unsurpassable worth to us, though we did not deserve it. Hence, the central defining mark of disciples of Christ is that they in turn ascribe unconditional worth to themselves and all others, knowing that Christ died for them as well." (He then quotes 1 John 3:16).

Everything we are and everything we are called to  - in Christ - is summed up in the word LOVE.

I look forward to what God is going to do in me and in our church as we go through the rest of 1 John (and as I go through the rest of Boyd;s book). 

One Picture

Through Pinterest this morning I ran across this picture:

{shaungroves.com}

 

It made my heart pause and then leap inside me. I love this verse. I dream about this verse. This verse gives passion and fuel to my life and ministry. I dream about the church here on earth reflecting this verse. As Jesus prayed, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven". {Matthew 6:10}, I often pray that pictures I see in Scripture, such as this, may be realized in the here and now as they will be in heaven. This verse and pictures such as this make my heart long for racial reconciliation and for denominational lines to become blurry. It encourages me in working with families and children in low income situations. It gives me strength to push on in our ministry to public schools and their neighborhoods.

 

{classroomcollectivetumbler.com}

 

It also stirs in me to become more and more about promoting love of each other in the Body of Christ. Our unity and love for each other enables us to show the world the Incarnate Christ and helps draw people to HIM. "I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given then the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one; I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." {John 17:20-23}

 

Oh, how I need to grow in love for my brothers and sisters in Christ.

 

I love how art and Scripture come together for me and encourage me in my faith! All of this from viewing a picture on Pinterest! Let me leave you with one more:

 

{shaungroves.com}

 

And my favorite picture from camp last summer:

 

 

 



 



Be Who You Are 2

It's a theme for me lately.

Quote  by Adam McHugh, Introverts in the Church.

Lights. Camera. Action! ...Love

"Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.  Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does."  
James 1:22-25

"Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth."
1 John 3:18

I continually struggle with how to love others. I try harder and harder, often to no avail. I have realized recently that there-in lies my problem: I try. I read and hear the call on God's people to love one another and I want to respond in obedience. I want to figure out what it looks like and do it. Simple. Make up my mind to love and do it. And then I walk out the door and blow it; over and over again.

God's Word leads me to see that I must be about "doing" the work of connecting to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit through the Word, through prayer, and through interaction in the community of God's people. Out of this connection with God, through Christ and His Spirit, love will flow.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."
John 15:5

Then out of that connection with God, I must move into obedience. I then must do something. But only out of connecting to God's love and His power can I "do". And I believe all I can do is simply be obedient and depend on God.

Recently I talked with a group of women about how I am wired and how I use my spiritual gifts, passion and talents in ministry. In looking back over the years at my journey of discovering where God wants to use me, I realized that it never came when I was "trying". All the spiritual gifts tests and personality tests didn't lead me to that place. I do think they are valuable as tools, but they don't give direction. God does. What I see when I look back is that through my desire to be obedient to God I have served. He called our church to a particular vision and mission and I made the decision to be obedient and simply serve where He called the church. Through serving, then, God gave direction. Through serving I have discovered  my spiritual gifts, my passions and my talents. It was kind of like exercising muscles I didn't know I had. If I had not done the exercising, I would not have found the muscles!

So, I think the same may be true in other areas God is calling me. Connected to Him, dependent on Him, and obediently practicing love, compassion, mercy, kindness to others, etc., I may actually find that I am able to love, be compassionate, be merciful, be kind. In faith I make a decision to be obedient, to exercise God's call on me, and find muscles I didn't know I had.

Ironically, this has been my experience in art and creativity as well. Practice. Do. Find creative muscles I didn't know I had!

WIP: Missional - Things Often Collide

1. "You must not want for others what they do not want for themselves." Principle #1 form the Biblical Rescue class I am taking by Dan Rogers of the Cherry Street Mission.

2. "Ask the people you are serving to identify their needs and dreams, rather than assuming you know what they need." From our staff book study of "The Externally Focused Church".

3. "Fikkert makes a compelling point in this chapter that many of us miss: poor people tend to describe their condition in more psychological and social terms. That is, most of us see poverty as lack of food, money, medicine, or housing. The poor talk about their poverty in terms of shame, inferiority, fear, hopelessness, isolation, and voicelessness (53). This has profound implications for how we help the poor. “One of the biggest problems in many poverty-alleviation efforts is that their design and implementation exacerbates the poverty of being of the economically rich–their god-complexes–and the poverty of being of the economically poor–their feelings of inferiority and shame” (65). In other words, when we march in and give the poor the stuff we think they need, we are only making them feel poorer, as they understand poverty." From a book review by Kevin DeYoung of "When Helping Hurts" by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert.

So, I am reading the book mentioned in #3 while attending the class mentioned in #1. And the principle mentioned in #2 has been a defining principle as we have shaped our ministry to the school and community we serve. It always amazes me how I can get involved in multiple things and hear the same message being expressed in all of them. Things often "collide" like that for me.

I think what is common to all three of the above statements is that in serving people and loving them as God does, we must slow down and build relationships with them. Get to know THEM. Violating any of the above principles is really about our own expectations. It's about us - our needs, our stuff, our pride, our self-image. In order to really serve and love people we need to work at releasing all of our stuff and move ahead in God's power, seeking His heart and His purpose. When we are able to do this then we truly serve people, we truly love people, we truly serve God's purpose, and God receives the glory due His name.

So much in life for me lately keeps coming back to expectations.