After considering several apparel choices at the 2012 ICHTHUS event (annual Christian music festival outside Wilmore, Kentucky), I chose this one:
The simple message is appealing and I am inspired by its directive. In the Alpha course video, founder Nicky Gumbel comments on a Japanese woman learning English phrases who converted “What on earth are you doing?” to “What are you doing on earth?” The rephrasing shifts the emphasis just enough to hear it in a fresh way.
The Virtual Michigan Annual Conference took place on July 26-28. I am grateful for Chuck Hill, our Lay Member of Annual Conference, for participating with me and bringing some fine Kenyan AA coffee to the parsonage where we shared the morning session on July 27. The theme for this year was Sowing Seeds: rooting-tending-reaping with a focus on Congregational Vibrancy. The Parable of the Sower (Mark 4:1-9) was the centering story.
We are understandably disturbed and disoriented by our lives these days with COVID-19 and the now pressing decisions about reopening schools, and street protests across the nation for racial justice and against police brutality. Aren’t these things just hardening the ground on which the seeds of the Gospel fall? Or are they breaking up the hardened soil of racism and discrimination and ignorance to receive the seeds of the Gospel?
It depends on what we are willing to do on earth, right where we are. The power of God’s presence in Jesus Christ is that the Word of God became flesh and moved into the neighborhood. Rooting, tending, and reaping in our mission field is what we are called to do even as we learn how we are related to sisters, brothers, and siblings throughout the world.
I am glad to take root and bear fruit here in Greenville and invite you to continue your growing journey with God through the wisdom of God’s creation expressed in Advice from a Tree by Ilan Shamir (The Power of a Positive No, 233):
“Stand Tall and Proud
Sink your roots deeply into the Earth
Reflect the light of a greater source
Think long term
Go out on a limb…
Be flexible
remember your roots
Enjoy the view!”