Last Night

We had a great time together last night!

We began by briefly talking about the grossest/worst place we had ever slept. It was interesting and at points disgusting, but fun.

Then, continuing our attempts to find different ways to notice God and celebrate how awesome He is, we enjoyed "worship on the move" by walking outside. There, outside the McAllister center, we noticed some of the many things around us...like the songs of the birds, the blessing of living in a town like Lafayette, the feel of the wind, the sound of the harley on the street nearby, among others. In these we celebrated the awesomeness of a God who gives us such wonderful gifts and is so big that He makes everything else in life come into better focus. As we begin to live lives noticing things like this and thanking God for them, our worship becomes less and less of a "Sunday only" thing and more and more of the way we live every day.

After this time of worship and thankfulness, we spent some time sharing needs together and then praying for them. We do this because we really believe that God cares about the things that we care about and that talking to God about our concerns invites Him to join us in them. We also beleive that God responds to our praying for each other by helping us in the middle of our concerns. We do not understand this completely, but we have seen it happen time and time again that people's lives change for the better when other people pray for them.

After prayer, we followed up on the last teaching we had from Stephen Murphy by talking about how pursuing the "more" of money in our day to day lives can be so very destructive and how having God in your life can help bring balance to everything, including money. This was illustrated using the song Cats in the Cradle,by Harry Chapin

Cats In The Cradle Lyrics

My child arrived just the other day
He came to the world in the usual way
But there were planes to catch and bills to pay
He learned to walk while I was away
And he was talkin' 'fore I knew it, and as he grew
He'd say "I'm gonna be like you dad
You know I'm gonna be like you"

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home dad?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then

My son turned ten just the other day
He said, "Thanks for the ball, Dad, come on let's play
Can you teach me to throw", I said "Not today
I got a lot to do", he said, "That's ok"
And he walked away but his smile never dimmed
And said, "I'm gonna be like him, yeah
You know I'm gonna be like him"

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home son?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then

Well, he came home from college just the other day
So much like a man I just had to say
"Son, I'm proud of you, can you sit for a while?"
He shook his head and said with a smile
"What I'd really like, Dad, is to borrow the car keys
See you later, can I have them please?"

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home son?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then

I've long since retired, my son's moved away
I called him up just the other day
I said, "I'd like to see you if you don't mind"
He said, "I'd love to, Dad, if I can find the time
You see my new job's a hassle and kids have the flu
But it's sure nice talking to you, Dad
It's been sure nice talking to you"

And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me
He'd grown up just like me
My boy was just like me

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home son?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then

Obviously, the dad in the song valued money and success more than his son and that is the sadness of this song. It is easy to see here, and if we look, all around us, that in American society, we talk about "the important things" like family, etc, but more often spend most of our time and energy getting enough money to pay for what we want, instead of living investing in the "the important things" with our time and energy. Serving God allows us to be free from the tendency to overspend and search for opportunities to get wealth. He brings perspective on the money or lack of money in our lives, as Stephen so perfectly spoke about last time.

We ended our time together with communion. We shared some of Melissa's home made southern pound cake and juice!

It was a really good time together. We will be meeting again at McAllister Center in 2weeks - 7/10, 6:45-8:00PM. We look forward to seeing you there!

Thursday Night 6/26

Well, Thursday we will be meeting at McAllister 6:45-8:00Pm as usual - see previous posts for directions. We will be planning on a whole new type of noticing for our time in worship. Then we will have time to pray for each other (I have been praying for these 2 weeks for the things you asked me to pray about). Then we'll be jumping off from where Stephen finished last time for our teaching. It will be an awesome time - we hope you can make it!

6/12 - Last Thursday

Last Thursday's time together was really a good time, worshipping, praying and then learning. To begin, we got to know quite a few new people by talking about and around the topic: My favorite cartoon - I know it sounds kind of silly, and it was, but it was tons of fun!
After settling in a little, we worshipped to the theme "Things that are free." We basically either talked about, or drew pictures of or wrote about things in our lives that we wanted to thank/praise God for that cost absolutely nothing. It was a really good time of praise - it was amazing how many things we were able to come up with!
Then we had a time of prayer with everyone who wanted to writing things they are feeling worried/stressed/bothered, etc by and handing them to me to pray for for the next 2 wks and we shared prayer together.
Then, we were blessed to have Stephen Murphy talk to us about his life. I will let him give you the full story sometime, but the end summary was kind of like this: "I have lived a successful life grappling for money and success, and in the end it was all for nothing. My joy now is in God and that is fulfilling all the other areas of my life and giving me joy beyond what I have ever had." This is my paraphrase - please post Stephen if this is not accurate!
It was a powerful time of learning real-life lessons from a real-life hero!
If you were there, we're so glad you shared the time with us, if not, we hope you can make it on on June 26th at 6:45-8:00PM at McAllister Center - see the previous posts for directions!

Thursday 6/12

We hope you can make it this Thursday for a great time. We will be expanding on the last discussion about the failure of so many of the "mores" of our society- the things we work for and search for in life. We will be having an interview/discussion with Stephen Murphy who is going to be talking about his searching for money, where it led him and where he is now!

If you have this feeling that there must be more to life than this...or maybe you are wondering what the point of it all is anyway...or maybe just are curious about God, but not into church, or had bad experiences in church, or with church people, you should come - we think you'll love it!

It will be at McAllister Center in Lafayette 6:45-8:00 PM - see previous posts for maps/directions and there is, as always, free childcare.

Hope to see you there!