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The Discovery team tackled a ‘Home Repair’ project for a single mother on my block who had 7 windows broken in her home. With winter coming, she needed them replaced. So, with the hard work of the team, like Andy here, and our own, Daniel Dailey heading up the project…they got it done. 

Another full day of mission work in East Central. Praise God for young people who desire to serve God, love people and work hard for the glory of God and the help of those struggling to make ends meet. Good job team!

The Discovery Students helped build a wall between the kitchen and the main dinning area in our Community Resource Center. This is one requirement that the City of Spokane wanted us to comply with to be a ‘complying with code’ food program, service area. 

A big thank you to Jim and Mike for overseeing and assisting in leading this project for the team. 

We enjoyed an awesome morning in the garden today as we worked on clearing weeds, pulling old plants, cutting and hanging herbs to dry and talking about racism, mission, community work, what it means to transition from young adult to a mature woman, forced or encouraged vulnerability in community and a few other great conversations. Nothing like getting dirt under your nails and God’s vision in your heart and mind all in the beauty of creation. 

A huge thank you to Brian from Vinegar Flats Farm for heading up our group today and telling what to do and how to do! 

Sometimes it’s hard to tell if we are honest with ourselves.

Ultimately the only effective way to cleanse ourselves from our sin is to trust in the blood of Christ.

No groveling penance, guilt produced works, deflecting do gooding, self loathing, self talk about being better, redoubled efforts, self saving or recommitments…will bring peace to the sin troubled waters of the soul.

Only repentance and faith in the sacrifice of Jesus for our sins.

Confession…honest talk to God and one another about our inability to redeem ourselves.

Come, wash your hands, ye, sinners…and Christ shall make thee clean.

Tomorrow morning begins our Fall Season of Morning & Evening Prayer at 7AM & 7PM at Jacob’s Well. 

“Seven times a day I praise you” -Psalm 119.164

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“I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. -Jesus (John 6:53) 

I served a woman Communion today that had been denied access to the Lord’s Supper for 20 years in her former church.

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“Your Church Embracing Refugees” 2010 Mission Connextion notes & handout. This is material I worked through for my part of the workshop. 

“Confronted with the mystery of God, the creature must be silent; not merely for the sake of being silent, but for the sake of hearing. Only to the extent that it attains to silence, can it attain to hearing. But, again, it must be silent not merely for the sake of hearing, but for that of obeying. For obedience is the purpose and goal of hearing. Our return to obedience is indeed the aim of free grace. It is for this that it makes us free. It is for this that it confronts us as mystery” - Karl Barth (Church Dogmatics II/2: The Doctrine of God. Edited b G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance. Translated by T.H.L. Parker

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) -John 4:7-9

“Open Dialogue” is one of the missional values that I treasure as a church planter. It guides much of what I do in my work in the community and It’s rooted in the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John chapter 4. This story is where I found inspiration for our name as a church community and for much of the missional ethos that makes up Jacob’s Well. 

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Over the last two years I’ve been thinking about how to connect modern, evangelical Christians in our circle, with ancient practices of the Christian Church….prayer, fasting, silence, pilgrimage, sabbath, charity and such. One other area is in the sphere of music, song, hymns and liturgy.

I was pleased to see that at “David Crowder’s Fantastical Church Music Conference” there is a session called: “A New Old Vision for Worship – Liturgical Spirituality for Post-Modern-Semi-Reformed-Hipsters.” 

Crowder is a very influential voice within the Evangelical worship circle, so this discussion as well as his continual use of hymns and ancient lyrics in his own music, stands as another witness to this deeper conversation going on in my inner life and pastoral reflections and out there in church land. 

Here are some links to musicians and projects that are reinventing old hymns, not just modernizing them: Indelible Grace, Bitrost Arts, The Welcome Wagon, Sandra Mccracken.

LeeElla and I spent the weekend at a Discerning the Voice of God prayer Retreat at Camp Cross, an Episcopalian camp on Cour D’ Alene Lake. Hosted by Father Paul Lebens-Englund and led by Dr. Nancy Copeland-Payton. We really enjoyed our time with our brothers and sisters and did some serious soul work and personal reflection and prayerful, spiritual direction to discern the Lord’s leading in a few central areas of our lives. The camp was very gracious and served us with wonderful meals and Paul  provided a praying the hours structure to cultivate a listening posture the whole weekend as well as plenarily session led by Nancy. 

It was a weekend of firsts for us Charismatic, missional Evangelicals, being led by an Episcopal priest in a liturgical prayer format, and being taught by a Presbyterian spiritual director, writer and former pastor with a small group of various Episcopalians from around the region. It was beautiful and refreshing and added just enough out of the box exposure for us to reflect and receive from the Lord, in some fresh new ways. 

“Busyness is the enemy of spirituality. It is essentially laziness. It is doing the easy thing instead of the hard thing. It is filling our time with our own actions instead of paying attention to God’s actions. It is taking charge.” -Eugene Peterson- Subversive Spirituality, 237

“Although we all go through periods when we’re busier than at other times, overall our lives should be have an integrity about them; integrated in such a way that we are not running frenetically all of the time.  We are too busy, he says, because we are vain. We want to appear important. Significant.  And the crowded schedule and the heavy demands on my time are proof that I am important.  We live in a society that says busy-ness is proof of importance so we do the same. -Eugene Peterson

“To the artist, expression is the only mode under which he can conceive life at all. To him what is dumb is dead. But to Christ it was not so. With a width and wonder of imagination that fills one almost with awe, he took the entire world of the inarticulate, the voiceless world of pain, as his kingdom, and made of himself its external mouthpiece.”-Oscar Wilde

 Mr. Wilde lost much of his writing & theater fame at the time, due to a conviction for “Gross Indecency” or…homosexual acts. He could of fled to another country but instead chose to stay and was convicted and served two years imprisonment with hard labor. He died a few years after his release. The charge written on the accusation card and left with the porter at Wilde’s club in London; called him a “posing somdomite.” The prosecutor said, “I make no charge; but to my mind to pose as a thing is as bad as to be it”. 

Homosexuality is such a hot button in today’s religious culture, and I think it warrants a serious biblical study and response in light of the confusion and growing chaotic mess that the church finds itself in today; especially in regards to sexuality, abuse, marriage, divorce, premarital sex, promiscuity and adultery. In a culture that contains more slavery today than at anytime in history, many sex slaves…we need biblical clarity and truth on what is sin and what isn’t…as Christians. 

But as Americans, who hold constitutional rights as a guarantee for free people…this issue must be handled in a way that reflects the common inalienable rights we hold for one another as citizens. Discrimination, hate, bullying, derogatory language and vilifying goes on in many faith communities and has become the standard image of Christians….to our shame. 

Such a reputation is sinful. 

If one can’t value another human being for the image of God in them and expressed through them…both sinner or saint…than such diminishing of personhood will be common place. 

“We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.” -MLK Jr. 

I want to thank Kevin Graman for the “Freedom from Scratch” article that addressed many of the challenges facing refugees and service providers in Spokane. It’s not an easy topic to tackle and there are many facets of the refugee resettlement process that are hard to cover in one article. Kevin wrote another article about the Karen Refugees and our relationship with them back in November of 2006. That article detailed the horrors and challenges many refugees have experienced that forced many to flee from their home countries.  

Kevin’s recent article talked about the many struggles they face in our country.  Both of these stories need to be connected to maintain perspective about the resettlement process, and to understand the lives of these courageous people and the organizations that serve them.  

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It was a great night at INFUSE getting a chance to unpack the issue of Mission; in the context of passionate thinkers and faithful practitioners from multiple churches. Felt good to be in a room full of people that are speaking a language you’re hearing in your soul. It was also great to meet some new friends who are working it all out in their own neighborhoods in the same city. Props to Dan and Rob for facilitating great discussion, solid content all within an engaging format.