Tuesday, December 23, 2008
There's an air leak in the system!
Today at the church there was an air leak in the fire alarm system which through off the balance of the system turning the alarms on for about an hour. Todd made a great comment and I thought it also that it felt as if we were in a ship of some kind like in Star Trek and there was a leak in the boiler room and we were on "red alert!" with the lights flashing and sirens going off. It was funny. Just thought I relay the humor.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
A symphonic 5K jingle bell orchestra
This weekend my smokin' hot fiancee came up from Bloomington to visit and go to a symphonic 5K jingle bell orchestra.
Friday we started out with finishing our Christmas shopping for our families (now that we are engaged we really have two to buy for, weird I know) and then just decided to relax with some chocolate pretzels and sugar cookies. But the weekend just got started at this point.
Saturday morning we woke up at 6:30am, ya that is in the morning sometimes I forget. We woke ourselves up and ate and drank some carbs and sugar and dressed up warmly for we were going to go run through the streets of Indianapolis with jingle bells on our shoes and santa hats on our heads for the Jingle Bell Run 5K. What did I learn from my first 5K ever, that I should really run a lot more than 3 miles total before I go run a race like that in the cold. Prepare, prepare, prepare.
We then traveled back to my apt. and died in the afternoon. Just fell asleep, dead. Woke up and had to head back to Indy because we got free Indy Symphony Orchestra tickets at the Scottish Rite temple. Little did we know that this concert was a rather formal event and Megan and I dressed up like we would for church, but ya we were the most underdressed "youngin's" at the performance. Nevertheless, an awesome performance by the ISO. By the way our legs were still dead at this point and the pain starting burning in as we relaxed to beautiful Beethoven. Oh yeah, and an older gentleman was sitting next to us and had a pen and the program out and every once in a while he would click the pen open to write down an ever important note about something. It was the most bizarre thing, I couldn't imagine what was going through his head the whole performance but he seemed more to be at a lecture about the philosophy of the theory of the origin of toe jam football; very intriguing.
Sunday, the in-laws were on their way to Brownsburg to go to church with Megan and I to catch the awesome Children's Cantata at Calvary. What a fun performance by the awesome kids. The grandparents and parents both loved it and enjoyed our lunch out together.
Christmas is in full swing in my life and I love it. The joy of the world, Christ Jesus, Emmanuel stirs up so much love in my small world of the midwest.
I hope everyone can have their own symphonic 5K jingle bell orchestra weekend during this Christmas season.
-A
Thursday, December 11, 2008
SANTA......Jesus
I spent some time last night at Wonderful Wednesday Dinner here at Calvary and stayed after for Todd' advent study through some classic Christmas movies and their lessons they teach us about Christmas and life.
A lot of young children are at this study with their parents. We watched the last 30 minutes of Polar Express where Santa is revealed to all the kids and the main character is challenged to believe.
Just through observation I noticed something and wanted to make a comment. When Santa appeared in the video many young children start telling their parents "Santa, Santa, look mom, dad it's Santa!" Always a neat thing when kids put their favorite images with the knowledge they are gaining in life. However, it made me think.
What if we showed a video clip of Jesus being celebrated the same way Santa was being celebrated in Polar Express. During this Christmas season, would the children respond the same way they responded about Santa? Is this a problem or just what children are learning? I was intrigued and if anything encouraged to teach my children, whenever that happens in my life the importance of Jesus so that maybe they would be just as excited about Jesus as they are about Santa.
One more thing that a little girl taught me last night. Todd asked if anyone knew what believe meant. A little girl responded with "it's real." I thought that was an amazing response. If you believe, you are saying that thing you believe is real. That means as Christ believers, we are saying that Christ is real. Even more than that, if Christ is real then isn't that establish Him as reality.
Often we say, "Well the reality is, this world is hard and even though I believe in Christ it's just the reality of our world." I learned from this little girl last night that that isn't true. Christ is reality, because he is real. So the reality is not that this world is hard and even though we have Christ we just have to deal; the reality is Christ and this world is not as it was intended and God is in the business of restoring it back to reality.
Love well,
-A
A lot of young children are at this study with their parents. We watched the last 30 minutes of Polar Express where Santa is revealed to all the kids and the main character is challenged to believe.
Just through observation I noticed something and wanted to make a comment. When Santa appeared in the video many young children start telling their parents "Santa, Santa, look mom, dad it's Santa!" Always a neat thing when kids put their favorite images with the knowledge they are gaining in life. However, it made me think.
What if we showed a video clip of Jesus being celebrated the same way Santa was being celebrated in Polar Express. During this Christmas season, would the children respond the same way they responded about Santa? Is this a problem or just what children are learning? I was intrigued and if anything encouraged to teach my children, whenever that happens in my life the importance of Jesus so that maybe they would be just as excited about Jesus as they are about Santa.
One more thing that a little girl taught me last night. Todd asked if anyone knew what believe meant. A little girl responded with "it's real." I thought that was an amazing response. If you believe, you are saying that thing you believe is real. That means as Christ believers, we are saying that Christ is real. Even more than that, if Christ is real then isn't that establish Him as reality.
Often we say, "Well the reality is, this world is hard and even though I believe in Christ it's just the reality of our world." I learned from this little girl last night that that isn't true. Christ is reality, because he is real. So the reality is not that this world is hard and even though we have Christ we just have to deal; the reality is Christ and this world is not as it was intended and God is in the business of restoring it back to reality.
Love well,
-A
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Do you believe God loves you?
Do you believe God loves you the way you are no differently than the way you are supposed to be?
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Leaks
So I came into the church office today and we found out there is a leak in the tower of the sanctuary. There has been happenings like this before but when we get a really hard rain like we are right now, it really likes to let us know.
So I was thinking, do you have annoying leaks that seem to sneak into your life? You know, like when it rains in your life, no storms really or pouring rain just steady light rain we seem to be able to manage. However, when it really pours in our lives all those leaky parts in our life begin to seep in.
I think about those things in our lives that we ignore as just stupid habits or things we don't need to really worry about because they are not that big of a deal, now. But then it pours. And it doesn't pour when you want it to pour either. But when it does pour, it surely is no trip to the sunny beach. It honesty stanks!! And when that water starts pouring through the leaks in our roofs we start to get afraid that the roof may cave in on us and everything will come crashing down.
However, their is one difference between the leak in the church building and our lives; that's God's unconditional grace. Through Christ, the stupid stuff that we do (that we are the ones who thinks it is stupid) but still don't fix are okay. They will come crashing in on us and pour water in on us when we don't want it to, but God is there if you turn to Him.
On a side note, I find it funny when people say that they can feel that God is near. They don't always say it though. They say it when they are feeling really good about God and some really awesome thing is going on in church or some church function. But God is always near. He never runs away. We are the ones who always run away. We try and try to do what we think is best for us, but then end up turning to Him and saying "I have no idea." We don't have to find Him, God is always there, ready. Christ, the Lord is ready, I mean he was born for this!
Turn to Christ, not only in those times when it pours and it's hard and you can't do it anymore; turn to Christ always and trust Him. Really know that He knows you, better than you do. Therefore, He knows what is best for you in every situation. It's your choice to turn to Him or not. He will always make Himself known to you, it's whether you notice it or not.
When the rain comes, it often pours, but Christ is always near, turn to him.
So I was thinking, do you have annoying leaks that seem to sneak into your life? You know, like when it rains in your life, no storms really or pouring rain just steady light rain we seem to be able to manage. However, when it really pours in our lives all those leaky parts in our life begin to seep in.
I think about those things in our lives that we ignore as just stupid habits or things we don't need to really worry about because they are not that big of a deal, now. But then it pours. And it doesn't pour when you want it to pour either. But when it does pour, it surely is no trip to the sunny beach. It honesty stanks!! And when that water starts pouring through the leaks in our roofs we start to get afraid that the roof may cave in on us and everything will come crashing down.
However, their is one difference between the leak in the church building and our lives; that's God's unconditional grace. Through Christ, the stupid stuff that we do (that we are the ones who thinks it is stupid) but still don't fix are okay. They will come crashing in on us and pour water in on us when we don't want it to, but God is there if you turn to Him.
On a side note, I find it funny when people say that they can feel that God is near. They don't always say it though. They say it when they are feeling really good about God and some really awesome thing is going on in church or some church function. But God is always near. He never runs away. We are the ones who always run away. We try and try to do what we think is best for us, but then end up turning to Him and saying "I have no idea." We don't have to find Him, God is always there, ready. Christ, the Lord is ready, I mean he was born for this!
Turn to Christ, not only in those times when it pours and it's hard and you can't do it anymore; turn to Christ always and trust Him. Really know that He knows you, better than you do. Therefore, He knows what is best for you in every situation. It's your choice to turn to Him or not. He will always make Himself known to you, it's whether you notice it or not.
When the rain comes, it often pours, but Christ is always near, turn to him.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Upside Down
Upside Down from Pace Hartfield on Vimeo.
This video was extremely popular our high school youth group Sunday night. Check it out, it is awesome during Christmas to read and here the truth.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
What we do to our kids during the holidays
I just got a kick out of this picture because it's funny to see what you can do to a kid and they will still love you.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
So...here we are
So you are probably wondering why the blog change. It's not my fault I swear! Something happened with my other blog template and I was not able to change it at all so it made the blog hard to read and it just looked bad. Since I have perfection anxiety when it comes to graphic design I couldn't deal with it. So, sorry for the confusion but I hope many of you who check this out are okay. I hope it wasn't too traumatic for you. No matter what, I'm glad that you are here!
-A
-A
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)