Merry Christmas friends!
This Sunday we are gathering at 9 a.m. at the home of Jerry & Ruth Vanden Bosch.
We’ll keep our time together to an hour; so you can plan on leaving by 10 a.m. or thereabouts.
As for the first Sunday of 2006, the details are still emerging. Plan on an afternoon or early evening gathering…
Christmas blessings to you and your family!!!
randy
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
two lockers away.
The old man sits two lockers away. Most every day after my workout at the YMCA there he is. We have shared a few words, but today we shared nothing but the same row of lockers.
Today I did not feel much like talking. I should have felt like talking. Today he had just begun to change into his workout wear when I came back from the gym. Today he had ‘long johns’ as grandpa called them. It took him a short eternity to take them off one slow leg at a time.
I kept thinking. I kept wondering why I allowed this kind of silence between us. Yet, today I did not feel much like conversation. And after three or four minutes next to one another I realized. I realized that two people can go through life next to one another, and yet it is entirely possible that their lives never intersect.
It was a sad realization. Knowing that too often we are so self-absorbed. Knowing we fail to reach into the lives of others around us. Today I wanted to talk. I could not.
Tomorrow I will hope for better of myself. I can almost hear Jesus say. Who is your neighbor.
Today I did not feel much like talking. I should have felt like talking. Today he had just begun to change into his workout wear when I came back from the gym. Today he had ‘long johns’ as grandpa called them. It took him a short eternity to take them off one slow leg at a time.
I kept thinking. I kept wondering why I allowed this kind of silence between us. Yet, today I did not feel much like conversation. And after three or four minutes next to one another I realized. I realized that two people can go through life next to one another, and yet it is entirely possible that their lives never intersect.
It was a sad realization. Knowing that too often we are so self-absorbed. Knowing we fail to reach into the lives of others around us. Today I wanted to talk. I could not.
Tomorrow I will hope for better of myself. I can almost hear Jesus say. Who is your neighbor.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Experience Christmas Tonight
"God is Where the Pain Is"
An experiential worship gathering hosted by His House Christian Fellowship at GVSU (Allendale).
The gathering will open around 7:00pm on Tuesday, December 6 in the Grand River Room (Upstairs) in the Kirkhof Center on GVSU's Allendale Campus. The event is open to all.
The focus of the 10 stations is oriented around the idea that Christmas shows us that God did not abandon the world to pain, but entered into the pain of the world. (this is a set of stations I developed two years ago, plus a few new ones developed for this gathering, but all the work is being done by GVSU students this time!)
“The gospel of Jesus the Messiah was born, then, in a land and at a time of trouble, tension, violence, and fear. Banish all thoughts of peaceful Christmas scenes. Before the Prince of Peace had learned to walk and talk, he was a homeless refugee with a price on his head. At the same time, in this passage and several others Matthew insists that we see in Jesus, even when things are at their darkest, the fulfillment of scripture. This is how Israel’s redeemer was to appear; this is how God would set about liberating his people, and bringing justice to the whole world. No point in arriving in comfort, when the world is in misery; no point in having an easy life, when the world suffers violence and injustice! If he is to be Emmanuel, God-with-us, he must be with us where the pain is.”
-Tom Wright, “Matthew for Everyone” pp.14-15
An experiential worship gathering hosted by His House Christian Fellowship at GVSU (Allendale).
The gathering will open around 7:00pm on Tuesday, December 6 in the Grand River Room (Upstairs) in the Kirkhof Center on GVSU's Allendale Campus. The event is open to all.
The focus of the 10 stations is oriented around the idea that Christmas shows us that God did not abandon the world to pain, but entered into the pain of the world. (this is a set of stations I developed two years ago, plus a few new ones developed for this gathering, but all the work is being done by GVSU students this time!)
“The gospel of Jesus the Messiah was born, then, in a land and at a time of trouble, tension, violence, and fear. Banish all thoughts of peaceful Christmas scenes. Before the Prince of Peace had learned to walk and talk, he was a homeless refugee with a price on his head. At the same time, in this passage and several others Matthew insists that we see in Jesus, even when things are at their darkest, the fulfillment of scripture. This is how Israel’s redeemer was to appear; this is how God would set about liberating his people, and bringing justice to the whole world. No point in arriving in comfort, when the world is in misery; no point in having an easy life, when the world suffers violence and injustice! If he is to be Emmanuel, God-with-us, he must be with us where the pain is.”
-Tom Wright, “Matthew for Everyone” pp.14-15
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