It has been a busy weekend but filled with the kind of things I like doing. Saturday evening Paul G. went with Barb and me to VCF-Mainz. It's a small but beautiful community that meets at Kai's place. I love going to this kind of intimate community setting because people like this typically haven't lost focus on what we are really about. Their eyes are on Christ rather than organizational structures and buildings.
Anyway, it was a wonderful time of expressing love toward God. We looked into His Word and discussed what it really means to go do the stuff of the Kingdom. Of course the first premise was "go" and the second was "do". The point then was that if we were following Jesus' model, this will result in either a need for explanation (proclaim the Gospel) or defense against persecution (proclaim the Gospel).
Barb's heel has been hurting her for three weeks and we were discussing going to the doctor. God decided to demonstrate His Kingdom power while we prayed and her heel stopped hurting. Two days later still no pain. I laughed as I typed this trying to avoid saying healed her heel...and then I had to go back to fix the spelling.
Oh - and of course we started by having a little dinner at a nice little Italian place in Mainz.
Sunday morning I tought Middle School at our morning service for ICF. We looked at forgiveness based on Mt 6.14-15. This is a hard saying for any age group. I think it went ok. There is so much to unpack in the area of forgiveness. I tried to focus on (1) typically we have issue with someone based on much less than fact and more on our own perceptions and paradigms and (2) the nature and conditions of forgiveness we receive from the Father is the mainspring and model for which we are to forgive others. The good news is that since these were Middle Schoolers, I didn't have to "dumb it down" like I do for adults...
Then Sunday evening was our small group meeting. This group is great and we have formed some wonderful bonds of love. On the other hand the Bible discussions are growing more complex. The group is mostly comprised of intelligent people that are very familiar with Scripture but we come at it from an amazing variety of angles. This makes for great conversation but in the space allowed, it is hard to feel that any conclusion is drawn. I guess that's my "organizational" weakness. I feel a need to summarize and conclude rather than simply value the process...sigh, another area to grow in...
Anyway, we looked at Eph 1.3-14, 22-23. I love God's multi-layered plan. We talked about redemption at the individual level, we talked about the formation of the Church (our role in it and it's role in redemption), we talked about restoration of Israel, we talked about God's overall plan for mankind, and we talked about all of the cosmos in this. Wow - that's a lot for a 30 minute discussion...
Anyway, a busy weekend. Today I need to get some work done. I'm not sure how much I will be able to blog this week. I leave tomorrow for Amiens (nice little town in the Normandy region of France). This is a two day business trip but Barb will come with me. After that we will spend a couple of romantic (hey, don't bother, that link is just a joke) days in Paris.
Jami from Youth Compass will stay over to make sure the kids don't cause too much damage. So I guess everyone will be happy. They have been spoiled and thoughts of visiting the Louvre just doesn't interest them.
Technorati Tags: Mainz, VCF, Kingdom of God, healing, ICF, forgiveness, redemption, Amiens, Paris
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