Our Going-Away/Ryan's 29th Birthday Party

I finally had time to upload and edit the pictures from our "Photo Booth" at our super-fun party a few days before we left.  It was in our church basement, and we tried to treat folks to the best of everything:  bouncy castle for the little kids, door prizes, games like Pin-the-Ponytail-on-the-Ryan, good food (even Comfy Cow ice-cream!!), a note-writing station & a Photo Booth complete with kooky props galore.  We LOVE looking at all the pictures.  Those of you who made it a point to come by, THANK YOU!!! It meant so much to us.  I will make a little slideshow soon, but in the mean time you can see the pictures here.

Saying Goodbye

Swinging one last time at the Bs'.

Playing in the church balcony with Hannah (2 1/2), a frequent fellow-balcony Sunday-school dropout. :)

Playing at Chick-Fil-A with library buddy, Lina (3)

Enjoying Pottery Barn Kids Story Time with Grace (Valentine's Day)- the girls are 2 weeks apart

This is pretty typical of their friendship:  Eowyn very affectionate (giving a back massage here), Grace a bit reticent.  But they talk about each other all the time.  We sure will miss Grace & her family!

At the Comfy Cow (best ice cream EVER) with Daddy

Last trip to the Lousiville Zoo on a glorious day included a ride in the Jeep

Dinner at the North End Cafe (a favorite eatery) with our friends the Schreiners-- Lydia is 1 year old.

E's favorite part of our Tuesday Mall Morning:  washing her hands at the "yittle sink" in the Von Maur family bathroom

Cheesing it up with Olivia (2)- we liked to go over to their house on Tuesday evenings when our Daddies were out

With Olivia's sis Kerith (3 1/2)

Saying 'bye to Mrs. Beth, Mommy's midwife-- she always let Eowyn hear the "heart-beep" a few extra times (and delivered Eowyn!)

With 2 of our favorite librarian friends (we went every Wed for story time at the Main Campus)- these folks always did a great job reading, singing & playing with Eowyn, and would pull our request books when they saw us coming!  Sometimes we didn't even need our cards, they knew us so well! :)

With our nurse friends at Kids R Great Pediatrics (the one on the left pierced Eowyn's ears for us at 4 weeks- E is extremely grateful, seeing as how she adores her earrings)

With our other nurse friend at the Doc's.  She was too traumatized to watch Eowyn's ear piercing, hah! 

Waiting in the Well Room one last time (we love the decorations at Dr Corba's!)

Picking up all E's medical records

Saying goodbye to Dr. Corba, Eowyn's first doctor-- he was a great one!

How To Survive-Even Thrive- In a Growing (or Large) Church

Bear with me as I walk down my church-history lane... For all but 3 years of my life until I was 20, I attended the same church, where I was baptized, became a member, worked as an intern twice, and finally celebrated my wedding.  The church has always numbered about 350 people-- for the first half of my time there it was the same 350 folks; friends I'd grown up with, older kids I respected, younger kids I mentored; lots of people to look out for me.  Then people started leaving (both due to seasons of life and Southern Bible-Belt-itis), and we always had new people joining, so while the number of members stayed fairly constant, the faces changed.

Those three years that I was in France, my family attended a small (maybe 12 adults on a Sunday?) French-speaking Baptist church in a small town near ours.  The only other child my age became my best friend, and her mom, Annie, was our Sunday School teacher.  When my sisters & I showed up, the children's class quadrupled in size... though we did have some older kids and then another family with younger children joined fairly soon thereafter.  It was wonderful in some ways-- very close fellowship, the entire church over to one family's house (often ours), and no question of where we fit in.  We often joined up with a larger Baptist church in the nearby city to do Christmas or Easter events or to head to summer camp.

For the past 5 years, I've been at Immanuel in Louisville.  When I joined it was a bit smaller than the church I'd grown up attending, but the fellowship and the united vision of reaching the neighborhood for Jesus was incredibly refreshing to my rumpled spirit (I'd just gone through the most painful trials of my life).  There were (are) plenty of folks of my own age/station, the preaching is good, the music rocks, and there's never a shortage of ways to pitch in.  However, as the church has grown and people have moved on (mostly to do ministry elsewhere --this IS a college/seminary city), I've had stretches of intense loneliness among the crowd.  Our closest friends moved away or got too busy for us, the vision for reaching the neighborhood morphed into reaching the city, and the closeness of the small fellowship we'd joined was diluted by 2 services and many new members.  I distinctly remember sitting in my chair after one service, and looking around thinking "And I don't care about you, I don't care about you, and nope, don't care about you, either."  Pretty depressing.

So... how have I gone about making a big church seem less big?

Well, a big part of it is prayer.  Prayer for a willing, caring spirit.  When I looked around not caring, I knew it wasn't with eyes of faith-- it was with human eyes that didn't want to know the pain of separation or failure again.  When Jesus looked around, He saw needs and moved to meet them.  He didn't look for everyone to meet His needs.  So I had to pray that the Lord would give me eyes to See, and a heart to love, drawing on His Endless Love.  I had to repent of not caring, and asking Him to make me start caring.

Another huge piece has been THE overarching lesson of this stage of my life:  contentment.  A holy 'so what?' attitude.  "Keep your lives free from love of money, and be content with what you have." (how?) "For He has said:  I will never leave you, nor forsake you."  Contentment -that is, a deep inner joy & peace- doesn't come from having all your wants met, from your marriage bringing you endless romance, from your children sleeping through the night, from having all your best friends living nearby, from having the amount of children that you want, when you want them... no, it comes from being with Him.  That is to say, anywhere. The essence of Heaven will be His presence without any barriers, right?  And by His spirit, we have a taste of that now, through Immanuel, God with us.  His Spirit lives in us, teaching us, reminding us.  So long as He is with us (and, as above verse states... that's all the time for the believer), we have every reason to be happy.  "Think what Spirit dwells within thee, what a Father's smile is thine, what a Savior died to win thee!!-- Child of heaven, cans't thou repine?"  i.e.  "With God being as good as you have Him, do you have any room for pouting??" 

On the practical front, I've found two things helpful.  One, don't feel guilty making a few close friends (and/or maintaining close friendships that aren't local anymore).  As a wise SS teacher of mine once put it, "you can't be best friends with everybody."  So don't feel bad calling the same friend over and over, because you "click" so well.  Be intentional about those close friendships, though-- don't let them just be about common interests or kids of the same age-- bring up the Gospel.  Bring up Jesus and how you are dealing with Him.

Balanced with that, I've found it helpful to be as wide-spread in my fellowship as possible.  Our church really emphasizes small groups, and while that has its merits, it isn't the whole church.  If there's a baby shower or wedding shower and I know the person, I try to go.  If it's a real friend of mine, I'll try to send a gift & card if I can't make it. If there's any church function of any kind, I try to go.  No, I don't make it a law and feel guilty for not going, but if I can make it, I will.  If someone needs a meal, I sign up when I can.  If the nursery needs a sub, I do it.  If I find out a friend needs help, I volunteer.  Seriously-- I do NOT feel guilty not doing stuff when it would be too much, when Eowyn is sick or we are flying in the day before from London or we are just too tired.  But how hard is it, really, to head over to someone's house for 2 hours with a small gift in tow?  I get to talk to people, make new friends, occasionally play awesome games, and deepen acquaintances into friendships.  I usually leave encouraged.  (Ryan either watches Eowyn, or my next door neighbor comes over while she's asleep if it's in the evening, or if I get permission from the hosts, I bring her with me)  I've been amazed at how much this simple policy of staying involved has helped me.  You really start to care about the people you make cards or meals for, or those you work alongside (VBS, anyone!?).

My last help has been to seek and welcome laughter in all its forms.  If you're determined to hate something, you probably will... If you want to have fun, yep, you probably will do that, too.




How have you found or deepened fellowship in your own communities of faith?

Hoppity Hop Hop Hop

Revisiting home means revisiting an old sensitive issue...

Church hopping.  Throwing in the towel, giving up and moving on.

Two articles on the topic which I thought were helpful.

"First, we become critical consumers. “As consumers we reserve the right to pass judgment on the products and services we use, and the companies that service us begin to cater to our demands. ‘The customer is always right’ may work well at McDonald’s, but in a church it undermines the authority of the Word of God and the leaders God has called to represent Him. We do not go to a particular church to decide whether that church is doing everything right, but to hear from God and humbly find out where we went wrong that week in our own lives and what we need to do to make it right.” 
Second, we become invisible spectators. “Church-hopping turns you into a nondescript pewsitter. A number. A statistic. When you’re shopping around, you never stay in one place long enough to know anybody or be known. We like this because we have gotten into a habit of being anonymous in our culture. Church-hopping helps protect anonymity we already possess, and it keeps us alone.” 
Third, we become detached from what we are. “When you were a child, did you ever make a church with your hands folded together, forefingers pointed up like a steeple and all your fingers interlocked inside? Remember opening your hands to see all the people?  Well, that’s exactly it. We are the church. You and I are the fingers and toes and eyes and ears of the body of Christ. To be only a spectator in church is to detach yourself from who you are — like cutting off your fingers.”              --thinkpoint blog

I think it's interesting to contrast the above quote (especially point 2) with this one:

"...church hopping is about more than generational differences.  "It's a values issue more than a generational one," says Brad Sargent, a Baptist who studies ministry in the postmodern era. Futurist Cassidy Dale agrees. "I think often when people church hop, they're looking for spiritual hooks. They want to be drawn in deeper. They're looking for spiritual depth."

He pauses, then drops the bomb. "Many churches don't offer this."  --Beliefnet article

Maybe I'll email Dr. Moore or Dr. Mohler and ask him about it...

Then I can link to it and tag all my church-hopping friends on Facebook. Ok, just kidding about that last part.

Covenants-in-Skin

I don't remember how it started... some defining moments are also memorable; that first date, your wedding vows, graduation, your baby's first cry... others are more fuzzy. Sometimes you don't realize how important something is or will prove to be until years later, and by then the details may have blurred. That's how this was. Hold that thought.

Shift now to me coming back from Canada a second time. It'd been 5 months since my last visit, and this time it's been a much easier homecoming. There are 2 main reasons for that. The first is that God is faithful. He provided this second chance to visit out of the clear blue; completely unexpectedly. I've seen Him so graciously let me be reunited with my dear friends yet again, and I have every reason to believe that He'll do it again, in His kind providence. He loves it when "brothers dwell together in unity!" The other reason that it was easier is that my friendships, rooted in that Faithfulness, are stronger, both "here" and "there." Since leaving that first time and leaving now I've remembered the nature of intentional friendships-- in Biblical terms you might say I remembered the sweetness of covenant faithfulness. God's love for His people is honest, forever, always, no-matter-what, never-giving-up, forgiving, deep, and full of laughter. It loves as-is and it transforms. It's amazing. And people who are loved like that start to, are called to, love others like that. When people start loving each other like that, it's totally super-natural, and amazing. As we all know, natural friendships just don't always last.

In God's mercy, I have had the privilege of having experienced covenantal love, extended to me by a hand with human skin on it-- more than once, actually, now that I'm married. But before I met Ryan, and before we ever uttered a public covenant to love each other permanantly, I met Chris & Val Powell. I'd just finished my freshman year of college, and was living back at home. I remember my sister Nicole & I chatting it up with Chris, actually-- this new Canadian who'd come down for seminary. He had a wife, but we hadn't met her yet. She was a physical therapist who commuted to work up in NC (about 45 min. from Greenville, SC). Being a future pastor & his wife, I guess they decided to practice some student ministry on us, =D, and Nicole & I ended up over at their place to watch Anne of Green Gables and have supper. I don't really remember meeting Val, and I only vaguely remember that supper. We laughed a lot, but then I usually do if I can help it, especially when my sister is around. At some point after that meal I started thinking about that commute Val had to make every day, and had the idea to call this new person in our church to keep her company on that drive. I'm sure those first phone conversations were short and somewhat forced; I mean, we didn't know each other at all... I am amazed at my own gall looking back on it, to be honest-- but somewhere along the line, we became friends. And then really really good friends. And then best friends. And it was like anything is when it's fresh and new, be it a hobby, relationship, or setting-- it was fun, easy, exciting, and full of potential. Lots of laughter and ridiculous inside jokes; long phone calls, random packages in the mail... But we'd had good friends before, and lots of surface friends too. Neither of us was naive enough to think that a friendship like ours would automatically grow or even just last. We all have had friendships that withered through hurt feelings or waning interest. So, and finally, here I am back to my opening paragraph: we made a covenant.

I don't really remember it, honestly. Maybe Val does. It wasn't solemn or ceremonious. There were definitely no slain animals involved... not even a certificate or a handshake. But we promised, to one another and before God, that we would never let sin cause a rift in our relationship. If distance or time caused our friendship to fade, so be it, but never sin-- instead, we would confess, confront, and forgive. On one level, that should be every Christian friendship, right? But it isn't... and so we promised. And that promise has changed my life quite deeply.

Over the years, we have by God's grace kept that promise, and it's been amazing. Tim Keller says Christian friends should extend "befriending grace-- they always let you in, and never let you down," just like Jesus. 'Befriending grace' is always seeking to build others up, to make them closer to that blueprint the Spirit has of them... grace that seeks with every word spoken or deed done to help others along towards the glory they will one Day be as we both finally gaze unveiled at The Glory. That's what my friendship with "my Valerie" has been, of course imperfectly. We sin and we hurt each other sometimes, but there's freedom to be ourselves, and to be loved & treasured amidst even sin or failure. There's someone whose prayers can be tailor-made for me, whose encouragements and rebukes or cautions have a chance to go much deeper. There's still a lot of laughter, and there's always a shoulder to cry on.

Each time we are together and things go "right back to normal" it's a reminder that promises made based on His promises last. It's a reminder of how community isn't scary the way I tend to think it is. My last visit to Toronto was a push to me to try and plant seeds for those kinds of covenant friendships here. By God's grace, I have been renewing my efforts to look at those around me, especially in my home church, through eyes that have seen befriending grace here on earth. I think it's beginning to bear fruit-- the thought that it can sure made my homecoming easier... I pray fruit keeps growing!

Hooray!

Our friends Dave & Stacey just passed their adoption court date on the other side of the world, meaning that now they are PARENTS! In 4-6 weeks, they get to go get their daughter & son from Ethiopia. Eowyn was quite excited to hear the news; she knows that means new friends for her! Ryan & I are a bit stoked, too. :)

That's nothing compared to the proud new mama & papa; they've been waiting for almost 2 years for this day. Adoption is a labor of love, that's for sure. Hooray! Praise the Lord!

Girls' Day Out

Éowyn & I had a great day with the girls today. FINALLY a sunny, crisp day! Though it has since turned windy and cold...

Around 10:45, I bundled Enna up in her Ergo carrier and we walked through the morning -sunshiny- park to our friend Libbie's house, where my friend Melissa was having a baby shower. She's the last from our "Newly-Weds' Book Study" to be pregnant, and, lo and behold, she topped us all by having TWINS! Due in December, Nathan & Noel... how fun! (Two for the pain of one sounds like a deal to me). Enna got to play with a lot of her friends-- Simeon and Eleanor as well as her almost-birthday-buddies, Harper & Grace. Ok, by play I mean get nursed while sitting next to, lol. Here we three are with our babies OUT! =D

Ashley & Harper (29 days), Natasha & Grace (9 days), Christina & Éowyn (22 days)

Then, Libbie & I took our kiddos to a local church's Fall Festival! (or as Lydia, 2 1/2, put it "Ball Besquibal") We walked there, with both babies in their carriers and a girl by the hand apiece. It was great, with pumpkin-painting, free food (hot chocolate, yum!), a boucy castle, live bluegrass music, and face painting, as well as a really cool crafts show/sale!

Then Éowyn & I walked home and did some chores.

Now we're off to pick up ingredients for a welcome-home-Daddy lunch tomorrow! We can celebrate both his & autumn's arrivals! =D

Kids Clubs Report

Here's the emailed letter I sent out to all our volunteers after last week's Kids Club (those are bi-weekly clubs to follow up with the kids who came to our VBS back in June):

-------------------------------------------------
WE MADE IT!

Thank you SO much to all of you who were able to help with the Kids Clubs this summer! It was definitely not a task for the faint of heart or weak of body! :) Ryan & I really wanted to let you know how much we appreciated your commitment and initiative in coming-- it takes guts and stamina to face an unknown number of children!

Our prayer and desire in these clubs has been to keep the Truth of the Gospel which we taught at VBS a little bit fresher in the minds of these children. About half of the kids who came were from Somali [Muslim] families. We had the privilege with them of reinforcing and building on the foundation they are already receiving through the ESL Child Care program at IBC, and their relationships with many of you! The other half of the children came through our VBS contacts around our neighborhood. Many of these children have heard the name of Jesus, the terms "Heaven," "Saved," "God," and "sin" but have very little idea what they meant. We pray that they have a little more understanding of it now. I could tell that several of the older children were really thinking about what was being taught during the Bible lesson times. Please pray that God's Spirit brings His message of hope and salvation to their minds again and again until they are driven to cry out to Him for mercy!!

This past class we had 27 children come, about 1/2 Somali and 1/2 neighborhood (no church kids this week). There was a lot of discipline issues, so please pray that Satan will not be allowed to snatch the Seeds sown. I'm often amazed at how much children hear when they appear 1000 miles away, and I would not be surprised if that were the case with some of these kids.

May God give each of you strength to persevere in your ministry to all in your path. If you'd like to try and keep up contact with any of the kids you met through Kids Clubs or VBS, please ask me (Christina) for that child's contact info!

Persevering in faith,

--Christina Szrama

VBS- Upward Bound '09

VBS this year has been crazy! I guess it's what happens when God answers prayer, and I find out I wasn't really expecting Him to.

We're using the VBS Reachout Adventures "Upward Bound" curriculum, which uses the theme of a mountain hike to teach about Christ's single-minded "journey" from Heaven to manger to Cross to Heaven again. The hiking motif is also used to present the Gospel at the end of each day (we're all like hikers refusing to follow the Upward Bound Trail, and so separated from God and doomed). This curriculum uses workbooks for each of the kids, and stickers they earn as they go in order to motivate Scripture memory, parental involvement, etc. It's the curriculum I've experienced and taught since my first "Genesis: Space Probe" VBS at age 4... good times. But basically, we had so many children on the first day that we ran out of "Trail Journals" (workbooks)! I had ordered more than we used last year, just to "be on the safe side."

What caused the influx? Well, we weren't expecting 25 Somali children to attend... that in and of itself is a miracle, because for the past 3 years that I've been here, they have never been allowed to set foot in our building, much less attend BIBLE school! I think our ESL ministry is finally really making inroads into the community. (The Somali community is 100% muslim, and as such usually consider entering a Christian "holy place" (church) a no-no, even if it isn't for a worship service.) We rejoice that the Lord has brought them among us, along with a sizeable number of kids from our church neighborhood, as well as more children from the church than we've ever had.

Please be praying for the 3 groups of children present and hearing about the life of Christ, and their NEED for Him, this week: 1. our churched kids-- that their ears would be opened to actually hear the Gospel, despite having having heard it millions of times-- they need a Savior, and so many of them think they don't (because outwardly, they're "good" kids); 2. children from our neighborhood-- that they will get an accurate picture of the Bible and Christ's life-- they are immersed in a "Christian" culture which uses christian catchphrases but misses Christ completely, and most are not from believing homes; 3. children from the Somali community-- they have a language barrier and a discipline barrier to surmount, and this material is completely foreign and new to them. Please pray that they won't be a hindrance to the other children, and that God will work among them all!

3 days down, 2 to go... so much to do, so little time. Well, I'd better go work on my Mary Magdalene costume... at least I won't have to wear green paint for that one. :)
--"Head Guide Mrs. Christina"

PS- oh yeah, the individual in green paint is me, dressed as Gaia the Gecko, an "eyewitness" of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness. It was amazing how quiet the children were during my story-- I'm starting to wonder if we should all don costumes during Sunday School...
PPS-- more photos

Pray for Abby

Jenna (almost 5!!) with her partner-in-crime

John reading to Jenna & Abby

Me with my welcoming comittee-- every school morning I'd be greeted with exuberant "Nina! Hi! Nina! Hi!" I'll miss that.

Abby, who has lived with my friends Dave & Sina since a few days after her birth-- some of that time along with her birth mother-- and has been their foster daughter for about a year, went back to live with her birth mom last Friday. This is a hard transition for everyone, and all parties involved need much grace. Abby's birthmom has since had another little girl, "Baby Emy" as Abby calls her, and you moms can imagine the difficulty of caring for a toddler AND an infant alone! Pray that she will be a godly mom to her girls, and will establish a life for them based on God's word and full of the fellowship of a Gospel-loving church.

Abigail has no idea what's going on, which broke my heart the last time I saw her. She walked around naming everything in her secure little world, with no clue that come a few hours she'd probably never see any of those things again. Of course she'll get over the transition and won't even remember it in a few years, I'm sure, but still, it's hard to watch kids go through things they can't understand and you couldn't explain to them if you tried. The Shueys will be moving on in life as it was before Abigail came to live with them-- back to three children, no toddler to confine, no screaming baby at the dinner table. Of course, there isn't really a "going back to life without" because once you've had life WITH, you know nothing's ever quite the same again. So please pray for them all-- the kids will be fine, but despite all their complaining about their little foster sister at times (who doesn't complain about siblings??), they love her very much and will miss her. Most of all, please pray for Abigail, that she will always grow up hearing of Christ and His Love. Pray that she will come to trust Him as Savior at a very early age, and that she will be surrounded by godly examples as she grows up. Pray this for her baby sister, too.

We all want God's glory to be done in this situation-- that's why Dave & Sina took Abigail and her mom into their home in the first place, and why they took on full-time care of Abby later. We want God's love to be displayed before an unloving world, and it has been. We hope and pray that the fruit of all their self-sacrifice and hard obedience will be eternal souls saved to honor a God they now despise. Whose souls? We don't know-- we hope Abigail, her family, her sister, and even Dave & Sina's own children. All of them have seen God's love incarnated, and all have seen God sustain. Many others are witnesses of this, too. Lord, You have sent out laborers into Your harvest-- let them reap a bountiful crop! Amen!

Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Program

well, we just packed up our sleepover gear (including our futon mattress and two quilts) into Roxy, and came home. The ice and snow is melting everywhere, though all the icicles are gone so it's not so loud. Yesterday it sounded like glass was constantly shattering! Anyway, we're back in our quiet re-warmed Top Porch. It's nice to be home, nice to throw clothes into the wash, nice to unpack and re-organize...

But there's no cute sweet toddler shouting "Cat!," trying his hand (mouth?) at beat-boxing, or leaning over very far to kiss you...then falling all the way over... or my favorite, the apple-cheek-splitting grin accompanied by outstretched stubby arms, asking to be picked up for the sheer pleasure of being near you. There's no jostling the kitchen to get food out or into the fridge, no constant washing of dishes, no Bethany to ask a random question, no Glen to laugh heartily at the drop of a hat. There's no host of friends randomly coming & going, no re-arranging of furniture to accomodate them all, and no communally cooked yummies. Basically, we miss the Moores. :)

As we left, Glen told us "be warm and well-fed!" We laughed and said he was allowed to say that, because thanks to him, we were. In the book of James, God rebukes church members who were saying that "sympathetically" to poorer brothers in Christ, and sending them right back out into the cold without any effort to help them. We saw the total OPPOSITE of that for the past 4 days, and it really is faith-strengthening. What would make people inconvenience themselves so willingly, except for a true, soul-level transformation of desires and beliefs!? The Gospel really is the "power of God," and one way I know it is that I stayed warm and well-fed amidst a power outage and bitter cold. Amen!

All right, I've been looking forward to this old tradition for a while now: Valentine-making time!!! My Mom always made such a big, fun deal about this holiday that I can't help it. :) We made valentines for everyone, and they were creative and unique every year. She did a big treasure-hunt for us, too, and we'd get to run around the house finding clues and little treats with a baby-sitter while she & my dad had their romantic Valentine Date. We really thought they were getting the short end of the stick. She kept this up faithfully every single year until I went to college, and even then I drove back a few years when I could, just to be a part of it!! :) I miss all that so much that I make up for it by putting together little care packages for all my siblings, some cousins, and various friends. And at LEAST making Valentines. :) So...I'm off! That was one activity I couldn't really do with a toddler running around; I tend to spread out all over the floor. :)

--Christina-the-wannabe-cupid

Great Help for Married Couples

Click here to download the sessions from the Couples' Retreat which one of my pastors, Ryan Fullerton just did at my former church in Greenville, SC. Pastor Ryan married Ryan & I, and along with his wife Christy did our pre-marital counseling...they still counsel us post-marriage, too. =D The sessions are
1. "Marriage: It's fallen on hard times."
2. "The Grace-Based Marriage: how NOT to apply Ephesians 5"
3. "Sex and Marriage: How to be lovers in dangerous times."

Check them out and pass them on to anyone you'd like!
--Christina

For those of you who had trouble downloading, I emailed the webmaster, so hopefully you can get them now. If you'd like, Jenny & Leslie, I can give you a CD copy of the 3 mp3s from my computer, or an audio CD of the 3rd one. Just say the word!

Our Fall

Since photos are worth thousands of words (and so easy these days), I'll try to capture the highlights in several here, and leave you to peruse the remainder at your leisure on Facebook!

There's been a lot of fellowship, mostly through our church (as it should be): The Bluegrass Jam Session on Halloween @ the Moores' (that's me with their cutie, "Little D"); The Harvest Party in Shelby Park the next day; "Family Dinner" at Maison de La Vie (where Ashlea is Mother Superior), then Book Club there the next day(you've read my thoughts on that); church every Sunday and Wednesday, Care Group at our house every other Sunday, and people from church here to eat with us (I LOVE having a whole house in which to entertain!).

There've been a lot of showers: two baby showers in one day! One for Jenny Montgomery, which Amanda B & I hosted here in the morning; then another for my co-worker Sarah Bebee, which Corrie Ann , Suzanne (two other teachers) & I hosted at our school in the afternoon! There's also been Dana (soon-to-be-Wright)'s wedding shower. I was very proud of my first attempt at a diaper cake-- this one was for Baby Girl Bebee. It was such a pleasure to host the showers, firstly because they were each so encouraging, but secondly because I had such wonderful co-hostesses! It was so cool to watch it all come together! (ps- Jenny posted all the pictures from her shower to a Facebook album, to which I'll later post a link).

There've been a lot of kids-- between Alexis' 5th birthday party (at which Ryan was the Fairy Godfather), Jenna C's 2nd birthday party, keeping the Fullerton foursome one night, my job as a pre-school teacher, and teaching Sunday School, we are surrounded by them. We LOVE them and I could totally write a book just quoting all the things they say.

There's been a lot of Ryan & me-- we used a gift card to PF Chang's for our monthiversary (it was the PERFECT amount!), and have cuddled up many an evening with CS Lewis' Perelandra, or a movie... I can't bring myself to watch the next episode of "NCIS: Season 2" because I know my favorite character will die in it, and I just can't handle it. Once we get past that, we'll keep going. :)

And, let's just be honest... there's been a lot of Jenny & Amanda (their babies in tow, lol). Pretty much every week we all (or just two of us) get together to drink coffee, talk, scrapbook or plan events together. Oh you know you wish you were a fly on the wall!! ;) Praise the Lord for such sisters and friends!!

Lift Up the Suffering Symbol-- and Only Him

Our pastor for preaching, Ryan Fullerton, is preaching a series through Galatians right now. Today's message was particularly good-- or maybe my heart was particularly prepared for it. I've been thinking a lot about "the Gospel" and clear presentations of it, between my middle school girls Bible Study, my pre-school class, disciplining the children in my choirs when I need to, keeping it central in my own heart, and perhaps especially in the "Christianity Explained" study I'm leading two friends through-- one is Sherry, whom you've met before, and who is a wonderful encouragement to me in it, but the other friend is an unbeliever from an unchurched background. All these have tuned my ear to clear, simple, powerful presentations of how a person is reconciled to God. Praise the Lord, they are ALL OVER Scripture!!! (I will bring this back to today's sermon, I promise. Just bear with me in the meantime. =D)

As any of you who've read my blog before know, I love stories. One which came to my attention as a WONDERFUL picture of the Gospel is the story of the bronze serpent in Numbers 21. The Israelites sinned horribly against the Lord by AGAIN grumbling and complaining against Him, doubting His goodness and promises. God sent "fiery serpents" to chastize them; He is just and holy and does not let sin go unpunished. It's so clear that we are just like the Isrealites, deserving exactly the same sort of judgement they got. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved them, made a way out: He instructed Moses to make a bronze snake and nail it to a pole, and lift it high so all the people could see it. Anyone who looked at the bronze serpent, the very symbol of their suffering, as Michael Card points out, would be healed. Jesus himself viewed this as critical to understanding His own mission on earth: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,that whoever believes in him may have eternal life." (John 3:14-15) What a clear, concrete picture of saving faith: simply, and only looking away from yourself because you know you are dying, justly and mortally wounded, and looking towards Someone else to save you. That's all. And that's everything. (Elyse Fitzpatrick really presses this home in chapter 6 of Because He Loves Me, which I HIGHLY recommend.) This story has been so sweet to me, and I hope it is to you, too. But two things have come out of my meditations and musings, which I hope to pass on to you:
1. Saving faith has obvious results. The Israelites who looked at the Bronze Snake in faith were HEALED! It was that obvious. Have faith, be healed. Don't, die. So it is with us. Our faith must be proven by radical obedience, by a leaving of sin because we hate it now! Those who are raised to life by faith in Christ will not live like dead men anymore! Faith=Fruits. This is the point I want to press to my friend, who as of now still is loving her sin (as far as I can tell), though she claims to be looking in faith to Jesus Christ. There's no visible healing of her soul. Please pray for me as I tell her this, and for her, that the Lord would open her eyes and allow her to judge herself, before He does!! "Faithful are the wounds of a friend..." Wouldn't I rather have a friend judge me by my fruits, and tell me in time to truly repent, than to be judged by the Judge on the Last Day, and too late hear "depart from Me, I never knew you!"? (Read Matt. 7 for more on "Judging", espec. vv 15-23)

2. Only Christ is to be lifted up to be looked to for salvation. There was nothing in the actual symbol of the Serpent to be adored- later Israel made this very symbol of the Messiah an object of worship, an idol, and they were again chastized by the One True God, the Jealous God (2 Kings 8:14). God the Son (Jesus the Christ) is the only One Whose lifting-up is able to draw men to Himself (Jn. 12:32). This relates to the previous point, and to the sermon this morning, in this way: every person's faith will be shown by his or her works, and sometimes, we will all stumble and need to be rebuked. Even believers, whose lives are clearly characterized by fruit of the Spirit will at times bear bad fruit; the old man dies hard. We heard this morning about how the Apostle Paul had to confront the Apostle Peter to his face on a very serious issue (listen to the sermon!!! It is so encouraging! and helpful!, from Gal. 2:11-14). The Apostle PETER!!!! The guy who spent years walking, talking and eating with Jesus Himself! The guy who was the leader of the Church in Jerusalem, the one who was so bold before the Sanhedrin and the rulers of Jerusalem!! The guy who preached at Pentecost (Acts 2) and saw 3000 saved at once! Yeah, THAT guy. If HE can fall and need public rebuking (which he did, oh so clearly)... so can I. So can anyone. We all stumble in various ways, James wrote, and we all need friends to "wound" us at times, holding us the standard to which Christ has called us. Dude, the whole book of Galatians is to a church that was living quite out of line with the Gospel. A whole church needed a sound rebuking! Hear me, my friends: NO man-- not a bishop, cardinal, or pope-- is infallible. Nowhere in Scripture is that stated. (Come on, Peter, supposedly the first pope, an inspired author of Scripture!!, needed to be rebuked. He was not infallible!)* Do not follow anyone completely, unquestioningly, except Christ. He is the Only One whose lifting up brings salvation. NO author, no preacher, no president, no speaker, no church-planter, is infallible. We ALL stumble in various ways. We all need prayer, need rebuking, need encouraging, need "checking up on." We all need to be weighing each other's counsel against Scripture, constantly. Do it!

And the good news? When we are all singing our praises to Jesus, and tuning to His Word, we all will sing in wonderful, united harmony. Amen? Amen!

*If you want extra-Scriptural proof that Papal Infallibility is a false doctrine, you need look no further than Church History! Read more here. I don't jump on board with the author's every view, but this paper is very helpful on this issue.

Triple Picture of the Gospel of Grace

My dear friend Sherry was re-wed to her husband Rusty this past Saturday at our church. I got to coordinate the ceremony!! It was an amazing wedding in which to be so involved, because Sherry was saved only about 7 months ago, out of quite a hard and destructive lifestyle. If you ever get to meet her, her story is amazing! Right away, the Lord gave her a heart to serve and to spend as much time as she could with other believers. I got to know her as we worked together on Fridays at our Clothes Closet. The first time I spoke with her she shared her burden for her former husband "Rusty" (his full name is Christopher, lol). They still loved each other and were in a relationship of sorts because of Corinne (their 3 year old). I got to know Sherry & little Corinne more through VBS, and I still love to hear that little girl belt out the songs & explain what "Hosanna" means. :) Corinne went from being too afraid to be left alone in my care to being my shadow and my trusting, joyful little friend. The Lord has further grown Sherry's and my friendship through shared Bible Study, and just life together as sisters in Christ. All of us were praying the Lord would save Rusty, and even one day, heal their marriage... and ... HE DID!! Rusty was converted in August, and baptized soon thereafter. Our church has been wonderful about discipling them, and now... a godly family has been re-born. What sin had marred and Satan would have loved to keep broken God's grace has healed. Imagine the difference in Corinne's life: instead of growing up split across two homes, surrounded by crime, sin and pain, she has a Daddy AND a Mommy who love her, love each other, and most of all, love Jesus. Instead of growing up hearing the TV and swearing, she is going to grow up hearing songs and stories that exalt our God. Rusty & Sherry will be living with two other Christian families from our church in a huge house in the South End, so she'll be surrounded by other believing families... it's so amazing to me!! This is what the Gospel does! It reconciles: sinners to God, and then to one another.






During the wedding ceremony Pastor Jeff King shared each of their stories, and then charged them to live in this new marriage as new creatures; not acting as they had before, because they aren't those people anymore! It was the best wedding sermon- perhaps the best all-around sermon- I have ever heard Jeff preach, and knowing these people and having seen them through each step was amazing. Seeing Sherry cry under her veil, watching Rusty put his arm around her so tenderly-- these were two amazing pictures of what the Gospel does. It had reconciled them to God: hardened sinners were now weeping joyfully in His presence. Secondly, it had reconciled them to each other; Rusty's arm was around his bride. Thirdly, they were vowing to portray the Gospel in their marriage: Christ leading and loving His Bride, the Church submitting to and helping her Groom. Three times the Gospel.

Wow.

The Gospel Makes Community

...No... make that four pictures of the Gospel:

The fourth Gospel-image I saw in this wedding was the joyful, sacrificial giving our church community displayed. It was so "natural" that it was obviously an overflow of the love of God welling up in hearts, because the kind of serving and giving I witnessed and partook in is NOT "natural!" All day Saturday friends decorated the sanctuary, de-junked the Fellowship Hall and decorated it, and did everything in their power to make the wedding smooth and beautiful. They decorated a home volunteered for a bridal shower, and brought food and gifts and encouragements for the bride-to-be. On Sunday more friends did hair, did makeup, steamed/ironed dresses, videotaped, played music, photographed, baked a wedding cake, prepared and served food, and cleaned up afterward, not to mentioned shared in the joy of their Sister and their Brother. Again, that is the transforming reconciling Grace of God at work, clearly. I pray it was noticed and wondered at by all the non-believers there!

So many joyful faces

The cake made by Warren Kesselring (how cool is HE!??)...

Athena & I thought we were pretty clever in using an old desk for the "cake table"-- don't it look purty?

Every one of those tablecloths was loaned by women in the church. How cool is that!? And the fact that you don't see any chairs stacked or old tables stacked against the walls in that picture is a sign of our hard work the day before-- we were so pleased with how well the former dumping-ground of our church cleaned up!! :)

Some pictures from decorating on Saturday (I can't claim any part in the beauty of the sanctuary-- that was all Lynn Shreve & Athena Kesselring!):

Athena (and Oliver) in action.
Now that is decorating talent: one-handed with a baby on her hip.

Natasha, who helped prepare & serve all the food for the reception, as she gives me a characteristic "are you taking a picture of ME, young lady!??" :)