Budding Artist

These are some portraits Kira drew over Thanksgiving. Can you identify who is who? (The drawings are not to scale, and there is someone missing.)








If you are having trouble seeing details, just click on each picture to zoom in.

A good Christmas idea for Kira would be a nice sketch pad and drawing pencils. The blue lines from her notebook paper do detract from her work.

The Blog Black Hole

I am writing this from Pennsylvania, otherwise referred to as The Blog Black Hole by my sister. Apparently, with my siblings congregated at my brother's house in PA, none of us has found the time to post new material to our blogs. Somehow, this is considered unacceptable, irregardless of the fact that we are actually interacting face-to-face and creating special holiday memories.

Some highlights of our visit out here (day 2 of 5):

Driving out of Michigan took longer than driving through Ohio; great time for family conversation in the car, but seriously????

Staying up way too late to watch way too cheesy movies, and then debating the cinematic qualities of "Walking Tall", "Hairspray", and "Transformers."

Watching 13 month old Audrey take her first steps! Pretty cool!

Retelling our family history, trying to make sense out of the fact that we all get more like our dad every year. Why? (Dad, you're pretty cool and smart most of the time, but it's your quirks we are noticing in ourselves. Again, why?)

So, this post is dedicated to my sister Kathleen, who I am currently ignoring in the other room because I am in here posting.

Happy Thanksgiving!

What God can do in three months...

I'm trying to write a profound post here about how faithful God is, and how He moves in incredible ways we can't even begin to imagine. But all I can think right now is "Woo-hoo!"

We have been attending Lowell Church of the Nazarene for about five months now, and the Board this week approved hiring me as the new Children's Pastor. That's less time than it took for First Church to offer me the position after I applied. Considering that the current Director was slated to be in her position for another two years, the timing of all of this is incredible!

Several weeks ago, Stephen and I were talking about how much we love the kids at our church already. Although we attended Kentwood Community for 11 months, and volunteered in children's ministry for 9 of those, we never felt a connection to the kids. After teaching for two weeks here, we were hooked. So, I can't wait to dig in and do everything I can to help these kids (and more) come to love God, and seek Him everyday.

In the meantime, I will have fun writing introduction letters, designing a ministry brochure, and dreaming of what God will do next!

5 Best Things About Having the Flu

5. Finally get a chance to memorize Comcast's channel line-up and daily schedule.

4. Quality time with Jersey, who can't catch anything from me.

3. Fitting into skinny jeans again.

2. Opportunities to earn a lot of WebKinz cash.

1. Don't have to make the bed!

"Prayer Snares"

This is an article from Christianity Today. It seems like I was having a conversation about prayer with Kath recently that bemoaned several of these same approaches to prayer.

Prayer Snares

Though the exercise of prayer offers comfort for the moment, many prayer requests treat God like a genie in a bottle. Here are some prayer requests that reflect our human desires more than the desires of God. Do these sound familiar?
The Trivial Prayer
"I pray I can get over this cold," or "Give us a rain-free day for the church picnic."
Our comfort and our plans are important to us, but could God have something larger in mind? Might the farmers around us desperately need the rain? Our requests need to reflect things we truly expect God to do, not just our hopes and whims. We don't want our requests to trivialize the awesome gift of prayer.
The Self-Motivated Prayer
"My brother's unit just got called up to go to Iraq. Let's pray he won't have to go."
Though we can understand the emotion behind the request, it is still misplaced. If he's in the military, why shouldn't he go? God's purposes frequently include hardship and risk. Should we ask him to trump his purposes for our convenience?
The Controlling Prayer
We're spitting into the wind if we ask God to make other people act according to our will. He doesn't force people to adhere to his will. Why should he make them act according to ours?
The Manipulative Prayer
We're usually more diplomatic than four-year-old Charissa, who knew what she wanted: "Jesus, would you help Bob and Laurie learn how to spank their children, so their kids won't hit me when I visit them?" It worked for Charissa, but I don't think prayer is supposed to send subtle (or not so subtle) messages to the faithful.
The Blaming Prayer
One group was praying for an infertile woman. Some thought she wasn't getting pregnant because her husband wouldn't be a good father, so they asked God to change him. The wife tried to manipulate the husband to change, and before long, she was incredibly frustrated. The group had missed the point. None of us qualify for God's gifts. If God waited until everyone was ready to have a baby, no one would ever give birth.
The Mass-Produced Prayer
Why do we think prayers are more likely to get answered if more people are in on it? God's answers to prayer are not based on a tally sheet. Prayer was designed for two or three faithful believers, not large numbers of uninvolved people.

What I have found frustrating is that these types of prayers are the meat of church and small group prayers. We have been in small groups, Bible studies, Sunday School classes, and even prayer groups in which every prayer is like one of the above. In our current small group, we meet with four other spiritually mature Christians. Our prayer time is starting to show some signs of life, but still has many vestiges of "church-y" prayer requests. Yes, I would like to be over my flu, but do I also want to become more compassionate? I would like Stephen to have safe travel when he's gone for business, but do I also want him to protect his integrity in the workplace? Why are certain spiritual needs off-limits among praying Christians? Obviously, I don't recommend listing our deepest needs in the church bulletin to be passed around the prayer chain. But at what point do we protect our privacy at the expense of our spiritual growth?

So, pray for me as I learn how to be more open and transparent in seeking prayer support for those things that really matter.