Sacred Threshold ::

A Rumor :.

I am starting a rumor...

Here it is...

Bono is visiting Open Door this weekend.

New Friends :.

One of my favorite quotes from Teresa of Avila is:

"God loves to gather His little darlings together."

The quotation speaks of the action of God to gather heart and lives in close proximity so they can notice the common threads of Christ life woven between them.

As I have been openly talking about church planting I am discovering new friends. Most of them are people I know through a mutual acquaintance or interest. These men and women come knocking on my door wanting to talk. With each conversation reveals a precious stirring to follow God more fully. In each meeting, there is a moment where we look at each other in amazement of the similarities of language and leading. It is totally amazing to me and so totally God.

This is SO FUN and EXCITING. God surely loves to gather His little darlings together. I can't wait for you all to meet each other.

Room with Margin :.

I am a stickler for a clean, uncluttered space for sacred gatherings. The room must not distract but add to the ability to be together in God. Architecturally the room can be of almost any genre as long as it feels open and free. It's is like being in beautiful art gallery where the spacious margins between the art is as important as the art itself. If the works of art are too close together you can't "see" them anymore.

Creature comfort is important. Seating which aids in listening to God and each other without being too cozy so you wish you could take a nap. You also need a lovely symbolic focus so to draw you in for those who struggle with interior distractions and need a external quiet center.

As I look at different church websites, I notice not only the content of their communities but also the photos of their meeting space. What does that look like? What are they creating as they choose this type of setting vs. another? The design of the space intrigues me because it reflects the interior core of the community. It reminds me of the a-ha moment I recieve when I enter a friend's house for the first time...oh, this is so you!

I find rooms with margins, white space, are important to help match, and sometimes remind me, of my need for a willing openness inside my heart. These rooms also create a sense of welcome for others.

Maybe it was all those Benedictine experiences that instilled this need of "white space" in me. Every convent, school, retreat center, college, garden, and sanctuary had this margined space built in. Maybe it is their value of simple living which sustained their design ethos. I don't know. I just know it calls to me to come in and stay a while.

Aussie Church :.

Check out Small Boat, Big Sea...

What strikes you as inviting as you look at their website?

Other Voices :.

Check out this link to spur some new thinking...

Being Known :.

"So what will this church plant look like?"

"I don't know," I answer, smiling.

My answer is always taken with a look of surprise by the questioner.

"You don't know?"

"Well," I say, "What I do know that this new thing needs to be birthed with a congruency of what it will be. I believe the church is the people--the laos--of God. To truly know what it will be, is to gather in a circle those who are called to be this new expression of church. When we can see each other, hear each other, then the external form will take place."

Deep sigh.

"I think one of the primary elements of being together will be to be known. Benedict in his rule talks about the vow of stability, of being committed to one place and one people. Esther de Waal talks about this as a willingness to not run away from ourself and others. In our modern culture, when something isn't working for us, we leave. We change churches, partners, friends, cities, work. We rarely stay in one place for long. It's easier to leave then to work through the issues in front of us. The vow of stability calls us to live into something other than our own whims and ways. In our commitment to Christ, we recognize we need to know who we are as His Body, connected, living, breathing as one. I believe this kind of knowing only can happen as we are willing to consecrate ourselves to "being" together as church. So much of church these days surrounds what I can get and what I can do. What if it was about reverencing the other as Christ? What if it was about knowing "who" we are together as Christ's Body? The "who" would require us to know each other.

"Actually knowing each other, now there's a thought."

"I think it is part of what we are longing for--to be known together in Him."

Today's the Day :.

Don't forget our meet between services in the GP today!

(Heather, Eija, and Matt: We'll miss you! Sending Holy Spirit kisses to you.)

Preparation :.

There is less than a month now until Bob and I go to St. Petersburg for the church planting assessment. As the time nears, I am aware of the magnitude of this experience and how it not only affects our lives but many around us. My heart and soul need some space to get ready. I feel called to intentionally turn towards God, choosing to let Him do what He wants in me and in us.

Fasting is a spiritual discipline to help create space to notice and respond to God in our lives. You can fast from doing things such as watching TV or entertaining; or fast from things you ingest such as liquor, sugar, or food. You can also fast to something like creating more space for silence in your life and then adjust your life around that so to hear and listen to God.

In the next couple of weeks, I invite you to partner with me in fasting of some sort, maybe it's something small, maybe it's something big. If you are feeling any resonance with the possibility of this "new thing," let's join together to wait and listen to God, asking for direction and favor. Take a couple of days to think and pray about what this might be for you, what God might want to do in this time. Let's see what God will do in us together as we join as one.

Circles :.

Some say God writes straight with crooked lines. Some others believe there is one line, one very straight one, that if you find it, there will be God's order and will for your life. I, on the other hand, believe God writes in circles.

As I reflect on the working of God in my life, it seems God always gathers up left behind threads, tossed out bits, and all in one intentional moment, weaves them ever so gently into the weft and warp of my life. Nothing goes undone. My work is to wait patiently, then there it is, circling back before me.

I have experienced God's healing this way. When I thought all was loss, when I gave up and surrendered to the largeness of what God is wanting to do, it was in that moment, an opportunity arises, or a person pops back in my path, or a gift of renewed hope is given and something deep down in my heart gets re-adjusted and comes back around. It is as if God keeps me turning until the right cog is connected and then there is movement that is connected to something larger, and then every thing falls in place.

This circling movement is odd. It seems to go against all that we are taught. As I have tried to put words around it for others, they tilt their heads in puzzlement as I explain my experience of God to them.

But then comes another confirmation. Today I read:

.....a circle is the shape most of us tread out in life: whether we live alone or are busy with the many tasks of family life, routine in the stuff we all work in. Days, months, years--the pattern repeats as regularly as the moving of the hands of the clock. Through the ages, the monks have been characterized by the regularity of our way of life. The whole of monastic life is founded upon patterns of repeated experience--the routine of daily prayer at set times, the times of work, of relaxation with the community. The recurrent cycle of the liturgical seasons as the year comes and goes is another, larger scale version of the same pattern.

A monastery can seem a world apart from the lives most people lead. Recognizing the circles we thread out, though, can make of monastic spirituality, which could otherwise appear distant to those who do not live behind monastery walls, a spirituality relevant to anyone who has to cope with a pattern of repeated experience.

The monk's day in any monastic community is structured around the liturgy of the hours: these are times of community prayer that follow the circle of the day. Vigils is the pre-dawn office of readings and psalms. Lauds, the morning office, begins the working day. The Midday Prayer occurs at noon, and Vespers is sung as the evening comes. The night office, Compline, takes us into the dark again. These moments constitute a framework for the spiritual life of monastics, a series of steps along a path by which we cross the hours of the day (Crossing: Reclaiming the Landscape of Our Lives, 6-7).

Here they are again--circles, repeated experiences creating life. I long for my experience of way God lives in me to become the pattern of how I live in God. It seems so simply profound. Does our modern striving for bigger and better, looking for the straight path ahead of us, get in the way of our living large in God, spinning in time with His music in our lives? I so want this congruency and integration. I want to live into the reality of this encircling rhythm. Ordinary, everyday, repeated patterns--this is my experience of God. I want this to be the form of how my common life with others in God is shaped.

See...God does write in circles!

Our Days :.

If I look at the day which I clutch now, it does not seem to exist. My days do not have lasting 'being;' they depart almost before they arrive.

Augustine's Commentary on Psalm 38,7.