church shopping and hopping

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When Rory and I lived in Montana we started attending a tiny Methodist church of earnest believers. The preaching was great, the community was warm and loving and the music left a lot of be desired. A lot. So much that on the way home from church I regularly let Rory know how hard it is to worship when the songs were sung like that. I let Rory know the songs I would have chosen instead. I let Rory know a lot of things.

Finally Rory told me I should get up there and lead the music myself. He said it sounded like I knew how to do it best.

A funny thing happened though. That guy leading the music, the one I had many opinions about...he reached out to us. In big ways. He always came to say hello after service. He and his wife invited us to their house for supper. Turns out he lived on the area ywam base and told us we should come for the weekly community worship. That guy, the one who I was so very quick to critique, became our friend.

Humble pie. Take a big bite, Becca.

I had a little transformation. Once I knew the heart behind that microphone I was endeared to this guy for trying. No one else was volunteering to lead the music. He was trying his best. He was brave. He was singing for an audience of one and leading us to do the same.

Since moving to our new place Rory and I have visited four area churches. And we've critiqued each one on the drive home. Because clearly we had arrived each Sunday morning to be catered to.

Finding a church is tricky stuff. Or it can be. A husband and wife come with their own church backgrounds, their own idea of what a fulfilling Sunday morning should feel like. Rory and I have talked about how there are four main components that make a church feel like a possible church home for us: the preaching, the music, the people and the children's programming. And if any of those are sub par then we might just take our church consumer selves and find a place that meets our every single need.

Well, good luck with that.

Today we stayed after service for an introduction to a church we've frequented since moving here. And they made a good clarification. God wants our commitment to the work of his kingdom. He doesn't want us to be consumers. He wants us to contribute.

Obviously I knew that. But I wasn't living it. Suddenly I saw the church for what I can bring to that place. Not with any huge ideas to change anything...but I realized what I have to contribute. I have a mouth. I can welcome people and introduce myself to a stranger. I have kids. I can sign up to work in the nursery once a month so the steady help in there can get into the service themselves. I have gifts. I can help.

I can contribute.

So we are parking our shopping cart. There certainly is a season to look around and find a good fit. And we took our time looking around. But then there is also a time to park it. To enter in. We have found a good group of people serving Jesus and striving to share His good news to the world and we're going to join in. We're done looking for a church. Now we're going to be the church.

comments!

This picture has nothing to do with the subject of this post. But it sure is a cute picture, isn't it?

 

There is a strange thing that happens in blog land. People write their hearts, their minds, their joys and sorrows and then they hit publish. And sometimes someone leaves a comment.

Oh a comment. A comment can sustain the blog author for weeks. It can get kind of quiet sometimes, posting pictures, writing stories, wondering if anyone out there is taking notice.

So when someone does...when someone says hello, I like this. Or, hello, your kid is cute. Or, hello, sometimes you're funny. Well, when this happens, somewhere out there a rainbow appears. A choir sings. A kitten purrs. A child laughs joyfully down a slide. (Aha! I worked the picture into my post. Brilliant!) And the blog author may just think to themselves weeks later, 'member when I got that comment in 2010. that was awesome.

So what I am about to tell you is terrible. Just terrible.

A while back I changed my settings for people to leave comments so that you wouldn't have to go through so many hoops just to leave a word or two. Mostly this was for my Aunt Louie who often tells me that my blog hates her. Well, she doesn't say that, but you can tell she feels dejected. So I took off all the safeguards. So it would be easier. As a result I get a lot of spam comments that blogger filters. They never go public, and mostly they are gibberish and go right in my gmail spam folder. But apparently it also means that the comments you have been leaving, the ones here, still on the blog, have been going into my spam folder in my email. This means nothing to you, and really isn't a huge deal. They still end up on my blog because blogger is smart like that. Except that it means I haven't seen the comments you've been leaving on this thing for months because I read all my comments in gmail... which has been marking them as spam. For months! Months! I just thought we all got real quiet.

Sometimes I'd check a post right on the blog, and then I could see them. And I'd respond. But just now I scrolled through and found a whole bunch of comments I never had read.

For shame. For shame.

So, blog readers. A couple things. Please comment! For the love, leave me some love. And second, I'm going to try to respond more. Blog books say this is key to good blogging etiquette. And thus far I've been a terrible host. Bad manners. Poor form. But I'm going to try to change all that and respond.

Deal? Deal.

soup for mary

Ivar had his fisher price nativity set out yesterday and I asked him what the king had in his hand. He looked at it and said, "Soup." I asked him what the other kings had in their hands. And he answered, "More soup."

Not a bad idea. I would imagine Mary would have appreciated some warm soup after delivering Jesus. Maybe more than gold. Warm soup after having a baby? Good thinking, Ivar.

**It should be noted that the above picture was staged by a 31 year old during nap time. At no time are these characters set up like this. Usually there is a garbage truck and a few tractors in the mix. Usually all of the nativity sets are mixed together so there are three baby Jesus'.

And in other exciting and thrilling news...my sister Annika is blogging again!!! Sort of. Actually, I am blogging for her. But her girls are so funny, she has stories every day, and I decided that I will post them for her just so they get written down. Click here to visit her blog.

so grateful

It is such a good feeling to be supported by friends, family and people I don't even know. I am excited about these hymn cards. Not just as a new personal venture, but because these words are powerful. These songs have moved my own heart time and time again.

Did you catch the comments from yesterday's post?

My brother-in-law Jedd wrote, "I vividly remember listening to my Grandma Beulah clearly singing every word to "As The Green Blade Rises" even though she couldn't tell you if she'd eaten that day and couldn't read because of her cataracts. I'd never heard the hymn before, I've never sung it since and I didn't sing it that Sunday either. I just listened to her and wept."

I read this and was grateful that Jedd gets it. I looked up the hymn. I recognized it once I heard it. You might too. The words are awesome. The melody is haunting. You can click here to listen to the tune and read the words. Love is come again.

And then my friend Renee (we attended seminary together) wrote, "A note re: what you wrote about the inspiration coming from working in the nursing home... after working in this environment for five years now I often wonder what our generation's "collective memory" will be when we are in senior care. The "greatest generation" has events (WWII, Depression, etc) and songs (hundreds) and mainstays from church (hymns and liturgy) that bind them together and are easily recalled despite even, in some cases, severe memory loss. What does our generation have? What binds us together?"

I don't have an answer to this one. I think about it often as well and would love to hear what anyone else thinks too. Even worship music now seems to cycle every three months or so. You don't sing any one song for very long in a church anymore. I think this is why I want to know these hymns and why I want my kids to know them too.

I remember lots of summer nights at Mount Carmel Family Camp, sitting in the chapel after worship, while my aunts and uncles sang hymns out of an old Lutheran songbook. They always sang a song called, "Living for Jesus." I never heard that song anywhere else but it was my grandparents favorite song. So they made a choir with their kids and the song was taught to the next generation too.

And I suppose that is the simplest motive behind the hymn cards. To get these words in front of our faces again. To get these songs stuck in our heads. So that we remember them and the next generation learns to love them too.

hymn cards for sale!

From the day I posted my first pictures of the Hymn Cards I made for our baby's nursery, I have been asked (and begged) to sell these Hymn Cards and finally starting today they are available!

This first collection comes with twelve hymns and are all my personal favorites. Of course, as soon as I say that I can think of twelve more personal favorites. And reading over the list you will probably wonder why I didn't include some of your favorites. I guess I had to start somewhere. There are some good, solid lyrics in these songs, promises to live by. I hope they bring encouragement and hope to your family as they have mine.

Inspiration for these the Hymn Cards came from working on the memory loss floor of a nursing home. I led the Sunday morning worship service for a group of men and women who often could not remember their own family. And yet, when we started singing What a Friend We have in Jesus, or spoke the words of the Lord's Prayer or the 23rd Psalm, new voices would join in, remembering every word. Those were powerful moments in worship, watching the songs of old calm anxious hearts, listening to incoherent sentences turn to harmonious singing. I remember deciding then that I, too, wanted to know these promises so well that when my memory fails, my heart would still remember.

I have my set of Hymn Cards on a little easel on the table next to my glider rocker. I can sit and rock my kids while looking right at the words of a beloved song, singing all four verses as my babies drift to sleep.

The coolest thing about singing these truths and promises to my kids is that God ends up singing these songs to me. The words are for me, too. And my heart is calmed, my trust is back in Jesus and I sleep as soundly as my babies.

For ten dollars, you can download a PDF of all twelve hymns to print on your own. For twenty dollars I will print the hymns on card stock and send them right to your door.

I’m excited about having these cards in homes all over, excited to imagine all of us singing these songs, remembering these promises. You might put them on the sill of your kitchen window to sing while doing the dishes. You might put them on the counter in your bathroom to sing as you blow dry your hair. You might put them on your desk next to your Bible for your devotional time. You might put them in your kid’s room, ready for bedtime prayers. You might give them as a gift for Christmas. I hope you are blessed by them. And I hope the promises take root in your heart once again.

For ordering information, click here.