Ladies' Christmas Breakfast 2010: Comfort and Joy

Every year on the first Saturday of December, our church hosts a Ladies' Christmas Breakfast. The sanctuary is transformed into an elegant dining hall, each table uniquely and creatively decorated by about 30 different women. Other women (and sometimes the same women who also decorate tables)bring either a French toast or sausage casserole, while the church provides hot tea, coffee, fruit and pastries, served by the youth group. In addition to the breakfast, there is always beautiful music; this year our girls' choir sang. A fun group game gets everyone laughing. Door prizes keep people anticipating a take-home extra. But the piece de resistance, for me, is always the drama. Sometimes comical, often tear-jerking, but always thought-provoking.

This year was the first in about 10 or 12 that I didn't decorate a table. As much as I love to do tablescapes and bring both friends and newcomers together around food, and give little gifties to each, I took this year off. My health has limited me to what I can lift and carry.

Believe me, I was tempted by the tripod of creativity, fairly new white dishes, and a few calls that table decorators were needed. But I prayed for wisdom and this year it was as if God was saying, "Rest and receive." On days of weakness and pain, I could easily say, "Sure, God! No problem. I'd love to just come in and plop down at someone else's lovely table." On good days, though, when the energy was there in mind and body, I would say, "But Lord, I really get into table decorating and I'm sure I could get help carrying the heavy baskets of dishes and stuff." Each time, He would answer, "Rest and receive."
Each time I had peace. I called it a table sabbatical.

This morning I felt completely spoiled, taking just a French toast casserole and my purse. No boxes, no baskets, no nothin'! I was simply looking forward to the surprise of seeing where I'd be sitting, and with whom. The table was set by a fun gal named Pebbles, and I call it simple elegance. I like a clean, uncluttered look (even though I seldom achieve it after fussing much with napkins, centerpiece, gift and candles).Her table incorporated traditional red, white, green, and gold plaid, and she graced each plate with a Starbucks gift card in a tiny stocking. I love to receive little gifts!

Seated to my left was my good friend, Kathy, who became my dear friend 25 years ago at our old church. Now she and her husband have recently begun attending our church and it's a wonderful feeling of "the good ole days" to see them week after week. To my right was another good friend, Renee', who has been my guest several years because loves our LCB. She says our church really excels at hospitality which starts with our senior pastor's wife. "You can feel the love here," Renee' says. "Other churches could learn a lot from you guys." Also at our table was my friend Donna and her mom; this year Donna's sister passed away, a kind of pain I cannot fathom. And then there were two happy sisters, Lydia and Kate, taking turns holding Kate's beautiful new baby, Isaac.

I didn't take my camera; debated it in the driveway, but Sarah (at the wheel) convinced me that plenty of other people would take pictures. And she was right.

For your viewing pleasure, and mine, see the photos over at Briana's blog. Briana was also an actor in the moving drama which featured five women, each decorating a table, each trying to cover with a smile some of the sadness, grief, fear, anger, longing, and other emotions that can easily dominate one's thoughts at Christmas. Each character was dealing with her own God-ordained circumstances that tempted her away from experiencing comfort and joy. A cancer diagnosis causing fear.Unwanted singleness and desire for a family. Painful widowhood and loneliness. Sudden unemployment and depression. Exhausting juggling of work and family, with waning desire for God or church. I don't think there was a woman in the audience who couldn't relate to one or more of these circumstances. The hope--the comfort and joy--came from replete scriptures spoken to each woman, by our own "voice of God," a man named Randy. (I don't know if any other church on the planet has that claim to fame! If you don't know what God's voice sounds like, come to our church. The guy can also play a mean keyboard.)

Again, if you want pictures, jump over to Pleasant Places and see our dining extravaganza. It truly is one of the highlights of my Christmas season.

Trunk or Treat 2010: Hippies, Toy Story, Lego Mania, Princesses and More

Here's a sampling from our church's spin on Trunk or Treat. (We do more than just trunks. We do props and games, and much more. Love it.)

Our care group chose to do the LEGO theme. We tied for second, which surprised me, considering we were the only group not in costume. (One petite gal in our group DID dress up--thanks, Kris!), but the rest of us didn't. I would've had to wear a Samsung dryer box, which would've stripped the E-G-O away from my LEGO look. I guess we had a really kid-friendly theme, complete and bean-bag toss.

Toy Story came in first, not surprisingly. The people in their group are over-the-top creative. One of the guys in our group said, half-jokingly, 'Yeh, but they didn't have a trunk. They had a Corvette for Barbie and Ken, but Corvettes don't have trunks!" Oh, do I detect a bit of sibling rivalry??? :)


Two of my older kids, Steve and Sarah, belong to a college age group that did Music of the Decades.
Groovy, man.

We had a science theme,
a farm theme (complete with live chickens and goats),
Disney princesses, a diner,
a camping theme, and many
other trunks decked out for a night
for community contact and fun.
We had over 900 guests some of whom indicated they wanted to know
more about Christianity and our church. That makes it all worthwhile.

When Preaching Meets My Daily School Life

An exciting thing happened Sunday: Pastor Arie's message from Acts fueled my passion for the very subject matter I'm teaching to my 5th and 6th graders. We are studying ancient Greece, and the sermon Paul preached at Mars Hill to his Greek audience grabbed my attention in a new way. I sometimes wish I could go back in time and listen to the great preachers of old. The Apostle Paul would top my list!

But Arie's message(link not working; go to sovgracemd.net to find it) is one I will definitely listen to again. I felt like shouting out, "Preach it, brother!" but I am not that type. I wanted to "Amen" loudly after nearly every sentence, but I would probably get "the knee" from Paul or Ben. I said a few, but not as many as I felt. Many messages are good, but few are anointed, in my opinion. This past Sunday's message left no room for debate: God anointed it. Pastor Arie's joy and passion for the gospel have a levitating effect on my heart. What a gift he is. What an extra bonus that God stirred this message in my heart, and I can sort of "preach it" next week after absorbing it again, so as to give my students a spiritual lift. I had the privilege last week of sharing with them the simple, powerful truths I heard from Elyse Fitzpatrick, so as to encourage them that His love is not dependent on their good or bad behavior, their school successes or failures, or anything of themselves. If they are in Christ, God sees Christ when He looks on them. I just melt when I "get it" and when I get to evangelize in my own classroom. Wow. What a privilege.

Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. The Big Three.

Ain't got nothing on the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!

Holy Spirit Humor

Paul and I have the privilege of being part of the teaching team in children's church once a month. Today during the assembly, Mr. Jared held up a U-turn sign and asked the kids what it was.

"It's a U-ey!" said one of the youngsters.

A little later, Mr. Jared held up a card with the word "REPENT" on it. He explained that it means to turn around and go the other way: if you're going this way sinning, turn around. Miss Beth, his wife, reminded the children that Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit to help us repent.

"Yeh!" called out a little boy. "He helps you do a U-ey!"

If You Ache to Give

In yesterday's Weight Watchers meeting, our new leader quoted heartbreaking statistics. There are some 963 million people in the world who are chronically hungry. She said, "I don't know what that feels like. I know how I feel when I am really hungry--grouchy and irritable, and I know the bad headache that comes from going a couple hours too long without food, but I do not know chronic hunger and I pray I never will." She then said there are some 1.6 BILLION overweight people in the world.

Weight Watchers had a campaign for the hungry last year. If I'm remembering right, they agreed to match in dollars the amount of pounds lost by members nationwide, up to 1 million dollars, and give that much in food to the needy. (Members lost 4 million, WW gave 1 million.) They're doing it again this year.

Our individual group's leader is doing something more. She is really compassionate and very impressed with the community involvement of St. Matthew's Church, particularly their food pantry outreach. What Shirley is going to do is collect food every week at our meeting center from those of us who want to give, and take it to SMC herself.

Each week is a different "meal" for our group to bring food for. This coming week is nonperishable breakfast items.

It was a God-given reminder to me of something I had envisioned (but forgotten) when I first started my journey in April . I had in mind throwing a party next April, inviting people to come celebrate the goodness of God in my walk away from gluttony and in freedom by bringing food to donate to the hungry--and hoped our collective total would at least match my annual weight loss. So I am going to "up the ante" of my motivation by giving in pounds of food what I lost (or gained) the previous week during this campaign. For me, it'd be much to easier to just hand over a heavy bag of pancake mix and syrup, some cereal, granola bars, etc. What would help me lose more is to tie it to the amount I'm LIMITING myself to give away. See the attraction? I would feel much better losing AND giving away 2.4 pounds the same week than losing .8 and giving away a measly .8 pounds of food. On the flip side, I will get to see and feel what that weight in pounds is like if I've gained.

If you also ache to give to the needy and just haven't known of a local place that does (in particular) food outreaches, this may be your answer. I will gladly take your food donations to WW with me next Wednesday if you get it to me ahead of time. Remember nonperishable breakfast items this time. Don't worry, I won't feel unsupported if you don't; I just want to offer the opportunity.

A Dozen Church-related Wishes

Once in a while, I'd love to experience the following at my own church on a Sunday morning.

1. a completely a capella worship time in place of instrumental accompaniment
Nothing beats the beauty of 500 voices singing God's praises in unison.

2. the tithe collected in silence, with only music playing
Tithing is, after all, an act of worship.

3. no one getting up to leave or return from their seat for a whole five minutes
Be still and know that I am God. Be still.

4. dancing...and I don't mean jiggling or swaying
Neither counts.

5. a dresses-only day (for women and girls, that is)
Not a conviction, not even a habit, but I enjoy seeing ladies dress as such.

6. all men in suits and ties
I love suits. My man in a suit and tie especially.

7. congregants bringing hand-held percussion instruments with which to worship
The children would be actively engaged here...a very good alternative for non-readers.

8. the service led by mature teens who are doctrinally sound, articulate, and passionate for God
I have someone in mind.

9. a men's choir
Remember angels in the Bible had names like Michael and Gabriel.

10. a very big orchestra
My favorites would include trumpets, violins, flutes, and a harp. I know electric instruments are practical and even sound good when skillfully played, but I'd rather see the volume increased by the number of instruments, not by the turn of a dial.

11. a drama
The talent in our midst is only being tapped annually. Time's fleeting!

12. a time of turning to one another and greeting them, cued from the pulpit
I appreciate this practice most when I visit another church. Takes the tension out a bit and helps me feel not ignored. Some folks (me included) just need to be prompted.

Spittin' Images

Yesterday our care group had a fall party at Karen and Ronan's place. What a blast. You'd never guess we possess any couth in a normal setting. Must be something about the country air of Jarrettsville that brings out the hick in all of us.

First we had a dangling doughnut game. Mitzy tied a long piece of string to a doughnut and tied the other end of a string to a stick. Think fishing pole with an oversized glazed cheerio as "bait." The "fish" had to put hands behind his back while the fisherman dangled the doughnut slightly above, below, or beside the "fish. " Every time it hits the face, gooey, sticky glaze sticks to the "fish's" nose. Ew! Or he licks it so many times in an attmept to bite it that it's lathered with drool. (If you're not totally grossed out yet, read on.) The teasing and torment for one taste of this treat was too tempting for toddlers. They ended up grabbing it off the string. They're not dumb.

Next we had a pumpkin slingshot game. Picture a 3-foot wide bungee cord with handles and halfway between the handles a nylon "cradle" the size of an adult sock. Picture also sticking a fist-sized pumpkin into it while two grown men hold the opposing handles. The "shooter" guy (or gal) would load the pumpkin into the slingshot, pull way, way down on the "cradle" to get a good arc on the "bullet" and release! A couple seconds later? Splat! Hit a tree. Good shot! The real trick was keeping the toddlers from becoming targets.

I took sunflower seeds and hosted a spitting contest. I told the kids to take a seed, suck the salt off it, stand like so, keep lips close together/tongue behind seed--then SPIT! Far as you can! The boys (ages 2-47) thought this contest a speck of glory. Then the womenfolk--boasting narry a shred of femininity, grace, or class--showed them how to really make the ole sunflower seed go the distance. If only I'd had my camera. But thankfully, others did, so I asked them to take some spittin' images. (Karen, if you have photos, please upload. We've got to show off our salivary talents in cyberspace.)

Ronan and Karen came up with a scavenger hunt and treasure chest of candy for the kids. Mitzy handed out caramel apples. All of us brought dessert in addition to other munchies. (Can you say sugar high?)

We can hardly wait to go back next year. Karen's wondering what a veritable size pumpkin patch and sunflower garden might grow in the meantime. Call us the care group that really knows how to plant seeds.

We ain't too shabby at spittin' and slingin' 'em either.

Beautiful Description of the Church

My eloquent friend, Amy, wrote this gorgeous post today. She was inspired first by one majestic, brilliantly blazing autumn tree, and then by one simple leaf she plucked from it. Do yourself a favor and hop over to Lavendar Sparkles to see this thing of beauty--her post.

Got 'em Good

Our church is undergoing a name change. It'll be Sovereign Grace Church. The change has been a really big deal in the making, with unfathomable decisions, details, and time involved. One of the exciting things will be the revealing of new signs with new graphics and colors. Among the people most involved in the visual and technical details is a man named Dan.

Today I was working late after school. I heard Dan chatting in the hall with three other men in the reception area near my room. Jim H popped his head inside the door and asked, "Hey, Zo, wanna see our new sign?"

I looked out the window.

"No, not out there," he said. "Out here." I followed him to the welcome center where Dan, Jimmy, and Mark were gathered. They were all admiring the new sign behind the desk.

"Wow! It looks great! I LIKE it!" I said enthusiastically. Then I squinted, leaned closer toward the sign and (feigning disappointment) said, "But--too bad they spelled sovereign wrong.



Dead silence.



They bent toward the sign.
They studied it.
They looked at each other in disbelief.

I burst out laughing. "No, it's right," I said, wishing I'd caught the scene on video.

I got 'em good.

"That's not funny, Zo, " Jimmy said, chuckling. (Sort of.)

"Coming from you, we're all like Is it ?" Jim said, crouching toward the sign.

Mark: "I had to look again."

Dan? I'm sorry I did that to you.

No, I'm not. You should've seen your face.