This last weekend at Journey we delved into “the practice of the presence of God” with a message titled “Mystic Me”.
It was no secret & it was unapologetic that the message & theme of the weekend was heavily indebted to brother Lawrence’s classic “The Practice of the Presence of God.” Perhaps my favorite thing about the whole deal was reading that little work again. It’s one of those books that get sweeter every time through. I loved it more this time than the other times I’ve read it. We also took a fresh read of Frank Laubauch’s beauty, Letters from a Modern Mystic. Put those to together & you got yourself a message title.
I felt like I had to spend a little time rehabilitating the idea of “Mystical” for those that have spent a while in churches like ours. The first fairly modern evangelical that I was opposed to that used “mystic” in a positive way was A.W. Tozer. Anything you can read by him will be well worth it. Somewhere around my freshman year in college I read, The Pursuit of God & was knocked on my *&^% in a great way. I want us to recover that sense of the mystical in our community & in our lives.
LOTSA PRAYER – This weekend we tried to lead people to use whatever energy of the New Year & New decade to turn our attention to the Lord. We were signing people up for a day of our 21 DAYS OF PRAYER & FASTING. We also tried to make some headway on our 24/7 PRAYER movement. It was cool to see people coming to the little info meeting. Way to go Bryce Turner. It’s going to happen. We don’t have every hour covered yet. There’s still one with your name on it!
HAITI – I love being a part of the body of Jesus for lots & lots of reasons, but one of them is how we have the opportunity to do good, to be a part of the solution. We took an offering for Haiti that will go to Samaritan’s Purse – a great relief organization headed by Franklin Graham (Billy’s son). We asked everyone to give at least $1 on their way out. At a church our size we can do a lot if we all do a little. Click here.
SURFING WITH SOME JOURNEY PEEPS ON SATURDAY – It was a beautiful sunny day with some weird surf conditions, but it’s become a fun part of lots of Saturdays for some Journey-ites to paddle out together on Saturday mid-morning. We had a blast.
ALAS THE CHARGERS – I would be remiss if I didn’t mention this. I saw so much Charger gear as I preached. It was cool. I felt like we were going to do LT’s touchdown slide during worship. I actually go chided for not preaching in a jersey, but my thinking was, “I’m waiting for superbowl weekend b/c I can’t wear a football jersey 3 weeks I a row, that would be weird. As a bonus, I was given a ticket to go to the game, so I was in the middle of the madness. I have never been to a playoff game for any sport so that was cool. But what a gut-wrenching loss. The blots were the only bye team to look like it was pre-season w/ so so SO many brain-dead mistakes. Alas! Well next week’s AFC championship is scheduled for 11:00 PST. So at least we’ll have people in ALL 3 services next week. When life (the Chargers) gives you lemons…
