There's a Stirring

Last week David Young started an awesome series of 6 lessons on the Holy Spirit at North Boulevard. Our tradition has skirted around the Holy Spirit alot, and we have missed out on the greatest benefit of our conversion in the process. Grieving and quenching the Spirit are not seen as relevant in these times in a lot of our brotherhood, and that may very well be the reason for our decline. The Spirit can breathe new life into the body of Christ if we allow Him to. The Spirit can and does breathe new life into us when we allow Him to! Holy Spirit, come!

http://www.northboulevardfamily.com/worship/audio/2009_6_14_1.mp3.mp3

http://www.northboulevardfamily.com/worship/audio/2009_6_14_2.mp3.mp3

Lessons from the Garden

Our house has professional landscaping. The previous owners had three small children, so the flower gardens were pretty neglected. I got out last Thursday with my cotton gardening gloves and tore out miles of crab grass and other weeds. Since the black mulch had not been "added to" in the four years the house has been here, only the thickest chunks remained as mulch, the rest had decomposed into a very rich looking top soil. The crab grass was really going crazy with all of the rain we've had this spring. After an hour of working in the garden, the black mulch/soil and moisture soaked through to my skin so the gloves came off. (I still have stains on my right hand 8 days later, but they get a little lighter every day). Wednesday we purchased herbs and more mulch to fill in the bare spots but it rained and stormed most of today; I'll get out and plant and mulch tomorrow, weather permitting.

As I was laboring in the initial assault on the weeds (four hours) it occurred to me that the church is very much like a garden. A little crabgrass, if left unattended, can take over a garden. It can choke out the good (plants) and create all kinds of problems. Hmmm, I've known people like that...But, lest I become to judgemental, my hands are stained...Hmmm, sins of commission and omission...

We bow our Hearts
We bend our knees
Oh Spirit come make us humble
We turn our eyes from evil things
And Oh Lord we cast out our idols

So give us clean hands
Give us pure hearts
Let us not lift our souls to another
Give us clean hands
Give us pure hearts
Let us not lift our souls to another
And oh God let us be
A generation that seeks
Seeks your face
Oh God of Jacob
And oh God let us be
A generation that seeks
Seeks your face
Oh God of Jacob

Showers of Blessings

It's been a busy couple of weeks since my last post. We're getting settled in our new house and count our blessings every day. The Gotcher side of the family and Mendy came to help with the heavy lifting and some unpacking; then Sarah, Jarrod and the kids came for a visit. Logan loved the play fort in the back yard and all of Matthew's musical "toys" and asked that it be a "short time" until they could come visit again. He was a hoot at Cannonsburgh Village and had to tell Matthew and I what each of the buildings were from the "old times". Elly just keeps getting more adorable and she's already displaying a very opinionated personality. She just consumes everything with those huge blue eyes: it will be very interesting when she starts talking. Logan is a very loving big brother, so the boys had better watch out when she gets a little older!

We were blessed with a visit from Charles and Judy Wilhelm Friday night, along with their son Barry and his family from Spring Hill, Tennessee. Charles and Judy had kept Barry's girls for a week in Decatur, and brought them back to Tennessee on Thursday. It was good to see them and to meet Barry's wife, Tara, and his two sweet daughters. Tara is a teacher in Franklin, and Barry works for a Health Insurance Group in Nashville. We initiated David's new grill and ate out on the patio. It was absolutely perfect weather and no mosquitoes. When the sun went down it got so cool we went in the house to finish visiting.

Matthew spent Wednesday through yesterday in Atlanta visiting Chris and applying for jobs down there. He's in Memphis tonight at an "Invitation Only" hiring event at the Apple store his cousin Michael works for. We should hear from him in a bit about how that went. If it went well, he'll be staying in Memphis for training and then will be moving to Memphis next weekend. He's feeling much better about things than he did a month ago!

We have opportunities to feast on any type of music we want within an hours drive either way this week: www.cmafest.com and www.bonnaroo.com. Since we don't like crowds, we'll just watch news coverage of the events and maybe plan to go next year....