Praying through the phone

So, scripture in 1 Thessalonians 5 and elsewhere guides us to be in prayer, to be in touch with God, to throw up our hearts to Her at all times. I've often wondered how to make that practical, how to find ways that will assist me in doing this.

Last night I accidently discovered a method I plan on using again in the future. I was editing my contact list on my phone, which includes family, youth workers, friends, pastoral staff, teens. It reminded me of many of their situations and so I began to pray for them as I went down through the list. So, now, I think I may use this method again. Praying through my contact info...

This has piqued my interest. Are there any practical methods you have found to pray continually? I'd be interested in finding out...

[an addendum to the original post: you can have prayers text messaged directly to your phone. check it out! Ha! For only 7.99 a month! Nobody said prayer was cheap.]

can forgiveness happen before anything has happened?

I have a hard time with saying that God has forgiven me before I have even sinned.

Forgiveness is a release.

Forgiveness is an expression of love.

Forgiveness is not a token. It is a relational expression.

We can say that God loved us before we sinned. But did he forgive us before we did?

Forgiveness is a releasing. How can you release something before it is even in existence?

My favorite shows

so i am happy, but i am torn. both of my favorite shows are back on the air.

Jack Bauer rejoined the USA fight against terror in 24 on Fox.

And Heroes rejoined the scene on NBC.

But here is the dilemma: they both air at 9 on Mondays. What show should I watch?

Well, I have found a compromise. Heroes actually airs online the day after! So, I shall watch 24 at night and then enjoy Heroes the next day. Hooray!

Saints and Stains

Reading The Holy Longing by Ronald Rolheiser for a seminary course...there were sections of the book that left me feeling naked and cold and other sections that warmed me to the core.

One section that did both to me was the chapter of the book dedicated to the community of faith. Here are some thoughts spawned from it...

In the church we have saints and stains. We have the greatness of God and the fraility of humanity. We have a peace that lasts and the daily grind that disrupts any efforts for peace. We have the promise of forgiveness and the continuing selfishness that builds bitterness and emotional distance.

Get Messy

When you read the gospels about Jesus, you find him constantly touching people and allowing himself to be touched. I wonder what this has to say to us about how we related to others. Jesus seemed to have a way about him that was open to anybody who came near him. He'd pick up kids and put them on his lap, he'd speak to prostitutes, he'd touch lepers, he'd let prostitutes clean his feet (which had a whole different meaning then than it does now).

And he never promised that changing the world would be a clean cut thing. It seems that whenever you get into a relationship with someone you really discover that it is a messy process. Our challenge to our youth group this year is to get messy, to dive into others lives and seek to love people right where they are.

One of Jesus' most famous parables was the mustard seed parable, where he said that the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that grows and becomes a tree that birds can perch in. (It's great how Jesus uses stories and makes you actually process what he is saying, rather than just dumping info into you.) We had a friend, Brad Grinnen, come and explore those thoughts with our senior high youth this past weekend and it was quite the weekend. I am excited to see how our kids own what God is doing in their lives and seek to plant seeds of love, grace and mercy in the lives around them.

More Cadence Pictures

Grandma and Papa Fiegl with Cadence Joy
Auntie D and Uncle Marky
Maybe the first captured smile?
Kleinfeld Family Photo
Going home!
At home outside before we enter the house...
Cadence in her adorable rose outfit and in the cool moses basket...

i'm sure there will be many more of these.

we came home yesterday and Cadence slept soundly through the night with many thanks to Grammie's blanket and Grandma's Swaddling Cloth. We actually got three hours of straight sleep!

Introducing Cadence Joy

My world changed on Christmas.

Aubrey gave birth via C-section to Cadence Joy Kleinfeld at 9:20 Christmas morning. She came in weighing 8 pounds, 9 ounces and was 21 inches long.

We are happy to say that both mom and baby are recovering and resting well.

Here are some intro pictures of many that will follow.

Christmas Images

So, sometimes I get images stuck in my head for a while until i get them out. thoughts that might be significant...here are two recent thoughts.

I just heard a story on the news (click on picture for complete story) about a baby Jesus figurine who was stolen last year from somebody's yard. The figurine was returned this year with a set of pictures of the figurine in places the perpetrators had traveled. The "thieves" went around with baby Jesus and kept record of their time with him. For some reason, I think this story can be mined for some significance...

And the other image came to me when Aubrey and I were walking the other night and a family had just unplugged their inflatable lawn ornaments. it was kinda creepy, like the polar bear and her two cubs were having the life sucked out of them. and then we passed a place where the ILO's were being inflated from limp, lifeless flatness. and this image has stuck with me too...

what is it about these things that make such a media hubbub?

what attracts us to controversy?

Asbury College

I don't often toot the horn for my alma mater (spelling on that one?), but i just got a christmas card with this painting by Kyle Keys. I thought it was splendid and so wanted to share it with you all. Click on the picture to find out more about the grand Asbury College.

folk music...

i like patty griffin.

i like denison whitmer.

i wish i was more into this folk scene, but i'm not gonna force it.

a friend of mine just showed me a site where denison is giving away free songs for donations to his favorite charities. check it out: www.happybirthdaydenison.com.

Holiday Pictures

My dear wife Aubrey loves the decoration time at Christmas time...so these pictures are a tribute to her creativity and fun-loving spirit, even though she feels like she didn't do much this year, because of the baby in her belly.
Hooray, in front of our decorated Christmas Tree!
Aubrey always likes to decorate the door...this is a picture of the wreath before it browned (we're debating taking it down or hacking a part of our tree off so we can make another one)
me and sis setting up the tree...oh what fun...oh the memories of years ago...
Sis and me after the tree decided to not fall over...

I am thankful for family, for memories, for ways of remembering during the holiday times.

(I accidently typed "holidaddy times"...baby must be on my mind).

time wasters

so a couple teens showed me a website that is absolutely awesome at helping you waste time. on this site, you create lines for a sledder to slide down and you can make him do little loopty loos and jumps and flips and...

it's www.linerider.com.

go there. waste time. enjoy.

call your friends over and make it an event!

creation groans

Somalia and Ethiopia conflicts...

Peace on earth to all men and women...

what if...

what if love was the hallmark of the church?

what if people left the church because the community loves so much?

expecting

it's any day now.

every time aubrey wakes up in the middle of the night (let's just say an average of 5 times), I wonder.

every time my cell phone rings and I see it's Aubrey, I wonder.

We've got the room set up. The basinet is ready. The clothes have been washed. The electronic swing has been tested. The car seats are installed. The bags are packed.

Advent has new meaning.

What if I lived this way with Christ? Expecting and hoping to find him at any moment...

The greatest Christian revolutions come not by the discovery of something that was not known before. They happen when somebody takes radically something that was always there.

Philip Yancey

Irresistible Revolution

Shane Claiborne, author of irresistible revolution and friend of The Simple Way, did a little survey on "Christians about their (mis)conceptions of Jesus. It was fun just to see how many people think Jesus loved homosexuals or ate kosher. But I learned a striking thing from the survey. I asked participants who claimed to be "strong followers of Jesus" whether Jesus spent time with the poor. Nearly 80 percent said yes. Later in the survey, I sneaked in another question. I asked this same group of strong followers whether they spent time with the poor, and less tahn 2 percent said they did. I learned a powerful lesson: We can admire adn worship Jesus without doing what he did. We can applaud what he preached and stood for without caring about the same things. We can adore his cross without taking up ours. I had come to see that the great tragedy in the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor but that rich Christians do not know the poor.

"When the worlds of poverty and wealth collide, the resulting powerful fusion can change the world...I long for the Calcutta slums to meet the Chicago suburbs, for lepers to meet landowners and for each to see God's image in the other. It's no wonder that the footsteps of Jesus lead from the tax collectors to the lepers. I truly believe that when the poor meet the rich, riches will have no meaning. And when the rich meet the poor, we will see poverty come to an end."

Irresistible Revolution, 113-114

At the Margins

my friend scott emailed me an interesting article. It's an African bishop's critique of the American Church and it's concept of power and change.

Here's a section of text about the Great Commission:
We need to begin to read the Bible differently. Americans have been preoccupied with the end of the Gospel of Matthew, the Great Commission: "Go and make." I call them go-and-make missionaries. These are the go-and-fix-it people. The go-and-make people are those who act like it's all in our power, and all we have to do is "finish the task." They love that passage! But when read from the center of power, that passage simply reinforces the illusion that it's about us, that we are in charge.

I would like to suggest a new favorite passage, the Great Invitation. It's what we find if we read from the beginning of the Gospels rather than the end. Jesus says, "Come, follow me. I will make you fishers of men." Not "Go and make," but "I will make you." It's all about Jesus. And do you know the last words of Jesus to Peter, in John 21? "Follow me." The last words of Simon Peter's encounter are the same as the first words.

I hope you enjoy and are challenged.

Jesus Wants to Save Christians

Anybody who's anybody should check out the most recent sermon series at Mars Hill Community.

They brought the pain especially on hell and witnessing.

They told the story about the blind man who was healed with Jesus' spitwad. How the man, when asked about the healing, repeated "I don't know". It's okay to not know all the answers. What's most important is that my life has been changed for the better b/c of Christ.

[edit from original post: the sermon series (title of the post) can be accessed on the link above. the first one by rob bell is a little scattered, but the rest are more direct and a pretty interesting examination of how God desires to change Christians...rob seems to be talking about people who think they have it all together and rather than having the love and mercy of Christ, use their Christianity/religion as a weapon against the world rather than an invitation to the world.]