Thank you God for this community. Amen

Oh my heavens you have been on my mind Kirkwood UCC. I have spent the past three days at a New Church Start-Up "boot camp." There were moments of feeling completely lost--moments of feeling down right foolish--and thankfully, moments of ecstatic joy believing that we are moving forward faithfully and with much hopefulness ahead of us--and even more work :)

I'll share that part with you pretty soon! http://www.griffithcoaching.com/

And you really have been so close in all of this--thinking about each of you--all of you--wondering where and how you will use your gifts and talents to help this church become what God wants it to be--what our community needs it to be---all that we hope it can be. I love you and I thank God for you--I do.

In the more quiet moments of this week, I have been thinking and praying for all of those folks at VA Tech. I just can't even begin to fathom the loss and heartache and frustration and pain that all of those families and friends and community are suffering right now. Please pray for them. I know you have been, just continue to hold them close.

Last Saturday about 9 of our folks spent and afternoon working on a Habitat House in Dekalb County--Panthersville to be exact. It was a great day of hard work and good conversations and a good bit of silliness. Praise be to God! http://www.dekalbhabitat.org/

We will start our first small group this Monday as we begin to talk through the book "The Phoenix Affirmations." http://www.crosswalkamerica.org/ I hope this book will help us think about and talk about God and Jesus in a way that feels honest and biblical and relevant. I'm excited about the opportunity to be with the folks that feel led to participate and for us to get to know each other a little better and mostly to get to know God better--closer, deeper.

It has been a long week, but a good week and I thank God for right now--for that God is doing in our lives to bring us closer. I serve on the board of an organization--ministry called L'arch http://www.larch.org/ which serves folks with disabilities and reaches out to all people to create community--it is an organization that honestly does offer hope to a hurting world. It is an organization that recognizes that all people have so much to offer the world and that we need each other in the very best way. But, mostly I wanted to share a prayer with you that was written by Jean Vanier the founder of L'arche.

"It is only the people who love, forgive and listen who build community. It is those who are sensitive, who serve others, and who nourish and pray for them. And each of us, by the grace that has been given to us, exercises our gifts, according to our own and unique expression of love and tenderness. A community is only really a community when all its members realize how deeply they need the gifts of others, and try to make themselves more transparent, and more faithful in the exercise of their own gifts. So a community is built by everyone of its members, all in their own way. Thank you God for this community. Amen.