Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Grace is a Dance


 

Grace is a dance
Don’t be afraid to jump in
Let your Partner lead
He won’t let you fall
He will help you stand

Be aware of others new to the dance floor
Less sure, less fluid
Allow them their space to learn
Their Partner will lead them

But!
Don’t hold back from enjoying
your freedom of yielded steps!

Your joy may entice those
--in the dance hall but in a chair--
to take off their heavy coats of propriety
(Coats of their fathers’
who couldn’t brave the dance either)
Their oughts and shouldn’ts producing
a guilt that steals the rhythm from their feet

For in this dance there is no room for guilt
No room for shame
Your Partner’s steps lead you
into joy and peace
Trust and follow and enjoy the dance 


Inspirational sources: 
Romans 14 (whole chapter, but especially vs 4 and 23)
Acts 15:28-29
Romans 5:1-5
Oh, and I may have borrowed a lyric from Wham!, too. 


Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Love and Risk



Greetings friends!

I was recently given the opportunity to guest blog over at the webpage for Summit Fellowships.  Summit is a network of simple/house churches in the Portland Vancouver area where I began fellowshipping earlier this year.  I will probably blog more about simple church in the future.  But for now I wanted to give you the link to that guest post.  In it, I reflect on the connection of love and risk.  This was prompted by a question that was asked this week:


What would you do if you weren’t afraid of losing everything?


Here is the introductory paragraph, and the link follows afterward. Thanks for stopping by!


Greetings from Sarah and G242! Here is a brief intro for the first of what will hopefully semi-regular reflections on simple church. Jesus is the head of His church and when we submit to Him and to one another, He directs our gathering as He sees fit. It is amazing to see week after week how He weaves themes together and how many of us are in the same spot. While Jesus ministers to the gathering as a whole, He also ministers to us individually. I say that because below is my summary of this week’s gathering. We would all agree on what the theme of the week was, but different pieces strike different people in different ways. It’s part of belonging to the body of Christ! We are both corporate and individual.


Read more on Love and Risk here.