Prayer Conference

Hey! For those who were in church yesterday, I thought it would be cool to hear about the different prayer workshops that you went to and how you were challenged. I'm excited to see how God continues to use prayer along with our availability within the church and our relationships. Matt and I went to the Listening Prayer workshop w/the Berean class teacher. I think we were the youngest ones there but it was so cool to learn from those who have so much wisdom and have walked before us. He had a cool insight on journaling and using scripture by taking a passage, summarizing it, then applying it to your life. I've journaled a lot but haven't done it quite like that so am excited to try it out. Overall, it was a great reminder that we serve a creative God (like Daniel Henderson spoke about) and it's ok to find creative ways to pray and seek Him. Anyone else learn anything?

Dave and JJ Heller

Dave and JJ Heller are a young married couple, who are from Phoenix.
The are brilliant musical artists and beautiful people.
If you've heard them and can chime in, please post a comment.

They have been living in Nashville for some time now and, like some of you, are expecting their first child.

Be sure to take advantage of the temporary (10 weeks) free download of their upcoming cd release!

Enjoy,

steve

Bizarre Living or Living Bizarrely?

Hi friends! So one of the things some of us mentioned when brainstorming about a class blog was how it would be nice to have a place to continue deeper discussions from our Sundays together. So, this is my attempt to initiate just such a conversation. 

Awhile back (I seem to have lost all sense of time... a month ago? 6 weeks? 2 week? I have no idea), Brad Elgen spoke about living "bizarrely" for God. His message was taken from the story about Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well.  ( you can find and listen to the message HERE ) It was an amazing message. And I find myself thinking about some of his questions, comments, observations and application points every couple of days even now. Honestly, that rarely happens to me. But I feel the need to really unpack this topic and I don't want to fall into the typical "oh-my-gosh-that-was-so-convicting-i-need-to-change-my-life" Sunday and then "back-to-the-ole-routine-cause-i-just-don't-know-where-to-go-from-here" Monday ritual. 

So I find myself telling people about this message over and over.... in hopes of unpacking it even more, brainstorming with others about HOW we can live differently within our culture. Sure, I could pack up and fly to Calcutta, India tomorrow and live in the slums and love on the desperate children and that would be quite different (well, theoretically I could.... if it wasn't for the husband and two children thing :). But what I struggle with is how to live intentionally differently WITHIN my own culture, socioeconomic class, neighborhood, and community. 

I suspect many of you feel the same way, so lets talk about it! Lets brainstorm and "spur one another on to love and good deeds," like God desires us to do. Disclaimer: This isn't about comparing ourselves to others, judging, or feeling judged.... please, this is about challenging each other to move closer to the heart of God and His passion for people... each of us have ideas that could trigger other ideas and thoughts and that is how we can spur each other on! 

So here is the question: 

What are some PRACTICAL ways you can live differently or bizzarely (aka NOT the "norm", living so that people actually have to stop and ask why? what? how? you are doing/living like you are):

~ in your neighborhood or apartment complex?

~ in your work place?

~ in your relationships with non-believers? 

~ in your family? 

John and I came up with just a couple of ideas so far (but have yet to implement them): 

~ We want to look for some elderly couples, widows, single moms in our neighborhood and offer to do their lawn for them. 

~ John has talked to an older man who lives alone in the condos across the street from us and wants to have him over for dinner sometime and just be a friend. 

Thanks for reading and please do share!!!! ~ Chelsea

PS: If you are an author on this blog, you can log in and edit this post and add your own thoughts/answers/suggestions/ideas below mine. If you don't want to do that, you can just leave your thoughts and answers in the "comments" section below this post. But regardless please do post! I know we can learn so much from each other! 

Camping Photos

Hi All! We got back from 5 days in southwest CO two nights ago and I am finally getting around to editing the camping photos and posting them online. 

I am uploading them to a Picasa online (public) album so everyone can view them all and download any or all of them.  I uploaded them as smaller files than the original files because if I had uploaded the full files you wouldn't see them for weeks. :) I do believe the size I uploaded them as is large enough for 4x6's or even 5x7's but for anything larger, just contact me for the full file and I will email it to you or put them on a CD if there are many of them. 

Click on the following link for the photos: 

Fresh Grounds Camping Trip Photo Album

Let me know if you have any questions! Thanks!! 

~ Chelsea

By the way Chelsae, this Blog looks great. Thanks for all the hard work!!

Hello Everyone! Jason and I are leaving for vacation tomorrow morning. We will be gone all week but will be back for Church on Sunday. Hope you all have a good week. Talk to you when we get back.
Autumn