Being obsessive about being different can have its ups and downs. Sometimes I get so carried away with trying not to "be like everyone else" that I actually end up doing things i don't like all for the sake of being different. I think singing out my worship to Jesus is one of the things I let go in an attempt to be "emergent/different/or raw". Granted, looking back at the time I let this go, it was a good thing because I grew up in an environment where the definition of worship was singing (and mostly singing Petra songs or a classic hymns)... but lately I have found myself "secretively" buy and listening to worship music (shhhhh and I love it).

One of my favorite books on hospitality is called "Untamed Hospitality". The author Elizabeth Newman doest this incredible job of reminding me why sung worship is so needed. She walked me through the authentic practice of hospitality as she explained sung worship allows people space to be active in their divine relationship, to pray, to submit to others in their community, to be invitational in voice to God and those around them... it was beautiful.

Sometimes I forget how powerful the voice and spoken word is, especially when spoken words are paired with action... its an unstoppable existence. I want my worship to be present in these times and unstoppable, and so I sing my worship and in so doing I dynamically incorporate the gift hospitality by encouraging people to be involved, to pray, to submit, to be real in their relationships.


"One who sings prays twice" ~ ancient proverb (attributed to St. Augustine)

Reporting from the west coast of Seattle... the word is out... pie is the new cupcakes. You know all those fancy parties, or "super cute weddings" or to die for baby showers that have the most amazing and unique dessert display of cupcakes.... all those time when we used to all go "oooo and ahhhh" over the creative and unusual idea of substituting cupcakes for the ordinary celebratory cake. ahh the days when that was the "most creative" idea....
but that was so 2000...
What are we suppose to do now? What if I throw a party? What are the 'new' options? Well in the city of Seattle the pie battle is in full swing... In a city dominated by "cutie cupcake shop", its safe to say vintage pie is back! And I am not going to lie... It is awesome...
I went to a few of different of these vintage pie shops... full with 'soda fountains, high stool chairs, and 50s aprons'... sooo pretty. I'm not going to lie some pie shops do "pie" better then others. I'm a crust girl all the way!! But one of my favorites is this one pie shop that does mini pies and little hand held pies. They are sooo absolutely cute I just can't get over what a good idea it is to eat little mini pies while basking in the joy of some purposeful (or non purposeful) celebration!

So the next time you have to throw a party or plan a dessertie table... don't let the boring cupcakes get you down... try pie! Its awesome!

I met up the other day with a particularly bubbly, yet controlled young lady. She heard about my thesis on intentional prayer communities and wanted to "pick my brain" about her passion for community. We scheduled our meet up at the local CO-OP deli (it can't hurt to care for the environment a little as you talk about holistic community). After spending much to much time debating weather i wanted a lush looking Greek salad or a unique looking BBQ tofu sandwich, I sat down opposite this passionate soul and began a conversation that stirred my heart in that familiar way that whispers "God is in this".

She explained how she had spent a season in prayer about started an intentional community and was exploring the possibility of starting a community in the same neighborhood I have been living and doing "community" for the last year. Her eagerness was so raw it was like a static electric shock, with an unexpected jolt to my soul included.

We started out the best way any two people can by thanking Jesus for our food, inviting him into our conversation, and then telling our stories of falling in love with... or as the stories ringed more true, how we were hijacked by Jesus. She explained an uncontrollable awareness and desire to be more and I shared the begins of my random, but purposeful community journey.

We shared about family, friends, and our passionate love for God.

My heart laughed when she pulled out a notebook and asked if she could take notes on what I was saying. I wanted to stop her, but instead of telling her to put her book away I started explaining to her that any intentional community first had to come from a pure desire to love Jesus. It can't be done for people, for justice, or even the sake of community... it had to simply and completely be shaped and centered around our savior Jesus.

I explained the importance of starting a community with as clean of a slate as you can. To let all expectation go and let God simply blow your mind... I told her to be ready to be disappointed beyond all measure and equally to be encourage beyond all belief.

We chatted then about how important space is. To not get to carried away with forming a perfect model or structure of what "our community" is going to do for God, but simply to lay our whole self ... the nasty and broken bits as well as the good and passionate bits all down at the feet of Jesus and simply say.. "I am yours use me". I warned her how hard this was and how God might use this time to call their community to serve in ways they never thought they would... possibly in ways they don't even like... but how a radical sacrifice would simply be the beginning birth pains of dreams being born.

I told her about rhythms... I even quoted my good friend Katy Smith from "Colchester Boiler Room" and her warning to plan activities that were life giving and not life sucking. I cautioned her to not confuse the word rhythms with the word frequency but to remember that a rhythm just means consistency at whatever capacity a community can handle. Community isn't about a dogma, its about freedom, joy, and life... rhythms that breathe deeper relationships.

We ended our conversation as she finished her split pea soup and I took my last munch of Greek salad. We spoke about where they were in the process of starting the community and she said they were in the process of looking for a community house. I invited her and her potential community partner to come around for dinner and prayer and to potentially look at moving into our place. Her face spoke a million times over her excitement about moving into a place where God had been intentionally invited and pursued. And then, in the cool sun of a Seattle May afternoon she scooted off to another meeting and I wandering around the CO-OP trying to find affordable deals on ethical food.

Later that night as I sat in the community house "Love Sack" an overwhelming rush of humble thanksgiving poured over me. Two years ago I arrived in Seattle. A little lost, a lot scared, and desperate to further God's kingdom now. The majority of my time here, if you stopped and asked me if I was "there" ... if I had made it to that place I dreamed of being... I would have either laughed or teared up as I constantly felt like I was lacking, falling short, and failing God.

Time after time, God would come through for me in ways that even now bring tears to my eyes. My prayer from the very beginning was to somehow, one day, help Christ-centered community form in the Seattle area. For the last two years I have tried so many times with my power alone to do that... and have failed horribly... Just this very week I was questioning why God had moved me into a community, who's presents and being has had seemingly very little impact for God's Kingdom. Save for the random prayer nights for our community, simple (and maybe even awkward) introductions to neighbors, and a tacky prayer wall in our living room, our community hadn't done much.

I remember when we moved in to this neighborhood really feeling like it was never going to be the same... like these neighbors, these streets, this place was going to experience the love of Jesus like they never had before. If I am honest, I don't feel like our community did very much to show our neighbors the radical love of Jesus. However, as I considered the handiwork of God I realized, yet again, how what I am involved in is bigger then me. With a little bit of confidence I realized I seriously did give my all to God while I was here... and though it might not be as radical as some "intentional communities" are these day it made a difference.

As I sat there in my community's small living room, God encouraged me with an image of a great field that was rich with potential for producing a mighty harvest... he then was gracious enough to show me that my place in that picture was in the season that was preparing the field... I might not see the harvest, but I think today, as I sat in the overly earthy CO-OP, I met one of the mighty harvesters to be... how my prayer have started to take shape before my very eyes.

23-26Listen to me now.
Give me your closest attention.
Do farmers plow and plow and do nothing but plow?
Or harrow and harrow and do nothing but harrow?
After they've prepared the ground, don't they plant?
Don't they scatter dill and spread cumin,
Plant wheat and barley in the fields
and raspberries along the borders?
They know exactly what to do and when to do it.
Their God is their teacher.

-Isaiah 28: 23-26

So last week I submitted my first round of thesis draft. I totally expected to get it back and was on the edge of my seat as I waited patiently for my professor to review all 120 pages of my thesis (poor man!). I received my thesis back on Sunday and was intructed to "polish it".

So spit and polish it I did. For over 15 hours I have re-arranged paragraphs, re-title headings, re-grouped thoughts, deleted conclusion, re-wrote intros, and double-triple checked my citations... every time i look at it I think "oo should I change this? or that"... I feel like it could never end!

However, as of one hour ago I proudly held (in the way any student these days can hold an electric version of their written work) my brightly shinning 127 page thesis....

As I gazed at my glowing laptop screen and all the polished work I had just gone through, I almost was expecting the blue genie from Aladin to pop out and say "what are your three wishes"...

and so post-polishing thesis/ blue genie appearance these are my three wishes (in ascending order of importance)

#1 I wish my thesis was actually helpful to people interested in starting European Prayer Communities

#2 I wish that one day I get to do all the things I wrote about in my thesis

#3 I wish I was in steve's arms right now and never had to leave!

Now i get to wait and see if all that polishing really gets me my genie ???

I'm finding more and more that these two words "Structure" and "Leadership", when spoken in regard to the formation of Christ-centered community, can conjure up so many different emotions. In just one room of seven young church leaders I found happy passionate support, fearful uncertainty, blatant hatred, annoyed mediocrity, and questioning doubt.... Why do these words make people so afraid/emotional?

Sometimes when I run into situations like this I get confused, but then I remember it was not that long ago that I would have counted myself in many of those negative categories.

My bigger question is #1 have I settled by apparently coming 360 degrees in my view of church structure, leadership, and community?

#2 is there a third way to be a leader in a church? One that isn't structured and is structured at the same time?

#3 how do I help people understand that if the church is meant to grow we need to be constantly changing s the people that fill those churches and the roles and structures that are created.

so my thesis is done... i woke up on Monday and thought to myself, "now what?" its been going on two years that I have been constantly nagged by books to read, articles to review, projects to think up, papers to write, and a thesis to nail down. But as of Sunday April 8th I submitted the last of my school assignments and the hundred and thirty page thesis that was born.

so what does a girl do when she wakes up fresh on a Monday morning to the sound of two over hyper squirrels playing tag on her roof and the sun fighting to break through the dark black out blanket that hangs over her bedroom window??? why by George she bakes....

And so bake I did. I went to the store and bought a humongo bag of chocolate chips and then scoured the tinternet for the best "secret" ingredient... I decided on cinnamon... and bake away i did until i had over 6 dozen chocolate chip cookies to my name...
after the whole experience of wearing my bathrobe all day and pulling warm melty cookies out of the oven... I was simply beaming... but the cool thing came when I started handing out said cookies. people are always so happy to get a cookie... and trust me, tho i am sure these cookies tasted great they were not the best looking cookies (most were quite wonky!)

ever sense I just keep thinking... i want to get better at this cookie making business... I found this website called tablespoon.com... it is freaking awesome and totally inspired me more...
I think I want to be a cookie baker blesser! hahaha... i want to find all the best cookie recipes there are, make them and then spend the week afterward finding people to give them away to and chat with...

then i really started thinking about this cookie baking hoopla and I thought... "why not invite other people to come over and get involved too" what if I chose a day every week that was cookie day and we would make cookies all day... pray into the cookie, laugh, and try and be creative.. and then go out and spread all the cookie wonder around to the people we know and love... we could take them to work, to school, to our neighbors, to the bus stop, to the homeless shelter! everyone loves a home baked cookies... why not share love that way!?!?

i like my cookie blessaking ministry! its going to be a hit! i just know it!

so what a surprise. I met JamieDee when we both volunteers at the 24-7 Minneapolis Boiler Room, aka Source, two summers ago. We only spent 15 days together. but they were a damn good 15 days. After we parted ways she went back to Atlanta, GA and I headed off to Chicago... A few months later I moved to Seattle, WA... and then a few months after that Jamie moved to Berkley, CA... we both were starting school and finding our footing in new places, but we tried to stay in touch when we could. I rang her when Steve came for visits... and when we got engaged... she always was so happy and supportive... I really appreciate her friendship.

WELL! randomly she rang me and announced she was just a few hours away from Seattle and she was on her way up and wondered if we could meet up... I WAS OVERJOYED! of course I wanted to see her... It was a manic week for me, thesis rough drafts being due and work... but the day she arrived I managed to steal away from my books and work for a gorgeous sunny spring day in Seattle. We walked along the waterfront, instantly started debating Church, Christian leadership, and the marginalized. I got to met her amazing friends and they totally were awesome dealing with my overdepthness in conversations.

We ended up at the Space Needle where there is an amazing Labyrinth set up underneath it. It was such an honor for the 5 of us to stop and prayer walk through this labyrinth in the middle of the busy seattle city. and the cool thing that happened... as we started doing this labyrinth all these other people started joining in. kids and adults were just so excited to walk through this labyrinth... and the statements that were said

"wow am i going the right way"

"this is taking forever"

"i love this!"

"is there only one way?"

"are we being tricked?"

"hahahahaha!!"

"its a race!"

"this is so fun!"

all these statements so reminded me of different times I have experienced in my faith journey... i found myself deeply moved by how the people around cane remind me so much sweeter of how Jesus has been near me all the time I have similarly yelled those types of statements out... yet again... I LOVE LABYRINTHS!