Care group

Today I read something on CARE groups at Reality Carpenteria. I'm praying about the group that we are hoping to start in a week or so. We have similar ideas to what was shared there. They use CARE to stand for Care, Accountability, Relationship and Equipping. Just praying about these things...the group.

Being an anoint-ling

I'm sitting in a tropical paradise on a beautiful terrace with a hummingbird right in front of me on retreat at the beach in Moulin sur Mer with the QCS staff. Thank you God for your beautiful creation. And I have the blessing of listening to uplifting praise music on my laptop while I write.

I have so much to think about after yesterday's presentation by Corrigan Clay. There are several points that I want to think more about. I think I'll write about them in different blog entries.

He talked about us being 'anoint-lings'. That is, Christian means followers of Christ and Christ means 'anointed one.' He was emphasizing that Christ was anointed with God's power. He thinks that we should be seeing greater things happening through us because we are annointed as well.

Related to this, he talked about how the expressions "making disciples" and "teaching them all that I have commanded you." refers to the way disciples of rabbis at the time of Jesus tried to do everything exactly like their rabbis. That is what we should be like -- disciples of our rabbi, Jesus, trying to do everything exactly like he does. So...I'm going back again to that struggle over whether I'm allowing God to display his power through anywhere near the way He would like to. Well, time to go....more later

Mark 1 - first verses

The first thing that struck me as I was reading the first chapter of Mark was the quote from Isaiah about preparing the way of the Lord. I was thinking about how people prepare the roads here in Haiti. Most of the roads here are in very bad shape, but Aristide was president, the roads leading to his hometown were nice. (I don't know if he did that, or if others did that as a way of honoring him, but....) Also when Jacmel, in the south, is about to have a big "Carnaval" celebration, the roads are made smooth to make it easy for people to approach the city.

I wonder how we today are supposed to prepare the way for the Lord today. I wonder if we should take the message of John's ministry in general, which was one of calling people to repentance, to be a sort of definition of preparing the way.

But I notice too that God says He will even do the preparing, in the sense that He said he would send his messenger ahead to prepare the way. But his message (John's message) was that everyone should "prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him."