lilly's pad

God in the process

My friend bob carlton sent me an advent devotion by one of my favorite authors, joyce rupp.
She helped me remember that it often takes the entire month of December to actually catch the spirit of the season.
That we all really need advent…we really need the entire month to remember and actually get to the joy of the coming of jesus to our world.

Getting home from charlotte, I was tired and needed the enitre week to recover from the fall speaking tour…

Doing experiential worship doesn’t allow me to just waltz in with a laptop and an outline and do my thing…
It’s a series of packing and unpacking and a two hour workshop really involves a total of 7 hours of set up and tear down…and packaging up again...

That's really true about life…

Life really is a process of setting up and tearing down
Getting ready and cleaning up after the fact
Creating something beautiful that takes time
Cleaning up and packing up takes time
Preparation
Prayer
Follow up
Clean up
Repacking
Process

God Is definitely in the process...
What to keep?
What to throw away?
What did I learn in the middle?
What can we do better next time?
What worked?
What didn’t ?
What fell flat?

Life with God is all about
Seeing something a new way
Using what we have in front of us
Being flexible and adaptable
Making something sacred that really isn’t…
Seeing something with new eyes because of the hands who created it
Clay, crayons, markers, messages wriiten in pen...
Changing our minds
Changing our moods
Going with the flow

Carrying on When the technology doesn’t work
Asking for help
Receiving help from strangers
Laughing at myself
Whining and then repenting
Starting again

So what is God tearing down in my life right now?
What is he setting up?
What is he getting ready to do?
What is he unpacking?
What is he repacking and repackaging ?
What is he throwing out?
What may take hours that I think should take minutes?
What is  jesus doing that I cannot see without the help of others?

Am I able to rest and trust when it all doesn’t go my way?
Am I willing to see things in a new way with new eyes and with many senses?
To learn from others, from strangers, from friends who take the time to share their gifts and talents with me?
What can I learn from a room that takes a trail of “fish crumbs” to find, down a service hallway….in the deep recesses of a convention center?
What is jesus doing in the dark hallways of my heart?
Am I willing to follow his path
To search for the right place
To take the extra time
And to make an extra effort?

Or do I just want to go it the easy way
The quick fix
The way it’s always been
The flat and boring, two dimensional way
Rather than the multicolored, multi-sensory, way
lit with twinkle lights and candles and
With the sound track of his love for me playing softly in my ear

jesus i need you to repackage my heart this christmas
jesus i need you to help me unpack the NOs in my life
and
to help me say YES!
help me to say yes to the divine

jesus enable me to say YES when you invite me to take on things that feel impossible
to say YES when i don't know the way
to say YES when others say maybe
to say YES when it feels hard, when i'm tired, when i am much afraid.

thank you for saying YES for me ...even when i cannot say yes back.
amen.

advent week 2...saying YES

thinking of mary today...inspired by an advent meditation by dorothy dayfound on ave maria press that i ran across early this morning.

i didn't grow up catholic and i don't pray the rosary. actually, i grew up really, really protestant, so thinking seriously about mary is new to me.

but to think of mary...a young girl, most likely in her early teens saying YES to God...that has great impact in my life!

so here's my poem/prayer on MARY..
it's inspired our latest podcast on wired parish (out later this week)

saying YES
by lilly lewin Advent 2006

Mary was willing to take on something far beyond her years
Mary was willing to be obedient because God asked her to
She said yes
She allowed God to move into her neighborhood,
To take over her life
To move into her very body                     
To complicate all aspects of her life, her personal space, her emotions, her relationships
She allowed God to screw up her future

God invaded
God invited
God inspired

Mary said YES

She told the truth…(to joseph)
She sought help and confirmation…(in Elizabeth)
She was proactive
She was thankful
She pondered things in her heart ...(like visits from shepherds and kings)
She hatched the savior of the world, away from all that was familiar
And embarked on a journey of discovery.
She told others to do whatever he told them to do (like make water into wine)

She didn’t always get it
She sometimes got it all wrong ....(she thought jesus had lost his mind)

Yet she was still present when they nailed him to the cross
And she was still present and involved when the church began when the holy spirit showed up in the upper room

She hadn’t forgotten what the angel said
She was still obeying a
nd following
and messing up
and getting up and doing it all again.
being willing to say yes

happy advent...are you expecting?

happy advent!

the season of expectation
the season of preparation
the season of ....? you fill in the blank.

on our wiredparish podcast this week rob and i talked about how too often
we seem to run through the month of december.
with all the holiday busyness, parties, shopping, family gatherings, church stuff, etc
and all the expectations of ourselves and our culture we just seem to run faster and faster,
we just seem to go through the motions...
and by the time dec. 25th rolls around, we've too often felt let down and disappointed.
not excited that king jesus is born.

especially when you work at a church, we are so busy helping everyone else catch the season, that we don't get the time to breathe and actually experience
the celebration until the week after, when all our neighbors are throwing out their trees and putting away all their decorations.!( thankfullly, on the church year calendar, christmas really does begin on dec.25th and the season of christmas ends on jan.6, epiphany, so you really do have time to celebrate the real meaning of the season!)

so what about advent?
why take four weeks?

by considering advent
we get the chance to slow down
we get four weeks to prepare Him room
we get an opportunity to ready ourselves, our hearts, our souls, our family
for the coming of King Jesus.

we get to change our expectations
and we get to establish a new season and some new traditions
or rekindle some very ancient ones.

maybe you don't remember, but not so long ago in america, folks put up their trees on  dec22 or dec24
folks gave one or two presents to their kids, not the entire toy store, and
christmas carols were a celebration not a dread because you didn't start hearing
them almost before halloween!

so what are you expecting this december?
What are you expecting this season?

decorations
shopping
gifts
giving

Busyness
Anxiety
Depression
Family conflict
Gaining weight
Disappointment
Loneliness
Feeling let down
Too busy to enjoy the season,
Missing jesus in the season

OR

peace
joy
presence
celebration
worship
time for others and yourself
love
family  and friends
time
rest
jesus

hum?

what are the things you are looking forward to about the season?
what are things are you dreading?

allow yourself time to find jesus in the season again.
allow yourself space to be...to rest...to recover...to prepare him room

when someone is expecting a baby...they have nine months to get ready.
they prepare the nursery
they get all the clothes and diapers ahead of time
and they plan for all the little details of what a new baby will need
as he/she comes into their family.

thanks to the season of advent, we have four weeks to prepare our
hearts for the baby who is God with us.

so get the manger ready...you're not behind
you have the time

we can all begin again
we can all start this week to prepare Him room!

world aids day!

in case you are like me and in denial that the calendar just flipped to the last month of the year, it is december 1st and that means it is world aids day. Check out what's happening around the globe and then go check out what bono is up to and the  red update (and bono video). ( i'm hoping for a gap red t-shirt for christmas this year. )

there's also some new stuff over at the ONE campaign

at NWYC check out the onelife revolution sponsored by YS and world vision.
  i'm hoping the ONE LIFE experience is in charlotte which is an interactive, multisensory experience that takes you through life as an african young person...you become that person and discover how hiv/aids has affected your entire world.

the ONE LIFE REVOLUTION program is a great thing to get youth and young adult ministries involved with this fall!

still in cincinnati...

so i am still in cincinnati...
my direct flight that i was so excited about was delayed three times and then canceled.
not due to weather, but rather due to lack of a pilot.
he/she was supposedly flying in and never arrived.
so i've been hanging out at the C concourse with everyone else who's flight is canceled
or delayed...
they gave us 7 bucks for lunch and i had just eaten! so i had an ice tea with my new friend fran who is trying to get to charlotte in order to be at the birth of her first grand child.
she was also on the 4:30 fllight to charlotte but they forgot to inform her that she was on the US air flight at 4:30pm and not the delta one we were both waiting on!
glad she asked why she didn't have a seat assignment.
i just pray she made it safely "over the river and through the woods" to terminal 1...that involved a bus, a train, and a long walk...
hum sounds vaguely like i should be seeing steve martin and john candy about now!

so my fantasy of a nap this afternoon didn't happen.
gues i'll have to crash early since i woke up at 4am and actually got up to pack at 5!

marko! i've blogged twice in one day!
it's a miracle!

for those of you already at NYWC, make sure you check out the prayer room/chapel and the labyrinth, both worth the search.
and at 10:15 check out the vespers service in the prayer chapel.
it's a great way to end the day.

hope to be there myself tomorrow night.

here comes charlotte..NWYC #4

after a week of weather in the upper 60's and even 70! it is now cold and sleeting! i'm delayed in the cincinnati/northern ky airport but the good thing is that i now have a direct flight rather than flying through
hotlanta...
thanks be to God that i chose atlanta rather than chicago for my connection.

wondering if anyone else is having trouble flying in to charlotte for the national youth worker's convention?

i'm praying that mike king made it out from kansas city considering the blizzard!
and i got an email from dan kimball saying that he made it in to charlotte at midnight last night
from santa cruz.

this is the first time that YS has hosted four conventions...
and it's been great to be a part all three thus far, each different and each an opportunity to connect with old friends and make new ones.

if anyone would like to help me out over the weekend, i'm always looking and praying for a couple of folks to help me set up for the emerging worship and the intro to experiential worship seminars.
one is 2pm on saturday(tomorrow)...i start setting up at 11:30am and for the 2pm on sunday, i'll start setting up at 12noon.
email me or leave me a message at the YS headquarters if you'd like to help.
thanks in advance!

and by the way, happy december! and get ready for advent, the church calendar's new year!
the first sunday of traditional advent is this week(dec3)

if you've never tried advent...or if you don't even know what it is, i'll be posting some ideas for advent
celebration in the days to come.
til then, check out the sacred space.ie website and make plans for an advent retreat some time in december!

pray that the plane actually makes it to charlotte! the opening session will rock!