Wednesday, August 27, 2008

His Grace Flows Down and Covers Us

As I asked the Lord for His presence and His grace to cover me today, this song came to my mind:

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound

Amazing love, now flowing down

From hands and feet that were nailed to the tree

His grace flows down and covers me

It covers me, it covers me, it covers me

His grace flows down and covers me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyrSL5sKMk0

Thank you, Jesus, that your grace covers us. I desperately need your grace today and every day.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

*Home Church Conference* September 2008

If you live in the Colorado Springs area, I have some VERY exciting news for you! There is going to be an organic home church conference taking place in September. The information is as follows:

-----Original Message-----
From: Milt
milt45@stellarbusiness.com
Subject: Organic Church Conference in Colorado Springs!

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Colorado Springs and the Eastern Slope,

Please let me introduce myself. My name is Milt Rodriguez and I work in a church planting ministry with Frank Viola, Gary Welter, and Alan Levine. We go to different areas of this country (and others) to plant first century style organic house churches. We have all been in organic church life as non leaders and have experience in planting brand new groups as well as helping established groups. We usually travel in pairs whenever possible and the churches that we plant are best described in an article written by Frank Viola that you can read here:

http://www.housechurchresource.org/what_is_organic_church.html

These are not copies of the institutional church in a living room! Nor are they glorified Bible studies, support groups, cell groups, or bless me clubs. These are communities of believers who have made Jesus Christ the Center, Head, and Life of their lives and their gatherings. The believers learn to draw from Him as their source of life and then share that life with one another and the world. This takes place over a period of time with the help of a church planter.

After an overwhelmingly positive response, we have decided to go ahead and put on a mini-conference on organic church in your area. Don't let the word "conference" throw you. I am referring to informal and interactive meetings conducted in a living room!

The subject matter will be the Lord Jesus Christ and His Church. We will specifically be speaking about God's eternal purpose, Jesus Christ being the foundation of the Church, a deeper revelation of Christ and the Church, and some practical help for those who want to move forward in an "organic" way.

The main goal for these meetings will be to plant one (or more) organic church(es) in the Colorado Springs area (or other areas of Colorado).

If God has been stirring your heart about these matters, we would love to have you come and even invite others. The conference is free but we would like to ask you to help with the following:

1) Please let us know if you are coming and how many will be with you.

2) If you haven't already, please read the book called "Reimagining Church" by Frank Viola. You can order at a discount here: http://www.reimaginingchurch.org

3) Please bring folding chairs if you have them.

4) On Saturday, we will be having two meals together. We are going to do this "pot-luck" style. We ask that each household bring two dishes to share; one for lunch, one for dinner. For more information on this, please contact Jan Durkin at: (719) 219-6908.

Here are the details of our weekend:

Dates

September 26th - 28th 2008


Meeting Times

Friday, Sept. 26th
Session 1 -- 7:30 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.


Saturday, Sept. 27th
Session 2 -- 9:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Lunch
Session 3 -- 2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Dinner
Session 4 -- 7:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.


Sunday, Sept. 28

Session 5 -- 9:30 a.m. - ?


Conference location

(email Mary Ann at mabsmailbox@earthlink.net for the information)


Also, we will be bringing several folks with us to help. If you live in the city and would like to help house these people, please let us know.

If you have any questions about the purpose and content of the conference, please contact me at: milt@stellarbusiness.com or (970) 856-6492.

Hope to see you all there!

P.S. If you wish to help defray our travel expenses, an offering basket will be available.

Your brother in Christ,
Milt Rodriguez
The Rebuilders
http://www.therebuilders.org

(970) 856-6492

My Heart's Cry This Week

Over the past weeks, daily life has seemed to just completely consume me. Just managing through each day and all that I am responsible for doing has taken all my time and almost all my strength. Add on top of all my daily responsibilities trying to figure out how to best handle my health issues in the more natural ways I prefer, and it has been downright overwhelming. This week, all of a sudden, I realized with frustration, “Where have my intimate times with my Lord gone?” The spirit within me is crying out to be filled by spiritual things; I feel extremely parched and dying of thirst for things of God. It is so easy to become consumed with earthly life. I’m not suggesting that we cannot find, see, or experience God in mundane, everyday life; we absolutely can. But it is too easy to let daily life become more powerful in our mind, body, and soul than the spiritual things that God is offering.

As I listened to this song a few days ago, it became my heart’s cry to the Lord for the week. I cry out to Him to reawaken me so that the spiritual things from Him, once again, become more powerful and of greater force in my life than my earthly circumstances. If I am exhausted and overwhelmed I want it to be due to the spiritual not due to the earthly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yngKB7pykaA

Right along with that song, I also offered up my thanks to Him for giving me another day. I thank Him for another day of breath and life, for the privilege to be a mom and a wife, for the ability to take care of my home and family and to enjoy being together with them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RV09uJc90U

Crying out to Him for renewal and refreshing waters…

Friday, August 22, 2008

The Children We Dream of...

Knowing how overwhelmed I have been feeling as a parent these days, a dear friend sent me the link to this article today. I found it amusing and greatly encouraging!

The children we dream of and the ones we get

By BETSY HART
Scripps Howard News Service
2008-08-21 00:00:00

Oh, how I remember all those wonderful children I was going to have.

The perfect children who wouldn't talk back to me, ever have a bad attitude, fight with their siblings, the ones who wouldn't disobey.

Actually, I think it was more that I was going to be the perfect parent. After all, even before I had children, I knew about original sin. I just always figured that I would respond to it so beautifully and so consistently, that I could help tame the effects of The Fall -- at least in my own household. I wouldn't get tired, I would never allow something to slide because it wasn't worth battling over, I would certainly not just laugh at the silliness of the moment or the argument, and hope my kids might too...

To read the rest of the article go to: http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cfm?action=detail&pk=HART-08-21-08


Monday, August 18, 2008

The Depths of Failure

There is currently a great turmoil within me. I’m not sure why I post about it, except that I am certain God will use this season of my life as a platform for His glory and His miraculous work. I think it’s more real and relatable to others if we are sincere and open about when we find ourselves in the depths of darkness; instead of only sharing about when God brings us out of that darkness. After all, the purpose of this blog is to reveal God’s amazing character and faithful work with us imperfect human beings living in this imperfect world.

In the last eight months, God brought me victoriously into a true freedom from the fear of man. I found myself saying to some friends that for the first time in my life I was truly free from the fear of man. It is certainly a magnificent freedom to revel in. Unfortunately, over the last few weeks and months, another disease has taken hold of me. Maybe it was a small, silent disease that has always been rooted in my soul and now has grabbed a greater hold over me? I don’t know. But I know that today it is obvious that it has a strong hold in my mind.

It is the disease of FAILURE. I have come face to face with the depths of feeling like a failure. All of a sudden in my life, I feel like a complete failure in most of the major things I am responsible for. I’m not sure what’s happened, I wish I knew. What I keep seeing in my mind’s eye is that the goals that I was working so hard towards and trying so hard to do right have not turned out the way I hoped and dreamed they would. It’s like we were almost there, but now have fallen short of fulfillment. I keep asking myself, “Where did I go wrong?”, “What I am doing wrong?”, and “What do I do now?”

Please understand that I am not speaking of worldly goals or material pursuits. One of the areas in which “Failure” taunts me is in my role as a parent. As we moved into a season of having all three children in their teen years, parenting has been one of my greatest challenges. Someone forgot to give me the manual, and I’m not sure I have a clue as to what I’m doing.

I have a tendency to feel more responsible for some things than I should. But I would rather err on that side instead of not taking enough responsibility for what I should. However, maybe that is partly why I find myself in this place now?

I have more questions than answers right now; so many questions and so much heartache over wanting things to be right but feeling utterly unable and out of control to make them so. I have only one answer—He is THE One Answer to all things. I can only cry out to the God of heaven and earth and ask for His help.

“I am lifting my eyes to the mountains; from where shall my help come?

My help is from YHWH, Maker of the heavens and earth.

He shall certainly not allow your foot to slip;

your Guardian shall certainly not slumber.

Behold, He is neither slumbering nor sleeping...

YHWH is your Guardian;

YHWH is your Protecting Shade at your right hand.

By day the sun shall not smite you, nor the moon by night.

YHWH Himself shall guard you from all peril; He shall guard your soul.

YHWH Himself shall guard your going forth and your coming in…”

(Psalm 121)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_ocn7IxDCU