community

A magazine I subscribe to and enjoy is Relevant Magazine. They also have a ridiculously funny podcast that has made me look like a big weirdo on the bus numerous times.

Last year the people at Relevant started a new branch called Neue which is targeted toward church leaders. They put out a quarterly book zine with some pretty inspiring and thought provoking articles. I just read one today and it really made me think. Here's an excerpt from the article about community by Jimmy Spencer

"Community is simply the network of relationships that are birthed from working together. This important work is to reflect Jesus and His message so strongly that it compels those we encounter to ask us why we are so unique. We at The Sherma Movement call this Viral Jesus. Unfortunately, we spend so much time motivating and training people how to do the work of the Church, we often have little time to actually do the work. I would implore leaders to get workers into society and allow them to experience, and sometimes fail at, being Jesus to others. This work builds the Kingdom, matures us and produces real community amongst those who participate. This is the Kingdom of God.

We should be conforming people to the image of Jesus. Not ourselves. God community is a beautiful mosaic of different people and practices. Adding unique people to our community refines us into who God intended us to be."

As a leader in my church this really spoke to me. The community we are building in our college group....is it for fun, or for the Kingdom?

Five of us are going to New Orleans this weekend to help the baptist mission there hand out candy to kids on Halloween and to help get all their Christmas decorations up. This place demands a lot of hard work and a heart for that community, and I love it. Every time I go though, I'm reminded that I need the same heart for the people of my own community in Austin. I need to yearn to love those that others don't, but who Jesus would go straight to. I pray my church develops this same yearning that I so desire.

We are beginning a campaign to raise money to build a new sanctuary in our church in an effort to reach out to our community more. I pray that in this process we, as a body, grow closer together because we are all working for the same cause. I pray we remember that it's for the Kingdom of God, and not just for a newer bigger building.

This was long, I hope some of yall made it to the end. I guess I should stop reading articles that tug at my heart and read some for my class in a few hours, haha.

ps. I graduate in less than 8 weeks!
pps. I've been thinking about seminary lately and I feel very drawn to marriage and family counseling or something along those lines. If you think about it, pray for clarity in listening to what God has for me :)

full of oops

My blogging is getting really spaced out...oops!

I'd like to say it's because school is getting hectic (now that I'm so close to graduating!), or that I'm super busy at church all the time but it isn't and I'm not. Considering I have two writing intensive classes and a science, my work load is pretty easy, and I haven't gotten behind on anything which is just crazy for me, ha.

Church activities do keep me busy but not in an insane way. Our college group is going through a growth spurt, but I don't mean in the size kind of way. We've all grown so close together. Such a great way to grow in a church :) Even though I'm graduating in less than two months I plan to stay in the group until next December when David graduates (hopefully!!)

The rest of my life is filled with far too many Disney tv shows, food network competitions and whatever else David makes me watch. Don't get me wrong, these shows have their advantages. There are NO skanky girl commercials on late at night on Disney and the content and language is always clean. Though my humor level and knack for intelligent conversation maybe lowering, I find it refreshing to not have my mind bombarded with the level of sex, language, and violence that society has deemed normal for prime time television. When I do watch adult shows it's usually just the office, haha.

I say all this to then say, I'm still knitting! I just have this problem lately of starting a new project before I finish another one, so I never have pictures to share of finished projects. Soon I will be making my Christmas knitting list and knitting like a crazy grandma up until December 24 at midnight I'm sure.

My biggest project is that blanket I mentioned a few weeks ago. All I have is this pic from my iphone to show you, but I think it gets across how awesome it is. It's super soft too, I love it.

I'm almost done with a gift for some special friends and will post pics when they get to their new homes, hopefully sooner than later. I might also be doing a little halloween accessory knitting this weekend, we'll see.

This post was random and longer than I planned, oops!

I'm crazy..

so the other day i got sucked into trying to crochet again. It wasn't that bad and I understood what I was doing so I had the crazy idea to look into crocheted blanket patterns. I've always heard crocheting is faster than knitting so it seemed like a decent idea to crochet a blanket. after looking, falling in love with, and obsessing over the blanket idea I did a swatch run to see if I could even manage the crocheting.

I did. but. It was soooo slow! In the amount of time it took me to crochet a chain and then the first row on it I was able to do an almost full knit swatch.

So, I started looking for zig-zag/wavy knit blanket patterns and found a great free one on lion brand's ravelry page.

I went out and bought yarn and new needles for this project on Friday and I'm already through 2 5 inch stripes! I'm not sure why exactly I thought it was a good idea to start a new big project right now, but I did...ah well.

It's light gray, turquoise and peacock (so light and dark teal) and I love it. The yarn is from hobby lobby, called I Love This Yarn!, and is so stinkin soft. I'm hoping I can get it done in the next few weeks in time for the cooler weather that I'm hoping i coming soon.

81 degrees at 1am in October is just not acceptable!