You feed them. YOU feed them. Those were the words that Jesus spoke to his disciples on that now famous day when the thousands were fed. What was he telling the disciples, exactly?

Well ... in my mind this is how I see things.
The crowds were hungry - literally and spiritually. They were eating, no devouring, the words of the master teacher Jesus Christ and as they sat, all day long under the burning sun, they became physically hungry as well. They had needs only half of which were being satisfied.
I think that the disciples, when they came to the Lord and asked him to send the crowds away, missed that all important detail - that the crowds were being fed spiritually - and the disciples were asking Jesus to deprive the crowds of further spiritual nourishment.
More than that, they were saying "Hey, Jesus look ... you're in charge of this 'shindig', you need to find a way to feed them."

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

You see, Jesus looks his disciples square in the eye and says "YOU feed them", a powerful command that should have rippled through the millennium and centuries. Of course, I know how hard it is to fulfill such a command.
I am just like those disciples - you tell me to 'feed them' and I'm totally lost. How the heck am I supposed to do that?
Now give me a gazillion tons of grub and a line of hungry homeless and I can get into the trenches and spoon out dish after dish of food with the best of them; but, to come up with the way to feed them - well just forget that.

I can feel with and for the disciples. I am them. I think that many churches are. I believe that many churches see the need but have absolutely no idea how to go about implementing a way to feed the people; I'll even go so far as to say both physically and spiritually.  I think there needs to be a re-visioning of the church - church needs to be turned inside out as well as the people.

So, how do we, we the church of True North, go about feeding the people? Well, I have no answers to that question - I hope John has some ideas on Sunday but quite honestly I'm not sure exactly in what direction he'll be heading with this text ... that's the bad thing about writing before the message is delivered. I guess, if you join me on Sunday (and yes! I will be there this Sunday) we'll all see how far off the mark I truly am.

Well, this isn't much of a "latest news" type of post. You see, I missed True North on Sunday. Good reason; visiting my son at Tech for Family Day but it means that I don't know what happened or what John's message was. Sooooo....for all of you out there that read this, please comment below and fill me in!

BBlessings,

memonica

What do you want to be when you" grow up?" We all seem to concentrate on BECOMING. We never stop wanting to BE and BECOME something better and new. And that's how it should be - there is always room for improvement!

This is a good thing, really. I believe God made us like this for a reason; God has something HE wants us to BE when we "grow up"  and we can BE it anywhere, anytime. God wants us to BE like ... ... POPCORN!

Ok, let's think about this for a moment. What's unique about popcorn? It begins out one way and changes into another. Well, really you can't really say it changes into another thing because it's always the same thing - it's popcorn. But it starts out small and hard and yellow and then you put it in the microwave where it gets cooked from the inside out until POP! It's white, fluffy, and delicious.

So, what's this got to do with God? Why does God want us to be like popcorn? Because when we put our lives in God's hands, God changes us from the inside out. Like popcorn we start out hard and callous; then, God's spirit warms us deep inside until ... POP! We become a new creation.

Know that this is what you were designed for. God wants you to be CHANGED into something brand new. God wants you to "grow up" and BE ... be like ... Jesus.

God wants us to "grow up" and BE like Jesus in order to change the world into what God longs for - a world of love and justice - one person at a time, one neighborhood at a time, one community at a time.

Now to be more like Jesus we have to be like popcorn. We have to get into the popper (put ourselves in God's hands). When we do this we're a new creation; CHANGED from the inside out.

*Excerpts from Rev. Ronnie Sue Verboon, 2006

Six-Weeks

It's hard to believe that we are at an end - the end of the first six-weeks of True North. It has been an amazing six-weeks too! It's nice to see that we have a really good "core" group of followers that are absolutely awesome and I so look forward to seeing their bright shining faces each week.

The True North Worship team (Brian, Scott, Mark, and Nick) have been truly inspiring as they bring us relevant songs, some old favorites and some new that are quickly becoming favorites. I think that this final week was the most meaningful that was led by Brian and the flow was so inspirational.

We've begun our goal of being a Missional Church as John introduced the Godparents for Tanzania program which is so near and dear to his heart. He's also going to be meeting with Cathy from the USDA Emergency Food Services organization so that we can begin all the steps to becoming a much needed food pantry and resource in the community. Yeah! :)

I am sooooo looking forward to the next six-weeks as we move from Mattering [to God and to others in this world] to discovery the mission of Christ on Earth and becoming like him. I can't wait for What's Next!!