The Basilica in a new location

So, we have been working on planting this church for over a year now. Sometimes it feels good, sometimes exhausting, sometimes completely defeating. Overall, I have grown alot from the challenge of ministering the LOVE of God and the Gospel outside the safe confines of an established ministry.

My favorite part for the past 4 months has been Girl's Night Out which gradually shifted to Girl's Bible Study. I have watched young woman battle the tempation to be click-ish and caddy, to have real relationships that help each other get close to God.

But yesterday topped even that!
Yesterday, we moved from meeting in a sunday school room at another church on Saturday afternoon (terrible timing, awkward location) to a building that houses the Baptist Student Ministry for San Jacinto College Central Campus. The building is not huge, but is very good for our size. And we have put a LOT of work into customizing the space (portably - to be redone each week!) to create an atmosphere of worship that reflects our personal style.

But, that is not the main part that I loved about yesterday:
Yesterday, I saw that the Basilica Community has become a body of Christ. More than a group of consumers coming to "get some teaching", I was able to see different parts functioning where they were gifted.
You see, we had a "planning meeting" last Sunday, and in my dis-organized oversight, I forgot to arrange anyone to help set up this first Sunday. Honestly, sometimes I like to work out details before I present things to a group, but mostly I forgot.
So, when Jessica & I arrived at the BSM an hour late (3pm) and only 2.5 hours before the meal (at 5:30pm), I was SOOOO thankful to be greeted by Jody & Charisa. Then, rolls in the rest of band, Mat. And pops in Andy... followed by Tim, Elisabeth, Dave...

I would never have asked so many people to help. And yet, without each of their hands, we would not have been able to get it all ready.

Thanks, my Basili-babes and dudes!
Love,
Heather

Joy

You can never leave a post titled "Down" as the last post for long...

Since last night, I have experienced a whole lot of love. If you read the comments on the last post, you will see some of it.
Today was my 29th birthday. I have not received so many "happy birthdays" in a long time. Tonight, I had a wonderful dinner with many friends. It is hard to stay blue in the midst of that.
Thank you Lord for community... I see why you designed us to work together; we are healing to each other.

Much love to all of you.

Down...

I'm pretty down right now. And I feel bad about being down.
Honestly, I love each part of my life... being a wife, being a mom, being a churchplanter, being a case manager.
But I can't handle doing them all mediocre. I am falling apart.
The worst part is the lack of options. I don't know of a break from any of them...

Tonight, people were at my house, which normal energizes me, and really it just frustrated me... I need about 48 hours of alone, getting caught up time; then I need 48 hours to re-connect with my husband, who I am being a total jerk to; then I need about a year to figure out the educational strategy for each of my kids and all the special therapies and supplements that will help them develop the best.

The only idea I have is to check out for a month - simply stop participating in life outside my home. I started working on this about a week ago when I felt the darkness closing in. I have asked some of my princesses to take on some of the responsibility of Girl's Night Out which is hard for me to do since I LOVE IT, and I am seeing real relationships develop between the girls.

God, I have to take my hands out of it, and count on You to hold it all together. I can't anymore.

Most pathetic thing is tomorrow is my birthday, and I am so overwhelmed that my birthday dinner feels like a burden. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day...

And Tammi moves to Nairobi on Monday.

Training in godliness (do I actually have to work?)

So, now that I got my garden-bragging out, I can return to the real purpose for this blog - honest spiritual sharing.

I feel like I may be the most bi-polar person in relating to God. How I view Him is frequently grounded in emotion, and not in reality!
I am really beginning to understand the purpose of spiritual discipline or disciplines. "Disciplines" are known historically as activities that people do to draw close to God, such as prayer, meditation, scripture memory, and fasting. And "discipline" is the training to become a disciple, a person who acts like Christ. These activities are not the "list of rules" that makes you righteous. But they are ways to draw close to God when you don't "feel it".

Prayer
One of my favorite authors, Lauren Winner, of Girl meets God talks about the discipline of praying in her book Mudhouse Sabbath. The context is a discussion of using a Book of Common Prayers or praying the Psalms or scripture. I started reading this chapter thinking, "I would never read someone else's prayers... they don't reflect ME!"
But Lauren shared how she uses these tools. She explained that when your heart does not know what to ask God, and when you do not feel like you what to relate to Him, reading Biblical, theologically sound words to God can change YOU! and ensure you are relating to Him in an honoring way.

I need some structure in my relationship with God right now. At the beginning of Lent, I started running 2-3 times a week as a time for prayer. This was great for my body, and offered me a consistent time alone with God away from distractions. Then, May came, we became alot busier with the start of Basilica, it got HOT, and I haven't run in weeks. Of course, my prayers did not cease, but they shifted to a disorganized, segmented mess, with alot less intercession, and alot less scripture - they have been reduced to mostly giving God an update on where I stand at this point.

Joel referred to John Piper's statement on prayer in one of his sermons. My summary: we use prayer too often as a request for "room service" to "come fluff our pillows" instead of as a "walky-talky" to "the commander" asking for reinforcements or new orders or status of the battle.
I need to hear from my Commander. I need to take the time to listen.

Study
The thing I am the most thankful for keeping me in contact with God right now is Precepts. In early spring, Kelly and I participated in a Precepts bible study at HFBC on Leviticus. Now we are in the midst of II Kings.

Honestly, although I definitely believe every word in the Bible, every story, every book, was ordained by God to reflect Him, I never really got Leviticus. Actually, too much of my time as a Christian (going on 9 years) has been spent celebrating my freedom from the Law. For, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.", right?

The study of Leviticus, beginning with the sacrifices in chapters 1-7, has reshaped my view of God. I never really understood the character of God enough to appreciate the blood sacrifice of Christ. I never really believed that God required RIGHTEOUSNESS.

This study has awaken a hunger in me to consume the Old Testament. It is amazing to see the choices of the Isrealites, to form an opinion of them, then realize I am doing the same thing they did. Today, as I read Exodus 16, where God begins His daily provision of manna for the Isrealites, several things stood out to me:

• God responded to their complaining lovingly with food, even though He could have easily pointed back to the parting of the Red Sea and been angry that they so quickly forgot that He saved them with an amazing miracle.
• God's provision was precise. It says that they were told to gather a certain amount per member of their house, and those who gathered too little had the right amount as did those who gathered more.

But here is the most convicting part - this miracle was with them THROUGHOUT their time in the wilderness. So, when they built a Golden Calf as an idol, they had just woken up and eaten of the provision of God... then they decided He didn't deserve their worship, and tried to replace Him.

Man, I feel that. I can't deny that God is the provider for our family. The economics of our life are unique and amazing. But then I turn to away from God and complain.

Discipline
So, if you have read this far, maybe you are ready for a discussion. Here is my question:

What is right attitude or approach to take toward training as a disciple of Christ?

Here are beginning thoughts for the conversation...

• I Tim 4:7-8 "Rather, train yourself in godliness, for the training of the body has a limited benefit, but godliness is beneficial in every way, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come." - and Joel's sermon touching on this topic.
  
• During my junior high/Disciple Now years, the idea of a "quiet time" was pushed. But for a list-maker like me, it is easy to put this on my list of things to do, check it off, but not actually interact with God. Having a structured list for pursuing God feels like I am trying to make myself righteous through the Law (ie: I did this, I did that, I am so great)
• But on the opposite extreme, I have been a part of a busy generation of young adults who bask in freedom - freedom to decorate our bodies, freedom to worship at different times of day, freedom to worship through art. We don't have any certain standard for pursuing God, so it is hard to know how to encourage our sisters/brothers in their pursuit. We don't assume that they are the bible study type, or the scripture memory type, or that they are the journaling type.
• So, how do we "train in godliness" without legalism (ie "You must...") but with accountability and encouragement?
  

Growing stuff

This April, I had the impulsive idea that Holden and I should plant a garden. It sounded like a fun idea. Actually, Tammi started my thinking about it when she casually dropped off a book called Square-foot Gardening. I tried to figure out why she would think that I had time to, or interest in gardening. But as this urge came to me, I was excited to have a place to begin.
The technique in the book focused on planting a 4' x 4' square with a certain ratio of each plant filling up a 1' x 1' section. I decided to do it along my fence (which is iron covered with a wire mesh) so that I could have a big climbing area.

Now, this turned out to be a much bigger, expensive project than the book said it would be.
1. First, they didn't have our soil. The location I picked used to be a gravel driveway, so I had to till up the soil and sort out lots of rocks.
2. Then I had to buy a ton of manure, potting soil, and other health soil stuff to give the plants a fighting chance in our gumbo soil.
3. Then I had to build a frame to define thearea that is the garden.

But after all the prep was done, Holden was very excited. We took turns putting the seeds in the holes, and we watered like crazy every day.

And stuff actually GREW!
Specifically, we planted:

• Tomatoes
• String beans
• Cucumbers
• Watermelon
• Green peppers
• Squash
• Rosemary
• Spinach
  

This is all really written to show our crowning achievement - the melon!

Tears

Moments after my last post, I experience a great sense of loss... first, I was referred to a blog through my good friend Kevin - the blog of a mom who has suffered the loss of a child. And as I was reading her amazingly-vulnerable post about the grieving of this loss, I received a phone call. Here is the story of the phone call:
About a month ago, I went to the home of one of my participant's for my work. I visit each of them Quarterly, but I didn't really need to do this visit, because this young man was leaving my program at the end of the month. So, there wasn't really any point in the visit, except to have the paperwork in my file showing that I did my job.

I have only been to this home once before, in January with my boss, who was the previous Case Manager. I didn't know anything about the family outside of the stories told by pictures on the wall.

On this particular day in April, I arrived after school was out, so I could meet the son (my participant). And as I arrived, his older sister was getting ready to leave the house, moving between the kitchen and the living room. I had seen her in the pictures on the prior visit, but had not met her... and I wasn't sure of her age.
But looking at the pictures on the wall, I thought she was in high school or early college. And I noticed she was pregnant.
I made small talk, asking some silly question I can't recall. And mom said, "Yeah, she looks a little different than in that picture, since she is very pregnant." I said, "I noticed that. How far along?" since it seemed like an obvious observations. But the next part of the conversation was amazing.
Mom replied, "She is 36 weeks. And she is giving the baby up for adoption."

Immediately, I realized that they had just shared some sacred information with me. They looked anxious to see a reaction.

I asked, "What agency will you be using?"
And what they shared touched my heart. Through the youth minister at their church, they had found New Life, our adoption agency. The daughter left for her doctor's appointment, and mom shared the journey to this point in life. It is too private to fully reveal here, but I will share the ending. Mom said, "We got to meet the to-be adoptive parents yesterday. Here is their profile." And she showed me pictures of 2 people I know from a previous job, a beautiful Christian couple I had known to be shattered by infertility, and trusting God to bring them a child through adoption. I was so excited.

I went home and emailed the potential adoptive mom, my former co-worker. I shared our adoption stories, the adventure of loving and losing Brooklyn, and the beautiful relationship development with Darin's mom. And we emailed a few times that day.

Jump forward to today:
So my (former) participant's mom just called to share the rest of the story with me. First of all, I feel blessed to receive that phone call. Second, here is the beauty:

On last Friday, May 12, at full-term, the birthmom decided she wanted to be induced to deliver the baby. Her totally unselfish goal in this date was to hand over the new baby after the mandatory 48-hour waiting period on Sunday = MOTHER's DAY.
In the midst of making the hardest decision of her life, this beautiful girl THOUGHT OF SOMEONE ELSE! It is amazing. I can't imagine that clarity, that love.

Please pray for her now, as she cries to sleep for the past two nights, with arms that long for a baby she has given as a gift to my friends. Pray for her as she graduates, and goes to college, with a secret loss that she is too ashamed to share with those around her.
The gift of your child is the biggest sacrifice you could give someone. God gave his for me.

I have so much to talk about, I don't know how to begin...

the Basilica Community

In case you didn't realize, Basilica started having a service 2 weeks ago... since some of our members love MySpace, they created a page and we are taking turns blogging about the service each week.

Reflections from 2 weeks of churchplanting

After months of planning, strategizing, praying, hoping, dreaming, guessing, we finally had a service on May 6. After this service was over, I realized one major thing:

We have to do this all over again next week.

There are many levels to this realization, but on the most raw level, I realized that the tiredness I felt, and pressure to get it all together for Saturday, would be repeated NEXT Saturday.

But actually, throughout the week after that first service, I realized that most of the work was done for another week, and Joel and Jessica would be doing most of the preparation for each week's services by preparing the music and the message.

Then my mind began to grasp what the main task would be for all of us now that a service had been successfully executed:

People. Loving people, demonstrating Christ to people, being the Church to people, spending time with people.

You see, there are HUNDREDS of "churches" for people to attend services at each weekend. And although the music may differ, and the time of day may be different, all church services contain similar elements - music to worship the Lord, prayer to communicate with Him, and a message challenging the people to live by faith in God.
And most of us think of this as "being a part of church".

But, when Joel received the call to plan a new church in Southeast Houston, we began to pray and observe the people God is calling us to reach out to... and these people are not becoming a part of the Body of Christ through a service.

How is Basilica going to reach people?
- NOT by simply inviting them to a service and expecting them to come on their own - they've been there, done that, and it didn't make a difference in their life. They were still on their own, but now they had people putting expectations on them.

I feel very strongly that Basilica will only be able to reach people the way Jesus did
- by going to where they are
- by spending time with them
- by demonstrating a new life in His Kingdom through a different way of living and everyday examples

This is intense, time-consuming stuff.... very exciting!

Where do we begin, though - in a practical way?

Making time for people more than ever... seeking them out, pursuing them, spending time talking about what is important to them, loving the, serving them, in ways that are above and beyond what most people do

Oh, wow, that's the same stuff you should be doing... I guess we are all missionaries.

Spiritual warfare

My opinions/beliefs on spiritual warfare began to develop in the summer of 1999. At Camp Barnabas, we had some events that I can't recall very clearly, except to say that they shook up some people, and made them afraid, and disjointed our staff. These events related to the presence of demons, the devil, or workers of Satan, in our midst. And how to handle this as a Christian.

After that summer, until I returned as Women's Director in summer 2000, I worked steadily to create a framework of God to determine how to handle spiritual warfare. This framework was developed into a bible study that we explored during summer 2000 at Camp Barnabas. And I haven't done much with it since. But it helps me to determine how to view situations.

Today, I found this quote that sums up what I spent a year on:

"Prayer should never be understood primarily in terms of power but rather as relating to God who is the source of all power. The difference between the two is significant. If prayer is understood as power, Christians will readily seek power words or rituals rather than personally relating to a sovereign God and waiting for him to act in his own time. Likewise, these understandings help us comprehend the nature of spiritual warfare. Spiritual warfare is not about fighting Satan; he has been defeated by the triumphal resurrection of Jesus Christ. Spiritual warfare rather is standing firm in Christ’s mighty power. It is accepting God’s victory through Christ by faith and allowing God’s redemptive power to work through Christ." (Van Rheenen, "Power, Theology of," Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, 2000:776-778)

It has never made sense to me to "rebuke Satan" for it is written:

"But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!" Yet these men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand; and what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals—these are the very things that destroy them." (Jude 9-10)

I have a picture in my head, that I look at to help me figure out how things work:

• The battlefield is earth, a land ruled by Satan.
• The army of Satan is holding people under their dominion as blind slaves.
  

  2 Cor4:4 "Regarding them: the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

• We are freed from this slavery, and our eyes are opened to the situation

  Col 1:13 "He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son He loves"

• Now, when we need direction, we COMMUNICATE, not with our captors, but with HIM WHO HAS FREED US, the commander of the Lord's army.
  

Growth

I would like to get back to why I wanted this blog, to honestly share what I am learning, and hear from my friends...

For about 2 months, I have been forced to view God in a whole new light. Starting with the Kaleo retreat focused on PRAYER, I began to realize for the first time what an amazing thing it is that God, who created all, is in all, and holds all things in His hand, will allow me to communicate with Him.
Then, I started a Bible study with Kelly B. on Leviticus, which has continued to illuminate this for me.

I am realizing that most of my walk with God (going on 9 years now), has been with shallow faith. I pray safe and predictable prayers that I am fairly certain I know the answer to before speaking them. And I reflect God to others in a dishonoring way.
Most of the time, I "respect" other's readiness to hear about God, feel like I have be intellectually prepared for sharing Him, and tiptoe around sin as if it is not that bad.

THIS IS WRONG.

In looking at the sacrificial system set up by God in Leviticus, I don't see a God who lets people come to Him on their terms. His system was precise, and intentional, and did not leave itself up for interpretation. In fact, in Lev 10, Aaron's sons offered "strange fire" to God, and were killed instantly. Then, in I Sam 2:11-3:11, Eli's sons defile the temple, are killed, and the priesthood is removed from their family. In I Sam 14:26, Saul's kingship is removed since he performed the sacrifices in a different way than God prescribed.

My relationship with God is often guided by a picture in my head. I often pray, picturing where in the battle of the Lord I see someone.

Here is the newest picture.

God as KING. And like the king in Esther, anyone who enters His presence is placing their life in His hands.
Us as SERVANTS/SLAVES, someone whose life has been rescued from the enemy land. I converse with Him by using the name of His son to gain entrance into the throne-room without being judged for my own work for the enemy.
Life as WORK FOR THE LORD.... follow me here.
- If I work for Him, I worry the most if He is satisfied by how my day is spent.
- If I work for Him, I hold the others I have seen come into His presence in the name of the Lord to a high standard.
- Their sin is offensive to the God I serve... it is not a joke, a phase. It is deadly. A holy God must be approach with respect for WHO He is.
- If I work for Him, I will trust Him for the words in an uncomfortable setting, because my rescue is a constant reminder that they need to be rescued, too.

Maybe you got this along time ago... not me. I think I was more keen on "Jesus is a good boyfriend" than GOD IS ALMIGHTY, ALL-POWERFUL, COMPLETELY JUST IN JUDGING MY SIN, COMPLETELY LOVE IN SENDING JESUS, FULLY WORTHY OF ALL HONOR AND PRAISE.

I barely know where to begin with this type of living. It has already put me in 2 uncomfortable situations, and I don't think that is the end.

Thanks for getting this started, Jake.

My "pregnancy" with Darin

Praise the LORD!
Today was a beautiful God-filled day.

The title may confuse you, but this week, I have know of and/or been with Darin Michael for 40 weeks (which for those of you who haven't been pregnant, is the length of a pregnancy).
And this week, the labor pains of his birth into our family began...
Labor with adoption is unique... first they have to go to court to terminate the rights of the biological parents, then they have to finalize the adoption into your family.

On Wednesday at 2:30pm, our social worker from the adoption agency called. For nine months, they had been unable to contact his biological father. And now, after being served the papers for termination of parental rights, he had contacted his "ad liem" lawyer, to question the paternity.
The lawyer contact New Life, and inquired about Darin. After our social worker emphasized the medical needs of Darin, the lawyer called back to let her know that his dad would come to court on Friday (TODAY) to sign away his rights.

The past 2 days have been very hard for Joel and I. We had know way to know the motivations or ideas behind his dad coming to court. And we felt like we were forced to walk into a potential miscarriage.

I prayed so much through Thursday... that God would confirm the placement of Darin in our life, that I would respond in a God honoring way to all possible outcomes, that my husband would not do anything illegal (like leave the country with Darin) JUST JOKING!, and that Darin would have the best situation to grow up in possible.

At 8:30am, Joel, Darin, and I went to the Fort Bend County Courthouse. We found our way to the 2nd floor, where we met the New Life lawyer. He examined the docket, and we all headed down to the 1st floor. Right away, I spotted a man fitting the description that Lonnie (Darin's tummy mama) had given me of Zeke. I told the lawyer, and he approached him. After a brief exchange, the lawyer introduced us.
Immediately, there was peace.
After a hug (from me) and a handshake (from Joel), we sat down, where Zeke proceeded to express his confidence in signing the baby over to our care. We spent the next 30 minutes getting acquainted. About that time, the social worker from New Life finally found us (she had been waiting on the 2nd floor) and was SHOCKED to see the connection that had been made. Darin was sitting in Zeke's lap, and we were all just talking.
After that, the lawyers milled around and completed the paperwork with Zeke, and we discussed the future.

God's provision is perfect. Now we know that Darin has 3 dads - the One in Heaven, the one at my house, and the one we met today.
Who's luckier than that!?