Reading from this week

Here is a copy of the reading you heard this Sunday Night from Mario and Sharon.

If you would like more information on James Weldon Johnson you can click this link

THE CREATION

by: James Weldon Johnson
(1871-1938)

ND God stepped
out on space,

And He looked around and said,

"I'm lonely --

I'll make me a world."


 


And far as the eye of God could see

Darkness covered everything,

Blacker than a hundred midnights

Down in a cypress swamp.


 


Then God smiled,

And the light broke,

And the darkness rolled up on one side,

And the light stood shining on the other,

And God said, "That's good!"


 


Then God reached out and took the light in His hands,

And God rolled the light around in His hands

Until He made the sun;

And He set that sun a-blazing in the heavens.

And the light that was left from making the sun

God gathered it up in a shining ball

And flung it against the darkness,

Spangling the night with the moon and stars.

Then down between

The darkness and the light

He hurled the world;

And God said, "That's good!"


 


Then God himself stepped down --

And the sun was on His right hand,

And the moon was on His left;

The stars were clustered about His head,

And the earth was under His feet.

And God walked, and where He trod

His footsteps hollowed the valleys out

And bulged the mountains up.


 


Then He stopped and looked and saw

That the earth was hot and barren.

So God stepped over to the edge of the world

And He spat out the seven seas;

He batted His eyes, and the lightnings flashed;

He clapped His hands, and the thunders rolled;

And the waters above the earth came down,

The cooling waters came down.


 


Then the green grass sprouted,

And the little red flowers blossomed,

The pine tree pointed his finger to the sky,

And the oak spread out his arms,

The lakes cuddled down in the hollows of the ground,

And the rivers ran down to the sea;

And God smiled again,

And the rainbow appeared,

And curled itself around His shoulder.


 


Then God raised His arm and He waved His hand

Over the sea and over the land,

And He said, "Bring forth! Bring forth!"

And quicker than God could drop His hand.

Fishes and fowls

And beasts and birds

Swam the rivers and the seas,

Roamed the forests and the woods,

And split the air with their wings.

And God said, "That's good!"


 


Then God walked around,

And God looked around

On all that He had made.

He looked at His sun,

And He looked at His moon,

And He looked at His little stars;

He looked on His world

With all its living things,

And God said, "I'm lonely still."


 


Then God sat down

On the side of a hill where He could think;

By a deep, wide river He sat down;

With His head in His hands,

God thought and thought,

Till He thought, "I'll make me a man!"


 


Up from the bed of the river

God scooped the clay;

And by the bank of the river

He kneeled Him down;

And there the great God Almighty

Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,

Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,

Who rounded the earth in the middle of His hand;

This Great God,

Like a mammy bending over her baby,

Kneeled down in the dust

Toiling over a lump of clay

Till He shaped it in His own image;


 


Then into it He blew the breath of life,

And man became a living soul.

Amen. Amen.

"The Creation" is reprinted
from The Book of American Negro Poetry. Ed. James Weldon
Johnson. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1922.

God in the Unexpected

We had the opportunity to hear Colbey talk to us about the encounter between the Samaritan woman at the well and Jesus in John 4.  One of the things she pointed out was the unexpected nature of finding God at that particular time and place.  Often we have certain place we expect to find God, when in fact we actually more often encounter God in unexpected places.

So let's here from you this week.  What are some unexpected places you have been seeing God recently?

This Weeks Discussion

This week we talked through the parable that Jesus tell at the end of Luke Chapter 5 (the podcast is now posted here - or you can find it through itunes).  The parable essentially conveys to those around Jesus that He represents something new that can not be added to the old, or contained by the old.  We then talked about how often we try and keep our old ways of viewing God, ourselves, and each other while "accepting" the way of Jesus, when in fact Jesus can not coexist with much of it.  Something must give.

Steve was kind enough to let us in on his story and the ways in which the old had to go away in order for the "new wine" to be present in his life.  (You can hear his story in the podcast)  I wanted to open this up for you to reply to this post and tell something about your story.  Did something we talked about connect with your story?  Have you found that you had to exchange your old ways of looking at God, yourself, and others in order to enjoy the "new wine"?

I posted the parable below and would love to hear from you about this topic. (click on the comments below)

Luke 5:36b-39
"No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If
he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new
will not match the old. 37And
no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will
burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be
ruined. 38No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. 39And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, 'The old is better.' "

Be There This Sunday

This week we would like to be packed into the chapel as we take some time to catch all of you up on what we are doing, why we are doing it, and how we are planning to do it.  We are going to talk through the core values of Ekklesia, our Family Experience program, NEIGHBORS@Hawkins, and Ekklesia's finances.  We really want to maintain transparency in our ministry and want everyone to have their questions answered.  This Sunday night will be your chance.  So please come out this Sunday night - you will be glad you did...or at least we will be glad you did!

The Last Couple of Talks

First, I once again messed up the recording of the talk this week so I will have to re-record it by myself and post a 2nd rate version of it for those of you that are interested

Second, I cannot seem to upload the  power point presentation that accompanies "The Big Story" sermon.  So if you would like it just email me and I will send it to you. I could not get it to work with with  automatic transitions with the audio, nor could I put in the old school "DING" that we used to hear on our school slide shows, so I guess you will have to push the button yourself as you follow along.

If you have not heard this talk yet I would love if you would listen to it and see what you think.  Let me know if you want it...
Mike

meeting for parents this Sunday

We would like to invite those of you that are parents (or at least one of the two of you) to come early this week to talk about the way we go about ministering to the children of our community.  We are interested in talking through finding a new and family centered ways to give time to teaching our kids.  We will meet at 4:40 pm at Court Street and we would love if at least one parent from each family and whoever else might be interested in helping with the kids

New Location for public meetings!

It appears that the Hampton's house may fall in on itself if we all continue to try and cram ourselves in their upstairs room.  It is a good problem to run out of the room, but it is a problem none the less.  We have been searching for someplace to meet that will not drain our resources and where we can maintain the intimacy that I personally have quickly grown to love about our meeting times.  Enter our brothers and sisters at Court Street United Methodist Church.  They have graciously offered us the use of their chapel on Sunday Nights.  This will give us an intimate meeting place as well as a nursery for the kids.  We are very thankful to Pastor Bruce Case and the leadership of the church for their generosity and support.

Our times will remain the same
5:00     hangout, drink coffee, and eat a little.
5:30      Meeting time 

here is a map to Court Street (or you can click on this link for a google map)
See you there!

Last Week's Sermon

I re-recorded the talk from last week for the benefit of those of you who could not make it.  I felt a little weird sitting in my house by myself preaching to the air, but if I am honest I would have to say that I changed my life...
just kidding. 

You can get it at our podcast page or through itunes.  Below I have posted the diagram that was printed on the back of your song sheets last week. (diagram taken from Alan Hirsch's The Forgotten Ways

peace,
Mike

Are you Greek or Hebrew?

Here is your chance to play with this new fangled internet thing.  For those of you that were able to attend Sunday Night we talked about the idea that the Kingdom of God was not a matter of just talking and believing, but of power and activity.  Unfortunately the recording did not work Sunday so I am going to have to re-record the talk by myself in the next couple of days, which should be interesting and weird.  So if you were not there I do not have a recording for you yet.

If you were there I would like to hear from you (use comments below) about your thoughts on the ideas we shared.  Do you think we as followers of Christ have placed more importance on believing right than acting on it?  Examples?  Do you see this same trend in your life?  In what areas?  Is there anything that you are going to do (or have done) this week to move towards putting some flesh to belief?

Consumption Commitments?

If you were here last week or have listened to the talk, you know we discussed the ideas of discipleship and the difference between being consumers and being consumed.  In that vein I wanted to open this post up to you to comments on what that may mean to you.  If you have decided/felt called to make any decisions you wouldn't mind telling us about then post a comment (you can do that at the bottom of this post).  Colbey talked to us about using her property to grow produce, and we all look forward to baskets of free food from her!  At the Dixon house, we have begun to recycle everything we can as a way of cutting down on our wasteful consumption. 

Additionally I, having admitted to a Hudson's problem, have decided that there really should be no reason to buy any new clothing for the next year when I don't really need it.  So unless a true need arises (which I highly doubt) I will be one year behind in my highly refined fashion collection (t-shirts and jeans).  What about you?

Consumer or Consumed?

Are you a consumer?
It was great to be with everyone yesterday.  I hope the conversations we were having together will continue for you throughout the week.  I have posted the audio from yesterday on our podcast page if you would like to listen.  If you want to subscribe through your itunes, the instructions are linked on the information page (look to your right).

Here are the questions that we discussed after the talk:
1.    Do you think that we struggle with this idea of being consumers instead of being consumed? How do you see it play out in church life?
2.    Which area of your life do you feel you struggle with the most in being a consumer? (The idea that I expect to get what I want regardless of the effects on others, the environment, my pocket book, etc.)
3.    Is there something in your spiritual/physical life in which God is calling you to change in regards to being a consumer?

Meeting time!

We have tweaked the meeting times just a little bit.  People will begin gathering at 5:00 at the Hampton's house for coffee, snacks, and hanging out.  The actual service will begin at 5:30.  Hope to see you there!

Audio Recording of the Public meetings

I have set up our website so that you can download audio from the talks on Sundays.  If you are interested in getting them the audio Files can be found here
or you can subscribe through itunes by following these steps:

1. Open itunes on your computer

2. click on the "Advanced" tab at the itunes tool bar

3. Click on "Subscribe to podcast"

4. Enter in the following address and hit enter:

http://podcast.ekklesiahattiesburg.com/podcasts-only/rss2.aspx

itunes should then automatically download ever podcast once it has been uploaded

I have these instructions permanently placed on our information page (the link is on the right side of the page)

Our First Sunday Meeting

We at Ekklesia have decided to begin the public meeting portion of our community.  We will begin meeting on Sunday Night August 19th at 5pm.  We will meet at the Hamptons house.  After meeting we will be eating together at the Hamptons.  Childcare will be available.  If you are interested in attending please email me for directions and more info.   If you would like to bring some food please indicate it by adding a comment so that everyone can see what you are bringing.

Looking forward to seeing you guys there!