Pictures from Mission Weekend

Here is a link to the pictures from the weekend with the missions team from Alabama.  Thanks for all that you did in regards to hosting the team and participating in the week. 
Thanks!

Help Hosting a Missions Group!

On June 14th and 15th Ekklesia will welcome the Clearview Baptist
"Road Rules Mission Trip"  to the Pine Belt. This group of Senior High
youth from Birmingham, AL are venturing to explore what it means to
literally "be the church". Instead of going to summer camp or relaxing
on the beach they're jumping on a charter bus and heading to
Hattiesburg, New Orleans, Panama City and Atlanta. Their goal is
simple: to meet the needs that cross their path. We will focus our
energy on renovation projects at Court Street and Hawkins. There are
still a few project manager slots to fill. Let me know ( iamsmiles@gmail.com ) if you're
available to help out. Here's the plan for Hattiesburg on the 14th and
15th of June.

Saturday, June 14th

12:30- Arrive at Court Street for potluck Lunch Hosted by Ekklesia-
Project Manager-  Kate Northrop

1:30- 5:30  Work at project sites

Court Street-
                  Men's Restroom ( new commode/ paint) Project
Manager- Melanie Fink
                  Women's Restroom- (new commode/ paint) Project
Manager- Jennifer Willis
                  Courtyard- (upgrade) Project Manager -Steve Willis
                  Playground- (remove a gate and old AC unit) Project
Manager- TBA
                  Fellowship Hall/ Shelf- (float a wall/ paint shelf)
Project Manager-Jonathan Krebs
                  Choir/Class Room- (replacing tiles in the ceiling)
Project Manager- TBA

Hawkins Elementary-

                 Office- (painting) PM- Lindsey Smith
                 2nd grade classroom- (over haul) PM- Margie Willis
                 Clothes Closet- PM- (dysfunctional to functional)
Stephanie Willis

6:00pm- Dinner at Letha's feel free to join us but its your treat!

8:00pm- Commissioning service at Court Street

Sunday Morning

9:30- Meet at McCarty Park!! (games, crafts, hotdogs, chips)

10:00- 12:00 Family Fun at McCarty Park
               Project Managers- Aaron Robinson & Melissa Cirino

12:30- Lunch hosted by friends at Court Street!

1:30- 3:30 Finish projects!!!

3:30- 4:45- R&R You've earned it!

5:00- Ekklesia!!!

8:00- Laser Tag

Recording Issues

Sorry about the last two weeks of Non-Recordings from our Sunday Night Meetings.  We have been having some technical difficulties with our highly expensive and rare $30 microphone that plugs into our half broken ipod.  I think we have it all worked out now, so it should be business as usual this next week!

In case the sermon seemed too far fetched...

Here is an actual news story courtesy of Reuters

TALLINN, Estonia (Reuters) -- An Estonian man who was caught
driving a car even though he is blind has been at it again, police said
on Monday, and this time he faces jail.

Police first arrested the man, 20, a week ago.

"We arrested the same blind man driving his car again on Saturday in
the town of Torvandi, near Tartu (in southern Estonia)," said Marge
Kohtla, a spokeswoman for Tartu police district.

"He was drunk. There were three people in the car with him giving him instructions."

She said police wanted the court to jail the man for 30 days and confiscate his car.

Kamper Park This Sunday May 4th

Don't forget that we are meeting this Sunday at 11:00 am to grill out in the park.  This is a time for us to hang out and hopefully meet & feed some folks that may not be plugged in to a community right now.  We will see you this Sunday.  If you would like to bring some food, just visit this link to see what people are already being brought and to sign up for what you might like to bring.  See You There!!

Abraham Heschel quotes from this week's talk

“Indeed, the sort of crimes and even the amount of delinquency that fill the prophets of Israel with dismay do not go beyond that which is regarded as normal, as typical ingredients of social dynamics.  To us a single act of injustice - cheating in business, exploitation of the poor- is slight; to the prophets, a disaster.  To us injustice is injurious to the welfare of the people; to the prophets it is a deathblow to existence: to us, an episode; to them, a catastrophe, a threat to the world."

"Their breathless impatience with injustice may strike us as hysteria.  We ourselves witness continually acts of injustice, manifestations of hypocrisy, falsehood, outrage, misery, but we rarely grow indignant or overly excited.  To the prophet even a minor injustice assumes cosmic proportions.” 

“…if such deep sensitivity to evil is to be called hysterical, what name should be given to the abysmal indifference to evil which the prophet bewails?”

“Reading the words of the prophets is a strain on the emotions. Wrenching one’s conscience from the state of suspended animation”

Quote regarding last week's talk

As we started navigating the "Sermon on the Plain" in Luke 6 we began wrestling with the difficult blessings and Woes that Jesus laid out in 6:20-26. (You can catch the podcast on our podcast page if you haven't listened in yet)

As an addendum to the conversation I wanted to pass on this quote that I neglected to include Sunday Night.

"God has a preferential love of the poor not because they are necessarily better than others, morally or religiously, but simply because they are poor and living in an inhuman situation that is contrary to God's will. The ultimate basis for the privileged position of the poor is not in the poor themselves but in God, in the gratuitousness and universality of God's agapeic love"

-Gustavo Gutierrez