Make A Place for People

I don't know where I heard it - probably at a conference years ago - but it was such a great statement I have never forgotten it. The line that I remember to this day goes like this..."Church should be an experience of finding a place for people and not keeping people in their place."

I have heard unfortunate stories of where church has become an experience of "keeping people in their place." That phrase, "keeping people in their place", has a feel of judgment and punishment. It has a feel of someone just waiting for someone to mess up so that they can be corrected. It has a feel of superiority. If you are on the receiving end, it doesnt feel very good. Accountability is good and helping people to live in the way of Jesus is necessary. But, turning church into an experience of "keeping people in their place" conjures up images of moral finger wagging. Worse, it describes an environment that is not too full of grace and mercy.

I better approach and vision would be to see church as an experience of "finding a place for people." Folks today are looking for a "place"...
> a place to serve
> a place to discover meaning and purpose
> a place where grace is real
> a place live out their unique gifts and calling

We serve folks well when we make a place for them to do all of this and much more. Jesus was always making a place for people - a place at the table, a place in his life, a place in his Kingdom. Jesus was never about "keeping people in their place".

How can we make a place for folks at Deep River Friends? Who do you need to make a place for in your life?

Happy July 4th!
This weekend is July 4th and an opportunity to celebrate the birth of our country. There are probably a variety of ways we all celebrate this weekend - mainly with cookouts and fireworks. And, we take time to reflect upon the freedoms that we have. I would invite us, though, to also reflect on how our freedoms can be stewarded to bring goodness to the common good. It's easy to use our freedoms to simply look out for ourselves and our own individual rights rather then steward our freedom to seek the good of others and our country...and even our world. It seems that if we as a country have been blessed with so much freedom then it wasnt necessarily for the purpose of hoarding it for ourselves. Let our freedom lead us out into creative goodness on behalf of others.

Summer Sermons and Upcoming Activities

Wow...it seems as if Summer came on full force and now we are right into it! Hard to believe that July 4th is just around the corner. While you are all traveling and heading to the beach or the mountains, here are a few things I want to keep in front of all of us at Deep River Friends.

Summer Sermons Series
For the next month, I will be offering a series of messages on the theme, "Getting Unstuck." It's my contention that part of what impedes our personal and spiritual growth are the "stuck" places in our life. There are a variety of reasons we get stuck but whatever they might be, our personal growth diminishes the longer we remain stuck. The five areas we often get stuck in our...
> Getting stuck in our past
> Getting stuck in our pain
> Getting stuck in our problems
> Getting stuck in our perspectives
> Getting stuck in our patterns

This past Sunday (June 21) I spoke on how we can get "unstuck" from our past. This coming Sunday (June 27), we will look at getting "unstuck" from our pain. If you can't make it to meeting, you can always listen to the messages online at www.deepriverfriends.com Of course, I would be then happy to provide a copy of my manuscript if you would like one.

New Church Year
Our new church year begins on July 1 and goes through June of the next year. In our Monthly Meeting for Business yesterday (June 21) we approved a budget for 2009-2010 as well as a list of committee members. We will include both items in our July newsletter. Thanks goes out to our Finance Committee and Nominating Committee for completing both of these important tasks for the beginning of our new church year.

Scott's Personal Blog
We appreciate everyone that follows this blog to keep updated on what is going on at Deep River Friends. I also invite you to check in with my personal blog at www.thegrowingedge.blogspot.com. This one is more a labor of love as I attempt to put in writing my thoughts and musings about spiritual and personal growth.

Have a great week and keep checking back in!
Scott