Prayer and Reconciliation

This is a potentially important week in the spiritual life of our division. We will be spending the week in prayer as part of our territory's 24/7 prayer initiative. I'm so excited about how the corps have taken off with the idea and made all kinds of plans to get their people praying. There will be several united prayer meetings around the division, as well as every hour of the week being covered in prayer by at least one person and often by several. I am sure God has something amazing in store for us. I can't wait to hear the reports and to see the results.
The week ends with Reconciliation Sunday. I'll be with the O'Fallon corps in the morning and then the corps around St. Louis will join together for a United Celebration meeting. I believe this is all in God's timing - how important to start the week with prayer 'reconciliation with God' and end with thinking and praying about reconciliation with each other.
Please pray with us that we will be open and responsive to what God wants to say to us this week.

Thanks to all of you who encouraged me (or threatened - Henrik) to keep writing. And thanks for the suggestions about how to continue. When I have some creative energy I'll change the format and heading, too. Each year I start with a Bible verse or phrase that guides me for at least the first few months. This year, I seem to be headed toward something about Kingdom living and thinking. We'll see how that develops. Here are a few things I've been considering, especially as I've experienced Christmas from a new perspective this year.

• I loved the Advent theme - "Jesus Changed My Life". Thinking and preaching about how Jesus completely turned around the lives of His parents and the other characters in His birth story was fun. And it caused me to think about how Jesus has completely changed my life and He continues to do that. In fact, I just preached about that this Sunday. I continued the theme with "Jesus Changes Everything" and used Colossians 1 as my text. I could have turned it into 3 sermons, but focused just on 2 main points. Because of Jesus we are reconciled to God and we live in a new Kingdom.
• I loved being part of the social service aspect of Christmas. I did very little in Latvia and missed it while I was there. Helping with Toy Town was a joy, interacting with the recipients, even getting to pray with one lovely woman. I loved working with the staff, too.
• The intense emphasis on fund raising was overwhelming for me. I know - as a divisional office I didn't have much to do with it. But, it was the main topic of conversation nearly everywhere I went and the main focus of almost every committee/board meeting. I understand how important it is, just forgot how all-consuming it is, too. If you'd like to have a private conversation, I have many more thoughts which I won't get into here. Here's the positive - I talked to a lot of corps officers and was blessed by their positive and energetic approach to this huge responsibility. Some of them even like it!
• I've been reading two Advent themed books this season and am just finishing them. I was challenged and blessed by both and would recommend them for individuals or families. Advent and Christmas, Wisdom from G.K. Chesterton (Center for the Study of C.S. Lewis and Friends) and Immanuel Praying the Names of God (Anne Spangler) I really enjoy the Chesterton book. He has some great quotes, like this:

"To be told to rejoice on the 25th of December is like being told to rejoice at quarter past eleven on Thursday week. You cannot suddenly be frivolous unless you believe there is a serious reason for being frivolous."

or this

"Seriousness is not a virtue. It would be a heresy, but a much more sensible heresy, to say that seriousness is a vice. It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking ones's self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do. It is easy to be heavy; hard to be light. Satan fell by the force of gravity."

I had a cross-cultural experience this weekend. I went to the Kirksville, Missouri corps. It's about 3 hours northwest of here and really is a different world. I stopped at a nearby Walmart where there were lots of pick-up trucks, tight jeans and cowboy hats. Nothing wrong with that, just outside my comfort zone. Lesa promises to show me some more places like that to expand my cultural experience. The corps and officers were very warm and welcoming. I look forward to visiting them again. Tomorrow Maria, Henrik and Lisbeth's daughter, comes from the UK for several weeks. I'm excited about her visit and getting to see St. Louis with her. She will give me a good excuse to escape from the office once in a while and enjoy this city. We might even venture out into some of the above-mentioned regions of the Midland division. She needs to get the full picture of life in the USA!