Time to reflect

Time to reflect, originally uploaded by Journal Keeper.

What are your favorite spiritual practices? What do you like to do to re-connect with God? How do you remind yourself that you are living in His presence? What do you do to deepen your understanding of God's love for you? We talk about all of these questions at The Springs Retreat -- and I have the privilege of leading the women in experiencing some of the protestant spiritual exercises that have been so helpful to me, like journaling, reflection, lectio divina, rule of life, prayers of confession and relinquishment, silence, and solitude. What a great retreat.

Lovely lawns

Lovely lawns, originally uploaded by Journal Keeper.

I just learned that the stations of the cross come to us from the early Christians living in Jerusalem at the time of Christ's crucifixion. Obviously, the people who were there that day talked about what happened and each of them saw Jesus' procession from where he was sentenced to where he was crucified. As pilgrims came to Jerusalem, people would walk them down the route and tell their stories. Christians weren't allowed to publically worship along the route, but in twos and threes they would walk the route on Easter and remember. Over the years, Christian pilgrims would come to Jerusalem and would want to be shown the sites,so the monks would show them. Travel was expensive and as Muslims controlled the city, worship of Christ wasn't easy. Finally, someone got the idea to recreate the sites in Europe...and the stations of the Cross were born. St. Anthony's has lovely statues and place to reflect on Christ's life and passion.

Beautiful holly

Beautiful holy, originally uploaded by Journal Keeper.

Besides the beautiful fall colors and the wonderful old oak trees, the holly was out in full array...bringing hints of Christmas coming.

Women at The Springs retreat

Women at The Springs retreat, originally uploaded by Journal Keeper.

We had a great time at The Springs. Women came from San Jose, Oakdale, Fresno, Bakersfield and the surrounding areas to be led in a spiritual retreat. The retreat is designed to teach women by doing -- we lead them in how to retreat for the purpose of being with the Lord. What was so amazing for me this time was the Quilt exercise. I asked the women to recall their earliest memories of the Lord and how he revealed himself to them through their lives. I was totally blown away as woman after woman talked about her experiences and how God was at work in each of our lives way before we were ever aware of it. I came away totally confident that God is at work in everyone's life and we can truly trust that he is still drawing people to himself.

Vibrant fall colors

Vibrant fall colors, blue skies, warm autumn days--what a great time at St. Anthony's Retreat Center at The Springs Retreat.

"The Lord will Guide You Always" Is. 58:11

We had a wonderful time at The Springs retreat last week. What a fabulous opportunity to join 18 other women in seeking the Lord. Most of us come weary from being very busy or from difficult circumstances and we needed to be refreshed. It is incredible what Jesus does to minister to each of us during this time as we remember that He loves us and desires to fill us up to overflowing with Himself. He is the Living Water, the River of Life, the Eternal Spring. All we need to do is come away and make some space in our lives to be with Him and we are refreshed.

Isaiah writes: "The Lord will guide you always, He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scourched land and will strengthen your frame, and you will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail." It's amazing to watch this promise be fulfilled while we spend time in silence and solitude, in prayer and in The Word, worshipping and resting, talking with other women and being alone with Him.

Our next retreat is April 2-4, 2008 at Three Rivers. You can find sign up information on the NEWIM website.

Operation Christmas Child

Operation Christmas Child, originally uploaded by Journal Keeper.

Everyone put together boxes for children from poor areas as part of our holiday celebration. The group that comes to our Bible Discussion at San Jose State also contributed items for a little boy and girl. I'm hoping that we'll hear back from them so we'll know where the boxes went.

Happy Birthday, Jon

Happy Birthday, Jon, originally uploaded by Journal Keeper.

Jon's parents are missionaries in India, so Colleen asked me to do a little birthday shopping on her behalf. We brought the gifts to Jon and he gave us a tour of the International House at San Jose State. Seems like a great place to make friends from all over the world. Jon really likes living there.

Half Timers at the Munns

Debbie and Julie, originally uploaded by Journal Keeper.

A whole bunch of us went over to the Munns for a great night of laughing and THE BEST tamales! Oh my gosh--I haven't had such great tamales since we left Los Angeles. Kevin encouraged us not to get discouraged...it's only the 5th inning -- life isn't over. Debbie, MIke and Julie, and Myrna, are the greatest hosts.

Lunch Bunch today

It was so moving today to spend some time looking at the life of John the Baptist and realizing what an incredible God we have. All of the the other "gods" demand all kinds of things, but our God simply asks us to be honest with ourselves and admit that we don't love as we should. Why is admitting that we're sinners such a struggle? I guess we don't like to admit that we aren't perfect. John was pretty clear: repentance prepares the way for us to receive Jesus.

As we read a prayer of confession from the Common Book of Prayer, I could see some of the women at our Bible Discussion tear up a little. God's grace touches us deeply.

Putting books in order

Dancing in the Aisles, originally uploaded by Nellish.

Because the books fell from both sides of the aisles and off of various shelves, we had to resort all of them.

After the earthquare

Typical aisle on the 8th floor, originally uploaded by Nellish.

King Library was designed to sway with a quake, and sway it did, dumping many, many books onto the floor. (I think I heard someone estimate the over 100,000 books were on the floor.) While it presents a big mess, no damage was done (which is the ultimate goal.)

Micah all dressed up

Click the title above to see a photo of Micah ready for Halloween.

Library 2.0 conference

I went to a conference at UC Berkeley yesterday on library 2.0. Some ideas stand out:

1. If you create a blog or a wiki in order for people to be able to see what you have to offer, you may be disappointed that nobody comes and finds you. You have to market your blog and get your name "out there" in the social networking groups or you'll be spending a lot of time for no purpose. People won't just stumble onto your blog.

2. Introverts who don't like to spend a lot of time face to face with folks often really enjoy being "out there" with lots of rather personal information and people. They become extroverts online.

3. Blogs are great for creating an online archive of information that would otherwise get buried in someone's computer files or email. I think we should start a blog for library facilities - where we can discuss the "why" behind policies and best practices during emergencies, and resolution to facility concerns. A suggestion blog might be great as well. People who are interested could subscribe, then when new items get posted, they'll be notified.

4. I like the idea of putting photos from our Special Collections on FLICKR.

5. To begin with, the Internet was for easy access to information. Now, the web is for participating in creating the world of information. Web 2.0 is about easy, intuitive editing and publishing as a natural part of daily life. We all want access to all information and we think we can get what we need in an hour on the web to make all of the decisions that we face.

6. I think that "screencasts" - creating a video of what someone is doing on their screen would be a great training tool for learning how to use new PeopleSoft modules, etc. Then I could watch someone walk through how to do e-recruit without having to spend hours in the usual online training. Watching someone navigate the screens and a good guideline for questions that might arise, and I'd be good to go.

7. Who are the people we should be looking for to join our library staff? James Neal at Columbia University is looking for people with a commitment to rigor, to research and development, to assessment and evaluation. People with the ability to write and pitch a story -- people with marketing and communication skills. People who will engage in the campus community and get involved in the politics. People who are able to be innovative and take their idea from conception through to final evaluation -- people with project development and management skills. He is looking for entrepreneurial skills, resource development, leadership, and people with inspirational capacity. Oh, and of course, people with deep subject and technical expertise. Wow!

Ashley turns 19

Ashley had to have a burnt almond cake from Dicks Bakery for her birthday!
We enjoyed meeting her new boyfriend, Matt.

The papers are signed - the building is sold

Terry signed the papers this week -- the church building is sold.

Several years ago I led the attraction team at our church. Our focus was to attract more people to our church. This was new for me. We'd always been active in leading people to Christ without concern over whether they came to our church or joined another. But our church was getting smaller and smaller every year -- unless this trend stopped -- well, the conclusion is rather obvious.

We had a thriving AWANA program, an active womens ministries, good Bible studies and small groups, a fabulous youth ministry, and care ministries. The Sunday morning childrens ministries were great. The worship and the sermon were great. We were doing a lot of wonderful ministry but our church attendance on Sunday morning continued to decline. Actually, it had been declining for 40 years -- every year we'd lose about 8 more people than newcomers who came that year.

So the attraction team got our website up and made sure our advertising was good; we walked the neighborhood and talked to folks. We prayed. We had special events to encourage people to invite their friends, we spent several months using the curriculum from Willow Creek to train the whole church on Becoming Contagious Christians. We started a great youth volleyball league and had about 60 families participating. As always, new people came and were assimilated into our church which was really great; but some died, others moved away or stopped coming, and the decline continued.

We began asking what we could do to help our church survive? We could get a new sign, paint the building, update the building. We could be intentional about letting community groups use our facility and invite them to join us on Sundays. We could start an afterschool care program. We talked with experts who help churches in decline and learned that once a church is down to 75 members, you drop below critical mass. There aren't enough people or funds and every year you find you have to cut back the ministries and are less able to attract new people. We needed to do something while we still had the ability.

Did it make sense to spend $250,000 to update our building, in hopes of growing to 200-300 people, when we only had 40 parking spaces?

Then the Lord brought a new question before us: How can we use everything we are and everything we have to do the most that we can for the kingdom of God? Kevin began preaching the parables and we began listening to the words of Jesus and praying. Jesus values the lost, the poor, the people who never come to church, and the hurting in our communities. Jesus values having his followers take risks--don't bury your wealth, invest it. Jesus values boldness, living out our faith. Jesus values growth and new life. We realized that our greatest financial asset was our building -- and if we had $4 million in the bank, we wouldn't put it all into our building.

We decided to sell the building, invest half of the funds in reaching people with the gospel through starting new churches in the Bay Area, save half for a new building some day, and give a 10% for compassion and justice ministries locally and globally. Bold, risky, inline with the values of Jesus. We're all in, sold out, fully invested in kingdom work, fully dependent on the Lord to use us to be salt and light in the world. The journey has been breath-taking, totally transforming all of us from being focused on survival to being focused on mission. We are passionate followers of Christ, giving up something that was important to us in order to give it to God and have him use it for eternity.

This week we signed the papers. The building is sold. We are so excited to see what God will do.