summer days

M. is home sick. This is the second practice she's missed, but hopefully will make it to the tech rehearsal Sunday. I'm excited and a little nervous about the TAG process tomorrow. I'm on the children/youth team. The other two teams are third place and assimilation. This is very important for our church and I've been praying for the members and facilitator.

Several movies we've enjoyed recently are Indiana Jones and Kung Fu Panda. Hoping we'll go see Get Smart which just came out. M. and I are enjoying Gilmore girls on DVD from netflix.

A Meek and Quiet Spirit

It's been a while since I've blogged. Got up early this morning (for me) before the kids, to clean up a few things. By late this afternoon, I was wiped out. We had a pretty good school day today. Jake had horseback riding, which he loves. Tomorrow night, we're going to see Wallace and Grommit at the movies. My daughter and I may go see The Greatest Game Ever played another time. I have to bake a cake tomorrow for the fall festival and Jake and I are helping with a games booth on Saturday. Busy, busy, busy!!!

It feels like fall is FINALLY in the air here. Opened up some of my windows today to air out the house. A few days ago, I followed some recipes to make my own laundry and dishwasher detergent. It took a bit of doing to track down all the ingredients. I've washed several loads of laundry and it seems okay so far.

Ordered the last part of Chris' anniversary gift just while ago. November 5th will be our 15th anniversary. Hurray!! I can honestly say God has blessed me with a wonderful husband.

Intro and Chapter 1

In the introduction, the author, Nancy Pearcey, spells out her approach to the topic of worldview. Part 1," What's in a Worldview?", focuses on the dichotomy of the secular/sacred. It also gives the reader the tools to begin forming a Biblically based worldview in any field. Part 2 "Starting At the Beginning" addresses Creation. The author promises a critique of Darwinian evolution. Part 3, "How We Lost Our Minds", looks at history to help us discover why evangelicals fall short of having a strong worldview. Part 4"What Next? Living It Out" examines the practical aspects of living our faith.

In chapter 1, "Breaking Out of the Grid", the author paints a bleak picture, which I think most of us will recognize. We live our lives in completely separate compartments--public and private. What we believe as moral and spiritual beings seems in our minds to have absolutely no connection to our public lives of work. We accept common approaches, beliefs etc. in our chosen fields without a second thought. Could the Bible have anything to say about our day to day lives, or is it impractical and outdated?

We are often intimidated into silence by the secularist's mantra that "this is the way every reasonable person thinks". I agree with the author's bold assertion that Christianity does have something important to say about every aspect of our lives. As Pearcey points out "The only self-existent reality is God, and everything else depends on Him for its origin and continued existence.".

She points out that every philosophy holds something divine. "For the materialist, the ultimate reality is matter, and eveyrthing is reduced to material constituents. For the pantheist, the ultimate reality is a spiritual force or substratum, and the goal of meditation is to reconnect with that spiritual oneness. For the doctrinaire Darwinist, bilogy is ultimate, and everything, even religion and morality, is reduced to a product of Darwinian processes. For the empiricist, all knowledge is traceable ultimately to sense data, and anything not known by sensation is neutral."

At the end of this chapter, the author asks "How can we recover the conviction that Christianity is not only religious truth but total truth?" Next time we'll look at chapter 2, "Rediscovering Joy".

Book Review

For the next 30 days I'll be reading and reviewing "Total Truth" by Nancy Pearcey for Mind and Media. The subtitle is "Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity". This is my first review for Mind and Media and I'm very excited about doing it. I hope it will be the first of many more. The book was a gift from Mind and Media in exchange for writing up the review.

Reflecting on my weekend

The last few weeks, my husband and I have been working in our yard planting some things. For the first time, I'm trying my hand at growing a few things from seeds--some flowers and a few herbs. Sometimes it's surprising to me how much I enjoy just being outside and fiddling around with our yard. It makes me think about the people at our church who have really green thumbs and grow beautiful gardens every year. It also reminds me of my father who passed away in 1994. He loved to grow things too. I wish I had taken the time to learn some things about it while he was still alive. Not so much for the actual knowledge, although that would be nice, but just to have the memory of learning from him.

Got an email last night from an old friend at a Mom's group I used to attend. They're having a retreat next month and wanted to invite me. The study is an excellent one that really helped my parenting skills. I hope I'll be able to go and maybe take a few ladies from church with me.

We had a children and youth council meeting after church yesterday. Somehow, it was disappointing to me. I wish we could dig deeper and focus on meeting the real needs of children and their families, not just keeping them (and us) busy with activities all the time. Maybe my expectations are too high.

God's grace and mercy

In the course of my everyday life, I see God's grace and mercy working all around me and through me. He continues to provide for and help me in spite of my many shortcomings. He answers my prayers for guidance. He helps me minister to both my family and my church family. He gives me opportunities to be tested and tried so that my faith can grow.

My position as Sunday School coordinator, along with my friend Ardith, has truly blessed me. We have the responsibility for coordinating our rotational SS which includes getting together the lessons, recruiting teachers, setting up schedules etc. The lessons are more hands on than many traditional SS lessons and the children spend at least a month or more on the same story, hopefully improving their Bible literacy.

Sometimes we don't have enough teachers, but so far Ardith and I have been able to cover an extra class that doesn't have a teacher. We are also in the process of planning some changes in our physical SS rooms. We hope the transformation will be inspiring to both our students and our teachers.

In the midst of a world filled with so much violence, fear and strife, I see God working and I'm truly grateful.

Another Church meeting

Ended another day with another church meeting. We methodists REALLY believe in church meetings. Actually, we did decide (as the church council) to authorize a committee to search for a summer intern to work with our children and youth. That's a good thing. The children and youth departments are always short of volunteers. I'm not sure if there's anything we're doing wrong. Everything I read and hear says this isn't unusual in churches. It can be so discouraging at times.

We started a new kind of Sunday School over a year ago. When our Children's and Youth director left last August, a friend of mine and I took over the children's SS. It's quite a responsibility, even with the two of us working together, we need more people. We are pulling together lessons from a website as well as teaching. I know it's very important and believe in this new kind of SS, but I'm wondering how long we can continue without more help. One of our regular teachers who we could always count on, is probably going to be moving away.

Please pray for us.

Just another day

Today was just another homeschool day. My daughter finished one of her math books. Hurray! I had a few things to do to get ready for jury duty again. Dear husband will be home with the kids tomorrow and for as long as they need me. Did the grocery shopping tonight because I simply had to. We had bare cupboards. . Molly was kind enough to exchange blogs with me. You'll enjoy her blog.

Had to delete the link. Looks like someone else took over with some not nice stuff.