“By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:78-79, NRSV)
May you meditate on the meaning of this scripture, and pray it.
Consider sharing your Advent reflections below.
The season before Christmas is a special one, and not because of great shopping deals. It’s not because we make gifts, or sing carols, or decorate, or bake special things, visit with family or light candles at the Christmas Eve service. It’s not even about giving more to others. Well, that’s just the tip of the Christmas iceberg.
Advent is about anticipation and hope. As Christians, we celebrate the things God has done and is doing in various seasons of the year. Creating a special time of year for focus on particular spiritual truths allows those truths to gain more weight and more meaning in our everyday lives. Advent lasts four weeks, and it’s a holiday season full of introspection, reflection, hope, and divine mysteries.
Rituals and traditions often cement social and relational bonds, ready our hearts for worship, and create the vital space and time for better adoring our Creator. Not only does memory solidify our perceptions of reality now, but it prepares us for future love, service, and devotion, to God and others.
In these four weeks of Advent I’ll feature meditations, reflections, art, and more (from me and others) interspersed among typical posts to focus our spirits on the good things of God, and the time we celebrate the most amazing gift of grace from our Living God, Jesus, the Incarnation. Our Redeemer, Savior, and King.
To participate in a richer way, view the Artists Advent Project page.
Blessings this season.
I Corinthians 12:22 In fact, the parts of the (church) body that seem weakest and least important are the most indispensable.
1 in 5 homes has a person with some kind of disability living in it. But they are not a statistic. They are a family who needs you. Sometimes I hear people say, “I’d really like to help, but I don’t know where to start.”
With so many needs, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. But, one’s time and resources to help the disabled needn’t be expensive or difficult. The most important thing is showing up and allowing yourself to be used by God.
Many times those families in need want to know someone really cares, more than anything. They probably won’t be able to reach out and ask you for help, in the middle of struggling with their circumstances, but even small and simple efforts can bring them help, joy, and comfort.
Don’t start with a disability. Start with a family.
A Visual Guide to Ministry with the Disabled
I encourage you to use this Visual Guide to Ministry with the Disabled poster. I created it to help ministers and compassionate Christians aid the disabled in crucial ways. You can access it here. Please contact me if you have questions about it. This guide works through a logical progression of needs, and leads up to interdependence, mutual care and ministry, which is what the Kingdom of God is all about.
This Visual Guide may be printed and distributed as needed, and is under a free use Creative Commons license that you see below.
Make your life be a blessing!
“Guide to Ministry with the Disabled” by Lisa Colón DeLay is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Available at docs.google.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available by contacting the creator at http://lisadelay.com.
Confession: I recently viewed porn. It’s not the first time.
And so have you.
Porn: noun
1 pornography.
2 television programs, books, etc., regarded as catering to a voyeuristic or obsessive interest in a specified subject.
In this case, it was clips from a primetime television show on NBC, not graphic and explicit sexual content. But, porn has much to do with lacking purity, and self-discipline. I wasn’t interested in either at the time. It doesn’t matter how graphic it was or wasn’t, I picked a path.
I know it’s a common path, so I’m starting a post series on porn, to get the topic out in the open. You’ve seen porn. Of course you have. That’s just simple statistics. The only thing in question is for how long, or how often…but far more importantly, why are you, and are you hiding it, and do you feel stuck or trapped? Well, the gig is up.
7 Reasons this porn stuff is a typical situation:
• Television/especially cable/dish/satillite
• Smart phones/phone with internet access or image viewing capabilities
• Internet…duh. It’s got to be reason # 1. (plenitude of images & privacy to do as one pleases=lack of discipline.)
• Over-Sexualized culture/media, especially in advertising
• Plentiful supply normalizes or excuses inappropriate or damaging behavior/habits.
• Video games/books/products
• Cultural Idolization of beauty, youth, virility, and social acceptance.
We’ll get into the heart of the issue, behaviorally, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, and find some ways to detour this path that will damage us and our relationships. We’ll help each other out, okay?
I will speak from my purview, as a women. We live in a time that is highly visual, tied to fantasy, that supplies huge amounts of voyeuristic material. It’s not something mostly “men do” (look at or participate in). Women do too.
However, I challenge you men reading to cover this topic in the next two weeks in a post or post series, or at least link to this post to support bringing this topic to light.
And ladies reading today, I challenge you to take on this topic, too, not as something that you wish guys wouldn’t do, etc., but as something that somehow effects your life somehow personally, and convicts you to somehow find a better way.
Often “Literature” and Story/Fantasy are like gateway drugs to this type of porn for women…I wrote a bit about this sort of thing in a past article, 5 Reasons I Don’t Read (Christian) Chick Books.
Confess what trips you up.
Coming up in the next post…thoughts, feelings, and reasons you and I try the Path to Porn.
In later posts, we’ll work together to discover some resources to help and guide us: detours from the path.
But, here’s the question for today: What particular vehicle makes porn all too accessible for you or someone in your life? Anonymous comments are always welcomed.
Granted: We live in cynical times. Several generations of television viewers are chronically jaded from advertising so that skepticism is part of the fabric of our worldview. Consequently, now is the era that we desire to truly belong before we believe, or trust.
In 1982, there started a half hour television sitcom called Cheers. You can see all the episodes on Netflix now. The lyrics to the theme sang that an atmosphere of acceptance and grace could be found at a bar more than anywhere else… What? Not in a church on a Sunday morning? Um. yep. Of course. “Duh,” we might say.
Of course, in response some churches have made their gathering spots pubs or bars, like here…
Shoreline “Church in a Bar” promo from life in motion films on Vimeo.
But this is rather old news. This video is about 5 years old.
Sure, times have changed a lot in the last 2 decades, but the funny thing is, they have also stayed much the same. (Like in this video, for instance, have you noticed how church groups love to use fonts that feel “cool” and “with it”?)
Regardless, of where we find it, genuine belonging still matters.
Where have you felt that you most belonged? At work? On a team? In the military? In a certain group or club? In a fellowship of believers? I’d love to know.
Cheers Theme Song Lyrics
“Where Everybody Knows Your Name”
by Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart Angelo
Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.Wouldn’t you like to get away?
Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
and they’re always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows
Your name.You wanna go where people know,
people are all the same,
You wanna go where everybody knows
your name.
Do these lyrics below ring true for you?