Tuesday Tome - Everybody's Normal Book Club

Session 2 of this Valley Book Club is just a week away. We'll be discussing part two John Ortberg's book, Everybody's Normal Till You Get to Know Them.

BOOK CLUB SCHEDULE:
    Session 2: October 20, 6:30pm - Part 2, Chapters 4-7    Session 3: November 3, 6:30pm - Part 3, Chapters 8-12

We will be meeting in the church office conference room. You are welcome to join us even if you are not able to attend all three sessions. Please let me know if you plan to participate.

A limited number of copies of this book selection will be available at the Valley Christian Church office and resource center. You can also purchase the book at Amazon.

Everybody's Normal: Till You Get to Know Them
'by John Ortberg

Not you, that’s for sure! No one you’ve ever met, either. None of us are normal according to God’s definition, and the closer we get to each other, the plainer that becomes. Yet for all our quirks, sins, and jagged edges, we need each other. Community is more than just a word—it is one of our most fundamental requirements. So how do flawed, abnormal people such as ourselves master the forces that can drive us apart and come together in the life-changing relationships God designed us for?

In Everybody’s Normal Till You Get to Know Them, teacher and bestselling author John Ortberg zooms in on the things that make community tick. You’ll get a thought-provoking look at God’s heart, at others, and at yourself. Even better, you’ll gain wisdom and tools for drawing closer to others in powerful, impactful ways. With humor, insight, and a gift for storytelling, Ortberg shows how community pays tremendous dividends in happiness, health, support, and growth. It’s where all of us weird, unwieldy people encounter God’s love in tangible ways and discover the transforming power of being loved, accepted, and valued just the way we are.

Monday Music - I Love You as a Friend

The day begins and it's time to rise;
It's a struggle just to open my eyes.
So many things I have to do;
I don't feel like I can make it.
But I remember I'm not alone;
There's a strength much greater than my own.
I look to you in that morning hour
And my spirit starts to prayin'.
That's when I hear you sayin-

Get a firm grip on my hand;
Tune your ears to hear my voice.
I can help you meet the challenge;
I can help you make each choice.
And when you face temptation
I will strengthen and defend.
We'll travel on together,
And when your day comes to an end
I'll still be right beside you.
I love you as a friend.

I'm out the door and on my way
Through the ups and downs and come-what-mays.
If somehow I lose sight of you,
Lord, remind me of your presence.
I need to set my heart and mind
Far above the noise of my earthly climb.
In valleys low, on mountains high,
Jesus, keep this child from fallin';
It's good to hear you callin'-

CHORUS

You are my hiding place;
You help me run the race.
Leading me with your hand,
Though I've got so far to go,
I know you love me where I am.

Lord, I know you sympathize;
You have seen this world through human eyes.
You felt the pressure; you've known the pain;
You were called a man of sorrows.
That's why I know you won't turn away
Even when I stumble or go astray.
You'll pick me up, help me start again.
As you lovingly renew me,
I hear you whisper to me-

CHORUS

I'll still be right beside you
Because I love you as a friend.

"I Love You as a Friend" by Dave Burkum, from Songs for the Real World. © Copyright 2002 by Dave Burkum.
 
BUY OR LISTEN

Sunday Supplication - Place and Purpose

Almighty and everlasting God, you have revealed your grace and glory in this world through your son, Jesus Christ. We thank you for your mercy and ask that you complete your saving works of mercy in our world. Help your Church in all places to persevere with steadfast faith. Shape and use each of us as we find our place and purpose in your Church.

You know our weaknesses and you understand our limitations.  Our sins and failures are no secret or surprise to you. And yet, you are faithful to forgive, you are ready to renew, you are able to lift us up, and you call us to press forward in Christ. In the same way, help us to forgive, to encourage, and to bless others. You are gracious and merciful to us, and we ask you to make us gracious and merciful to others.

Help us, O God, to seek you with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Show yourself to us through your word, your people, your promises, and all that is beautiful and true. Help us to desire and delight in your will and to walk in your ways to the glory of your Name.

Through Christ, we pray. Amen.

Saturday Smile - Jerry Seinfeld on Advertising

Who would have guessed that Ecclesiastes could make for great stand up! Seinfeld takes a big risk and nails it! A prophetic elbow breaking ribs.

Friday Favorites - Autumn Praise at Valley

I'm looking forward to enjoying some fireside praise and fellowship tonight. It's happening tonight at Valley Christian Church in Lakeville–Apple Valley. You should join us!

It's going to be a crisp Autumn evening, so dress warmly.
Click for Directions and Valley Info

Thursday Thinking - Praise and Wellness

Most mornings my wife and I take a few minutes to share a cup of coffee, chat, read a psalm, and pray for the day. Some psalms are filled with gratitude, some are dark with complaints, others are disturbing with their petitions for the destruction of enemies. One thing most of the Psalms have in common is a resolve toward hope and a persistence toward praise, regardless of circumstances.

Sometimes my personal temperament makes it difficult for me to relate to the ongoing and repetitive expressions of praise. I do, however, embrace them and consider them a call toward a healthier disposition. For me, this is central to the power of the psalms. I'm glad for the times the psalms resonate with an aspect of my brokenness––fears, complaints, irritation, fatigue. I'm most glad that at all times the Psalms challenge me to a more vigorous place of faith and wholeness by provoking and pushing me toward praise. In his book, Reflections on the Psalms, C. S. Lewis asks his readers to think about this connection of praise and inner health.

The world rings with praise—lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game—praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars.

I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious minds, praised most, while the cranks, misfits, and malcontents praised least.

The good critics found something to praise in many imperfect works; the bad ones continually narrowed the list of books we might be allowed to read.

The healthy and unaffected man, even if luxuriously brought up and widely experienced in good cookery, could praise a very modest meal: the dyspeptic and the snob found fault with all. Except where intolerably adverse circumstances interfere, praise almost seems to be inner health made audible.

Nor does it cease to be so when, through lack of skill, the forms of its expression are very uncouth or even ridiculous. Heaven knows, many poems of praise addressed to an earthly beloved are as bad as our bad hymns, and an anthology of love poems for public and perpetual use would probably be as sore a trial to literary taste as Hymns Ancient and Modern.

I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: “Isn’t she lovely? Wasn’t it glorious? Don’t you think that magnificent?” The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about.

My whole, more general difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what we indeed can’t help doing, about everything else we value.

C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, ©1958 & 1986, pp. 94-95.

Wednesday Words - October

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

"October" by Robert Frost, from The Poetry of Robert Frost: The Collected Poems, Complete and Unabridged, © Copyright 1975.

Tuesday, Tome - A Place in Time

My wife and I took a little road trip last Friday to New Ulm, MN. We toured the Schell's Brewery, visited the Wanda Gág House, watched the Glockenspiel Clock sound off, ate at the Kaiserhoff, and took in some of the Oktoberfest celebration. Thanks to our friends, Einer and Sandy, for letting us stay with them.

On the way home we stopped by Schmidts Meat Market in Nicollet and picked up a little smoked cheese and sausage. While driving along the beautiful Minnesota River Valley, Cheri read a short story aloud from Wendell Berry's A Place in Time. The story was a perfect fit for the small town trip and mid-western history all around us.

The particular story she read was titled, "The Requirement," and it gives one old-timer's personal account of the passing of his lifelong friend, a character nicknamed "Big." As always, Wendell Berry is able to see the profound in the prosaic. He describes the everyday struggles and events of life and discovers within them the bigger story of what it means to be human.

The day that was going to be the day Big died I went over there first thing in the morning, as soon as we finished up at the barn and ate breakfast. It was a fine morning, cold and bright, the sky blue and endless right down to the horizon, and everything below shining with frost. We had finished with the hog-killing the day before, and I was bringing some fresh spareribs and tenderloin, thinking they might tempt Big to eat. Until then Big and Annie May both were talking like he was going to get well. 

But that morning things had changed. I could feel it as soon as I stepped in through the kitchen door...

From the Publisher:
For more than fifty years, Wendell Berry has been telling us stories about Port William, a mythical town on the banks of the Kentucky River, populated over the years by a cast of unforgettable characters living in a single place over a long time. In this new collection, the author’s first piece of new fiction since the publication of Andy Catlett in 2006, the stories date’s range from 1864, when Rebecca Dawe finds herself in her own reflection at the end of the Civil War, to one from 1991 when Grover Gibbs’ widow, Beulah, attends the auction as her home place is offered for sale.

It feels as if the entire membership, all the Catletts, Burley Coulter, Elton Penn, the Rowanberrys, Laura Milby, the preacher’s wife, Kate Helen Branch, Andy’s dog, Mike, nearly everyone returns with a story or two, to fill in the gaps in this long tale. Those just now joining the Membership will be charmed. Those who’ve attended before will be enriched.

The story of the community of Port William is one of the great works in American literature. Published in the author’s 78th year, this collection, the tenth volume in the series, is the perfect occasion to celebrate his huge achievement.

Monday Music - Letting Go

She'll take the painting in the hallway
The one she did in Jr. High
And that old lamp up in the attic
She'll need some light to study by

She's had 18 years
To get ready for this day
She should be past the tears
She cries some anyway

Oh, oh, letting go
There's nothing in her way now
Oh, letting go, there's room enough to fly
And even though, she's spent her whole life waiting
It's never easy letting go

Mother sits down at the table
So many things she'd like to do
Spend more time out in the garden
Now she can get those books read too

She's had 18 years
To get ready for this day
She should be past the tears
But she cries some anyway

Oh, oh, letting go
There's nothing in her way now
Oh, letting go,
there's room enough to fly
And even though, she's spent her whole life waiting
It's never easy letting go

© Universal Music Publishing Group
Songwriters: WALKER, LOUIS JOSEPH / PARKER, AMY / BROWN, FONTAINE 
 

From "So Far to Go" by Dave Burkum.  Listen or Buy

Sunday Supplication - Lead Us Into Truth

Dear Lord, we pray that your grace will always direct us and go before us and follow us in all we are, in all we say, and in all we do. We pray that your grace will shape and motivate us that we may continually be given to good works.

Father God, we humbly recognize our need for forgiveness and restoration. In our weakness and selfishness, we often fail each other, fail ourselves, and fail you.  We also recognize the hope and power we have in Christ.  Raise us and transform us by the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. Forgive us our sins, and make us ready and able and quick to forgive others, even as you forgive us.

Lead us into truth, O God. Show us your ways. Teach us to follow your lead. Help us to turn away from what is wrong and to do what is right. Our hope is in you all day long. Help us to be faithful followers of Jesus and help us to become more like him each day.

It's in his name that we pray. Amen.

Saturday Smile - No Pain, No Gain

Friday Favorites - JD McPherson

Later this month, family favorites, The Cactus Blossoms, hit the road for a few weeks of shows with J. D. McPherson. Check out the schedule HERE. Friends living in Dallas, Austin, Phoenix, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Boulder, and Tulsa, TAKE NOTE.

Thursday Thinking - Consumers and Kenosis

Are you someone who buys things in order to fill a personal void or to compensate for bad feelings? Is shopping a form of medication or therapeutic release for you? Many of us can confess to kind of spending, but can we can reconcile this with our call to follow the example of Christ?

I appreciate this recent post by Stan Saunders at the Christian Century blog that alludes to unhealthy motives for spending. Saunders' post references a book by Sallie McFague, Blessed Are the Conumers. Here are a couple thought provoking paragraphs I hope will push you to read more...

...while we may be Democrats or Republicans, Asians or African Americans, Baptists or Presbyterians, PhDs or high-school dropouts, males or females, what we all hold in common is our participation in the religion of consumerism—a reality that seems such a natural part of all our lives that we can scarcely imagine an alternative. Most Christians see our religious affiliations as simply one facet of the larger set of consumer choices we make, rather than as a radical alternative to the economic and political order.

...kenosis, the practice of self-limitation and restraint, is key to “the wholesale transformation of our dominant cultural patterns.” Self-limitation...is most explicit, however, in the passage from Philippians 3, where, in imitation of Christ’s own self-emptying (see 2:6-11), Paul sets forth his superlative curriculum vita in a contest of honor (“confidence in the flesh”) with his opponents, then renounces the whole game as what the NRSV, in its genteel way, calls “rubbish...” Read the Entire Post

Wednesday Words - Bad Cold

This cold is too much for my shortsleeve.
Go get me a Kleenex--and fast.
I sniffle and wheeze
And I'm ready to sneeze
And I don't know how long I can last....

Atchoo--it's to wet for a kleenex,
So bring me handkerchief, quick.
It's--atchoo--no joke,
Now the handkerchief's soaked.
Hey, a dish towel just might do the trick.

Atchoo--it's too much for bath towel.
There never has been such a cold.
I'll be better off
With that big tablecloth,
No--bring me the flag off the pole.

Atchoo--bring the clothes from the closet,
Atchaa--get the sheets from the bed,
The drapes off the window,
The rugs off the floor
To soak up this cold in my head.

Atchoo-- hurry down to the circus
And ask if they'll lend you the tent.
You say they said yes?
Here it comes--Lord be blessed--
Here it is--Ah-kachoooo--there it went.

“Bad Cold” by Shel Silverstein from Falling Up, © Copright 1996 by Shel Silverstein.