–from David

I awaken in my parents house in the mountains to the smell of homemade biscuits and the gentle clinking of spoons, pots and mixing bowls as my 84 year-old mother stirs about the kitchen. It’s a comforting aroma. We all eventually make our way sleepily to the small breakfast table and are greeted with a beautiful view of the sun burning away the morning mist from the Appalachian mountains. My mother hugs my neck and kisses me on the cheek and we all sit down to eat. But we don’t just eat. We tell stories and we laugh. We talk about our victories, our heart-aches and our dreams. We grow closer to one another. Paul Miller, the author of A Praying Life, says this is what prayer is like: not simply a conversation but a relationship that grows. Jesus said, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” We’ll eat with him. He doesn’t say that we’ll have a meeting, a devotional, or even talk. He says we will eat with him and when we eat with him we may talk and listen, but we will definitely grow closer. On August 8, we will begin a series called Eating with God. We will learn about prayer, but prayer will not be our focus. God will be our focus; learning to eat with him, enjoy him, share stories, victories, dreams and heartaches. Join us.

Book club will start July 15 and run for about 6 or 7 weeks. Each week, Thursday night at 7pm, we’ll meet to discuss a short reading–usually a short, fictional story. Each week will be independent, meaning you can come to any single week and should be able to jump right in, and you can miss any week and not have to catch up. We read something unique for each Thursday meeting. Most stories are less than 20 pages. The stories are not Christian stories, but we will not be discussing them from an English class point of view, either. We will meet somewhere in the middle, discussing what Christ incarnate brings to each story and also discussing literary elements and not just using each story as a devotional or sermon starting point. It’s pretty fun and very interesting.

Our first story will be J.D. Salinger’s “The Laughing Man”.

The 10 Commandments: Part 4