What are you eating?

At the end of Hebrews 5, the writer talks about milk vs. solid food; milk is the food of infants, the elementary truths of God's Word.  Solid food is for the mature; it is the teaching about righteousness.

How concerned are you with your diet physically? Do you eat your vegetables and take your vitamins, aware of what is needed to be healthy?  What about your spiritual diet?  Do you pay as much attention to what you need daily to stay spiritually healthy and growing?

You eat every day - make one of those meals a trigger to ask yourself what you are feeding on spiritually. 

May you grow strong and healthy and mature in your faith.

Kenyan Speed

I remembered something this week.  Something that's going to help me.

The weather warmed up, and I started wearing sandals again.  I haven't found any sandals that I like in the last few years that have a back-strap, so most of the ones I own now are slip-ons.  They never seem to stay on as well, but wearing them again made me remember being in Kenya.  While I was there, I wore a simple pair of flip-flops that I've had for ages (I bought them for Byron & Lori's wedding, actually) and found that I had no problem keeping them on.  The reason, I figured, was that we walked slower there.  Here, it seems I rush wherever I'm going - I have too much to get done to saunter along; don't want to waste my time.

But I also get headaches because I get tense in my shoulders and neck; I'm too focused on what I need to get done.  My rushing and busy-ness cause me stress and pain.  I need to slow down.  I need to recognize that my life is more important than the items on my to-do list.  They will wait for me.  They will get done.  And they will get done better, even if not sooner, if I am feeling better.  << sigh >>  This shouldn't be a hard lesson to learn, and yet, it's the one I'm facing again this week.  This season.  Patience.  Patience with others and with myself.  My God will be served much better when I slow down.

Every time I slip on my sandals, it will remind me.  Walk slower.  Be patient.

Communications

My official title here at Westhill is Coordinator of Worship Arts and Communications.

The first part of that, "Coordinator of Worship Arts" is to focus on our Sunday mornings.  How can we do things better?  More creatively?  In a way that makes sense to visitors?  From the planning of each hour to the visuals with each series, to the communicating between the different individuals and teams, I see my role as being to help clear the way for our church's message of God's love and truth come through in this 'main event' of our programming.  Which is actually what the communications part is all about, too.  It may help to simplify the job title one of these days to simply "Communications."  This has been a year of understanding what communications is all about, and what that looks like in a church. 

What are we trying to say?  Who are we trying to be?  Sometimes, honestly, finding those answers is as confusing as all the questions that come after: Is our message getting through?  Are there things that we are doing and saying that are confusing the issue?  That are sending a different message than the one we want to be sending?  God is so amazing.  Is that message getting through?  What can we do so people hear that?

This is where I'm at today, 8 months into this role.  It is a whole lot clearer than it was in September, but now I see a whole lot of things I wish I already knew!

I'll leave you today with this post by Kem Meyer, on her Communications Director Job Description.