"The pictures are a little blurry, but they aren’t in our hearts." - Lee Webb
Grandpa Lee made that comment off hand as he showed us pictures from CCC's early days yesterday. I found it incredibly insightful. In a day that has come to value high resolution photos for sharing, the clearest pictures are always in our hearts. We get those photos when we're present in real, physical spaces with one another. "Embodied" events as one CCC leader calls them. Incarnational the theologians might say. Whatever you call it, that statement places a high value on sharing lives and spaces together -without distractions and with people. Just for fun, I'm including a slightly blurry picture of Melissa Midkiff serving in the early days. She confirmed she's still a member of CCC yesterday afternoon! ;)
Be a photographer this week. Take some crystal clear pictures with your heart!
“When you reap the harvest of your land, you are not to reap all the way to the edge of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the resident alien; I am the Lord your God.”” (Leviticus 23:22 CSB)
Katelyn leaned over yesterday as Lee joked about people reading Leviticus.. Katelyn and her d-group are actually there now! But what was awesome was that her Highlight from the day was the above passage. Talk about going outside! God can work however he wants, but he LOVES to work in the margin. So if you want to see God do more in your life, work to create margin. Not just in your fields or finances, but with your time and energy, too. Cultivating margin will create opportunities to go outside!
Baptisms and Pickles.
There's several baptism conversations floating around CCC (Including one this weekend! Want to join?), so I loved when this article popped up in some reading I was doing. Here's a snippet:
To be baptised means to be left forever immersed in Christ, just as a pickle is left forever immersed in vinegar.
When you taste a pickled vegetable, it tastes more like vinegar than the vegetable itself. This is what the faith that leads us to baptism should do to us.
It should make us taste more of Christ than of ourselves.
Go, Next Gen, Go!
When I walked in to the Back to School Bash last night, it was exciting! Not just because of the people or the energy or the games, but because the reality hit me that a ton of families were taking seriously the idea of increasing the faith of the next generation! Future outsiders, unite - I'm beyond words excited to see how God can use the crew being raised up to Go OUT from CCC!
One of the best fields for GOING OUTSIDE is getting ready to open back up.
That's right, our schools! I can often be guilty of moving into overprotective parent mode when it comes to school, so let's agree to be more mission-minded outsiders together.
Students, pray for your teachers this week. Instead of analyzing whether you got the good ones or the mean one, the easy ones or the ones your friends are in, pray for your teacher that if they know Jesus, he would use them to love on all their students well. And if they don't know Jesus, share Jesus with them and pray for Jesus to win their heart!
Parents, encourage an outsiders mentality with your kids. Sure, make sure they're safe and treated fairly, but continually push them to love others like Jesus, to value everyone, and to not repay evil with evil (1 Peter 3:9) And for those who don't have school connections, go volunteer! Schools are one of the few places that everyone from a community gathers - go get in the mix! Be salt and light. Share Jesus as you build relationships.
One of the best fields for going outside is opening back up. Grab your shovel and let's go dig in!
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