series premiere.

with every intention to post more regularily on the blog, today is the day that i feel i have actually had the time and capacity to put some thoughts into words. it has been a real rush through the beginning of the school this year with many high and low points along the way and i sit here now writing with a heaping amount of mystery and vagueness about what will happen from this point forward.
having moved into a new house and a new role as of september 1, i was feeling quite unsettled and overwhelmed for the first 2 weeks. the learning curve was high but i knew i could manage. as we began our typical september activities, however, i was unsettled on a different level. i began to feel that as a community, we were settling for less, merely trying to recreate the way God worked last year. perhaps we felt that if we did the same things in the same way, God would follow suit.
my spirit told me no.
it is hard now to put into words, but the general sentiment was that we were trying to communicate the new thing in the old way. we were stuck in the rut of our structure. Jesus was at work on this campus and we needed to ask to be a part of it.
and so i came before our leadership team on friday and i explained to them all of my thoughts and interpretations on what i saw happening through our opening month and the fear i felt around us settling for less. i told them i thought we should cancel large group but had no idea what to do instead. the only answer i had was that we needed to gather and pray.
the weird thing is that i'm not that person. i pray and all but i have never felt so pushed to go to Jesus. i have never felt so unsure of the next step beyond asking Jesus to allow us to be a part of his harvest and take us to the field. it is very unsettling and extremely exciting.
i get nervous when i have to tell a student that i don't know what to do. i don't like that i am not sure which students will continue to stay with us as we enter into this time of significant (and spontaneous) transition. what i do know, however, is that it is worth the trouble. it is going to be costly, painful, mysterious, and unnerving, but it will probably be the best thing i will ever be a part of.
some of you will have written me off as crazy (believe me, i am right there with you), but please take this as a warning that you may hear some good stories over the next days, weeks, months about the Kingdom moving forward at MAC.
prayers are welcome. we'll be praying with you.

auld lang syne.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! ok. so it isn't actually a new year but i think for most teachers, parents, steudents and anyone in the student industry, the day after labour day feels more deserving of a countdown to midnight than dec. 31st. i personally have never really liked this time of year (i think because of old childhood memories of the end of summer and returning to what felt like prison) but now that i am much less of a student i do enjoy all the possibility that lies ahead. as a community, MAC IV is just waiting for new people to come and see who we are and if this is where they will find a new home.
there are so many details and meetings and events but all of it is about welcoming people, extending ourselves in relationship and seeing who responds. please pray for us through the next month, that we will have the energy and compassion for all these new faces and the stories they bring to our community. pray that we will see the Kingdom continue to develop and that our hearts will remain open to God doing great things in and through us.