PrayerMetro puts out thoughts to provoke thinking not preach religion. Think. Meditate. Pause. Pray. Consider. Act.
36 Square Feet.
The typical American has a privacy zone of 3 feet any direction. That covers 36 square feet of space for each person. When we allow someone to enter that space, there is possibility of major change.
By changing the person in the middle of those 36 square feet, you can effect change to anyone with whom they have personal contact. The more individuals you change through thoughts and actions the more catalyst potential exists in a community. Think of all those squares bumping into each other on a given day.
Decisions Change the Squares
Last year at this time decision makers made a decision. They decided to wait, watch, and see.
Community Collision
Our community had a long time resource named the Oklahoma Family Policy Council. Over the years, it had good impact among youth in the schools and in information among legislators and community leaders. Involvement in cooperative efforts with congregations and other organizations brought visibility and support to family and fathering needs.
The decision resulted in change. The organization is gone. The need is not.
New Needs
New needs erupt over time in any community and culture. New approaches with maybe ancient messages have to be engaged. New faces have to come forward.
Pain - Just Do It!
Change requires pain. My friend, Jesus, once advised that unless you plant a seed and let it die, you will never see growth. A single seed of corn can become a small piece of a meal or it can become the birth of thousands of other seeds through planting and growth.
Voice
In my prayers and pains watching and intersecting with our community, sensitivity to need strengthens. There needs to be effective voices for the right messages.
Fixing Fractures
Family is really the only positive and generational solution to community chaos. The co-commitment of marriage and relationships of blood and bond keeps a community vibrant and humility intact.
Fathers must be strong. There just is no way to make a community work without strong fathers and men that support and protect. It is the way of things.
Faith turns the tide. People of faith are people of action. Action brings results.
Friction must be engaged with conversation and cooperation. You cannot ignore disagreements and conflicts of opposing ideas. There must be engagement at a visible and invisible level.
Front-line leadership is required. Figureheads serve a major purpose. Ignore this at risk. People follow leaders within organizations. Leadership must be touchable. They do not follow organizations with no visible and touchable leadership.
Just Thoughts
These are just thoughts. My prayer is we find a community solution in Oklahoma. Yesteday, I met with another leader in the community working on sexual assault and violence prevention. Raging issues run in the undercurrents. Without a clarion call to action with a clear course to take, the issues will continue to pound our community stability. Symptoms of domestic violence, date rape, painful divorce, child neglect and abandonment, discordant souls reaching for drugs and gangs to assuage pains of fractured relationships, sexual abuse, bullying, and other anti-social ills will persist among us always. There must be voices to speak in support of solutions. People know the problems exist though they may not realize how much destruction happens daily.
36 Square Feet of Change
May we birth something in our society to change our sphere. We can't change everything everywhere. We can change the 36 square feet around us.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Reticence or Patience?
PrayerMetro puts out thoughts to provoke thinking not preach religion. Think. Meditate. Pause. Pray. Consider. Act.
This blog has been neglected.
Reticence or patience?
Neither - persistence on other fronts.
In the last year, we have sent out over 100 new devotions and prayers.
In the last year, we have over 2000 on a weekly basis receiving prayer and devotion.
In the last year, we have added eight new legislative bodies in eight new states to prayer.
In the last year, we have preached and prayed directly for people for over 40 hours in person and will surpass 60 by end of year.
This year, I intend to get this blog back to higher ground and write to you once a week. It does not need to be long.
When you come here and are looking and don't find what you seek.... go on over to
prayermetrodevotion.blogspot.com
There is always fresh and new on that site.
This blog has been neglected.
Reticence or patience?
Neither - persistence on other fronts.
In the last year, we have sent out over 100 new devotions and prayers.
In the last year, we have over 2000 on a weekly basis receiving prayer and devotion.
In the last year, we have added eight new legislative bodies in eight new states to prayer.
In the last year, we have preached and prayed directly for people for over 40 hours in person and will surpass 60 by end of year.
This year, I intend to get this blog back to higher ground and write to you once a week. It does not need to be long.
When you come here and are looking and don't find what you seek.... go on over to
prayermetrodevotion.blogspot.com
There is always fresh and new on that site.
While crossing the metro, I have seen Him in the watchfires
As I crossed the city these last two months from the south to the east to the north to the west and to the middle, I have seen the same God.
In Latino, Black, and White churches - He is here.
In Nazarence, Baptist, Full Gospel, Independent, Pentecostal - He is here.
In quiet and noise and stillness and jumping - He is here.
In formal and informal - He is here.
He is stirring His people that call Him by His name.
He is healing His people who look up to Him.
He is calming His people who put their hope in His grace.
He is gathering His people to Himself in sweet embrace.
He is here.
In Latino, Black, and White churches - He is here.
In Nazarence, Baptist, Full Gospel, Independent, Pentecostal - He is here.
In quiet and noise and stillness and jumping - He is here.
In formal and informal - He is here.
He is stirring His people that call Him by His name.
He is healing His people who look up to Him.
He is calming His people who put their hope in His grace.
He is gathering His people to Himself in sweet embrace.
He is here.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Dignity
Over the last few weeks decision makers in our nation have wrestled with mercy and justice. They seem to chose neither but asuagance of public conscience.
Tax breaks for the people (less government intrusion) were doled out.
Guests among us who came seeking refuge were pushed aside (more government intrusion) and dreams crushed. Sure, justice means we have deported a record number of people in the last year. Where is mercy?
An unstable man is unstable in all of his ways.
It seems we have real instability in our government. Our government is our people. It seems we have real instability in our people.
The stock market is climbing as companies are seen as more valuable than ever. Justice of value is prevailing.
Unemployment continues to stay at record highs and wages are frozen and even declining as the people that do the work in the companies are seen as less valuable than ever. Mercy is cast aside as we fear the future and hoard our dollars.
Instability will bring unstable results.
Solomon oversaw a mighty nation that intersected with many others. One of his thoughts goes like this. Let mercy and truth (justice) hang as ornaments about your neck. Let them both prevail. Justice without mercy is despotism. Mercy without justice is anarchy. Together they stable the legs of the chair on which we sit.
PrayerMetro puts out thoughts to provoke thinking not preach religion. Think. Meditate. Pause. Pray. Consider. Act.
Tax breaks for the people (less government intrusion) were doled out.
Guests among us who came seeking refuge were pushed aside (more government intrusion) and dreams crushed. Sure, justice means we have deported a record number of people in the last year. Where is mercy?
An unstable man is unstable in all of his ways.
It seems we have real instability in our government. Our government is our people. It seems we have real instability in our people.
The stock market is climbing as companies are seen as more valuable than ever. Justice of value is prevailing.
Unemployment continues to stay at record highs and wages are frozen and even declining as the people that do the work in the companies are seen as less valuable than ever. Mercy is cast aside as we fear the future and hoard our dollars.
Instability will bring unstable results.
Solomon oversaw a mighty nation that intersected with many others. One of his thoughts goes like this. Let mercy and truth (justice) hang as ornaments about your neck. Let them both prevail. Justice without mercy is despotism. Mercy without justice is anarchy. Together they stable the legs of the chair on which we sit.
PrayerMetro puts out thoughts to provoke thinking not preach religion. Think. Meditate. Pause. Pray. Consider. Act.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Perfect, Perfected, Perfecting
Matthew 5: 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
The Message of Christ
The message of Christ can be merry or lonely. During the depth of winter and the shortest days of the year, we offer celebration and tinsel and gift giving. The world groans for rescue from loneliness. People duck behind computer screens in bedrooms and living rooms. Time is consumed with fish and farm that will never be smelled, touched, or bite back. Churches are full of services meant for the indoctrinated while extending meaningless invitations to the leprous. When the invited come, few really connect, we are too busy with each other and our secret handshakes and vocabulary. Sterile relationships can never share a cold or a Christ.
Our world is full of shallow and painful relationships. Jesus offers friendship that can be felt. The message of Christ offers acceptance and friendship that is fellowship to all of us. Jesus stepped out from the great beyond of the untouchable and brought God face to face and hand to hand to us.
Catching Christ
Christ can be caught. While Christ is a title indicating the anointed, the messiah, the savior, there is a man/God behind the tile. Jesus is contagious. His attitude is contagious. His thoughts are contagious. His approach to living is contagious. God reached to us to touch us and infect us. He makes us perfect. He makes us like Him.
Perfected
Being perfect is less about being perfect than it is about being God-like and infected and perfected. Love the unlovely and the lovely. Greet with honest appreciation and thanksgiving, each. Each person is placed as a gift of God to us. Receive the gift offered. Make a place. Don’t get hung up so much on “your thang” than you leave out the person sitting next to you. Quit breeding loneliness in others by focusing so much on “your thang”. That is perfection.
Perfecting
Be a perfecting person that changes the world in which you live. Who do you need to touch? Who could use a face to face visit? Who could use a hug outside the foyer of the church building? Who needs a smile that locks and looks eye to eye longer than an uncomfortable quickie at the checkout counter? Who could use a word of encouragement that is thought through and covered with prayer?
Repentance = Mind Change
Okay, I am feeling convicted at this moment. Every time the word’s of God and the example of Christ touch me, I get a little uncomfortable. That is purposeful on His part. He is contagious. To repent means to change your mind. That might be a good vocabulary change for the Christ folk. Who in the heck understands that religious idea of repentance? Most of us struggle to accept a new thought. Most of us struggle to give up an old thought. There, try that one.
Right now, I am thinking of some not so close relationships that should be closer. Over time, I have let them become distant. They are unlovely. They are painful to the touch.
Let’s Pray
Father, how do I get beyond my own resistance to change? Touch me. I am unlovely in so many ways. Maybe, I think I am super lovely. But, there are ways in which I am really unlovely. You keep touching me. You keep coming to me. You never let up. Teach me to do the same with those around me that seem unlovely. Really, they are most lovely. You love them. You offer them friendship and fellowship. Jesus sat with the blatant prostitute and the thief and the sloppy drunk. He even took time for mother-in-laws and government tax agents and politicians and lawyers and whiny busybodies. He called them friends. Break me out of my shell to do the same. That is the real message of Christ. All are human and fragile and flawed and failed. All are worth being loved and changed and infected and perfected.
PrayerMetro puts out thoughts to provoke thinking not preach religion. Think. Meditate. Pause. Pray. Consider. Act.
The Message of Christ
The message of Christ can be merry or lonely. During the depth of winter and the shortest days of the year, we offer celebration and tinsel and gift giving. The world groans for rescue from loneliness. People duck behind computer screens in bedrooms and living rooms. Time is consumed with fish and farm that will never be smelled, touched, or bite back. Churches are full of services meant for the indoctrinated while extending meaningless invitations to the leprous. When the invited come, few really connect, we are too busy with each other and our secret handshakes and vocabulary. Sterile relationships can never share a cold or a Christ.
Our world is full of shallow and painful relationships. Jesus offers friendship that can be felt. The message of Christ offers acceptance and friendship that is fellowship to all of us. Jesus stepped out from the great beyond of the untouchable and brought God face to face and hand to hand to us.
Catching Christ
Christ can be caught. While Christ is a title indicating the anointed, the messiah, the savior, there is a man/God behind the tile. Jesus is contagious. His attitude is contagious. His thoughts are contagious. His approach to living is contagious. God reached to us to touch us and infect us. He makes us perfect. He makes us like Him.
Perfected
Being perfect is less about being perfect than it is about being God-like and infected and perfected. Love the unlovely and the lovely. Greet with honest appreciation and thanksgiving, each. Each person is placed as a gift of God to us. Receive the gift offered. Make a place. Don’t get hung up so much on “your thang” than you leave out the person sitting next to you. Quit breeding loneliness in others by focusing so much on “your thang”. That is perfection.
Perfecting
Be a perfecting person that changes the world in which you live. Who do you need to touch? Who could use a face to face visit? Who could use a hug outside the foyer of the church building? Who needs a smile that locks and looks eye to eye longer than an uncomfortable quickie at the checkout counter? Who could use a word of encouragement that is thought through and covered with prayer?
Repentance = Mind Change
Okay, I am feeling convicted at this moment. Every time the word’s of God and the example of Christ touch me, I get a little uncomfortable. That is purposeful on His part. He is contagious. To repent means to change your mind. That might be a good vocabulary change for the Christ folk. Who in the heck understands that religious idea of repentance? Most of us struggle to accept a new thought. Most of us struggle to give up an old thought. There, try that one.
Right now, I am thinking of some not so close relationships that should be closer. Over time, I have let them become distant. They are unlovely. They are painful to the touch.
Let’s Pray
Father, how do I get beyond my own resistance to change? Touch me. I am unlovely in so many ways. Maybe, I think I am super lovely. But, there are ways in which I am really unlovely. You keep touching me. You keep coming to me. You never let up. Teach me to do the same with those around me that seem unlovely. Really, they are most lovely. You love them. You offer them friendship and fellowship. Jesus sat with the blatant prostitute and the thief and the sloppy drunk. He even took time for mother-in-laws and government tax agents and politicians and lawyers and whiny busybodies. He called them friends. Break me out of my shell to do the same. That is the real message of Christ. All are human and fragile and flawed and failed. All are worth being loved and changed and infected and perfected.
PrayerMetro puts out thoughts to provoke thinking not preach religion. Think. Meditate. Pause. Pray. Consider. Act.
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