"Welcome" Banner Wreath

I decided that our new home needed to be christened with a wreath.  So I rifled through a ton of them on Pinterest and finally decided to put a bunch of different ideas together.  I give you the "Welcome" Banner Wreath:

I didn't take a picture of all the items, but here's a list of what I used and where I got it:

• 2 wreaths of different sizes - Dollar Tree
• Multi-colored foam sheets - Dollar Tree
• Twine - Michaels
• Hot glue gun - any craft store
• Acrylic jewels - Walmart

Here's what I did:

I cut the foam sheets into squares and then made them into pinwheels. 

From there, I overlapped the twine wreaths and used the twine to hold them together.  You could probably just hot glue them together, but I liked the look of the twine.  

I made triangles from the scraps of foam sheets and glued them to the twine to make a banner.  Then I attached the twine to the wreaths.  

Hot glue the pinwheels to the wreaths and the acrylic jewels to the middle of the pinwheels.  Write "welcome" on the pennants of the banner.  Then hang it!

Now I have a happy front door that is perfect for summer!

Enjoy!

The "On/Off" Switch

The reality of the fact that there are 2.5 weeks until my wedding really hit hard yesterday.  I was looking at my work calendar and realized that I have so much left to do and only 17 days to do it!  I am all of a sudden overwhelmed - but not so much in a bad way.  My adrenaline is definitely pumping.

But I didn't start this post to talk about my wedding (even though that's how it turned out, sorry Pastor Jamie).  I started a new post to talk about ministry.  Not my job necessarily, just ministry.  And how ministry is hard.

Let me repeat.  Ministry is h.a.r.d.

Do I love ministry?  Yes.
Am I called to ministry?  Most certainly.
Is it always puppies and rainbows?  Hahaha.

I've been working in this ministry position since October, just short of 8 months now.  And I love what I do.  I feel, without a shadow of a doubt, that God has me exactly where I should be.  I'm definitely not one of those people who does her ministry begrudgingly because I'd rather be doing ministry somewhere else.  No, that's absolutely not me.

But sometimes I wish there was an "off" switch for ministry.  That I could turn it off just for a little bit so that I can really let my hair down without suffering the inevitable repercussions of my actions.  That I could avoid the limelight for a little while and not have my personal life under scrutiny all the time.

For instance, I have to be very careful when I talk about the house that Matthew and I are renting because, if I refer to it in an ambiguous way (such as "our house"), someone misunderstands and thinks that we must be living together already.  I would think it goes without saying that we aren't living together yet because we're not married yet.  Still, some from my church have raised questions about it.  (And, for the sake of clarification, I'm living at the house until we get married, which is when - obviously - Matthew will move in.  Until then, he's still living at the camp where he was working.)

And I get that this sounds like a rant of frustration - it's not.  It's just an example of how the ministry switch never gets to be turned off, even for stuff that has nothing to do with ministry.  And that's hard.

The thing is...as a Christ-follower, my life has always been under scrutiny.  And it should be.  Being in ministry doesn't change that at its core.  Yes, ministry changes it to a different degree, but Christ-followers are called to be set apart from the get-go.  It was never an option to turn the switch off.  Yet, I used to do just that all the time.  I didn't always live in a way that reflects the calling I have on my life as a Christ-follower.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.  - Romans 12:1-2

I'm finding that, in ministry, I'm doing way more learning than I am teaching.  I thought it would be the other way around.  But I'm okay with that.  I hope that I will always be teachable and moldable.  And my prayer is that the Holy Spirit will instill in me a deeper desire to keep that switch in the "on" position, that it will be more natural than "off".  Not because I'm in ministry.  Because I'm called to be like Jesus.

Life & Spiritual Growth

I'm currently writing this blog post from my home (soon to be OUR home).  We got internet/phone/cable service installed recently since cell service is virtually nonexistent out here.  It took a couple of days for me to adjust to living here by myself, but I'm really starting to like it now.  :)

We officially get married in 25 days.  We're down to less than 30 days, people!  This is crazy!  Matthew and I were discussing how we think people are disappointed with our responses when they ask if we're excited.  I mean, of course, we're excited, but we're more just ready to do this!  We're ready to begin our life together - officially.  So don't be disappointed with us if you should ask if we're excited - we get asked all the time!

Plans have gone very smoothly.  There are very few things that we have left to do.  I feel like it's been too easy up to this point (overall).  I'm sure something will go wrong eventually, but I'm super happy that it's been pretty stress free for now.

I can't wait to visit home (TX) at the beginning of June to see my lil' Bubba Bear graduate from high school.  I'm so proud of that goober.  And I'm stoked about some family time down there before the big day.

. . .

At work, the pastoral staff has been reading a new(er) book called "Move: What 1,000 Churches Reveal About Spiritual Growth" by Greg L. Hawkins & Cally Parkinson.  It's basically a book based on the findings from 1,000 churches who responded to a spiritual growth survey conducted by Bill Hybels' church, Willow Creek.  I'm not going to try to explain it all because you can just read the book yourself, but I bring it up because there are some things from it that have really got me thinking.

The first part (which is what I just finished) walks the reader through the characteristics of four stages of spiritual growth, starting with exploring Christ and moving through to the stage of being Christ-centered.  As I read, I can't help but wonder which group I fall into at any given moment.  I feel like I can move through all four stages in a day and, on the flip side, get stuck in a particular stage for a long time.  I consider this book very challenging in my own spiritual journey because I want to be in that last group, the Christ-centered Christ-followers.  I don't think many people make it to that group, but that's where I aspire to be.

The book also makes me wonder the state of the worshipers in my church.  Not in a judgmental, condemning way.  Just in an assessing-the-health-of-our-church kind of a way.  And, related to that, I am questioning what we can do to improve the spiritual growth of our church based on the findings in the book (which I think is discussed further in the next parts), especially since the central key they've found is that a person's amount of church activity is not equal to their spiritual maturity, contrary to what most of us have believed for the last 100 years (or more).  In other words, more church does not equal better Christ-follower.  Interesting.

Anyway, I hope to have more thoughts on this to post later (as I read more of the book).  Another resource I'm loving right now is the latest edition of Worship Leader magazine.  This particular edition's topic is specifically related to worship as a pastor, which is exactly my role.  If you're a worship pastor, you should grab this month's issue (May 2012).  I haven't even made it through the whole magazine yet because I'm still mulling over and processing some of the articles I've read so far.  It's full of great stuff, like this article by Darlene Zschech: "10 Essential Traits of a Worship Pastor".  Read it - you won't regret it.

---------------------------------------------------

EDIT: 

To read our senior pastor's blog post on "Move" (Part 1), click here.