Go Green, Go Deep, and Go Changed
Last Sunday, I was at Glen Lake Camp in Glen Rose, TX for Mid-Winter Retreat #1. The theme was Go Green! and we spent the weekend looking at ways to honor God by using the earth more wisely and lest wastefully. We used as few lights as possible, worship was acoustic, and we tried to be less wasteful with our meals. We also just added an iron-on to our own shirts rather than creating a bunch of new t-shirts for the event.
The repeated way we reminded each other was with the phrase: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.The idea behind "Reduce" is to try to use less of anything overall; less electricity, less gas, use a rag instead of paper towels, less disposable products, less new stuff. The next part, "Reuse" is to use things that might get thrown away in other ways; buy clothes from from a thrift store or reseller, fix things instead of throwing them away and buying new stuff, keep your car in good running shape instead of buying a new one, refill a cup instead another paper or Styrofoam cups, wash plasticware to use again. The last step is to recycle whatever you can; aluminum, plastic, paper, steel. Most towns have some sort of recycling system in place, but reusing keeps it out of even that loop, and reducing makes the whole process easier to manage.
In a couple of weeks we will be going to Mid-Winter Retreat #2 with a theme of Go Deep! that will focus on getting deeper into scripture. We will be finding ways to understand and apply God's word to our lives in very real ways. We will also continue much of our Go Green! practices to try to keep making a difference. We all know that scripture is one of the easiest ways to learn how much God loves us and to find out what He wants for us, but it is easy to take our understanding for granted. Working on it together is part of being a community of faith.
Weekend retreats like this can be a great starting point or an opportunity to recommit to some faithful actions. It is so important to try to take all this from being just ideas in our heads to being the way we live our lives. If we don't, we're really just giving God lip service and just pretending to be people of faith. Faith should make a difference in our lives that people can see and it should affect the lives of others in a good way.
I understand that back at church our pastor preached on the scripture of the woman caught in adultery and brought before Jesus. This is one of my absolute favorite scriptures. It teaches us so much about God's love and calling to a new life. Those with an agenda that was not based in love, which Jesus tells us is what all the law and prophets are based upon, were put in their proper place. They came, using this woman to try to trap Jesus. He turned their actions right back at them. We do not know what Jesus wrote in the dirt. Perhaps he began listing sins of those around Him. Perhaps showed them His understanding of their twisted plan. Perhaps he just wrote "love." Whatever it was gave them a better understanding of what they were doing, for they stopped and went away. Now the woman didn't just get off free and clear. Jesus told her essentially the same thing as those who came to trap Him, "Go now and leave your life of sin."
That's a good plan for all of us.
Be Blessed!
Michael
The repeated way we reminded each other was with the phrase: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.The idea behind "Reduce" is to try to use less of anything overall; less electricity, less gas, use a rag instead of paper towels, less disposable products, less new stuff. The next part, "Reuse" is to use things that might get thrown away in other ways; buy clothes from from a thrift store or reseller, fix things instead of throwing them away and buying new stuff, keep your car in good running shape instead of buying a new one, refill a cup instead another paper or Styrofoam cups, wash plasticware to use again. The last step is to recycle whatever you can; aluminum, plastic, paper, steel. Most towns have some sort of recycling system in place, but reusing keeps it out of even that loop, and reducing makes the whole process easier to manage.
In a couple of weeks we will be going to Mid-Winter Retreat #2 with a theme of Go Deep! that will focus on getting deeper into scripture. We will be finding ways to understand and apply God's word to our lives in very real ways. We will also continue much of our Go Green! practices to try to keep making a difference. We all know that scripture is one of the easiest ways to learn how much God loves us and to find out what He wants for us, but it is easy to take our understanding for granted. Working on it together is part of being a community of faith.
Weekend retreats like this can be a great starting point or an opportunity to recommit to some faithful actions. It is so important to try to take all this from being just ideas in our heads to being the way we live our lives. If we don't, we're really just giving God lip service and just pretending to be people of faith. Faith should make a difference in our lives that people can see and it should affect the lives of others in a good way.
I understand that back at church our pastor preached on the scripture of the woman caught in adultery and brought before Jesus. This is one of my absolute favorite scriptures. It teaches us so much about God's love and calling to a new life. Those with an agenda that was not based in love, which Jesus tells us is what all the law and prophets are based upon, were put in their proper place. They came, using this woman to try to trap Jesus. He turned their actions right back at them. We do not know what Jesus wrote in the dirt. Perhaps he began listing sins of those around Him. Perhaps showed them His understanding of their twisted plan. Perhaps he just wrote "love." Whatever it was gave them a better understanding of what they were doing, for they stopped and went away. Now the woman didn't just get off free and clear. Jesus told her essentially the same thing as those who came to trap Him, "Go now and leave your life of sin."
That's a good plan for all of us.
Be Blessed!
Michael
posted by McHonza at 8:31 AM
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