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I know that the Village is small and many of us are more "connected" relationally than your "average" church attendee, but It would be pretty cool if we all blogged more. I don't know what is happening in a lot of your lives. It is hard to know all the cool details of 45 people's week. So, I say this, to encourage you to blog if you get a chance.
 Today, I was going to meet with David Wolfe, but he had to substitute teach. I just finished putting together an adventure/fantasy game for the Village kids and adults that teaches community and verse memory. Russ, Rod, Keith and I played it after Leadership meeting. They really enjoyed the game and had a lot of good suggestions. Official game testing will happen soon, and those of you who I've discussed the game with will be invited to play . . . don't worry, I won't leave you out. My back is killing me because I spent most of yesterday sitting in hard wood chairs drawing map squares, characters, and monsters for the game.
 Rod, Russ, and I had a very good time in San Diego. The best part of the trip was the eight hour drive up and back from Tucson. We laughed, cried, and complained about our sore butts. Yes the Pastor just said butt. During the conference we learned some interesting things about preaching and teaching in community. Also, we got some cool ideas about how to integrate writing and writers into public worship. This Sunday, after Vespers, there will be a meeting for all writers in the community. Ten minutes after service we will meet in room 8(the room with mirrors)to discuss how this might work.
 One of the other ideas that Rod and I have been kicking around, and the leadership team talked about last night, involves changing part of the Village culture. Many of us have friends outside the community. Many of us offer our neighbors(I use the term neighbor quite loosely) assistance, such as financial help, friendship, house repair, etc. I think this is really cool, and I want to encourage you to continue to be Jesus in that way, but the Village as a collective unit struggles to see Tucson as its neighbor. We don't look around at our neighborhoods . . . city and say, "what is God calling the Village to do for that person, that neighborhood, that section of the city, or that problem. I have a couple of ideas. The first involves a few of us coming around to villagers homes at the end of the month to collect extra food to help the people we know who need it. This ideas has been on my heart for a while. I was reading in the Old Testament about harvesting and the responsibility of the farmer to leave grain that falls to the ground for the poor(I think that's what it said. It is early in the morning, and it has been some time since I read it.) Also, Emily and Jeff McConnell are heavily involved with their neighborhood association, and we figured out that 17.64575%(thanks Russ) of the Village lives in that particular neighborhood - so we will probably be trying to help out there. We will talk more, and I hope to keep this conversation going way into the future. If you have ideas, please pass them on to me. No guarantee we will do them, but the more ideas we have the better the party will be.
Lastly, before I go and study for Sunday's conversation, I want to remind the men to come to the smack down at Joel and Ryan's house.
Eric |
