Week 3: Parsonage Improvement Project

Greetings!  Sorry I didn't get an update out for Week 2.  The crews continue to do great work on the Parsonage!  It's a little dustier than it was, but new additions are going in every day. 

✅Install New Energy Efficient Windows

✅Install New Kitchen Sink Window

✅Lay Down New Subfloor

✅Prepare brick fireplace wall to cover with drywall

✅Upgrade Master Circuit-Breaker Electrical Panel

✅Install Plumbing for new fixtures in bathroom, kitchen, mud room

✅Install Wiring, switches, receptacles, and housings for new light configurations

✅Install new bathtub

✅Prep ductwork - make adjustments for new cabinets

✅Empty first dumpster load

Continued thanks to the Parsonage Committee for overseeing the work and answering the many little questions that come up from time to time. 

Here are some pictures:

Old windows come out for new ones to go in.  This should help us care for the planet and save some money on heating bills!

Rub a dub dub . . . we have a new tub. . . 

 

The ceiling doesn't look like it used to . . .

Best attempt at dust-proofing.

Laundry with a view - temporarily.

Our attempt at one of those online hidden object games.  Or a new radical multipurpose room.  The carport is now a 1) marina, 2) bathroom, 3) barbecue, 4) dishwasher, 4) kitchen, 5) washroom, 6) lumberyard, 7) clothes rack, 8) entertainment center

The mudroom begins to take shape

The new kitchen sink window

Week 1: Parsonage Improvement Project

Greetings!  At our Council meeting this week, it was reported that at least 25% of the funds for this project have been given already.  We have loans secured for the entire value of the project, but the less we have to borrow, the better!

Wanted to post some pictures of the parsonage improvement project, week 1.  Brad Wesley's crew is doing a great job!  We moved the water heater from inside the pantry to a gas water heater located in a small hut near the outside gas pack a couple weeks ago.  The theme of this week has been demolition.  

✅Receive dumpster and port-a-John

✅Move out of spaces to be remodeled

✅Set up kitchenette in Dining room

✅Remove kitchen appliances and cabinets.

✅Remove vinyl flooring and plywood subfloor

✅Remove washer/dryer and laundry flooring

✅Remove hall bathroom fixtures, tile walls (including breaking tub in half!!)

✅Remove bathroom closets and widen bathroom entryway so that future families and guests will have better accessibility for people who may have mobility limitations

✅Widen kitchen sink window

✅Remove brick hearth and wooden mantle and ceiling fans

Today or Monday - replace front single pane windows with energy efficient windows

Everything’s been moving along swiftly!  I am still living here - I’m not cooking any gourmet meals but the front of the house and all other bed and bathrooms continue to be accessible.

We, The Ordinary People of the Streets

"Mission is the intersection of God's love and the world's rejection. The Christian is penetrated to the core by the one just as by the other, and the two converge in him. Because it is a trial that belongs to life, there is no way he can avoid suffering from it. But this trial is a participation in the apostolic trial of the Church; the Church is armed to overcome it; the Church is equipped with the strength to resist it and triumph over it."

--Madeleine Delbrel, We, the Ordinary People of the Streets, First published in 1966 in French under the title Nous autres, gens des rues by Editions du Seuil. English translation copyright 2000, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids.

Madelieine Delbrel, a poet by nature and an atheist by conviction, underwent a radical conversion at the age of 20 that led her to found, in 1933, a "gospel" community of lay women dedicated to poverty, chastity,and work among the poor. The photograph is taken of Madeleine in Septemeber 1964, three weeks before her death.

The Leadership Lid

A friend of mine just gave me a book that millions of others have already read: John C. Maxwell's The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. In it, the first law is known as "The Law of the Lid", in which Maxwell asserts that a person's leadership ability determines a person's level of effectiveness. I wonder how that applies not just to individuals, but to churches and ministries? I don't think our churches are called to manage the disciples, but to lead the world to Jesus, and to lead the people into discipleship as Jesus leads the church into the kingdom. So the church's ability and willingness to lead will, under Maxwell's assertion, determine the effectiveness of the church. Now, the effectiveness of the church is different than the effectiveness of God, who will find a way to save the world even if the church is not effective (even the rocks will cry out, after all). That said, God's way is to work through the church, so it's time to blow the lid off. And we as a church will blow the lid off only when we increase our ability to lead.

No Matter What You've Done

When I was a kid, my family would travel a few hours away from my home in Detroit to my grandparent's farm in the middle of Michigan. Remus, Michigan to be exact. You can find it on google earth at 4403 Ten Mile Road, Remus, Michigan. There on the farm, we were able to do stuff that you couldn't do in the sprawling concrete jungle of metro Detroit: shoot bb guns, ride minibikes, jump out of haylofts, pet cows, drive old pickup trucks in great big fields. It seems that out there, parents kind of let you roam a little further - further into the woods, further into silence, further into maturity.

I remember one summer I was walking around with a bb gun. It was a bad summer for me and the bb gun. I shot a blackbird that I was just trying to scare, and I shot out the window of my grandpa's 57 green chevy pickup. Both were bad choices. Both were discovered soon after by my elders. Both left me (and them) with this sinking feeling of "uh-oh; why on earth did I do that?" The bird later died. The glass was never repaired. The world was changed by my poor judgement. Sound familiar? These are the cute-"everybody's got to learn"-coming of age stories. Unfortunately, we homo-sapiens don't learn very well. As I've shared with select people over the years, there are many more sordid tales of damage to property and hearts, caused by my hands, my words, my 'momentary lapses in judgement'.

I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only one out there who has experienced this. Where do you go when you've let them down? Where do you go when your actions wound? In the ancient story of a king who used murder to conceal a sordid affair, the king laments to God, "Against you and you alone have I sinned, Lord God." But I don't think the sin against God hurts near as much as consequences of harm done to one another, which throws mankind collectively and individually into what some have termed the 'dark night of the soul.'

What I want to know is: when and how, under what circumstances, does dawn break onto such a dark night, no matter what you've done? Some would say that time heals all wounds. I hope there is a more powerful potion than the passing of time.

More to come . . .don't lose hope.

No Matter What You Believe

I want to talk to you, no matter what you believe.
I am a pastor, a Christian pastor, even a United Methodist pastor; mainline denomination, on the northern edge of the Bible belt, and I want to talk to you, no matter what you believe.

I won't condemn you, I can't possibly convert you, I probably haven't thought about some of the things that you've thought about in as much depth as you have. But I want to talk to you.

If you're like most, you'll be able to ask me something I can't answer. You'll compare me to others in the same category as me (whatever that might be) and find I'm different, or the same, but I still want to talk to you.

I want to hear about you, and what you think, and what you believe, and what pops you out of bed in the morning, and what keeps you up at night. I believe you've got a lot to offer the world. If you're anything like me, you're probably good at a couple of things, not good at a lot, and wish you were better at some. No matter what you believe.

I won't use your story as an illustration to make my point. I won't go looking to exploit the conversation. It might take me a few moments to fully tune in to what you're saying. You might catch me at just the right time and place, or we might need to set a time. But I want to talk to you.

No matter what you believe, I believe something too. My beliefs compel me to want to find out about you, to listen so carefully that something in you helps me understand the world, our place in it, and where we might be headed in this life or the next. I hope that what I believe is worth sharing, but that's not why I want to talk to you. If you want to know something about what I believe, you'll ask.

And that's good enough for me, no matter what you believe.