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gat.chatter for 11.02.03

yes, we'll be having the gathering this week, and we'll have music and talking, and most of will be there - what, you were thinking we were going to cancel it on account of the wind or something? we'll have the gathering rain or shine, and we are starting something new this week. if you ever sing a bit quieter for fear of someone near you turning to see who is singing too loud, too off key, or something that seems too different, just raise your hand and point that rubber-necker out. we'll have people in the isles with tasers and we'll be zapping them. you are singing to God, not them. oh, i wish we could do that, but it would be so hard to get a purchase order approved for 2 dozen tasers.

seriously though, how many people do we know [or are these people] that have good voices and sing quietly because singing quietly is the "in" thing? or how about those of us [possibly the majority of us] that aren't that good at singing so we don't? this doesn't mean we all need to sing during the gat, but aren't we here for God and not our own musical enjoyment? ever been in a place where people aren't afraid to shower their voices on God and it is an entirely different experience, not to mention an incredible place to participate. he is GOD, afterall - he deserves more than a golf clap. getting over the fear of what others think isn't easy, but it would be nice if the gat became a place where full expression [including off-key and monotone] were fully accepted.

switching angles, how about this, regarding getting "the feeling" during musical worship. we've all most likely had it, look for it, and often expect it:

yes, i have often stood in worship and prayed or thought, "it's not happening, Lord! come, Holy Spirit! make your presence known!" and if i could discern any answering voice at all, all it said was, "sorry, but no. that's not what you and i are all about right now. i have other things for you. yes, praise me. yes, worship me - but not to hype yourself into an all-about-you euphoria"

this isn't saying that we can't have "the feeling", but that isn't what worship is about [gosh, that isn't what being "in love" is all about either - there is a difference between infatuation and love, right?]. the next line:

and i often hear this question as well: "if you never felt 'the feeling' again, would you keep worshipping me anyway - for me, and not just for the feeling?"

do we worship God because of who he is or because we are looking for "the feeling"? i don't believe matt has ever been one to hype us up, to push a bit more, to act more passionate than he really is, to use guilt to get us singing. sure, he encourages us to participate, but, if i could guess what matt would say, it would be "c'mon, God is right here - isn't that great? let's sing to him, let our whole beings be for him right now". feeling or not, that is what happens at the gat. actually, it is always happening - see you this sunday, and remember that we are here together, all of us, for God - the gat.crew

gat.chatter for 10.26.03

ere it is, almost the end of october and it feels a little more like late may. for some strange reason i always remember the time around halloween to be a little chillier, probably even sweatshirt weather. does our current warm weather mean that it isn't the end of october? though it could possibly mean the end of the world for some, it technically is still october 24th but how we feel about it, ie percieve it is a different matter. we've been discussing on what the christmas season should be like for the gathering, and though we could do a lot of different things [and it would still be christmas] there is something about having that christmas feel. it is probably different for everyone, but this is one of those unique times in the year where people feel that it is the season for giving and they do. people are happy, kids are excited, lots of food is prepared [and very little of it would be considered "healthy"]. the hard part is trying to both meet those expectations of "it needs to feel like christmas" and not do "christmas 2003, a copy of 2002, which is a copy of 2001 all the way back to 1956". sing christmas songs, tell the christmas story, more christmas songs, maybe some kids up on stage - if you've been churchified, you know what it looks like. so, the gathering team decided that we would have "a very barney christmas", so invite all your friends, because after all, i love you, you love me, we're a happy fam-il-y! actually, that was when we discovered that jonathan had left his car running in the garage and we were getting a bit loopy.

we can try our best into making the christmas season at the gat FEEL like a christmas season, but what would be really nice would be if we all made it feel like a christmas season, and even more so, make it BE a christmas season. this anticipation of the messiah, the promised one finally showing up and setting things straight again - this is a great celebration worth telling our friends about, worth living out with our friends, coworkers, family and strangers. from a line from last week's chatter:

let's start thinking now what we'll be doing for thankschristmas, >hoping that God changes us into compassionate people, changing how we >see the world. that kind of change is definitely for the better, but >by no means easy. how are we going be a vehicle for the awesomeness of christmas vs. a destination for christmas to come to? what part are we going to play this year, and will it be temporary or long term?

this sunday will be a combo of jonathan and tom [can we just call jonathan the talking guy, or even just cleveland?] and it'll have the story of mars hill plus the candle chick's sister and brother-in-law [no, they aren't street mimes]. it should be good, and if it isn't good, it isn't really about whether or not we like it because it isn't really about us but about pointing a finger towards God and saying "him, it is all about him, and you are awesome, God" right?

yeah, it'll be good - see you sunday - the gat.crew

gat.chatter for 10.19.03

the song of solomon series is at an end, and hopefully everyone has enjoyed them. jonathan stated this week, "i've talked about all i can on sex, marriage, relationships, intimacy, friendship, etc" which might be true, at least for now. we'll have the 5 cd set of his talks on the market soon enough, and this week is the last week, though not necessarily "the end". now that we have all this information and have [hopefully] talked through it with our friends, there is the part of actually living it out, which is a whole lot harder to do than just hearing it. we'll also get all the talks posted [the notes, that is] on the website some day soon, and the next thing you'll know it'll be the thankschristmas season.

some thoughts on "finally getting it" - we've got a box at work to collect pop-top tabs, and i think it says that every pound of tabs equals 1 hour of dialysis treatment for someone. it has been two years and we haven't gotten a pound yet. then i was watching the yogurt[?] commercials with the pink lids that you can send in and the manufacturer will donate a dime to breast cancer something or other [yes, i was paying attention]. of course, i could eat a ton of yogurt and spend possibly more money on the postage mailing them and it would add up to a few dollars. the key word here? awareness. do i/we see the situation, do we care? will my coworkers, after saving tabs for years say enough is enough and join the cause? will we realize there are other people in a not-so-good situation and do something about it?

why does it take so long to begin to care?

we'll be coming up on the season where will pick up a can or two for a food drive, and though good, would caring more be a shift to "great"? i remember visiting friend's apartments while in college and seeing the same neighbors walking to school, having nothing in their apartment, working long hours in addition to school and eating top ramen and macaroni and cheese. chances are, some reading this now are doing the same thing, but their life never changed my view of what was going on. i spread MY situation over THEIR situation and everything looked fine. thinking back on those times when i was relatively moneyless, i wonder if secretly putting $50 one month towards their rent would have made a difference, or maybe a bag of groceries once every month or more often would have made a difference.

situations are different for everyone, but being able to see someone else's situation would be a good first step to caring. being a parent, now i read about children and women enslaved in our world today [that includes florida] http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0309/feature1/index.html i think of my own kids and it kills me that those other kids aren't having a childhood. even knowing just what damage a rape does for one person makes me wonder what can be done for those that are sold into prostitution, sold daily against their will. the really aren't even having a life. it even makes me hurt for the [single?] mom's at bus stops, struggling to keep their kids from running in traffic at the end of the day.

okay, that was a bit of a downer, but let's start thinking now what we'll be doing for thankschristmas, hoping that God changes us into compassionate people, changing how we see the world. that kind of change is definitely for the better, but by no means easy.

see you sunday - the gat.crew

gat.chatter for 09.21.03

weeks ago the clevelands shared on sex, which would definitely be another in a great line of talks by people having a last name referencing a city in ohio. maybe even the best, just because no other city in ohio comes to mind [seattle? is seattle in ohio? hehee] this last week was on conflict and our role in it [eg, quite often we are the cause, and the resolution isn't trying to fix the other person - fix 'em good, that is]. this upcoming week is divorce, and before we all roll our eyes and say "oh, what does THAT have to do with me/us?" - wouldn't you think that it should be just as good as any of the last talks? there may be a majority of us that come from parents who are divorced, many of us have friends that have gotten divorced, and, when the stats say that more Christians get divorced than others, there has got to be something going on here that isn't quite right. boy scouts shouldn't be the only ones to use the line "be prepared" - let's find out what is going on beforehand, and understanding conflict and submission from the previous weeks would seem to be a great help.

on to some mildly random thoughts, things that might have gotten twisted around, like the above stat about Christians getting a greater percentages of divorces. for much of the rest of the world, people just move out - they never were married. while we might call that pre-marital sex or sex outside of marriage, everyone else just calls it sex. take that a step further for those that have heard the message in church to say "save sex until marriage", it was mistakenly flipped around to "get married so we can have sex". it is a very subtle switch in wording, but makes a huge difference in our approach to marriage and sex. marriage becomes secondary, and when getting marriage is just about getting to have sex, what that means is that we can have lame/marginal marriages, but at least we aren't having sex anywhere else. if we try to tell people to not only save sex until marriage but even to get married, why? what is the reason for getting married if we don't have a lot of great examples [though the good marriages do tend to stand out]. "just cause" isn't much of a reason. enter a quote by alan roxburgh:

"today we sense the crisis of a marginalized Christianity. we have come to the end of an era; the deep roots of a churched culture have been pulled up and left along the roadside... Evangelical Christians cannot stand aloof ro send apolgetic salvos across the bows of our adversaries' shiips. we must abandon triumphalism. the church in North America has become like the proverbial emperor who wore no clothes. the crowds that once filled our churches, listening to our moralistic pronouncements, know that we have no clothes, no coinage with which to buy credence. but the challenges we are experiencing can become God's catalyst to call us into a future he never abandoned."

the point of all this? think of where we are and we each believe, and what we share as a group. the gat and casas in general has never been a place of "this is EXACTLY what we believe and WE ALL believe it". a few of us at the gat were talking about this, and how the gat and casas in general has been more open on what we all believe - we don't bicker about baptizing people forwards or backwards, or what translation of the bible we read, or all those things that change and vary for most of us. maybe it might make sense to say "what we do might seem normal, but it really isn't", or maybe yancey's line of "I have noticed that Christians tend to get very angry towards others who sin differently than they do". getting stuck with a certain methodology quite often builds something that isn't mobile and next month it won't travel well on this journey with God. there is a difference between aligning with how "they" think vs understanding how we think individually and as a group, as well as how we are able to verbalize it and discuss it. some of the more enjoyable moments for me personally have been discussing cleveland's talks with a group of people and listening to what people believe and think vs. clamoring for the "right" answer.

we'll post more things for us to question and reflect with on the gathering site - God's voice is eveywhere, including inside us.

have a good rest of the week - see you at the gat sunday - the gat.folks

[seriously, if anyone wants to chat about any of this, email us at contact at stopmovingmychair.com - don't marginalize the conversation by saying "oh, that is conservative/liberal" - that helps no one. if you want to, have lunch with jonathan. join a group that is willing to discuss, not just listen. there are plenty of ways that God is egging us on]

gat.chatter for 09.4.03

last week was sexual temptation, and bishop mildly changed our slogan to "no one is tempted alone", which hopefully is very true. we should all have people to confide in, as well as be someone that could be confided in. we'll keep posting johnathan's notes each week [though i have yet to do the last two weeks - work is really cramping my style] and you can order the cd's of each talk, too. at the end of the series, we'll have a director's cut, with johnathan adding critiques to his own talk, deleted scenes, as well as having subtitles for 36 other languages, including viking and sanskrit. okay, just parts of that is true.

back to the subject of struggling with sexual temptation and how it makes us stronger - we need resistance to build strength and ability. i've always likened it to God asking us to jump in the river and swim over to a rock in the middle. he starts us off easy, in calmer waters, then over days, months, and years, he keeps pushing us into rougher waters, making us haul rafts behind us, until we've become powerful swimmers. it doesn't happen in one day, and too often we look at the rough waters and think we can't do it. the bonus is that it isn't us, but God working with us, the ultimate coach and confidant, and we usually always have [or should have] good friends around us to help. some waters can only be crossed with a group, not solo. this goes beyond just sexual temptation, but our whole journey with God. next week will be about sex. we don't know if we should turn the lights up bright or turn them down - we'll see what happens.

speaking of lights, we've gotten a lot of comments about the bright lights during the music. those lights would fall under the category of "things going wrong" - you don't know how much fun it is to look at the board and all the lights are showing "off" except that a whole line of lights don't know it yet. when things go wrong, we need more than a cave man sitting in the cockpit of the shuttle. we sorely missed john connors, the man who has been running the lights at the gat for years. he is one of the many volunteers that make the gat what it is. and yes, the gat is all volunteers - johnathan is the only one that gets paid [well, matt gets a stipend for his time, but he has a 50 hour week job already] - and that just seems right. the gat is what we make of it. see you all sunday - the gat. crew

gat.chatter for 08.17.03

woohoo! we are finally here, the beginning of the song of solomon series! please, don't think "oh, it'll just be a long series about a book" - it'll be more than that. the topic is complex, intimate, and provides a very good image about both our human sexuality and our relationship with God. that said, go read the first chapter if you haven't already. remember that we are suggesting this be an 18 and over gathering, but, take this letter we got this past week:

Hello,

I wanted to express my concern over your idea to cover the Song of Salomon. If you've ever read the book, you know that there is some strong imagery and some topics which are not appropriate for discussion in church...

yeah, well, that letter was a pretty funny hoax, but we've heard both excitement for the book as well as similar attitudes as the hoax letter.

if a response actually had to be made, how about:

yes, there are plenty of strong topics for discussion, but at what point does the participants in the kingdom shy away from the hard discussions? Jesus came to save, not just from hell, but more importantly [and possibly more accurately] during our lifetimes - to change us and redeem us and the world. none of that sounds like "comfort" is the goal of Jesus' followers. to use maclaren's imagery, would we rather be following a Jesus that is hunched over, sweating, unsure if he is being offensive or if people won't like what he is talking about, or would we want to follow a Jesus standing tall, leaning into the wind with a glint in his eye and a thin smile, ready to go? hopefully he is the second version, and hopefully his people and his church are too.

this should be a good next few weeks, and it will only be made better if we look inside at who we are individually and as a group. hopefully we'll come out of this with a healthier look at intimacy and more. from a musician talking about another musician he enjoyed playing with:

"he is one of the few people that i know that can actually take the feeling he has in his heart and translate it into music - so many others just play the notes"

see you all in a few days - keep the gat in your thoughts - thanks - the gat.crew

gat.chatter for 07.20.03

if you missed last week, you missed a good time with God. one person¡?s comment was something to the effect of "exquisite, brilliantly done! I could feel my right brain tingling as my left searched for truth that wasn¡?t spoon fed to me.... an often overlooked aspect of God's personality-the creative! ....and man it left a good taste in my mouth". on the flip side, several people walked out of the service, and where the optomist might say "oh, they got an overwhelming desire to go visit their grandmother right now" or "must be time to go to work®¥?, but i doubt it. from conversations i've had myself or heard from others, it frequently comes up as "it wasn't spiritual".

i can¡?t figure out how that could be. some discussions with friends this week came in a very timely manner [yes, virtual hiking with friends]:

one pointed out a movie another writer was saying shouldn¡?t be endorsed by the Christian community: ¡§The film has much wonder, humanity, sympathy, and even something of love and personhood. Does it have any real spirituality, anysignificant moral or religious component? Is anyone concerned about things like duty, fidelity, service? Is there any awareness or consideration of the presence of God?"

his thought back to us was "I just love how ¡¥wonder, humanity, sympathy, and love¡? are tossed aside in the definition of REAL spirituality: morality, religion, duty, fidelity, service." -- he was being sarcastic, by the way.

how DO we define spirituality? why, when something doesn't fit our view of God do we give spirituality dissrespect? since when does humanity, sympathy and love not measure up? i believe there was a story that jesus told about the supposedly spiritual folks passing by a hurting person, but it was the "unspiritual" person that came to their aid. God is moving and laying deeply spiritual things all around us that we constantly fail to recognize.

oh, there is plenty more to all this, but to take a line from the princess bride on how we use the word spirituality, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

and just in case you want to know how to take the easy route to becoming spiritual, here are some quick and easy steps to becoming a respected spiritual figure that is quite common:

1. Adopt an opinion that¡?s just slightly more conservative than those around you.

2. Assert that opinion quietly but forcefully.

3. If challenged, assert it more forcefully.

4. If challenged further, assert it again.

5. And again.

smart doug replied to this with "people often mistake a refusal to budge on one's viewpoint for integrity, or a concise, defined (read:simplistic) opinion for wisdom."

more on this last phrase next week - thanks, the gat.crew

gat.chatter for 07.13.03

this week is an almost entirely all music gathering [or maybe we should say "no talking" gathering?] which should be differentiated from a "worship service", which makes it sound as if we only worship God through a] singing, b] just on sundays, c] just singing on sundays. we should always be in awe of God, but an all music night vs a sing/lecture night it a nice change of pace - it is all of us focused on God, entirely directed towards God. that seems very refreshing.

BUT, we have something else in the mix, and hopefully we all experience God through it. it isn't a bullet point talk, with application and things to take home, but a story that hopefully grabs our attention, takes us somewhere we wouldn't have gone on our own, turns our outward look inward at who we are and what we think about our lives and our creator. this isn't a lunchable where we look back and what we received in four well formed compartments but something less manageable, more mysterious, that leaves us with a sense of "something happened here and i'm changed because of it - God did it, but i can't wrap my arms around what it was". that is the power of God through a story. if you have a chance, chat with God and ask if he'd be willing to let this sunday's Gat go that direction. thanks - the gat.team

gat.chatter for 06.29.03

this week matt is singing, cleveland is talking, the fires are burning, and we are still talking about helpful hiking tips - this week it is the bible's role in our journey.

for those of us that have ever looked at topographic maps [contour maps denoting, um, the contour the earth], there is an interesting disconnect from the information they provide and real life [check this one out - it is casas' property - like you'll recognize it]. we can study the maps all we want, learn where there should be cliffs and valleys, but does that make us a good hiker? hardly. it just means we have some information about where we might be/how to get there. going out and actually hiking gives us another perspective, something that makes the maps actually handy. it doesn't matter if there is a cliff there or not if we don't have the skills to climb/descend it.

all this to say: the bible isn't a road map or a book of knowledge - it is far more than that. anyone can read about what God has done - knowing the bible doesn't necessarily mean knowing God.

check out a little snippet by peterson below - see you sunday - the gat.crew

Living into God's Story by: Eugene Peterson

The Bible is basically and overall a narrative, an immense, sprawling, capacious narrative. Stories hold pride of place in revealing God and God's way to us. It follows that storytellers in our Christian community carry a major responsibility for keeping us alert to these stories and the way they work. Our best storytellers learn their craft from Jesus, famous for using story to involve his listeners in recognizing an dealing with God in their lives.

In both the Old and New Testaments of our Christian Scriptures, story is the primary means of bringing God' Word to us. Fro that we can be most grateful, for story is our most accessible form of speech. Young and old love stories. Literate and illiterate alike tell and listen to stories. Neither stupidity nor sophistication puts us outside the magnetic field of story. The only serious rival to story in terms of accessibility and attraction is song, and there are plenty of those in the Bible too.

But there is another reason for the appropriateness of story as a major means of bringing us God's Word. Story doesn't just tell us something and leave it there; story invites our participation. A good storyteller gathers us into the story. We feel the emotions, get caught up in the drama, identify with the characters, see into nooks and crannies of life that we had overlooked, realize there is more to this business of being human tan we had yet explored. If the storyteller is good, doors and windows open. Our biblical storytellers were good, in both the moral and aesthetic sense of the them.

Of course, not all stories are good; some lack honesty. There are sentimentalizing stories that seduce us into escaping form life; there are propagandistic stories that attempt to enlist us in a cause or bully us into stereotyping responses; there are trivializing stories that represent life as merely cute or diverting.

The Bible's honest stories respect our freedom; they don't manipulate us, don't force us, don't distract us from life. They show us a spacious world in which God creates and saves and blesses. First through our imaginations and then through our faith - imagination and faith are close kin here - they offer us a place in the story, invite us into this large story that takes place under the broad skies of God's purposes in contrast to the gossipy anecdotes that we cook up in the stuffy closets of the self. They invite us in an participants in something larger than our sin-defined needs, in something truer than our culture-stunted ambitions. We enter these stories and recognize ourselves as participants, whether willing or unwilling, in the life of God.

This need saying because we live in an age when story has been pushed from its biblical front-line prominence to a bench on the sidelines, condescended to as "illustration" or "testimony" or "inspiration." Both inside and outside the church, we prefer information over story. We typically gather impersonal (pretentiously called "scientific" or theological") information, whether doctrinal or philosophical or historical, in order to take things into our own hands and take charge of how we will live our lives. And we commonly consult outside experts to interpret the information for us.

But we don't live our lives by information. We live them in relationships in the context of a community of men and women - each person an intricate bundle of experience and motive and desire, and of personal God, who cannot be reduced to formula or definition, who has designs on us for justice and salvation. Information-gathering and consultation of experts leave out nearly everything that is uniquely us - our personal histories and relationship, our sins and guilt, our moral character and believing obedience to God.

Telling a story is the primary verbal way of accounting for life the way we live it in actual day-by-day reality. There are no (of few) abstractions in a story - story is immediate, concrete, plotted, relational, personal. And so when we lose touch with our lives, our souls - our moral and spiritual, our God-personal lives - story is the best way of getting us back in touch again. Which is why God' Word is given for the most part in the form of story. And it is a vast, over-reaching, all-encompassing story - a meta-story.

The form in which language comes to us is as important as its content. If we mistake its form, we will almost certainly respond wrongly to its content. If we mistake a recipe for vegetable stew for a set of clues for finding buried treasure, no matter how carefully we read it, we will end up as poor as ever and hungry besides. If we misread a highway road sign, "60 miles per hour," as a randomly posted piece of information rather tan as stern imperative, we will eventually find ourselves pulled over on the side of the road with a police officer correcting our grammar. Ordinarily, we learn these discriminations early and well and give form and content equal weight in determining meaning.

But when it comes to Scripture we don't do nearly as well. Maybe it is because Scripture comes to us so authoritatively, "God's Word," that we think all we can do is submit and obey. Submission and obedience are part of it, but first we have to listen. And listening requires hearing the way it is said (form) as well as what is said (content).

Stories suffer misinterpretation when we don't submit to them simply as stories. We are caught off-guard when divine revelation arrives in such ordinary garb, and we think it's our job to dress it up in the latest Paris silk gown of theology or outfit it in a three-piece suit of ethics before we can deal with it. The simple, or not so simple, story is soon, like David under Saul's armor, so encumbered with moral admonitions, theological constructs, and scholarly debates that it can hardly move. There are always moral, theological, historical elements in these stories which need to be studied and ascertained, but never in despite of or in defiance of the story which is being told.

Spiritual theology, using Scripture as text, does not so much present us with a moral code and tell us, "Live up to this," nor does it set out a system of doctrine and say, "Think like this." The biblical way is to tell a story and invite us, "Live into this - this is what it looks like to be human in this God-made and God-ruled world; this is what is involved in becoming and maturing as a human being." We don't have to fit into prefabricated moral and mental or religious boxes before we are admitted into the company of God. We are taken seriously just as we are and given place in his story - for it is, after all, God's story. None of us is the leading character in the story of our lives. God is the larger context and plot in which all our stories find themselves.

from Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought.

gat.chatter for 06.22.03

yes yes, this is a post-dated chatter. sometimes we get so busy doing stuff that we never really "do stuff".

as we continued our hiking series, jan chatted about hiking through the desert and what that meant. as a community, hopefully we never hike through the desert alone - that makes for miserable hiking. the same goes for those that have just started following God - wouldn't it be great if someone could also be hiking along with them, not necessarily showing them "the ropes" but accompanying them, being a friend. actually, we all need that, no matter where we are on our spiritual journey - God is speaking all the time, including those around us. to not have someone to bounce things off of, that doesn't seem healthy - we shouldn't let our thoughts go along unchecked.

but having someone along with us on the journey, one that has traveled a bit more doesn't necessarily equate to having greater experience or knowledge. listen to each other. i've been driving in arizona for most of my life. i betcha one new driver, spending 4 months driving in the jungles or driving in alaska during the winter will have a lot more "real driving" experience than me. rarely am i sliding off the road or fighting for control of my vehicle. all i really drive in is a place called hot.

along that same thought, throwing out the correct information/view of God isn't always a great thing. how am i to respond when someone says [with a jedi wave of his hand] "you shouldn't feel like God is far away from you - that isn't true" - am i to take on that new line of thinking *poof!* just like that? hardly. to get to that point, that takes some time to travel. i can recognize that is the right place to be, just that i'm not there yet [and hopefully going there]. anyone can dole out information - what is harder is to be a good friend during the journey. just like not casting pearls before swine, don't fill someone's need with the wrong thing.

we are all spiritual travelers, needing both God and those around us. keep taking time everyday keeping in touch with those around us as well as our current compass bearing. - the gat.crew

gat.chatter for 06.08.03

two things [well, three if you count me getting the date for sunday wrong last week] - we've posted 2 mp3s from the last few weeks. one is "come down", the other a mix of 3 songs. they are bootlegs and not the greatest recordings. check them out here http://gathering.stopmovingmychair.com/songs/recorded/

the other is that we'll be starting a new series called "hiking tips for the journey" or something like that. we aren't the best at naming things. it should be fun, chock full of not WHERE to travel while following God but what some of us have learned along the way. the link below might be a good catalyst to read before we all get together next sunday.

http://smalltxt.stopmovingmychair.com/2000i.html#trailvspath

oh yes, last week's song for the video was from the princess and the warrior soundtrack. great lyrics and voice, yes? - the gat.team

gat.chatter for 06.01.03

for those in town, we've have rain the last few days. there's nothing like a little miss nina [or is her brother this time around?] to mess with our weather. mmmm, the smell of creosote before the rain - that is one smell worth looking forward to every time it rains.

while we are talking about "what we look forward to" how about this - look forward to the same gat'ly feud we did a few weeks ago! nah, we are just kidding - we wouldn't do that. something you'll have to understand about us is that we aren't afraid of failure - we'll try something and it won't work, but we'll keep going. this week we'll be running a special song with accompaning video. it may give us a "moment" with God, and maybe not that much, but we'll keep doing it. in the end, though, it isn't about how good the speaking is - or isn't - or how good the music is - or isn't - but that this is a time for us to shift down a few gears from our week and park it close to God. we are honoring him, not our sense of entertainment.

let the gathering direct us towards God, not divert us from him - the gat.team

gat.chatter for 05.25.03

chances are many of us will be out of town, and rightfully so - my family headed to the beach last week and when we came back, someone had turned on the tucson heat. getting out of our daily lives [and usually somewhat routine] for a break some where else is usually always healthy. as we all take turns coming and going throughout the summer, we'll be playing with the gathering a bit more, trying more things like we did a few years ago, mixing things up. hopefully more videos, more people sharing stories, more things about our living in God's kingdom. what we can all do during the summer is seek out God at every moment, recognizing that he is always aching to be a part of our lives - there is comfort in knowing our position in relation to him.

a friend of mine always ends his email with a quote from robertson davies "the fantastic is the real that most people want to ignore" - it always makes me think. i'm not fully sure of the context and what was meant, but i prefer to take it as meaning that most people are trying to escape reality [entertainment, etc] and find the fantastic somewhere, like a great movie or a great location or something gloriously romanticized. my guess is that we'll always be let down when looking for the fantastic in the unreal. it is the real that is fantastic, the place where God is dynamically moving. it isn't swirly colors or great fx, but very subtle, and very "right". don't look to be entertained this summer - life is never boring. enjoy the weeks you make it to the gat, not because of what it looks like or how it moves you, but that you are with other people coming before God not because he puts on a good show but because he is God the fantastic. we are here for him. God is the sublime.

watch people. eat slowly and really taste what you are eating. watch the weather, the changes in the lighting and shadows. listen to others without having your own agenda. lets have a great summer, wherever we are - the gat.folks

gat.chatter for 05.18.03

our hosting company had a bit of hardware trouble, and part of our address list for this group was compromised - email me if you aren't getting it.

hahahohohee...heee... yeah, not that funny. we've all heard that one before. but, we also know there are a lot of stories in that gathering that we haven't heard before. stories of God living out in our midst and changing us and leading us. the funny thing about those stories is that they seem to disappear quickly. one moment it is GOD'S PRESENCE and the next moment it is "oh, yeah, God did something". there was a funniest home video [yes, the FUNNIEST home video - what kind of phrase is that?] where two kids had gotten into green food coloring. there were green handprints, footprints, and smears all over the kitchen walls, floor, cabinets, refrigerator, out into the living room and everywhere - it was obvious to see where they had been. they also covered their bodies with food coloring [like that will come out] and they were miniature hulks with large white eyes. if only we could all keep God in the forefront like that, seeing his hands all over the world around us and ourselves - that would be a great place to be [that is also something i enjoy about reading the bible, the ot especially - all those stories!].

it seems that if we don't write down what God is doing, we often forget it. that is the sweetness of having a journal - we can look back at God's history in our lives, a long line of markers along the path that has been created. we've always talked about making God's storybook, but we've never really gotten around to it. if you have stories and/or a journal send some in to us. and if you don't have a journal, get one. and if you are afraid of starting one, wait until sunday and cleveland will give some reasons not to be afraid - see you sunday - the gat.team

gat.chatter for 04.27.03

hopefully everyone had an enjoyable easter weekend. surely many of us had the traditional easter ham and a large dinner, some probably traveled home, probably a few easter egg hunts, and others invited friends over, too. it sounds like it has the makings of a recent tradition, but that is what many of us do. i've recently found it harder to separate christmas and easter from one another - they really go hand in hand. sometimes, with all the hype and activity going on about the two holy days, the deeper reasons often get overlooked. this was pointed out tongue-in-cheek by the onion's headline of "Miracle of Birth happens for the 86th Billionth Time" - we forget how unique and special and humbling it is. remaining purposeful and planning periods of slowing can help with remembering what we are to be about.

in the song "give" that we'll be singing this sunday, part of the lyrics say:

were i to leave where else would i go the words of life and of truth you hold

they present a great image of where we are in and with God. it assumes that we are all in God's presence and chasing after his will, the most perfect place to be. if that is where we are, no other place comes close - it would be moronic to go somewhere other than where God is, to follow or try something else. God contains all that we need and desire. great words, great meaning.

rajah [aka roger] is sharing this week, matt is back [and yes, he enjoyed the state of virginia - the ocean is hot], and we still start at 6.07 - be excited and honored that we can be a group together on sunday nights - he's the right place to be. see you there - the gat.team

gat.chatter for 04.20.03 [easter]

this week will be the passover feast, and we'll also be sharing communion. bring someone along with you - it'll be good. well, it should be good, but we can't make it a great service without all of us being there. it requires us desiring to be there to worship God together, to slow down the pulls of other needs and thoughts and just be there for God. chat with God about it and be an excited host/hostess at the gat - be excited that he and everyone else is there. as our quasi-new slogan says "the gathering - never horrible, and sometimes great!" 6.07, as always.

and [did you know this part was coming?] we could always use a little more help. we've got communion cups to fill and unleavend bread [remember last week: leaven = bad bad] to break into smaller pieces before the gat. if you would like to come help out a bit early [say, 5pm or so], email us between the hours of 8 to 5, mon-fri at contact@stopmovingmychair.com - we'll let you know who you'll be meeting and where [usually in the choir room behind the baptismal]. you can also email us at the same address if you'd like to help talk with people near the end of the gat.service if they are choosing to throw their hat in the ring with God this sunday night. if you consider yourself a God-follower, than you know enough to chat with someone about it. let us know if you'd like to help, and we'll meet with jonathan before the gat [but after the 5.45 huddle] and he'll fill you in with the details.

lastly, we are looking for stories of our journey with God as well as your favorite sites/books/films/etc - WHO are we, and what do we like? we don't want to be one of those supposedly "planned communities" where all we have in common is that we live near each other - this is a chance to get out in the street and over back fences and swap stories and such. send them all to storybook@stopmovingmychair.com - i'd personally like to see U2's "falling at your feet" be a song we sing at the gat. we've played it many a time before and after the gat, and it is faboo. check it out in the song section at http://gathering.stopmovingmychair.com/songs/fallingatyourfeet.html

gat.chatter for 04.13.03

the big news [okay, mediocre news] is that we've got the gathering website going again at http://gathering.stopmovingmychair.com and the other half is the weekly gat.chatter messages. read this first and then go to the website.

these weekly messages should hopefully become more than just information about the gat.service - they'll strive to be tidbits of who we are and where we are traveling and what is going on in our lives. all of our lives. getting together on sunday for a the gat.service to worship and experience God is great and something we know many - if not most of us - look forwards to - but we believe the time spent is made better because the people around us are people we know and care about - they are our friends. it changes from <me> to <we>, and the hope is that over time, our <we> will become a stronger, healthier, and beautiful community that people see it in action and say, "i want to be with them - whatever they are doing - i want that".

for now, we've got a cardboard box that we call the gathering website, full of text and pictures to go through and clean up and organize make presentable. we've got last week's talk up, all of our songs and lyrics [including the songs that the our band has written], pretty much every slide we use, a link to the small.txt going back to 1998, and hopefully much more in the near future.

if you get a chance to read these emails each week [and they'll be shorter], great. if you can't read them every week, that is fine too. we're happy as long as you know where to find out more info on the gat.service and the gat.community.

that being said, if anyone has any ideas of what we can do and/or do better, let us know. if you have some time and ability and want to help with the gathering [many already are] or the website [content and creativity] let us know. the more of us that are spending time building a good community the better.

there is also a <God's storybook> page on the website. we've always talked about writing down the stories from our community but never did much more than a page here or there. we really need to do this. send us your stories - don't worry about them seeming to be "not important" or "not that big of a deal" - if God has his fingerprints on it, it is automatically a big deal. we'll get them posted.

if you want to unsubscribe, either use the gathering web page or email me at dann@mbtween.com and i'll take you off the list.