The Watsonian (blog)

Yes, I know this a lit­tle old, but it’s still true.

The great­est gift we can give to Africa and among other areas of the world and our com­mu­ni­ties is life.

So as we cel­e­brate the day that Jesus, the promised Mes­siah, was born, let us remem­ber that our call­ing is not to build store­houses of wealth and riches here, but to bring a lit­tle bit of Heaven here to here right here and now.

Grace and Peace my friends, fam­ily, ene­mies and those who I have yet to meet!

‘joy to the world, the Lord has come, let earth recieve her King’

Joy can take many faces. 

It can be in the face of peo­ple in love.  An older cou­ple cel­e­brat­ing 50 years together.  A child com­ing down the stairs on Christ­mas morn­ing.  And these are all great, but I believe Joy really shines through in times when we wouldn’t truly expect it.

On Sun­day, Joy took the face of a man who showed me what joy can really mean.  Every Sun­day, he comes from our park­ing lot to the main audi­to­rium with a huge smile on his face and a huge com­pli­ment com­ing from his mouth.  This Sun­day was no dif­fer­ent.  I was actu­ally get­ting to work the door, as I like to call it, and get to meet the peo­ple who attend Tapes­try (as this is a race occas­sion, as I am nor­mally run­ning around in one of our Fam­ily Min­istry areas).  This man pre­ceded to give us a box of snack crack­ers and toys for our Waumba and UpStreet kids.  We asked him how his week was, he said not so good, with­out ever los­ing that smile.  He then said he had been laid off at his job, and while not pleased with this news, was thank­ful that all his Christ­mas shop­ping was done and his wife was still employed.  I shook his hand, which turned into a hug, I took the snacks and he went in, smile still on, shak­ing hands and hug­ging peo­ple as he went.

That’s joy.  A lot of times we talk about Christ­mas being a sea­son of joy.  But for a lot of peo­ple, its a sea­son of hurt and dis­s­a­point­ment.  Maybe they lost a job or a loved one.  Maybe their house is get­ting fore­closed on or their fam­ily is get­ting sick and they have no insurance.  Maybe they just maxed out all their credit cards buy­ing stuff that the peo­ple will just throw away a year later.  A lot of these regrets may be their own fault, a lot of them may not be any­bodys fault, and some may be oth­ers.  But through it all, through the pain and dis­ap­point­ment, through the regrets and the fears, God saw us, sent us a gift that would save the world, and knew that He would endure pain in order for redemp­tion, for joy. 

So my prayer for you this Christ­mas sea­son is that God will allow you to fully expe­ri­ence joy in spite of all the crap that may be going on in your life.  That shalom (which means ‘whole­ness; peace’) will enter your lives, no mat­ter where you stand with God, and that He will become more real to you, because He loves and cares for you no mat­ter how you may feel about Him.

Bring joy to your ser­vant, Lord, for I put my trust in you. Psalm 86:4 (tniv)

Joy is a funny thing.  It can describe so many sit­u­a­tions.  A funny joke brings joy as well as an engage­ment brings joy.  Many times, espe­cially in win­ter, we for­get about joy.  We get caught up in the ho-hum of our daily lives, and the stress that comes with work, trav­el­ing and fam­i­lies, and for­get that we are alive, we have a hope and He gives us joy. 

So my prayer for you this week is that the God of Unspeak­able Joy picks you up, reminds you of who He is and that you can rejoice in His birth know­ing that it isn’t over, not even close.  Because even in our dark­est hours, we know that the shad­ows prove the sunshine.

‘blessed are the peace­mak­ers, for they will be called Chil­dren of God’ — Matthew 5:9 (tniv)

This sec­ond week of Advent is about peace.  Peace means a lot of things to a lot of dif­fer­ent peo­ple.  Peace can mean no wars.  It can mean no noise.  It can mean no stress.

The Hebrew word ‘shalom’ means ‘peace, whole­ness.’  Through­out the Gospels, Christ often says ‘peace be unto you’ or shalom ale­ichem.  So in this sense, peace is so much more than no war, no vio­lence, no con­flict.  Peace is becom­ing whole again.  And that’s what Christ offers us in Him, wholeness/ peace.

Are we speak­ing shalom into oth­ers in our daily lives?  Are we tear­ing peo­ple down or lead­ing them to whole­ness and peace?  We are called to be peace-makers by Christ, so my chal­lenge to myself and you, is to take oppor­tu­ni­ties this week to bring about shalom in other’s lives and your own.

This extended week­end has been filled with late evenings, early morn­ings, lack of sleep, runny noses and MANY cups of cof­fee and tea. 

Fri­day, a group of amaz­ing vol­un­teers from Tapes­try helped serve cof­fee to Black Fri­day shop­pers at Kohls, Sta­ples, Office Depot, K-Mart and Tar­get.  Our lead pas­tor, Richard, and his fam­ily was up at 1am to serve cof­fee to the 3am shop­pers at Kohls.  It was incred­i­ble and a great way for us to serve our com­mu­nity.  So excited to see the impact that this small act of char­ity will accom­plish!  Big thanks to Andi, who tire­lessly worked and planned this event, and to the rest of vol­un­teers who were amazing!

Sun­day, we had our HUGE announce­ment.  If you haven’t heard, Tapes­try has turned in our notice on our lease with Excel Chris­t­ian Acad­emy.  This was a huge step of faith, as we don’t cur­rently have another build­ing to use to meet together.  Not that we haven’t been look­ing or have options at this moment.  We are cur­rently on a two-track sys­tem:  tem­po­rary space to meet in for the time being and a per­ma­ment loca­tion that we will meet in for an extended period of time.  Now you may ask, why leave Excel?  Frankly, it’s because we want to build the most effec­tive and com­pli­men­tary ‘foyer’ envi­ro­ment to our mis­sion as a church (“to lead peo­ple into a grow­ing rela­tion­ship with Jesus Christ”).  That’s about all the details I have of it, and as we let our peo­ple know, and as we find out more, you will find out more!

And remem­ber, GIVE PRESENCE (not just presents) this Christmas!

As Advent (from the Latin word adven­tus mean­ing ‘com­ing’) approaches, I want to turn my blog over to high­light­ing amaz­ing sto­ries, orga­ni­za­tions and causes that are work­ing for some­thing greater than them­selves.  At Tapes­try, we are par­tic­i­pat­ing with hun­dreds of other churches from around the nation and world in the Advent Con­spir­acy.  We believe that Christ­mas has lost its impact, from a reli­gious hol­i­day cel­e­brat­ing the peace, love and jus­tice in Christ to some­thing about rack­ing up thou­sands of dol­lars of debt and buy­ing items that will be thrown away in a few months.  The biggest ques­tion we are ask­ing our­selves (as a staff at Tapes­try) and as a church is what if we took our time, energy and money and gave towards some­thing that makes a tan­gi­ble and eter­nal impact. 

Now, you may say, ‘how do I do that?’

Well I’m glad you asked that question!

First, instead of giv­ing a gift that some­body may not even use, what if you made some­thing for them…dinner, card, spice rack, etc.

Sec­ondly, the money you would’ve spent on said use­less item, what if you gave it away?  There are sev­eral orga­ni­za­tions that could use that money. 

One such orga­ni­za­tion is 500UNIFORMS.ORG.  500UNIFORMS is doing exactly what the name says, giv­ing away 500 uni­forms to Bethune Ele­men­tary School in Atlanta, GA.  NINETY-EIGHT PERCENT of Bethune stu­dents live below the national poverty level.  98%!  That should make us UPSET!  That should DISTURB us!  And all it costs to buy one uni­form is TWENTY FIVEdol­lars!  That’s less than what I spend on cof­fee in a given month.  So go here, give what­ever you can to Shaun, and make a tan­gi­ble dif­fer­ence in some kids lives.