we are LOAN owners!

Hey guys,

Mark here to say that we now have a place. You're all welcome anytime. The closing wasn't as crazy as I thought it was gonna be. The "stack" of papers people must sign was hyped up a little too much. Maybe it wasn't so bad because I had been practicing my signature...

Denise said I needed to do a better job of expressing my feelings on the blog...haha. I'm not laughing at her, but with her. But, to honor that request, and not to write mere itinerical entries I'll tell you a little about my feelings.

I feel like we're moving to the promised land. This is what I wrote in my Bible this morning while reading Leviticus. I laughed at myself b/c I'm ridiculous but I am just so grateful for how the Lord has provided for us. He has performed some of those freaky financial things for us that you hear about during "sharing time". He's really been faithful. And secondly, just the fact that we've been in this transition mode from this apartment to the house for about 2 months now its just really begun to wear me out. So I can't wait to open those boxes!

The Lord has really lifted me. He is so great and big. My language is so inadequate. Reading about these great leaders in our church history class has humbled me and made me realize how little I have done. (i mean, there are dudes in the reformation period that baptized over 100,000 people!) But that's where the Lord has filled me with joy, because I realized that I am only a worshipper, not some guy who's got something to prove or do. So that's helped me focus on him, and his greatness, the way he allowed those men to rough him up and laid his hands down to be nailed. Its so different from me, I use all my energys to save my own life, to make myself look/feel good. He aggressively lost his own life. That was his mission.

If you want to get a more clear pic of this, listen to Matt Chandler's podcast on his present series of Luke, he has totally re-opened my eyes to the way Jesus lived with the sole purpose of dying to himself. UNBELIEVABLE new stuff I've never heard.

Matt Chandler - the Village Church podcast

the famous redwood

oh my gosh, i just found this picture on mark's computer. he must be documenting the growth of his redwood. (which by the way, has now moved from the windowsill in the front of the house to the laundry room where there is more sunlight.)

unmazing

i think i invented a word tonight. it is called unmazing. it is when something is amazing in a negative way. like i cannot believe he did that, it was totally unmazing. feel free to try it out in your own conversation.

"secular" work vs. ministry

so i thought i'd write my thoughts about our first class too. (denise) i basically was falling asleep about 2 hours into the 8 hour class when mark nudged me to wake me up and then wrote $325 on the sheet of paper in front of me. as in, that is how much money i am wasting if i sleep through this class.

so, anyway. my biggest takeaway from class was when Dr.Rosell said that he thinks one of the biggest problems in the church today is the false idea that there is such a thing as the division between the secular realm and the spiritual realm. the idea that if one man is a doctor and one man is a pastor, one does "secular" work and the other does "ministry." he believes that the bible does not at all teach this and that humans made it up. i think it's interesting because so many people i know hate their jobs because they don't see a ton of purpose in them. they are bored with work, always want to be doing something else, or can't wait to retire. but what if they saw their jobs as ministry? so often people who do regular jobs are told that they are doing ministry when they use the money they make to support missionaries, or use their homes to host bible studies. but that is not what i'm talking about. what if we all saw our 9-5, Mon-Fri jobs as our ministry. and i'm not talking about evangelizing all day at my company. but there are tons of ways to do ministry within a workplace. i heard a quote the other day- "A Christian is someone whose life makes it easier to believe in God." How can I live, speak, pray, think so that this statement is true about me?

i guess some people may still hate their jobs because they are just wrong for them. but some people, including myself, might start to find more joy and purpose in what we do. if we could erase this idea of a secular and spiritual realm, there'd be no yearning to retire early so we could just do ministry the rest of our lives. no- our lives are purposeful right now. as someone in class said, "All priests were Levites, but not all Levites were priests." the levites were one of the 12 tribes of israel called by god to be set apart from the other tribes. some were the priests, some were not- they had other jobs and other obligations. and they were just as "called."

okay, last thing- and this has nothing to do with the above. i want to write about the movie "To End All Wars" but i don't want to give it away for people who haven't seen it. so this is just a heads up- i'm giving you one week to rent it. after that, i'm spoiling the ending for you on here.

Gordon

We had our first weekend class and what a joy it was for me...(Mark) I absolutely loved it! It was the first class in which I have sat for 7 hours listening to any lecture and not blink. I didn't even want to take notes because I tend to miss what the speaker communicates if I write it down. So I watched Denise take notes..haha.

Dr. Garth Rosell was our teacher. He has been teaching this class for 40 years. Unreal huh? He is extremely gifted, he made me want to re-read the 100 grueling pages again because I felt like I had missed something.

He not only just told us dates, but helped us process the implications of what Martin Luther wrote, and helped us see how insanely disciplined John Calvin was despite his life of sickness.

I don't know I just really soaked it all up. What topped off the weekend was a great night with Aaron (O'Hare) my best friend, and Stacy his girlfriend. We loved eating with them and then fielding Aaron's barrage of questions about what the definition of a church is and what qualifies as a church and what should happen in a church. It was something he had been chewing on and wanted to get our thoughts. I loved it. I learned a lot, about what I just expected, and also what really is.

We'll see you guys next week. In the meantime, check out my "bots". (blog-on-the-side). It's a little experiment. www.flandaddy.blogspot.com



we love u.

Name your terms...

ok...so my efforts were futile on the last blog announcement. So here we go. If you will follow through and sign up for one of those offers...most of them being free...then leave a comment here outlying your terms for me to "scratch your back". Be it a dollar or two. Or a co-operative sign up to get you your stuff. I signed up for Drew (my cousin) yesterday and got him his referral and it was free for me.

So post your terms here, or email them to mflanders15@gmail.com. I'd be happy to return the favor. Or you can just do it out of the kindness of your heart :)

remember click here: Get your TV or cash reward.

So now here's the blog entry:

Denise is asleep on the couch, taking a nap before our little party at Joe's tonight. She has been a magnificent wife to me this whole month. So here's my brag list. She has cooked me 15 meals in the past 20 days. She has kept our house PRISTINE because we're trying to get it rented by March. She has made cakes for the guys in my small group, the one last night being a chocolate/buttercream/mocha cake!!! She has not once "nagged" me to do something, when there were lots of things I needed to do. She smiled and was super pleasant to be around, during her headaches ya'll, I would ask her how she feels and she would laugh and say, "uh, gotta headache", I'd then be blown away at how she had been smiling and paying attention to me. When I get a headache, I want to shut down my whole world, its pathetic. And lastly, she has encouraged me daily with her rising 3 hours before she has to be at work to read her Bible. And she looks like she enjoys it from her cozy little setup every morning.

So really, I'm blessed and have thanked God for her many days this month. So for any of you doubters out there...Denise is my nominee for wife of the year.

Scratch my back

I'll scratch yours? I'm trying to get this tv for the new house. It's free totally if I just do a little work. I signed up for the free ringtones offer and now I just have to get 20 of my friends to sign up for one of these offers. Help me out? Then shoot me an email on somethin you're working on and I'll get on it.

Thanks guys, I really want this tv so I can have something decent for ya'll to watch while I grill out for you at the new house. cha ching. Here's the link.

42" Plasma TV

just another vid