Seeing the Big Picture

I was at the Calvin Worship Symposium this past week and it was awesome. I think that everyone who is involved in a church in any way should go. I have lots to say about it, so I am going to try and focus on a few different things in my next few entries.

One of the things I came away with from this conference was a renewed sense for how universal the church is. I know that the body of Christ is worldwide, but when worshiping with people from all over the world, I couldn't help but be struck by it.

I also appreciated how the conference spanned the diversity of church styles in their worship services. There were two worship services every day and they ranged from very liturigcal with songs sung by a choir in Latin, to a gospel choir and preaching style, to a contempory service with a full praise band, to hymns sung with the organ. And no matter what style the worship service was, God's name was being praised passionately and that was wonderfully refreshing.

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In the Corn

Mataya got to go with her daddy to check on the corn. It will be ready to harvest soon! They decided to take some pictures. Mataya was so excited, she forgot to let daddy be in the picture. There we go. I thought this was sweet picture of a girl and her daddy.

Emissary by Thomas Locke

When you open the pages of Emissary by Thomas Locke, you enter a world quite different from our own. Magic is practised, but only in certain places and ways. There are legends and myths of what happened thousands of years ago. And a dark, evil force is slowly threatening the peace this world has known for the last thousand years. And the one person who may have the answer to it all is an unlikely hero named Hyam. As a child, Hyam studied in the Long Hall with the magicians who know and practice magic. His gift was to be able to learn languages with an astounding speed. Yet, he was dismissed from the hall and only returned when his mother begged him too on her death bed. Hyam soon discovers he has powers beyond the mastery of language and understand the the fate and future of this world rests in his hands. Along the way, he teams up with Trace, an older magician who leaves his post as Master of a Long Hall to assist Hyam. He also frees a woman named Joelle and their friendship ...

The Wind Blows in Sleeping Grass by Katie Powner

A fter years of drifting, fifty-year-old Pete Ryman has settled down with his potbellied pig, Pearl, in the small Montana town of Sleeping Grass--a place he never expected to see again. It's not the life he dreamed of, but there aren't many prospects for a high-school dropout like him. Elderly widow Wilma Jacobsen carries a burden of guilt over her part in events that led to Pete leaving Sleeping Grass decades ago. Now that he's back, she's been praying for the chance to make things right, but she never expected God's answer to leave her flat on her face--literally--and up to her ears in meddling. When the younger sister Pete was separated from as a child shows up in Sleeping Grass with her eleven-year-old son, Pete is forced to face a past he buried long ago, and Wilma discovers her long-awaited chance at redemption may come at a higher cost than she's willing to pay. I really enjoyed this book. The characters in it were interesting and unique. While some thing...

The Talens' Tales

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