Vintage cement garden statue

We have some fabulous “flea market finds” just in!

None of them actually came from flea markets though,

they are all from various estate sales and auctions

throughout the South…….

Vintage porcelain bisque candle holder

my favorite pickin’ area!

Vintage plaster sheep statue from closed church

We found two fabulous vintage plaster sheep statues.

The are from a church nativity and are a nice large size!

We love adorning them with petite crowns!  They have such a

“frenchy” look to them and perfect in the cottage, shabby, country, or french decor!

Vintage plaster sheep statue from closed church

These trophies are HUGE and for fox hunting!!

They even have the dog’s names listed!

I love decorating with vintage trophies,  but they are getting really hard to find!

These are beauties, perfect to use to display flowers in!

Of course, I adore vintage religious statues.

They just bring such a sense of calm and peace to a room.

Vintage plaster St. Therese statue, 1920′s

This St. Therese statue is lovely, made of plaster, she is a nice large size as well.

And the details of her face are perfect!

We found some fantastic architectural salvage pieces

perfect for decorating!

Architectural salvage from a closed church.

Beautiful French busts are always on my “search list” as well as cherubs.

So we were excited when we found these lovelies!

Getting ready to head back to the deep South for an extensive pickin’ trip next week.

It’s my birthday!  No better way to celebrate than treasure hunting!

As a last note, our prayers and thoughts are with our neighbors in Oklahoma

during this time of devastation.  May the Peace of God be with you all.

Blessings,

             Cindy

Charles Bridge, Prague

“(Insert name) loving father and husband, always in our hearts.”

“(Insert name) forever in our memories.”

If I was to buried; which I most likely will, I haven’t a fear of waking up as I’ve heard you get injected pre-burial, also I feel it polite to repay the earth, decomposing to create head/gravestones for future generations; I still don’t know what my head/gravestone would say, a friend of mine said she would like hers be engraved with the words:

‘So it turned out, in the end, everything was alright…” with no name attached.

Perhaps mine would say something along the lines of:

‘I was pretty content.’

I’m not sure I want to linger though, hanging around, acting wiser than I ever was. Walking through graveyards is oddly pleasant,

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Apathy-ebook/dp/B00CWKBJY2/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1369092565&sr=1-3&keywords=apathy

Sometimes truth to others with respect and love only to have people understandably get angry and reject us.  That hurts.

Sometimes we love Jesus so much but haven’t really come to terms with some sin in our lives and when someone or something happens to call us out, it hurts.

Sometimes we pour ourselves out: our time, money, and effort for someone to not really care or appreciate the sacrifice made for them, and it hurts.

Sometimes God calls us to go somewhere, be somebody, do something and we don’t really want to go through all that it will take to be obedient.  Wrestling with that can really hurt.

Sometimes people misunderstand what we may be trying to do, and without all the information, they judge and turn their back on us.  That hurts too.

Sometimes we are attacked by the devil or even our own sinful natures.  We wrestle with thoughts of shame, being inadequate, and unworthy.  Those feelings hurt.

Don’t let anyone tell you that living the Christian life is easy.  It’s not, its impossible.   But when we consider what Jesus went through, somehow we can go through it too.  Why?

Because Jesus kept His eyes on the end.  He could scorn the shame of the cross.

I know that being a Christian hurts sometimes.  Think about Jesus, it killed Him.  But He could scorn all of the shame of our sin for the joy set before Him.  So let’s look at Jesus through our hurts and see past all that.  Let’s see the joy that awaits.  Someday (and soon in the scope of eternity), through Christ, we can live a life of glory in perfect union with Jesus.  And nothing will ever hurt again.

If you’d like to hear the message from this weekend it can be heard here: A Last Meal.

The report going in front of the Church’s Assembly appears unchanged in substance and has cleverly sidestepped objections. The only caving-in, so far, has been the senior clergy’s agreement to listen to the Zionists’ impertinent demands in the first place.

The General Assembly Hall…
Read more about:
Church of Scotland report challenging Jews’ ‘divine right’ to Palestinian homeland unchanged

At first this wasn’t too big of a problem because I simply started to preach messages about things I thought the church needed to know about.  Back then I foolish enough to have an opinion about every thing and naïve enough to believe that I had the right Biblical answer to all of them.  In reality, I quickly became a broken record repeating a list of spiritual clichés about a limited number of pet subjects.  The truth is that the people in that dear church enjoyed this kind of preaching because it didn’t really challenged them and served to reinforced what they already believed and held true.  A sadder truth is that no one was growing in his or her walk with the Lord as a result of my preaching.  All I could teach them was what I already knew and that took less than a month to convey.

For those preachers who are more gifted and intelligent this process will take a bit longer but the result is inevitable.  If you make topical preaching the exclusive way that you preach, you will one day come to the end of your knowledge and your preaching and the people you Pastor will become stunted.  Thankfully, I had a wise and godly mentor who took me aside and showed me a better way.  He turned me on to a way of coming up with sermon ideas that is literally inexhaustible.  I have used this simple method for over 18 years now and I have never struggled to come up with an idea to preach on a Sunday morning, Sunday night or Wednesday night.

Do I have your attention?  Would you like to know the secret that he taught me?  Well, here it is, my mentor Dr. Richard Harris simply taught me to preach the Biblical text.  You can start with a single passage, or a section of Scripture such as the Beatitudes, or even an entire book, but if you want to find a never-ending source of sermon ideas just open your Bible. Dr. Harris taught me to start with the Biblical text and let it give me the topic and the points.

The results have been simply amazing.  Not only have I escaped the weekly tyranny of worrying about what to preach on Sunday but I have also been forced to grow in my understanding of the Scripture. Most importantly, it has helped the churches that I have pastored to grow in their understanding of the Scripture and the gospel.  Below are some helpful articles that I have written to help you get started with this kind of preaching.

Related articles

• How to preach through a Book of the Bible
• How to plan your preaching f or a year.
• Why I Preach Expository Sermons (pdmccosh.wordpress.com)
• Top Five Books on Preaching (joebuchanan.wordpress.com)

1 Corinthians 1:10-17

¹⁰ I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. ¹¹ My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. ¹² What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas^[b]”; still another, “I follow Christ.” ¹³ Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? ¹⁴ I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, ¹⁵ so no one can say that you were baptized in my name. ¹⁶ (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.) ¹⁷ For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

Yes, I was warned, but so were they, that was obvious; at least from the beginning…someone new was coming and there were those that weren’t happy about it.  In fact, the response was; “you are sending me a (expletive) Bible beater”!!??  As you can tell, I wasn’t the most desirable addition to the Little House on Willow.  But, it was my assignment, and like it or not, the table was set and there were two empty chairs.

 And one was to be filled by me.

This Little House was filled with…pagans. Yes, I said; pagans.

They were self-absorbed, self-reliant, strong-willed, and very demanding.  They could be ruthless to anyone who crossed their path.  Yet, in spite of all that, tenderness was just beneath the surface.  They bruised easily.  After all, they were flesh and blood…

The days and weeks passed and I suddenly found myself in a very precarious situation.  I found myself enjoying life with the pagans!  Moreover, they appeared to enjoy me…how?  Why?  I was the “misfit”; I didn’t fit in.  After all, I was the Bible beater of the House…

According to what I was taught in church, I wasn’t to mix with the pagans. Oh, it was fine to go and witness, or evangelize; that was acceptable.  In fact, I should, it made me look good to God and increased church value.  But to live among the pagans, well, that was simply a cause for alarm…

What if I stumbled and fell?  What happened if they somehow rubbed off on me?  Or worse yet, what if I became like them???

The next three years changed my life.

Did I stumble? Yes, but I don’t need the pagans to do that. I am perfectly capable of on my own.

Did they rub off on me?  Absolutely.

Did I become like them?  My answer to that is this; I hope so…

This Little House, this wonderful heathen filled house lived…and they lived transparent lives. They were real.  They never hid behind masks and truth was never far from their lips.  All of the good and all of the bad sat right there in front of you; take it – or – leave it.  It made no difference to them.

These people endured difficult times.  They endured drugs, divorce, infidelity, and death.  Yet these ugly demons could not penetrate the House. They could not take anyone down to the depths…Why?

We were rooted and grounded in love.  And when one part of the House suffered; we all suffered.

There were no religious rules in the Little House.  We all sat and ate from the same table. We were all equals.  No doctrines of men could be found in this Little House.

This was the purest form of church I had ever experienced. Respect and submission mingled with servanthood and love.

And although at the time, many in the House did not know it or understand it~

we were bound by a cord of three strands…

This Little House was contrary to the mainstream church.  It is not acceptable to be vulnerable or weak.  It is not acceptable to be transparent; to show all the good along with all the bad.  And it is certainly not acceptable to enjoy the pagans.

We are to point out their sin and convert them by condemnation.

Jesus chose to live with sinners.  In fact, He chose twelve rejects of the mainstream church as His closest friends.

Twelve men, turned away from the mainstream church, chosen by Jesus, the Son of God, to change history.

This group of thirteen men were the church.  In fact, they were the first church; functioning as intended; Jesus as the Head, and those with Him learning and attempting to live it out.  Not always perfect; but always seeking the right thing and seeking to please the heart of Jesus.

Jesus was a friend to sinners; He was kind and gentle. Always giving them the Truth, but never rejecting them as people. He embraced those that were “unfit”; the woman with the issue of blood- Jesus stood and listened to her whole story while someone of great importance was waiting on Him.  He took time with one that was a cast off from society.  He ate many a meal with tax collectors, and allowed a prostitute to wash His feet with her hair…

The religious people were stunned at such a life. They didn’t know how to handle One who would give Himself over to “living among the pagans”…

It stirred their emotions to the point of murder.

“He who is without sin, cast the first stone”…

One day while still at the Little House on Willow, I realized I wasn’t living among the pagans. No, I was living out the Kingdom; the Kingdom that Jesus talked about and taught about. The Kingdom that He lived out.

I was tied to these people.  It was a cord of three strands….when one stumbled there were many who were there to help him stand again.  Free of judgement, free of shame.

We realized we weren’t defined by our iniquities. We were defined by our Head and the life we lived; together in unity, as one body…

Each one as different as the hand and foot…

This is what happens when Love comes down.  Unconditional love…Merciful love…

This is what happens when judgement is put aside.

This is what happens when you stop talking and just listen.

This is what happens when you remove yourself from the head of the table...

Love comes down to dwell.  And when Love dwells; things change.  Lives change.

So my time at the Little House was coming to an end and I had wondered if I had been able to leave a mark of Truth, a mark of Jesus inside those walls.

So, what happened to those pagans?

Well, they were woven into the very fabric of God.

Some were baptized, some were healed, some recommitted themselves to their spouse, some held a Bible study in their home, some shine their light in a dark place, and some just simply found what they had been looking for; Jesus…all of this was simply Jesus.

But in all of this, what was more important was what happened to me; the Bible beater.

I found that I could be transparent too.

I could stumble and they wouldn’t flinch.

I could fall on my face and my faith not be questioned.

I was never judged for my beliefs; they just accepted me; all of me…and that included Jesus.

So, today, my heart longs for the Little House on Willow…because of them I was forever marked for Kingdom living. I was forever ruined for the mainstream church.

For I would much rather Kingdom live as Jesus; among the pagans.

Oh, and that other empty chair…It was filled by Jesus. The true Head of the Little House on Willow.

Do you agree or disagree with this statement? How should a Christian handle wealth? Should Christians give away all of their wealth or is it okay to enjoy what has been earned? A person who makes more than $34,000/year is among the top 1% of the world’s most wealthiest people!

Let me know what you think in the comments below! I look forward to reading your thoughts!

Related Post: Agree or Disagree – Christian Values

To Read more see: http://www.cph.org/p-22685-i-am-not-afraid-demon-possession-and-spiritual-warfare.aspx?SearchTerm=lutheran%20spirituality

St Stephen’s, a medieval church in Bristol’s city centre.
Sadly, the more substantial outer doors, though open, aren’t very visible.

_______________________________________________

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. (1 Cor. 11.23-26 NRSV)

These are words of both remembrance and anticipation, embracing  past, present, and future. They build a bridge between Passion and Parousia. For those of us who travel across this bridge, the Lord’s words, Remember me, may be at times our only engine of survival. Make no mistake, we are negotiating our way through evil days. We must proclaim the Lord’s death until he returns if for no other reason than to remind ourselves that he is indeed returning.

In a sense, Paul has really upped the ante on Jesus’ Remember me. In the specific context of the Corinthian correspondence, “proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” signified something along the lines of, “Remember that our heavenly Father once sent his only Son to die at the hands of unjust men, so that the injustice of this world might be unmasked, even as God’s way of justice is revealed. Remember that this event has reconciled all things—things on earth, in heaven, and under the earth—to God. The whole sweep of past, present and future has been reconciled to God! You must not forget this and let the fragmented ways of a world that does not yet know of its reconciliation assert themselves in your life together. No! You are destined to actualize this reconciliation.” All of this, brothers and sisters, comes packaged in Paul’s assertion that whenever we eat this bread or drink from this cup, we are proclaiming the Lord’s death until he comes.

Paul’s point is that if you focus on the remembrance and anticipation signaled by this meal, you’ll learn how you ought to live. It is a word about how we must together work out our salvation in fear and trembling.

First of all, what Paul says we are doing when we eat this bread and drink this cup is proclaiming the Lord’s death. We are not proclaiming our own sinfulness, wretchedness, or suffering. Now, it’s easy to miss this point when you come to the table nursing hangovers and resentments, when it seems an insult to call your affliction light and momentary, when what you have lost leaves a throbbing imprint on your very self. These things we must bring to the table and I assure you, we will not just leave them there. To proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes, however, invites us to enter into a place of acceptance, where Jesus whispers, “My child, I have already reconciled all of this to God.” Here Christ becomes present in our midst, the lamb that was slaughtered and yet lives again. Here we learn to own our sins, shortcomings, and suffering redemptively. In this meal, Jesus comes to us and says, “Physicians, stop trying to heal yourselves. It is my broken body that provides the balm for the healing of the nations, and for your healing, too.” To proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes isn’t just the way of this table—it’s a way of life. We remember Jesus, loving the unlovable, embracing the unembraceable, forgiving the unforgivable, and we know that this is how he is with us. He will not bind our wounds as though they’re nothing, for he knows what it means to be wounded.

Second, to remember Jesus this way invites us to regard our reconciled lives as gifts for others. You may notice that you have wounds that have not yet been bound. Perhaps you wonder if this means they haven’t really been reconciled to God. They don’t feel reconciled! But this, I think, is a matter of perspective. It may be that you need that wound—or even that someone else will need it one day. Perhaps someone else needs the gift of recognition, or the gift of learning to love you with your flaws. It may seem a strange gift, but remember—Jesus didn’t miraculously erase the stripes from the bodies of Paul and Silas. Those wounds were there for the Philippian jailer to cleanse and bandage. Again, when we use this meal as a time to remember Jesus, he may come to us and say, “Physicians, don’t try to heal yourselves! For by your wounds, others may be healed.”

But as I said earlier, 1 Cor. 11.23-26 is a word about memory and anticipation. The Lord’s Supper is not only a time to remember Jesus, but to anticipate his return. In fact, there is a close correspondence between the two. When we remember Jesus, how he showed his love and concern for the people he had adopted as his own tribe, how at the Cross he showed us that steadfast love and justice can embrace and kiss each other, how he is present with us today in this meal, our anticipation of his return is greatly strengthened.

The way of this table is a way of life. To proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes is both to remember him and anticipate his return. But we do this in contention to a world that does not want to remember him, and is not expecting his arrival. The important thing then is to live as those who do remember Jesus and anticipate his arrival. Of course, there are many ways to do that. Mary, the mother of Jesus, sang out in praise of the God who topples tyrants and exalts the lowly. The shepherds responded promptly and faithfully to God’s sudden thrust of grace. Simeon and Anna awaited his arrival with a fierce and unbroken resolve. The Magi had to deal shrewdly with a pompous dictator. Mostly, we will find our way by virtue of being who we are and where we are, if we are open to the weaving of the Spirit through the fabric of our context.

It could be that we need to start emphasizing the scriptures that tell us that Jesus will return like a thief in the night (Matt. 24.43; Luke 12.39; 1 Thess. 5.2-4; 2 Pet. 3.10; Rev. 3.3, 16.15). Or those that raise the question: “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18.8). What if the trumpet of the Lord turns out to be a Dixieland band playing “O When the Saints Go Marching In” on a street corner in New Orleans, and Jesus reappears as someone among the group of merrymakers doing the Second Line? We of all people do not want to be caught recoiling in incredulity!

And so this morning, as we eat this bread and drink the cup, let all of us raise a toast in remembrance of he who has come and in anticipation of his return. To a reconciled past, present, and future! To the memory of our Savior! To the anticipation of his return! To the courage to proclaim in out loud!

Moore, Oklahoma, is a growing community, a southern suburb of Oklahoma City, situated directly on I-35. Former wheat fields have become shopping centers, major theaters, huge box stores, fun restaurants, hospitals and communities packed full of upwardly mobile families who’ve chosen to buy or build homes there because the school system is ‘good.’. It has also been a frequent playground for some of Oklahoma’s most severe tornadoes, including the May 3, 1999, tornado that initiated  the EF-5 rating – the Enhanced Fujita scale which rates the wind strength of tornadoes in the United States and Canada by the amount of damage they create. The May 3 storm – as it has become known – was on the ground for hours and created at least 100 smaller tornadoes, over a three day period, that spun off and did damage of their own in other parts of the state and Kansas.

We had never seen anything like it before and were sure, after Oklahoma and Kansas had buried 50 people due to the destruction of that storm, that we would never see anything like it again. It was unbelievable.

While the May 3 tornado was one that lasted so long, the loss of life was greatly decreased by the increased and intense warnings of Oklahoma’s amazing meteorologists who continually screamed, “take cover – underground – NOW!” Lives were saved and we were thankful.

And then there was yesterday. We knew by the weight of the air, the difficulty in breathing, that conditions were right for a tornado. We were watching and there were warnings that the weather was ‘unstable’ but no one, not even the meteorologists, could have foreseen what would happen. In less than an hour, this killer storm developed from a small tornado lazily dancing through open fields to a killer storm, dubbed a ‘grinder’ that grew to be two miles wide and stayed on the ground for over twenty miles. And, it all happened before our eyes as we watched the weather people, in almost a state of shock, proclaim what was happening.

Even as storm watchers in cars and daring helicopter pilots charted the path of the storm screeching warnings and sounding tornado sirens, no one could have know how quickly, how devastatingly serious this monster was. Unbelievable – truly unbelievable, even as we watched it with our own eyes via television.

The winds blew, torrential rains fell, hail peppered roofs and cars and teachers rushed their pupils to what they thought would be safety in the well practiced drills into hallways and narrow passages. This wasn’t supposed to happen. The drills were supposed to work. No one could believe a storm like this could reach its tentacles through the walls of substantial concrete block buildings and snuff out the lives of beautiful, innocent little children. It isn’t supposed to happen, yet it did. Unbelievable.

Walking wounded is a term that I’m not that familiar with. It is a term that belongs in a war zone – it is a picture that my mind conjures up from the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It isn’t a picture I expect to see or a term I should hear in the heartland of America. But it is a familiar term now – today – after yesterday’s devastation. Unbelievable.

Never, in my wildest imagination, would I think I’d see refugees in the United States let alone Oklahoma. But I’ve seen them now. Last night, as dark began to settle in, the haunting pictures of families with nothing but the clothing on their backs, a purse, and maybe a cooler once used for picnics that now held their remaining possessions, walked north, out of Moore, toward Oklahoma City. Some carried children. Some held hands. All were dazed. They had nothing. No home. No cars. No clothes. No roots. Everything was gone, left behind in a war zone that only Mother Nature was fighting. They aimlessly moved north, looking for safety, shelter, a future. There was no destination, just despair.

Huge spot lights began popping up, marking the quiet skies, and casting eerie shadows across the piles of rubbish as first responders and fire men in yellow fire gear gingerly dug through what had been schools, looking for and hoping that they’d find children alive under that hideous, vicious rubble. Death toll numbers rose from 4 to 7 to 24 to 31 and then to unknown. They continued to dig, some walking away, shaking their heads in disbelief, tears streaming down their cheeks. Unbelievable.

Today, we are in a state of shock. We hear the meteorologist talking, telling us the storms are over but the thunder continues to roll through the heavens. I have a guilty sense of relief that my family, and I, are all okay. We are safe and whole and protected and we thank God for that. And, we thank God for those lives that were saved, and we petition God for those who lost their loved ones, their homes, their everything.

In a few days, families will begin to bury their dead and I can’t help but wonder what will they do for memories? Will there be any family pictures? Will there be a remaining toy as a reminder of the child that was. What clothing will they have to put on the body that is now an empty vessel of a life that once was? What will they wear to the funeral of their loved ones, when all they have is what is on their back. It is hard to think of – it is unbelievable.

Oklahoma is a place of faith. We will overcome this. Already, even before we were up this morning, the ‘drop off’ places for food, water, emergency supplies were experiencing lines of over two miles in length as people loaded up their personal vehicles and brought what they could to the center. No words needed to be said. It was a show of unity. A show of strength that Oklahoma would come through this because that’s what we do. Unbelievable? Oh yes – definitely – but thank God, we can look up and know we will survive this – together.    And that is believable.