Illogical and Ridiculous

Here's the sermon from our Prairie Association Spring Meeting 2008 closing worship and installation of our Prairie Association Minister Kathy Lawes. The group was pretty riled up, too! (This sermon should also be subtitled: The Sorry Ass Sermon)
"Illogical and Ridiculous" text
"Illogical and Ridiculous" podcast

Prairie Association Spring Meeting - 4

Things wrapped up wonderfully with the "What do we do now" session of our Ready Set Grow meeting. We talked about ways to revitalize congregations. We were also reminded that if we stop after saying, "What a nice meeting," instead of going back to our congregations and putting what we've learned into practice . . . well . . .

The highlight for me today was being able to preach a short sermon as part of Rev. Kathy Lawes' installation as our Prairie Association Minister. The sermon's called "Illogical and Ridiculous." There's a separate post for the sermon.

Great meeting -- now it's time to put things into practice.

Prairie Association Spring meeting - 3

Quick thoughts from this morning's session:

• Great - exciting translation of God's name- YHWH: I will be what tomorrow requires
• Fun sending forth: (While giving out combs to the congregation) 'God will be what tomorrow requires -- now it's time to do your part.'

Prairie Association Spring meeting - 1

I'm at Pilgrim Park Camp and Conference Center in Princeton, IL for our Prairie Association's Spring meeting. Our theme this year (I had a little to do with the planning) focuses on the UCC's Ready, Set, Grow! congregational vitality initiative. I'm looking forward to hearing more about the initiative (I went through the RSG training last year) as well as connecting with others in the association about RSG.
Some expected highlights for me:

• The presentations by Keynote Rev. David Schoen
• Having the opportunity to provide some leadership during our sessions and also having the honor of preaching at Saturday's closing worship service.
• Playing some guitar at tonight's vespers service.
• An open, frank, and spirit-lifting conversation about the recent controversy surrounding the UCC
• Spending time reading Craig Rennebohm's new book, Souls in the Hands of a Tender God

And here's a list of the fun in the meeting folders:

• Worship bulletins for 3 services
• The Prairie Association Spring 2008 directory
• The PA 16th annual meeting agenda packet
• A resolution to adopt a Statement of Mission for the Illinois Conference
• The big, full RSG envelope -- filled with RSG resources
• A letter, titled "Our broad range of emotions," from UCC president John Thomas - addressing the recent controversy
• Advertisements for some upcoming workshops and events in the Illinois Conference

I'll post a few times with the events of the weekend as they unfold!

Prairie Association Fall Meeting 2007

I attended the Prairie Association UCC's Fall Meeting at Trinity UCC in LaSalle, IL on Saturday. I love being in the Prairie Association! Here are the highlights of the day for me:

• Hospitality. The people of Trinity UCC in LaSalle were gracious, warm, helpful and extraordinarily kind.
• Encouragement. Lorin Cope - UCC minister for conference relations, told us some hilarious stories and also encouraged us in ministry and in life as he challenged us to "do something outrageous for the gospel." (Hey Lorin -- did you just find yourself on a Google search?)
• Books. We didn't have a retail book store on site this year, but we did have a "I don't want these, maybe you will" book exchange that also raised funds for Our Church's Wider Mission. I picked up a few -- including this hilarious (unintentionally) old book from Guidposts that has some laughable illustrations of people Jesus encountered in the Bible. It's called Jesus loved them: Living portraits of people who knew Jesus.

Prairie Association UCC's spring meeting is May 2-3, 2008 at Pilgrim Park Camp and Retreat Center in Princeton, IL.