Another change in season

May is typically a busy month for us, and this year was no exception. May 7th was the National Day of Prayer, and May 31st was the Global Day of Prayer. This was a needed kick-start to get our corporate prayer meetings back up and running. One of our members, Matt, is leading those for us, so we will be able to continue having those twice a month now. He's in graduate school for counseling and has a real heart for prayer.

There was a Jewish-Christian reconciliation meeting in Kansas City on May 19, and several from our congregation went there. It was their second annual event, allowing for a time of public repentance and restitution on behalf of the Christian community to the Jewish community. From our understanding, it's one of the few of its kind in the world. There continues to be momentum globally in Jewish-Christian studies, along with more relational connections as demonstrated by events such as this one. At a global level, much of this was triggered by the Holocaust as scholars and ministers began to ask themselves how Christianized Europe could have been ground zero for such an atrocity against the Jews. It's amazing to think that even the Holocaust could have a redemptive factor, along with stunning that it took such a scene to get us to re-connect at some level after 1,900 years.

During the last week in May, we celebrated Shavuot (Pentecost) as well as attended a mini-seminar with guest speaker Dan Gruber. He is a leading Messianic Jewish scholar, and it was wonderful as his topic dealt largely with univeral law, or expectations on mankind before Moses. This topic has major implications for us Gentiles today, as we were never given the Ten Commandments or the Law. This is slowly becoming one of the topics amongst present scholars ... what are God's expectations on Gentiles since the New Covenant was given to the household of Israel and Judah (Jeremiah 31). We also got to meet privately with our Rabbi, Dan Gruber and Frank Lowenger, who is the President of the MJAA (Messianic Jewish Alliance of America), to discuss this topic further. Now THAT was a good conversation.

We made a few changes to our Sunday evening service, partially due to Sam graduating from college and being able to lead worship for us now - very good news! He has a strong connection with God which shines through as he leads us. Paul is also giving a short, 15 minute lesson on an area that we want to implement change in our lifestyle. The focus has not been for revolutionary teaching in these moments, but a challenge to change. We also have a time for testimonies at the beginning to hear from those who went home and applied it - again, not revolutionary but difficult indeed. We have also encouraged everyone, instead of just new people, to begin attending a 1 hour discussion group held before our Sunday or Wednesday meetings. These are a time of interactive discussion whereby the leader asks questions on things we have read or studied, along with having time for people to ask the leader questions about Biblical issues. The new people have testified that this has significantly increased their depth in the Word and retention of materials, like the books on our recommended reading list.

On a personal level, it was a busy month. We spent the first week of May in Florida visiting Lauren's family. We also celebrated Leah's 30th birthday (our sister-in-law, Tom's wife) along with Noah's 2nd birthday. Paul completed one of his grad classes called Jewishness of Jesus. Harrison finished school, and his summer activities have already begun with an evening basketball camp this week. And of course we had Allison move into our basement - she is apart our church. It's been working out GREAT with her so far, and she watches Noah for us every other Thursday night so that we can go on a date. :)