serve the world...

Worship Set 1You Are Good
This is our second week with this song. It is so fun and upbeat. Lyrics (Brian Johnson & Jeremy Riddle, BETHEL MUSIC 2011)
Freedom is Here

Worship Set 2
Here For You (Matt Redman)
Always (Kristian Stanfill)

Message: serve the world...

Worship Set 3
Tear Down the Walls

Two focuses on our “serve the world...” Sunday.
One is our partnership with Windswept Academy. Gearing up for uur third trip to South Dakota
This is what we did last year
Building a fence 

Second, today we are partnering with another local church for a collection of food for a backpack buddy program here locally. This is one of the things I love about our people. A couple times a year, we hand out a list on Sunday morning and have people come back later in the day to drop off donations.

It's cool to see how people respond. We are a medium sized church with a big heart to help others.

This is being submitted to Sunday Set Lists @ theworshipcommunity.com

I am simply a grand-mother in jeans and a human-trafficking t-shirt...

Have you been thinking I have been missing in action? Well, that is certainly one way to describe it...
This morning I am sitting around in my jammies and drinking an iced Starbucks Double Shot.
It’s the first morning in weeks; I have just been able to kick-back.

There has been a lot going on and I’ve had to stay completely focused on my goal.
Birth of grandbaby number 6 – check
Negotiate a terrible pay cut at work – check
Track mom, who had cataract surgery - check
Tracking two extended family members going through reconstructive facial surgery and throat surgery - check
Road trip to Pittsburgh for Human Trafficking gathering – check
Oh and the main goal – taking an idea that has been in my head for months and putting down on paper.

Rewind to a couple of weeks ago:
A lot of you may know that I have been very actively involved in addressing the issue of modern day slavery. I’ve been diligently working on a local Human Trafficking Task Force here in Northern Virginia.
Through out this process I have been praying and asking God what He wants me to do. More literally, what He wanted the next step to be for me.
I kept seeing this huge vision of:
1. Creating a nationwide network of volunteers to join the fight
2. Creating a home for the restoration of trafficking humans
3. Creating a dance/creative performance arts group to raise awareness of the human trafficking issue.
So, one day I am checking through my "blog designing for Philistines". I follow several blogs and I noticed one person, blogger Jonny Baker had posted "Got a good idea for social transformation?" . That really caught my attention, so I clicked over.

It was short and to the point. Is simply said:

praxislabs is a new program that supports social entrepreneurs engaging in transformation from a Christian/mission perspective. if you've got a good idea and want to be connected into a network of fellows with the chance to raise some funding towards your idea/dream go and have a read…

Well that certainly piqued my interest. So again I clicked over and started reading about the Praxis Accelerator Program. I thought o.k. this is interesting I will download the application and pray about it.

I did.

The next morning I got up and went back to the Praxis Lab website and read everything. I got the strong feeling that I should at least apply.
So, I decided to quick check on my fb page to catch up-before I started to work on my application.
Cool. Reading fast...and another blogger I follow, Jon Acuff @ Stuff Christian’s Like, had just posted his newest blog post entitled "A new way to change the world". Now that sounded very interesting to me. So I clicked…

He was talking about…wait for it…the Praxis Accelerator Program! Can you say WoW!
You need to understand I do not believe in coincidences. So, I left this comment: and logged off.

I was just checking out my fb page to catch up - before I logged off to work on writing on my application for...wait for it...the Praxis Accelerator Program...
I have been praying for God to show me my next step in His plan of action for my life. The info on Praxis dropped in my lap yesterday and I have been praying since. I literally had just applied for the application moments before logging onto fb and clicking on this post.
Needless to say, I didn't need skittles thrown at me to get my attention.
The big hairy dream: I am currently a modern day abolitionist, involved in ending human trafficking in my area. We are mobilizing churches and various ht.orgs, law enforcement and many more people in our area to come to the table and serve together. Working as one body.
One of the biggest issues I have learned about is that while there are many great ht.orgs nationwide & internationally-there is little networking between organizations.
This is my overall vision: mobilizing the Body of Christ and uniting all the various organizations to end slavery in one generation.
That is just the short version. Now I am of to work on my application.

Keep reading…

So, I started working on the application for about an hour. Decided to take a break & hop off the computer, but I would check on Jon Acuff’s blog one last time.
I went back and found this reply to my comment from Dave Blanchard (Praxis Founder & President)

“Dorothy - can't wait to read your application. Modern day abolition is such an important cause and I'm thankful to hear about people like you thinking about bringing people together to work on it. “

Well, needless to say, by this time I was overwhelmed. I actually started crying. I walked around my house, thanking God for this open door.
So I began my journey working on the application for this mentorship program and finished up yesterday and applied.
I am not sure where this will all lead. A lot of other things have happened since the time I started the application, all confirmations of what I have been dreaming about.
Now presenting the final take of the video introduction for this application:

I'm not normal, I'm xtranormal: take 3


I just continue to take one step at a time. I am very excited about what is happening!

yesterday I went to an adult oriented sex store with a man, not my husband….

Often with me there is a story behind what I say; this is no different.

Here is the back story…
It all began with just a few seconds in time, a few words quoted from a newspaper article.
In a special message given by my friend Greg Genter, May 30, 2010, entitled “My Lavish Lifestyle”. Nestled in his message (about 38 minutes), he briefly mentioned a newspaper article.
This is what he said (quoting from the article)…

3 massage parlors were shut down in Sterling (a local community in our area) because of sex trafficking. Congressman Wolf described the crime as this “Sexual services performed at a businesses operating under the guise of a massage parlor or other business store fronts This establishment is forcing women into sexual trafficking through debt bondage, isolation and other manipulations to keep women indoors at all time, unable to escape.”
Wolf announced his intent to encourage all local officials to begin further investigation into human trafficking In addition he will be asking local religious organizations to begin provided temporary housing for those rescued from human trafficking.

Those few seconds have snowballed.

Since Congressman Wolf had asked specially for faith-based organizations (that new pc word for churches) to step in, our pastors talked and called his office. They got to meet with the Congressman in person.
During that time, we found out that Congressman Wolf’s office had sent out somewhere around 400 letters to various churches in our local area asking for help. Sadly not one responded. We were not one of those churches.
We called simply because of that little blurb in the newspaper that Greg read to us.
One of the things that was shared in that meeting was the police are aware of various locations in our area that are trafficking people sexually (including children) in this area and are prepared to raid them-but the problem is there is nothing really established to provide after care for the victims.

Now the second part; our pastors are involved in a Pastors Consortium in our county. The consortium has decided to take stopping Human Trafficking in our area on as a cause.
Then they contacted and invited in Polaris Project to come and present a training session on how to identify the various types of human trafficking in our neighborhoods. It was cool. We had at least 50 people, representing 9 churches in our county and multiple organizations involved in this issue.

Next, one of the previous members of our church was in town and had lunch with our lead pastor. Just a catch up lunch. During lunch, Dan Clark was sharing what he has been doing in Ohio. He and his wife had started an organization called Doma International, Among others things, Doma steps into the judicial system and stands with the victims of Human Trafficking and provides after care.

This has lead to developing a local Human Trafficking Task Force for Loudoun County/Northern Virginia. I am part of that task force.

Can you see how God is moving to bring all these pieces of a puzzle together?

We are currently meeting. We are praying for discernment for God’s will on what we should be doing to help this issue. Part of it is finding on what is needed to see if we are able to contact all the services we can find in our area and put the pieces of the puzzle together, help them to work together, and then see where the missing puzzle piece is and fill that gap. Then the pastors consortium will take present this plan to their churches and let people know-this is how you can personally get involved.

We know that we will be hosting a second training session on victim identification education program by Polaris Project. This time we probably be using a 2,000 seat venue, And afterwards offering people places to put action behind their feelings of wanting to serve.
It’s in the beginning phases, but we are very excited to see where God is going to lead us.

So back to, why did I go to a adult sex store? A friend thought they might be interested in at least providing materials to their customers and helping support this project. Strange bed fellows you may think, but this connection will reach people that you and I can not reach. The first meeting was a success. They are willing to have materials displayed in their store and they are willing to e-mail their “Friends” list informing them of the next victim identification education program.

What we did may not make sense to you. But it worked. This is a very real issue in many areas; chances are it is happening in your town. You may simply not be able to see it. If it burdens your heart - I challenge you to do something.

clothing is pouring in…

I’ve been blogging three years now. Almost solely about stage designing and experiential elements for worship experiences.
Back then there was Jonny Baker who blogs mostly about ancient modern experiential practices and Ragamuffin Soul (Carlos Whitttaker) mega-blogger from Buckhead Church which is one of the three North Point Community Church campuses. Los had a weekly blog carnival for stage design. It was very cool. Then he stopped.
I met several bloggers through Carlos’ blog.
Then more recently Church Stage Designs Ideas. There was another one that encompassed several types of creative arts from Willow Creek, which I can’t seem to find right now.
The trouble is, it seems most of what I find out there is about stage designing for large congregations with budgets. These are great resources for inspiration.
This week’s inspiration comes from Simple Worship Stage by Fork in the Road Music blogger
Russell Martin. I saw this design a couple weeks ago-and it jumped out at me. Very nicely done, simple and inexpensive. We were in the planning stages of creating the stage design for “Fishers of Men”
The implementation didn’t quite translate as well as we intended.

I wasn’t there for implementation - one person implementation, short time frame. I did have to laugh because though I was at home that morning, we were in communication via txt. Sending pics and suggestions back & forth. It turned out nicer than our pictures show.
At least, when the other elements we added in (video- http://www.sermonspice.com/search?q=fishers+of+men) it pulled it together nicely.

This was also the first week for the collection of items needed for the local elementary school. The items poured in; I will have more pictures later.
We have 4 Sundays a year, that are designated "Family Sundays". Everyone except the babies and toddlers are in the main service. This was the first week of our reformatted Family Sunday.
Before we simply had the children join us, had a shorter service, had kiddie bags and maybe an element design for all ages. This time we focused the entire service on a child's level, including the message from one of the teachers in the children's ministry. It worked out really well, but will need some tweeking.