Coming soon...

This may just look like a pile of colorful boxes now, but soon, these blocks and tunnels will be assembled, and will come together with books and carpet remnants and bean bags to create Cornelius United Methodist church's new indoor play area. Inspired by Tillamook UMCs similar ministry, the free play area will be open from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 on Thursdays starting February 10th, and will be a (warm and dry) place for infants and children not yet in school to come with their parents or caretakers to play together and for parents to connect with one another.

The play area board of directors is made up of neighborhood parents and committed church members.

I can't wait for these things to get out of their boxes and into all those little hands!

Mission and worship

A few weeks ago, Eric and I led a workshop about mission and worship at the Western District leadership event, where we suggested to participants that these two elements of the Christian life cannot be separated. In preparation for this workshop, we invited some volunteers from the Community Table Food Pantry to share some of their experiences in this outreach ministry and to reflect on the connections they see between mission and worship, and this is the video of Nohemi's interview.

The Supper: God of Justice

While we supped together yesterday on chicken, rice and beans, hot hot homemade salsa, and fruit pudding salad, we reflected on times we've experienced or witnesses injustice, and times when we've stepped up or joined in to address an injustice.


Together, we read several scriptures and hilariously acted out one about God's justice and talked about how it is different from the world's notion of justice. There was great conversation about non-violence, social action and cultivating love in the face of hate and discrimination. We made connections to Martin Luther King's words and witness by watching part of his I Have a Dream speech (it's available with Spanish subtitles on YouTube), which several of our participants had never seen or heard. How inspiring and, at the same time, how painful to realize that the racism and discrimination based on skin-color and economic status that King experienced and declared sinful is still a reality for so many in our world. We reflected on our country's racist immigration laws that hold some people as having less value than others and our call to work for change in this area. And we considered other ways that we can honor King by serving others. It was a powerful conversation.

A few pictures taken by our resident 6-yr-old photographer:


As we cleaned, we listened to this song, God of Justice by Tim Hughes, which I may have shared here before. "Stepping forward, keep us from just singing, move us into action, we must go!":

"Fill us up and send us out!"