Service Week – Fall Clean Up

We took Chesterfield Community House on the road this week!

This is the whole bunch of us!

Instead of our regular group, we went to our friend Nancy’s to rake leaves. It was a perfect fall night and we had a great time serving together. We were able to get all of Nancy’s leaves raked and haul out a bunch of old branches. We ate pizza after our work was done and spent some time just hanging out in Nancy’s beautifully lit and decorated living room.

Thanks to everyone who showed up with rake, or leaf blower, in hand ready to serve. I know we were the Lord’s provision for Nancy and Robbie!

The Lord is my Hope ~ Nancy Boerner

Nancy had a bunch of old concrete behind her garage and a few people from our group fashioned an alter to mark the day. We showed it to Nancy and she called it “Hope.”

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.  Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.  Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.  If you speak, you should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If you serve, you should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 4:8-11)

Love Feast

We celebrated our first, monthly, testimony dinner this week.  We sat around a common table, eating delicious Indian cuisine, and shared stories of God’s movement in our lives.  It was great!  So great, in fact, that we wrapped the night up by worshiping God in response to His goodness and care for us!   Please feel free to use the comment section of this post to share any testimonies that you have.  Also, we are going to do it again next month and I’d love to get meal suggestions!

We will be meeting at the home of Nancy Boerner next week.  We are planning to serve her by doing a fall yard clean up and also any minor repairs that she may need done around the house.  See the Service post for her address and a map to her house.  We’ll plan on meeting there @ 6:30 pm.  If you want to carpool from 432 Chesterfield, please show up by 6:15 pm.

Remembrance

Moses built an altar and called it The Lord is my Banner. (Exodus 17:15)

The Lord is Sovereign ~Allie Minando

This week we talked about building altars of remembrance. In the Old Testament, God told his people to build altars in response to His faithfulness, provision, protection, etc… The Israelites would build altars, name them, and worship God for his goodness. Part of building an altar is physical. It is labor intensive, uses time and resources, and brings us bodily into an attitude of remembrance. As Jacob noted, it also marks a physical place on the Earth where God moved. An altar is a physical testimony.

God asks us to build altars out of his mercy for us. He knows that we are a forgetful people. We forget His goodness in times of famine and His faithfulness in times of plenty. We need to be reminded.

Next week, and every fourth Wednesday, we are going to take time to remember at the Chesterfield Community House. We’ll eat a feast together and share testimonies of God’s movement and involvement in our lives. Then we’ll worship.

Service

Tonight Andre led us in a discussion on service. We looked at Matthew 20 as a jumping off point for how our posture toward service can so often be distorted when compared to the calling of Jesus to live sacrificially.

As a homegroup, we will be taking the 5th Wednesdays of each month to focus outward in service.  This month, we will going to the home of Nancy Boerner to do a fall yard clean up and odd jobs around her house.  She is a single mom in our community and a dear friend to many of us and I know that she will be blessed by having us out.  We will meet right at Nancy’s home (2329 Kipling, 48072) in Berkley at 6:30 pm on Wednesday, October 29th.  Nancy said she is going to feed us pizza!

If you have ideas of how we can serve, as a group, please feel free to share them.  We want to be a community that reaches out, even as we endeavor do grow personally in our relationships with Jesus.