Rest

August is what we hope as a leadership at X1 will be 'rest' month.
We are seeking to pull back a number of things in order to know somewhat more of a restful season because, firstly, it is very good for us, and, secondly, it will hopefully enable us to be full of energy to move forward with renewed vigour and focus in the ministry life of X1 as the summer ends.
We as the LJ family are really going to try and make this work for ourselves and I am sincerely hopeful that, even as we still offer ministry and celebration times together as a church this summer, many of the X1ers will find time to enter "sabbath," the rest of God.

I pulled out an old quote from Eugene Peterson's, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places and some thoughts upon that to reinforce the idea, and importance, of rest:

"Most of us have a difficult time understanding history with God as the major and definitive presence. We have grown up getting our sense of history from so-called historians, scholars, and journalists for whom God is not germane or present in what they study and write. We are thoroughly trained by our schools, daily papers, and telecasts to read history solely in terms of politics and economics, human interest and environmental conditions, military operations and diplomatic intrigue. If we have a mind for it, we can go ahead and fit God in somewhere or other. But the biblical writers do it the other way around; they fit us into the history in which God is the primary reality."- Eugene Peterson

One of the things most 'reassuring' in the above insight by Peterson is the reminder he gives that God is fully at work in our every-day run of the mill lives. God does not need to work distinct from our reality He loves to be fully alive in us as we do whatever we do for most of the day.
The powerful words I have quoted above are a poignant challenge to not only secular society, but to Christians who are being won over by the views of said secular society.
Here is the call folks: If we are immersed in the information overload offered by those who will not include God (and I assure you He is not awaiting an invitation He is everywhere present) we will lose sight of God for ourselves.

Peterson calls believers to return the notion of sabbath, to rest in awe and wonder at the person of God and His work in creation. We must remove ourselves from 'history' sometimes and look fully and humbly at all that God is and has done. When we do not do this, when we do not stop and wonder, we will lose our connection to God, we will forget Him and be defined by secularity.

His word, silent meditation, and getting away to a place where we are confronted by the naked beauty of God's creation shouting forth the glory of God are all means of seeing God again, feeling Him, loving Him, dreaming Him, knowing Him and above all worshiping Him.
Please let us not be defined by those who for now have removed God from 'history' because at the end of this season of 'history' they too will bow the knee and confess that "Jesus is King" and it is actually His Story after all!

Simon