Hello friends!

I would like to go over some of the things we discussed during the October Winter Weekend so that those who were not in attendance can still learn and those who were there can be reminded. Today I shall look at our chat on:

Participation

You know how at school the same thing is taught year after year to each group of a particular grade? It’s like how you began to learn multiplication in grade three and so did all of your siblings? Yeah, CLTD is not like that. Your leaders get together each week in the winter to pray and chat about what to teach for the next Winter Weekend. In the spring we do the same thing for the summer sessions. Sometimes we teach what has been taught before but not before praying and revamping it as needed.

You may ask, “What do I care?” but did you know the time and effort it takes to do this? The first session we taught on the last weekend took a combined effort of 10 hours between Emma and myself. One session (that ended up being two because of the great discussions!). Yes, it is my job, but I am the only one on the team that actually gets paid to do this outside of summer. Everyone else is either working full time elsewhere or in full time school. I sit down at a coffee shop and tell the Leadership Team (we call it Ute Comm in the winter), “Our job is to prepare a banquet, making it the most enticing possible and invite others to partake in the celebration of it.”

Again you may wonder why I want you to know this; why I think it is so important? We are here to share faith with you, which we believe is the most potentially fulfilling endeavor one can seek after. But perhaps we have a bias. We know Jesus.

However we cannot instill this in you. We can only prepare it and present it to you, making it look the most inviting we can. Take for example if Emma and I (who are know for motorcycle riding ;) rather than for our domestic traits) lovingly baked you delicious cookies. We can buy the ingredients, take the time to bake them and lay them out for you. We can welcome you to come and take one, but we cannot feed them to you. You need to choose to come and take one. Once you have one you need to choose whether to put it in your mouth and chew it. You can also decide to take a cookie and only eat the M&M’s. (Too bad for those of you who missed the weekend! We actually brought in home-baked cookie that we made!)

Seriously though, we are encouraging and challenging you to take in our banquet; to engage fully; to open up and be willing to be changed, to challenge yourselves and seriously consider what is being taught. It is easy to sit and listen to what we are saying, but much more of a difficult task to actually let what we are saying (and more importantly what Christ is saying) to shape you – to change you for the best.

You have something to offer the group that is special and unique that no one else can give. 
What you have to suggest or question can help me to grow and question too! We build sessions in a way that asks you to participate. We want to hear from you! CLTD is a safe place to put in your two cents. Please! Partake in sessions! The more you’re willing to join in the more you’ll grow!

BTW, CLTD is about growth, not perfection. The starting point is where you are. You can’t start a journey a mile down the road – you have to start where YOU are now. Anticipate potholes, and falling on your face – this is not something anyone will do without scrapped knees, so to speak. This journey is yours, unique, and different than anyone else’s. Don’t expect it to be like mine or Emma’s or Jeremy’s. We all experience God and faith uniquely with different ups, downs and struggles. But... TOTALLY WORTH IT!

Come, be who you are, where you are in your journey and life and share what God has given you to share. Together we can build something magical! Be a part of it! And remember what I told you the first day of your CLTD session: You will get out of CLTD only what you put in.

"To risk nothing, 

is to risk everything." - Plato

“Only the person who risks is free.” – Leo Buscagalia.

For those of you who were at the September get-together, here is the link for one of the videos Emma and I were telling you about where someone took an old Jesus movie and dubbed over it: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfBR8nV4e8Q&feature=related

Please know this - some people feel these videos are insulting to Christianity.  I believe that Jesus has a sense of humor and smile at Himself. I, by no means, have any intention of being insulting - just silly.

Blessings all!

- shelley

PS - The offer always stands guys - it you need prayer or support in something, let us know! We also like to go for coffee!!

;)

Faith is stinkin' hard - even for non-believers!

I had a friend who used to say how hard it must be for atheists to believe in nothing. This morning in my quiet time I found this:

The believer can only perfect his faith on the ocean of nihilism, temptation and doubt; he has been assigned the ocean of uncertainty as the only possible state for his faith. On the other hand the believer is not to be without faith.

Just as we have already recognized that the believer does not live immune to doubt but is always threatened by the plunge into the void, so now we can discern the entangled nature of human destinies and say that even the non-believer does not represent a rounded and closed existence. However vigorously he may assert that he has long left behind him supernatural temptations and weaknesses and now accepts only what is immediately certain, he will never be free of secret uncertainty.

Just as the believer is choked by the salt water of doubt constantly washed into his mouth by the ocean of uncertainty, so the non-believer is troubled by doubts about his unbelief, about the real totality of the world which he has made up his mind to explain a self-contained whole. He can never be absolutely certain of autonomy of what he has seen and interpreted as a whole; he remains threatened by the question whether the belief is not after all the reality which it claims to be.

Just as the believer knows himself to be constantly threatened by unbelief which he must experience as a continual temptation, so for the unbeliever faith remains a temptation and so a threat to his apparently permanently closed world.

- Joseph Ratzinger Introduction to Christianity