our friend trey turner will be preaching tomorrow night during tapestry’s worship gathering at washington elementary school (6-7:15 pm). trey is a great guy with a huge heart for seeing people come to know JESUS and worship HIM in real ways rather than just being religious. trey has been with tapestry several times before and i love being around him.

i haven’t posted anything yet concerning tapestry’s trip to work with the baltodanos in diriamba, nicaragua. as usual there are many positive things i could write about. the baltodanos are truly working with GOD to do some incredible things. it is an honor to get to be a part of what GOD is doing there.

while there were many amazing things from the week that i would love to talk about the above two photos represent one the most amazing things every. many of you guys know about tapestry being able to hook the people of kilumbo up with water in 2008. the photo on the left was from the water they were drinking before they were connected with clean water. while listening to some of the parents of kilumbo talk about their dreams for their kids pam learned that one of the dreams they had was for clean water that would not cause diarrhea. kids were getting sick all the time from the filthy water.kids were getting sick all the time from the filthy water. this was a problem we could quickly help with.

now that they have clean water they kids have found a new use for the old dirty make-shift cistern. the kids in the neighborhood of kilumbo have converted the cistern into a swimming hole. the photo on the right is one of the kids showing off for us by jumping from a tree into the water. it was an amazing moment to see these kids turn something that had been a symptom of their poverty into a joyous celebration of overcoming the filthy water they had previously had. it still gives me chills to think about it.

our own john metallo will be preaching at tapestry’s worship gathering tomorrow night at washington elementary school (6-7:15 pm). john senses that GOD may be calling him to some type of pastoral ministry. please make every effort to come to tapestry tomorrow night and support a fellow thread.

for reasons of being in nicaragua and florida i will not be preaching on at tapestry sunday the 15th or 22nd.i’ll miss you guys. the good news is that we have one of our own preaching on the 15th and a friend of many threads preaching on the 22nd. here’s who will be preaching:

• our own john metallo will be preaching on sunday the 15th. john is a biblical studies major at maranatha bible college and senses that GOD might be calling him into some form of ministry as a pastor.
• our friend trey turner will be preaching on sunday the 22nd. trey is founder of a network that helps CHRISTians and churches to start simple churches/house churches. many threads know and love the turners. 

i have a request for these two weeks but let me explain first. most churches have a tendency to drop in attendance when the lead pastor isn’t there for a given sunday. most people seem to think that they aren’t really sure what is going to happen so they figure it is a good sunday to miss. of course we try not to do things like most other churches.

so here’s my request. PLEASE MAKE IT A PRIORITY TO JOIN EVERYONE ON THOSE SUNDAY EVENINGS. at the very least do everything you can to be at washington elementary school on the 15th. a good number of us threads will be in nicaragua on the 15th. it is easier to talk with a group that is excited about being there and full of energy. instead of john preaching with a crowd that is low and missing a few people let’s show our youngin’ how much we support him by making this the highest attendance of the summer. it will be real cool to do the same for trey but he’s like me and has been around for awhile so it’s not as imperative.

because of the nature of how we do faith in CHRIST at tapestry you have never heard me say “it’s really important for you to be a church this sunday.” showing up on these two sundays is a different story because showing up shows love and solidarity for john and trey. this is about loving others and therefore loving GOD, thus i am saying “IT’s REALLY IMPORTANT THAT YOU BE IN CHURCH ON THESE TWO SUNDAYS.” please blow john and trey away.

you can skip when i am there. ;)

the gym floor is being redone this week at washington elementary school and therefore we need to move to a new location for the week. so we’ll do what we usually do in such circumstances and turn it into an opportunity for some great time together … WE’LL MOVE TO IVERSON PARK FOR THE NIGHT. we’ll hold an outdoor worship gathering at iverson (the pavilion) and then cookout and eat together (always a biblical thing). there are a few of you who have mentioned to me that you need to be baptized. i know this is short notice but this would be a great time for it. please let me know if you would like to do it this sunday. for everyone else please bring chips and/or dessert. tapestry’s funds will provide the drinks, brats, burgers, and vegan stuff.

here’s the august prayer email that i send out to those who have graciously volunteered to pray for what we are doing up here in wisconsin. if you are not receiving this and would like to please let me know and i will put you on the list.

if you are going to be at tapestry’s sunday night worship gathering this week (6/20/2010) it would be really cool if you brought a tea cup or a coffee cup with you.

many people have had some very nice things to say about tapestry, our faith, and the manner in which we love each other. for example, i once hired an atheist to come in and critique one of our worship gatherings. i wanted to see how she was received, experienced, and understood from one of our gatherings. she said some incredible things about the group that i get to lead. there have been others with varying beliefs that have come in and said very positive things about the group, both when and when i had not asked them about their experience. YET the above facebook status is my favorite critiques of tapestry thus far. it comes from the status of azza, a muslim citizen of egypt, a fullbright scholar, and the uwsp arabic instructor for the past year. she started coming to tapestry about 6 months before she had to leave the states. everyone who makes up tapestry immediately started loving on her – we all know how it feels to be a stranger in the land. she ate supper at many of our homes, went to movies with us, hung out with us, and even went camping with one of the families that make up tapestry. basically she was made to feel welcome and then shown a GOD WHO loves her by a group of people loving her.

she didn’t leave wisconsin as a follower of JESUS but she did leave knowing that a group of followers of JESUS loves her passionately because of their love for JESUS. so passionately that she decided to use her facebook status to tell other people to give tapestry a try. i like it when people do that.

here’s the prayer email that i send out to all those praying for tapestry. since my computer crashed last month i am working with an older set of email addresses. if you have not received copy of this email and would like to then please let me know your email address.

for anyone who wishes to take part here’s the link to this week’s google document that i have set up for preparation for this week’s message (the url is http://tiny.cc/james119-21). last week there several threads who helped developed the message and it was kind of cool. thanks for the input guys and girls.