Rescue and Advent

A Taxi Full of Grace

According to family lore, my grandmother was once voted the meanest woman in Mishawaka, Indiana. She was a tiny woman with an equally small measure of patience for her three children. One year when my Dad was 5 years old, my grandmother went out to buy the family Christmas gifts and somehow she lost the money and returned empty handed. No one knows if she accidentally dropped the money somewhere or if it was stolen but the upshot was that it was Christmas and there were going to be no gifts or tree that year. My grandfather had just joined Alcoholics Anonymous after a long career of binge drinking (he gave my aunt the wrong name at her birth because he was too drunk to remember the agreed upon name – he was that guy). This was a family that was rough around the edges, to say the least. Somehow my grandpa’s AA group heard about their predicament and hired a taxi, filled it with enough groceries for a week, gifts, and a tree, and sent the taxi to their home. They sent it all in a taxi so that my grandparents would not know exactly who had sent the gifts and would have to accept them. Thus a taxi hired by recovering alcoholics, filled with gifts, arrived unexpectedly at their front door on Christmas Eve. And the meanest woman in Mishawaka and her family celebrated the birth of Jesus despite having done very few works that could be called “good” in the preceding year.

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Aunt Karen’s Potatoes

Cooking and the Gifts of Community

One of the many joys of living in community is being with people who share their various gifts with all of us. These gifts may come in the form of talent at leading worship services, preaching, creating stunning art that brings people a better understanding of God. Sometimes a person’s gifting is in the realm of hospitality through cooking amazing food that elevates the everyday experience of eating dinner together.

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Christmas in the Time of Covid at Jesus People

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:5

My favorite time during the holiday season comes in the few days after Christmas. The gifts are unwrapped and put away, there are leftover cookies everywhere you turn, and people are still in the holiday mood but have already finished (or not finished) the long list of traditions and gatherings that can be both a blessing and a bane. Things get quiet. People sleep in. A calm descends and everyone in our house shuffles around in new slippers, clutching cups of coffee and chatting in the hallways, or visiting in each other’s rooms. This has always been part of my ultimate idea of Heaven – hanging out with loved ones, grateful for each other, and having enough time to just be with each other, without any planned activities or expectations. The Christmas decorations are still up so everything looks beautiful but the chaos is somewhere in the far off distance.

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What’s it Like Living at Jesus People?

The Jesus People Blog - An Introduction

There is something daunting about putting together a blog about Jesus People. The view from the outside is, “How hard can this be? You all live and work together. Is there anything to say?” And yes, in some ways it could seem like there is only one story here – people moving into our community, serving, and at some point either realizing that they want to do something else and moving out, or feeling a renewed daily call to live with these specific people in this specific place.

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