Tuesday: Chicken Chimichangas (new Pinterest recipe), guacamole, chips, sliced tomatoes

Wednesday: Chicken Linguine (new Pinterest recipe), salad, garlic toast

Thursday: Leftovers for family (I’m eating dinner with my Mom and Sister In Law before MIT)

Friday: Crockpot salsa chicken, rice, beans, creamed corn

Saturday: Steak, scalloped hasselback potatoes, steamed broccoli

Sunday: Pumpkin pie french toast (new Pinterest recipe), fruit salad, scrambled eggs

Tuesday: Ranch Chicken, Oven Baked Fries, Green Salad

Wednesday: Breakfast for Dinner (bacon, egg, and cheese crescents), fruit salad

Thursday: Taco Soup, Cornbread

Friday: Pizza Night and Football

Saturday: Torie’s birthday party (she hasn’t made up her mind for the menu)

Tuesday: spaghetti @ meatballs with angel hair pasta (using leftover marinara sauce and meatballs from last week), steamed green beans, garlic bread

Wednesday: sandwiches, homemade french onion soup (new recipe I found on Pinterest), fruit salad

Thursday: crockpot Chipotle chicken (that I ended up not making last week), tortillas/lettuce/tomato/salsa/fresh avacado/sour cream, chips and guacamole

Friday: pizza night followed by a little Friday Night Football!!!

Saturday: Eating out to celebrate Torie’s birthday……her choice!!

1 (6 oz) can tomato paste

4 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley

1 clove garlic, minced (I use more)

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

6 Tbsp EVOO

1/3 c. finely diced onion

1/2 c. white wine

1. Blend tomatoes, tomato paste, parsley, garlic, oregano, salt, pepper in food processor until smooth

2. Saute onion in EVOO, add tomato puree, and wine.

3. Simmer for 30 minutes.

This sauce is divine….I doubled mine so that I can freeze half of it.  It’s almost better the 2nd day when the flavors have been able to “marry.”  I also add a little basil to mine….

Tuesday: broccoli beef, rice noodles

Wednesday: spaghetti and meatballs (trying a new spaghetti recipe), angel hair pasta, green beans, garlic bread

Thursday: cheese enchiladas, rice, beans, corn salsa

Friday: pizza night before the football game

Saturday: meatball subs (with leftover meatballs and spaghetti sauce), chips, fruit salad

Sunday: chipotle chicken in the crockpot, tortillas, toppings (lettuce, leftover corn salsa, avacado, cheese, salsa, sour cream)

“Don’t you see that children are God’s best gift?
the fruit of the womb his generous legacy?
Like a warrior’s fistful of arrows
are the children of a vigorous youth.
Oh, how blessed are you parents,
with your quivers full of children!
Your enemies don’t stand a chance against you;
you’ll sweep them right off your doorstep.”

I also read this verse on the days when things are hectic, the kids are all whiny, Mommy is near tears, etc…  Thank you God for my beautiful, healthy, happy children!

Wednesday: Cuban sandwiches, chips, fruit salad

Thursday: Frito Pie (made with our leftover chili), fruit

Friday: Pizza Night and football game

Saturday: grilled chicken, new squash casserole recipe, garlic bread

Sunday: chicken and rice, green beans

Throughout the past 7 years, many of you have prayed, fasted, traveled great distances, stayed up late, awakened before the sun, met in strange locations, embraced creative (and sometimes weird) ideas, asked good questions, sacrificed money, offered resources and equipment, opened your homes, cried, laughed, despaired, rejoiced, went way outside your comfort zones, gave to people you had never met, opened your backyard for baptisms and your front yard for barbecues, and served and loved in all kinds of other ways as participants in the Christ journey. To all of you, we offer deep, heart-felt, and humble “thank yous” many, many, many times over. “Thank you” for remembering us, the least of these among churches. You truly have served Christ by sharing this journey with us.

And what a beautiful mess of a journey it has been. We’ve been blessed to share meals with strangers, comfort folks in the agonizing valleys of life’s most despairing moments, and celebrate with them from atop magnificent mountain peaks. We’ve made tons of mistakes, learned from them, and made tons more. We’ve baptized friends in truck beds, rebuilt homes in the 9th Ward of New Orleans, and gathered for communal times of worship all over town. We’ve handed out water bottles among homeless friends in downtown Fort Worth, participated in Burleson’s Christmas

Parade of Lights with a lightless float, and helped friends sent overseas in Argentina, Africa, and Ecuador. We praise God for the leading of his Holy Spirit along the Christ journey. “Thank you” for caring about us enough to walk alongside us.

On Sunday, May 29, Christ Journey, as it has been known up to this point, came together for the final time. During that gathering, with words and prayers from Philippians 2 and John 17, Bret and Rachel Wells and three additional families were commissioned, blessed, and sent to start a church in a northwest Burleson neighborhood. We are thankful for the Wells family, the many sacrifices and risks they embraced in order to join Christ Journey in the fall of 2008, and the ways in which they modeled and nurtured the Christ Journey community with a passion for the Scriptures, intentionally pursuing and inviting non-Christians into CJ community life, and selfless attention toward disciple-making responsibilities and opportunities among children. We rejoice at the initial friendships beginning to form through their new work, and long for transformational stories in these four families and those the Lord adds to their number that Christ might be lifted high and poured out in northwest Burleson through them. For more information about their new ministries, click here.

So, what does this mean for Chris and Heidi? If you are asking that question, please keep reading.

First, we’re pregnant!!! If you didn’t know, I’m sorry we haven’t told you yet, and if you did know, feel free to push back from the screen and “happy dance” for us again! Earlier this week, we had our first doctor’s visit, complete with a sonogram and heartbeat! Additionally, Heidi’s been quite sick this go around, and we would appreciate your prayers for a healthy momma and baby. As a result of not feeling well, Heidi hasn’t updated her blog with the news just yet; however, for now, you can catch up on our summer happenings with a click here.

Second, I have received and accepted an opportunity to teach 5th grade math at our neighborhood’s elementary school. Ask me about the wild ride sometime, but over the last year and a half, I’ve gone from substitute teacher, to instructional paraprofessional, to special education teacher, to classroom teacher. We have witnessed the hand of our gracious and faithful God all over this process. For the longest, we prayed and longed for the discovery of “people of peace” in our neighborhood. We’re just now realizing that we might be those people! As a result of this opportunity, I get to walk with 80 students and their families all of which live within a 3-mile radius of our house.

Furthermore, the Lord has allowed our house to serve as a hangout for kids on our street. During last school year, it was not uncommon for me to come home to a backyard full of kids (a few of which I had never met)! We’re thankful for the ways the Lord leads us into ministry to and with our neighbors.

Third, Heidi and I are prayerfully seeking to initiate, develop, and nurture disciple-making relationships across our social spheres. For us, this is somewhat uncharted territory, but we continue encountering Christians asking if weekly worship services is all there is to Christianity, non-Christians wondering about the hope we have, and pastors seeking friends with whom they can share transparent, vulnerable, and encouraging relationships. Perhaps, we are at a place in our lives where we can serve and walk with these friends for the glory of God. We will not hesitate in following Christ and inviting others into that journey with seeds of hope and good news. So expect to see us serving on Lancaster Avenue in Fort Worth, building fences for widows in our neighborhood, sending money through the “Christ Journey Fund” to friends in need all over the world, and helping others listen to the Holy Spirit discovering ways they might participate in God’s mission by joining the conspiracy of little Jesuses wherever they are. Ecclesiologically speaking, if God brings a church out of that…a living, breathing oikos that hears the voice of the Shepherd, seeks connection to the Vine, and continually washes the feet of the neighborhood and each other…we long for such a day. And if not, we remain prayerful, humble, obedient, and for the sake of others.

Finally, I (Chris) will continue developing relationships, mentoring, and walking with other men through a bi-weekly gathering we’ve dubbed: “Scripture, Salsa, and Shiner.” Basically, it’s a gathering of guys with thoughts and questions about the Bible and life as we experience it daily. Some sit back and soak in the discussions, others mainly ask questions, and still others pour out their hearts in pursuit of Christ. Furthermore, I have joined with two friends (who are also S3 participants) in the “Missio Project,” a website of stories, book excerpts, photographs, reflections, and conversations focused on life in the Kingdom, recalibrating our lives and the church around Jesus, and prayer for a movement of God in our city. We’re just getting started, and have made some initial posts that you can check out here.

In actuality, who knows what lies ahead? For now, one Christ journey has concluded, and another is underway. In the chorus of “All To Us,” singer/songwriter Chris Tomlin sings, “Let the saving love of Christ be the measure of our lives.” We feel he’s on to something…join us as we find out.

She was anxious, frustrated, and just discontent enough to embrace the difficult uphill obstacle course of change. Sick of watching weight loss reality shows and commercials propagating quick-fix “solutions,” she felt a prompting deep within that the need to shed pounds only reflected a portion of the struggle. What had happened since college? This had to stop.

As she considered this necessary change in her ways, she ruminated on the glory of God, “If my body is truly a temple…if the Lord of all has somehow taken up residence within, then perhaps my journey into the unknown can bring him glory as I consecrate myself to Him and for Him. Although, I look forward to smaller clothes, toned muscles, and compliments from friends who’ll notice a difference, ultimately this could be an act of worship…a way of ascribing and proclaiming all honor and dominion to God. If, in fact, he reigns over and is renewing all creation, even my own body is his, for his glory.” She prayed for strength as her excitement about the possibilities ahead coalesced with her real and present fear of failure.

As she shared her newfound resolution with others, she was quickly invited into a group of ladies that embraced the same struggle. One lady was a former fitness trainer, and two nights a week, she opened her home, garage, or backyard, so this group could workout together. As they sweat, talked, and shared time with each other, strong relationships formed among the participants in this workout group. Their conversations began including more than the difficulty level of the workout or what to expect from the weather over the next few days. Instead, they shared deeper things…deeper experiences: marital troubles, despair over past poor choices, and unforgiveness toward others. Reflexively, they cared for one another and bore each others’ burdens. While losing weight, they also began losing callouses from their souls.

That’s when she realized something. That’s when it hit her. “What if the Lord has sent me to this group…to these (now) friends?” she wondered. “What if God has been at work in all of us, and part of that work has been to bring us together? I am to love, care, serve, and (re)introduce these to Jesus.”

A good friend of mine calls this “living with Gospel intent,” and that’s what she continued doing. In fact, she felt a deep burden for this workout group lifting the ladies up in prayer, calling to check on them throughout the week, inviting them into meals, service opportunities, and times of prayer and worship with her Jesus community. She truly began to love them and pour herself out for them. When the group needed to switch to an early morning meeting time, she encouraged them through the transition. When members stopped participating for various reasons, she kept nurturing those relationships. When ladies needed a shoulder to cry on, advice to act upon, or someone they could trust with their heart, they would call her, or she would sense their uneasiness and call them.

Sharing life. Praying for and with each other. Walking together. Serving one another…with each other. This is a glimpse of the church on pilgrimage. What began as a desire to loss weight, continues as a desire to plant Gospel-seeds among these suburban women. Some seeds were snatched. Some grew up quickly only to fade just as fast. Still others were unable to implant deep enough below the surface to gain viability. But, there are some seeds, still very much in the thick growth-struggle, that will become the largest trees in the garden, no doubt.

All in all, she’s lost almost 80 pounds and counting. God is glorified, indeed. However, she’s also gaining as well. She’s gaining friends…friends to journey with…toward Christ. She’s gaining a deeply engrained perspective for life on mission. She’s gaining the humility necessary to be a good follower…for we are only worth following if we are good followers.

If Christ is the missionary and we are his ambassadors, let us live with joyful urgency and patient abandon. Let us be less “show and tell” and more “go and tell.” For the church on pilgrimage must keep in step with each other nourished by the very breath and blood flow of Christ, so that she will grow up healthy in God, robust in love.

“It’s tempting to bolt through Holy Week–to thear the starting gun at Palm Sundy and race as fast as possible to the finish line of Easter morning. Such a sprint is really not possible. . . Our Lord didn’t race through the days. Each came in succession with purpose. Yes, Easter is glorious. But if we don’t slow down and walk the way of the Cross with Jesus, it is really little more than a party with no sacrifice, a celebration with no understanding.

“Scripture shouts our own fickleness as humans–our own human tendency to go from declarations of praise to pronouncements of deception. When we take our time to walk slowly through the week called ‘holy’, we must see ourselves: we are happy to cry ‘Hosanna!’ as long as the King meets our needs, our perceptions of what is good and right and best for ‘us.’ When he falls short of our expectations, we cry, ‘Crucify him!’

“This week called holy brings us face to face with humanity. . . who am I in the story? . . . Am I perpetrator or victim? Am I Pharisee or disciple? If I am disciple, am I Judas or Peter? When am I Pilate, washing my hands of the trouble making Jesus? And when am I Simon of Cyrene, willing to carry the Savior’s cross for a few steps?

“Woe to us this week. Woe to us, the people called Christians, if we fail to slow down and examine our hearts, our attitudes, our actions. . . . Woe to us if we dash to Easter and fail to walk this way of the cross through the Passion of our Lord.”

~ Elizabeth Sausele