Uncategorized

BIT BY SLOW

/ joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

I set myself a goal this year of writing more everyday. My goal was to write at least one blog for each of my WordPress channels everyday. I also wanted to get back to journaling everyday.

Photo by seymasungr on Pexels.com

At the time I was not journaling at all and I wasn’t even getting a devotional video made everyday. I hadn’t written beyond devotional material connected to my weekly sermons for months; so the goal was definitely audacious.

Traveler with cloak and staff looking at a spiraling stone staircase leading into the clouds

I have not made the goal I set on January 1. In fact in January I did not make much headway at all. I may have had a few days during the month where I got two blogs done on the same day. I maybe journaled four times. February was much the same. March was a little better. April fell apart completely around Easter.

Now it is May. Something has changed….some things have changed. I am doing better. Several times a week I am spending time in writing sessions where I am completing multiple projects for the coming week. I am journaling once a week now.

My current goals have changed. I am no longer trying to write everyday. I write on Mondays (that has been my service writing day for years). Now I am just elongating the writing time and I am trying not to do other things on this main writing day beyond the obligatory house chores.

Older man feeding chickens in a farmyard with a barn, coop, and dog

I am journaling once a week during my time at TWR on Monday evenings. I am having mini writing sessions before my Jesus 45 meetings at 6 A.M. on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I am trying to spend an hour a day writing on Thursdays and Fridays.

This is where I am for the moment. It’s not producing the results I want yet but it is a beginning and what I know about myself is that big audacious goals are best arrived at in steps. I should have been intentional about the step up process from the beginning.

Man climbing upward steps symbolizing progress

HOW HAVE YOU GROWN YOUR WRITING PROCESS OVER THE YEARS?

SURVEY

/ joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

I visited town hall the other day. I needed to renew Snug’s dog license and to check in with the Planning Commission to see if our building project was even viable.

Snug’s dog license was a quick matter. He just had a rabies shot in the fall, so he is good through next year. After the town clerk’s office I stopped over to see Nicole Roberts at the planning commission and I spent about twenty minutes telling her about our plans.

The Vicarage sits on two pieces of property which my father acquired at different times in the 1970’s. The property we are planning on building the cottage on has plenty of frontage and set back so the building project is a go, but on further inspection it was discovered that the main house of the Vicarage, while grandfathered in, is not actually a buildable lot any longer. It is short by three feet of being buildable.

The advice is to have the lots surveyed so we can build on the empty lot and then give some frontage to the main lot so that also become buildable so we can add a garage or something in the future.

OF MEN AND SERVICES AND BOARDS

/ joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

I am sitting in the cafe at church right now on my writing day (that would be Monday). This is the day I write my sermon, pre-write a few blogs, create the worship services I am going to sing for the week, and layout plans for my upcoming weekly meetings. It’s a busy administrative/creative day which always finishes up with three hours of prayer at The Worship Room House of Prayer in downtown Winchendon

I started this morning by driving to our church treasurer’s house to get some checks signed so we could pay our contractor for a plumbing project slated to begin at the church in a few weeks. I met the contractor at the church handed him the check and after he went on to another project I sat down to finish the sermon for next Sunday.

We are in a series now entitled THE DLT REFRESHER.

Next Sunday I will be preaching on Meeting Needs which is one of five pillars in our Doing Life Together ethos. Doing Life Together has become our church’s mantra over the course of the last five years. It encapsulates the purpose for which we do everything we do.

Ministry here at Cornerstone is based around the idea of of doing life TOGETHER. This last weekend, for instance, the men off Cornerstone and several from other churches met together for a day of AWAKENING. That was the theme of our men’s conference this Spring.During the course of the day,on Saturday, we shared two meals together and talked in large and small groups about what it means to AWAKEN: AWAKEN TO THE CHERISH/ AWAKEN TO THE TRANSFORMATION PROCESS/ AWAKEN TO THE BATTLE IN YOUR OWN BACKYARD/ AND AWAKEN TO YOUR CONNECTION WITH GOD. It was an awesome day!

Then yesterday we had church service. You can watch the service below

SERVICE HERE

After service we went into our quarterly church board meeting. Lunch was served by

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/18MbT4j7PM

While having lunch together we went through deacon nominations and a discussion about a proposed solar field on the church property. Then, we chatted about spiritual matters regarding discipleship and church growth. We planned and updated over several building projects for the church and finished up in a conversation about community involvement.

The weekend was very full. Monday has been very full. But I have gotten to spend these last days with some wonderful people accomplishing some amazing things.

HOW WAS YOUR WEEKEND?

IMAGES OF CHRISTMAS FROM THE VICARAGE 2025

/ joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

The Christmas season is past and I am now staring headlong into 2026. As I plan forward, I want to take just a moment to gaze back at the wonderful season I and my community have just come through.

The season started nearly a month ago with the town tree lighting. One of the things I really enjoyed about this year was that I got to have a lot of wonderful experiences but I never felt particularly rushed.

I got to spend the night of the tree lighting with my daughter Melanie and my granddaughters Daniella and Abigail.

The community was so active this year. Parties at the CAC and caroling with the Beals Memorial library.

The season was beautifully lit with snow and Christmas parties. Each Sunday our church hosted a different missionary and each Sunday we concluded the missionary’s visit with a Christmas party for them hosted by different groups from the church.

On Christmas Eve Cornerstone joined forces with The United Parish of Winchendon.

Then on Christmas Day my sister Brenda and my daughter Amanda and I started the day with a breakfast of stuffed French toast, bacon, sausage, Nissu and strong coffee. Later in the day we went to my son’s house and enjoyed a wonderful ham dinner. I have to say it was a wonderful Christmas.

How was your Holliday?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY THANKSGIVING!

/ joseph elon lillie / 6 Comments

It is 5 A.M. on Thanksgiving morning. I am getting ready to start cooking the Thanksgiving meal.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I roasted and carved the turkey yesterday. The turkey stock is set aside for gravy. Today is going to be given to the vegetable portion of the meal. My nephew, Ryan, is bringing a pie. My daughter, Amanda, is bringing the potatoes. My daughter-in-law, Kristine, is making beef Afritada. My nephew, Tyler, is bringing the drinks. That leaves Melanie and I to make: Mac and cheese, green bean casserole, turnip and carrots, butternut squash, stuffing and sweet potato pie.

Yesterday was my 58th birthday.

Photo by lil artsy on Pexels.com

We celebrated with pizza from the pizzeria where my son-in-law works and carrot cake. As my 59th year begins I feel change is in the air. Change is always in the air, but this is different. As I approach old age I feel like this is my time of life. The period of my life I was really made for. I feel a sense of coming into my own. I am bidding farewell to what I was as a young man and even what I was as a middle-aged man and I am saying hello to something new… something more vital than anything I have ever experienced before. I am feeling old and strangely…strong.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

THE BIG MOVE

/ joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

A week ago my daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughters moved in to the Vicarage. It has been a week of unpacking and transitioning and learning to live with all of our new normal.

As the fall settles in and the last of the garden flowers wilt to seed, the denizens of the Vicarage are preparing to settle in for our own long winter’s nap. Though I have suspect that very little napping will get done during the season of darkness.

There are lots of projects to do here at the Vicarage and at the church.

Yesterday James, Joe, Sevii and I attended a men’s conference at the church and then James headed off to work and I headed off to prayer.

Today is church service. Melanie is leading worship and I am preaching so we are already in full swing of preparation.

The next week will be about harvesting the last of the fall veggies from the garden (there is still kale and potatoes to bring in) and then putting the gardens to bed for the winter. As well the kids have to finish unpacking and working on the upstairs room which was Amanda’s room before she moved. They are turning that into a class room for the girls.

In the middle of all this the ladies are planning a fall ladies conference and we are preparing for the town’s first ever (as far as I know) volunteer drive at the end of October. T

This week I will be appointed to secretary of the Friends of the library.

It’s a wonderful and busy season breathing heavily on the edge of the holiday season which will culminate in what we are calling Christmas with our missionaries. All of this is going to give me lots to write about in the days ahead. I just have to make sure I get the writing done.