The Eldest and the Youngest

/ joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

AMANDA WRITES…Well, while half of the Vicarage is in Florida enjoying Disney the Eldest and youngest of the Vicarage are left to guard the home front. This is quite the change for Grandma as she doesn’t see me as an adult quite yet. Just last month she started to allow me to wash the dinner dishes! With that being said, Dad asked me, what were the easiest and hardest things about being left alone with Grandma for a week.

The easiest thing is listening to her stories from her childhood and learning how my dad grew up. The first day dad left she was missing her kids, and she took out photos I had never seen before and with each photo she showed me she was able to tell me all the details of that time. Having these memories and moments are precious and I don’t take them for granted.

The hardest thing is the questions. As grandma grows older her memory is not what it once was. In the evenings we sit together and talk and she asks the same questions over and over. “when’s your father coming home?” “Is Brenda coming home at the same time?” “Have you walked the dogs yet?” “Where’s your cat?” While these questions aren’t hard to answer it’s the repetitiveness and the realization of what is slowly being taken away from her that is hard and frustrating.

J. WRITES… Thank you Amanda for giving us this time.

The Many Threads At the Vicarage

/ joseph elon lillie / 2 Comments

I had this thought when I started “Notes From the Vicarage” that somehow we as a family were going to come to this year with all its craziness, all its transition, all its busyness and hullabaloo and still somehow we were going to be able to lay down all of that in an orderly and succinct fashion. I pictured our story at the Vicarage laying down in nice neat lines or perhaps even a beautifully woven tapestry, the design of which would be easily discernible by even the untrained eye. It hasn’t worked out like that at all

I am always talking to Pastor Dan (my lead pastor) about the prophetic threads flowing through our church. I somehow thought that “Notes From the Vicarage” would help me to see the order in the chaos of all the threads. I do believe it will still do that for me. Right now, though, all it is doing is showing me more threads. those threads have always been there, I just wasn’t seeing them before I started writing.

There are: threads of ministry, threads of personal health, threads of artistry, threads of aging, threads of family and family change, threads of mid life, threads of friendships growing and waning, threads of goodness, threads of evil and so many others which I have barely even touched on yet. This blog has helped me to see all those threads from new angles. I still cannot see that pattern they make, maybe I never will, maybe I am not supposed to.

I was talking to God about all these threads the other day and asking Him to help me understand them. I was striving so hard for understanding and then God came and told me to stop looking at the threads and to start looking at Him.

He said, “Son the nature of prophecy is not in looking at the world and trying to understand it. The nature of prophecy is in looking at God and allowing Him to explain what He wants you to know of the world.”

I still see all those threads. I’m just not looking at them as much anymore. At least that is what I am working at.

WHAT’S ITINERATION?

/ joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

It strikes me that I never explained why the Vicarage now has three ministers living in it. Perhaps some of you have asked the obvious question, “If Brenda J. Lillie is a missionary to The Netherlands why is she living at The Vicarage in the good Ole U.S. of A.?”

Brenda is a faith missionary. Which means she is a missionary who is responsible to raise her own funds from individuals and churches to help her do her work of missions. The process of gathering partners is called “itineration”.

In our denomination, missionaries serve in four year terms. That is three or four years on the field (depending on the stage of their work)and then 1 year back in the U.S. to meet with their partnering churches to raise funds for new missions projects, or to make up for money lost due to attrition (churches or individuals not being able to continue their commitments) and cost of living increase.

Brenda spent the last three years in Zaandam, North Holland, The Netherlands building Stagelife Theater in partnership with Icthus Church in that city.

Downtown Zaandam

Now she is home connecting with partners and forging new alliances to help her plant the next phase of the ministry which is The Bridge Artist’s community.

She has been home a month. If you have been following us you know it has been a busy time. She is currently in a season we are calling the “May gauntlet.”

May is the month in our denominations when many of our regions host their Network Conferences. A conference is like a combination church service-pep- rally and stockholder’s business meeting. Brenda is traveling to several conferences this month to connect with potential partners. At each conference she sets up a table, and ministers from that region are encouraged to stop by and see what she is doing. The hope is that those ministers will set up services with Brenda and then consider supporting her. Each conference is on Brenda’s dime. She pays for travel, lodging and set up cost, but the idea is you invest to reap a benefit.

Last week she preached in Worcester MA and then drove to the Appalachian Network Conference in West Virginia. This week she is in Syracuse, New York attending the New York District Conference.

She is also selling photos from her home on the farm in The Netherlands as a way to raise money for the project.

Mother’s Day At the Vicarage: The New Normal

/ joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

Here in America, we are celebrating Mother’s Day. We have two Moms to celebrate today.

Great Grandma
New Momma

This is Melanie’s first Mother’s Day. Since she lives an hour away and since church and lunch for Mom will keep my day pretty busy through day’s end, I will not get a chance to see her until my day off tomorrow (weekends are not weekends for pastor’s they are more like Thursdays and Fridays). I am looking forward to spending time with Melanie, her husband James and my granddaughter Dani.

Mom does not go out anymore. I don’t mean by that, she is a happy homebody. I mean she doesn’t like to go out on the front porch for more than a few minutes. Getting her to sit on the lawn for a midsummer’s picnic is major event and going to the doctor is something we have to begin talking her into two weeks in advance. So for us Mother’s Day is going to be low key.

I remember my grandmother (Mom’s mom) went through this as her mind weakened in her later years. I am watching as my aunts go through this same thing and as my cousins fight to keep their moms from becoming total recluses. It is one of the many facets of this disease that is very hard to watch…the disconnection from the world.

Part of working through this process of slow loss is in embracing what is in the moment and making that special. We may not be able to take Mom out for dinner or to the beach or on any other family outing but that doesn’t mean we cannot celebrate. Brenda, Amanda and I have decided, we will bring in Chinese food and then later go pick up Sundaes from the local ice cream stand she loves so much and bring them home. If it stops raining I may even get outside and get some more of the yard done so that even if she will not go out and sit in it she can view it from the window.

Our family is one of the many coming to terms with dementia or Alzheimer’s. It is not the easiest of walks but we are blessed to have Mom with us for this year long experiment of complicated living.

What are you doing for Mother’s Day?

THE INTINERATION GAUNTLET

/ joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

The gauntlet began yesterday for Brenda. She preached at Living Word Assembly of God in Worcester MA. Her original plan was to preach, have lunch and then hit the road to get as far South as she could by 8 P.M. She was heading to the Appalachian District Council in West Virginia.

When she got to Worcester though she realized she had forgotten an essential bag of supplies for the council. So after lunch she traveled the hour back to the Vicarage for the bag.

She finally hit the road about 4:30 P.M. last night and made it as far as Bethlehem PA before stopping for the night.

She got a fresh start this morning and was to her venue sometime around 5 P.M. She has a suite!

It looks like a nice place to rest her head for the next few days. Be praying that she is able to make some connections with new supporters for the ministry.

If you would like to help Brenda with the building The Bridge Artist’s Ministry you can contact her at THE BRIDGE ARTISTIC NETWORK

Verloren

/ joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

This is a trailer for Brenda’s current show playing in The Netherlands. Her team is travelling and ministering while Brenda is here in The U.S. raising her personal support for the mission and capital for the next part of the project which is the Bridge Artists Ministry.




If you would like more information about booking Brenda at your church or information about how to support the ministry you can find it by clicking HERE

A Godly Heritage

/ joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

As I was driving to work the other day. I took a turn down Grove Street. After passing my old high school (now an elementary school) and upon coming to the outlet of Grove Street onto School St. I noticed that renovations had begun on the old Ready house. Mr. Ready was the postmaster in town when I was a kid. His wife’s name was Ruth. They were some of our first customers on a paper route my sister and I shared when Brenda was just nine and I was eleven.

Image result for toy town elementary school winchendon
Grampa Lillie actually broke ground on this school.

The reminiscence brought me to a realization. The ministers of the Vicarage are in a situation that is almost unique. We are ministering this year together in the town we were born in. I have made my career as a minister in the town I was born in. My daughter, Amanda is the fifth generation of our family who has lived in this tiny little town in North Central Massachusetts just on the New Hampshire border. One of our great-great uncles was on the team that built Clyde the Rocking Horse, the symbol of Winchendon (AKA Toy Town). My grandfather was on the board of selectmen. My Dad helped write the modern town charter. These are our people. We are ministering and fighting the spiritual battle for our ancestral home.

Image result for winchendon town hall

As I thought about these things an overwhelming sense of destiny came over me. The Vicarage is not unique just because three ministers live there in a very complicated intergenerational situation further confused by three dogs and a flerkin. The most amazing thing about our situation is that this year feels like it is being breathed upon by the breath of God. The scent of destiny if in the air. The world suddenly feels pregnant with purpose beyond our mortal intentions and as I write that I don’t fully understand what that means.

I am flabbergasted as I question why God has chosen us. I am honored beyond measure and I pray that at the Day of Reckoning we will be found worthy of the calling with which we were called, whatever that turns out to be.

Have you ever felt chosen by God for something? Have you ever felt you were in the midst of some divine plan?