DEAR FAMILY- JUST KEEP SWIMMING

April 27, 2022 / joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

Dear Family,

Normally I would not be writing on Wednesday as it is one of the busier days in my week, but as yesterday was awash with work I did not have time to get to my posts for the day.

Yesterday was a constant pace through most of the daytime hours and by night my brain was mush and the rainy weather made me a candidate for Motrin therapy. I got a lot done for sure. The house got cleaned. Paperwork got done (well at least some of it…I am amazed at how much paperwork there is for a lead pastor to do and I am minimizing my paperwork compared to my predecessors). The weekly staff meeting was finished. Grocery shopping and library run was finished. I even had time to do my daily devotional for the church before I had to go off to a hospital visit.

I did not complete my prayer regimen yesterday, but today is another day and so I am getting off to a good start finishing up this work and a few other bits before my my senior staff meeting. I will also fit in at least 45 minutes of prayer before that meeting happens and then I have to go into the church to get a check signed for one of the two funerals I planned this week and then I need to get a court waiver filled out and sent for one of our widows who the church is helping with guardianship proceedings. All that will be accomplished before our prayer meeting tonight.

It is a season full of ministry. And I am learning that in all things…like Dory…I need to just keep swimming.

DEAR FAMILY- THE NEW IN THE OLD

April 21, 2022 / joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

Dear Family,

It has been a busy two weeks. We are now 21 days in The Vicarage Annex. We have gotten used to this place. It is wonderful. It is comfortable. I am so thankful to God for this place. It is everything we need. Except it is not home.

I am Painting Pictures of Egypt.

I am quickly realizing that what we are going through is more than a temporary change. We are being launched by this renovation into a new season. I guess I didn’t anticipate that. I thought we would get the necessary job done and we would go back to our same old patterns.

But I am now realizing that our old patterns will not fit into what we are going back too. We are changing. We will have changed and The Vicarage will be a new home for a new people.

DEAR FAMILY- ADJUSTMENTS

April 14, 2022 / joseph elon lillie / 1 Comment

Dear Family,

I am considering the two big building projects which are taking up my time for the next two months…the one at the Vicarage….and the sanctuary restructure at the church. What an incredible blessing it is that I get to do these two projects.

On the surface it would seem I am the wrong guy for this. If it were left to me to actually do the work it would be true. I possess none of the skills needed to replace plumbing or electrics, carpets or altars. But I am not called to any of that actual work. I am just having these things done on my watch. Aside from a little demolition, I am just the guy behind the curtain nodding my ahead to give approval or shaking it to say “I don’t think that works for me/us”.

I do suppose it is a little more complicated than that. I have a job to do while the construction goes on. While the builders build, my job is to figure out how to do ministry around the construction.

The adjustments I have made in order to keep the work of ministry going are indeed some of the biggest blessings I have yet encountered in the work of ministry. Figuring out how to care for Mom’s needs and still meet the congregation’s needs: having meetings from home, having intentional coffee dates at set times everyday with Mom, finding people to sit with Mom while I go into the church.

The conversations I have with my Mom at our coffee times can be very repetitious. Her anxiety about the house is still high. She is also not use to having people in her living space, but there have been some real blessings to it. Mom has not smoked a cigarette since we got here almost two weeks ago. It is nice to see her interact even if it is only a little with our church family. We have even had a few times where she has consented to listen to the Bible with me as I did my devotions.

Prayer time has been an interesting shift for me. My meeting load has actually increased during this season and I am really enjoying that, but I am finding that a lot more of my prayer time is spent in decompressing from the pastoral work. We are traveling in some deep pastoral waters now and that is very encouraging

I have always thought of myself as someone who does not like change. But I am discovering that while these changes brought on by these projects are uncomfortable they are not bad…they just are. If I take it slow and easy and I don’t let the changes effect my inner peace then the adjustments are actually all blessings.

Be Blessed and Be At Peace,

DEAR FAMILY- LIFE GOES ON

April 9, 2022April 9, 2022 / joseph elon lillie / 1 Comment

Dear Family,

I have heard from many of you since yesterday asking me how I am doing with the whole “asbestos thing”. Really I am fine. The asbestos in the upstairs bathroom is not even really dangerous to remove. It just can’t be torn up like normal linoleum, and it must be disposed of properly. It is just another delay. One thing I know is my times are in God’s hands. One thing I am learning is that I need to relax into that.

The Vicarage project is going to be perfectly in keeping with God’s timing and plan. While we are waiting on it life keeps on with ministry. Most of my meetings now are at The Vicarage Annex and I am finding that I am able to keep a pretty full schedule thanks to my assistant Carrie who is organizing my schedule so well.

Mom has not smoked a single cigarette since we moved to The Annex. So any lengthening of time here I realize might just be to cement this new habit. It all has a purpose and I am learning the joy in finding that purpose.

DEAR FAMILY- ASBESTOS

April 8, 2022 / joseph elon lillie / 3 Comments

Dear Family,

The blue flooring we have been walking on since I was 10 is apparently asbestos. So the contractors have a bit more to remediate than I originally thought…or hoped. Bringing things back to the studs seems to be a theme for the adventure of life these last few years.

Wendy, our church secretary, has likened the events in our church to exactly that (taking everything back to the studs). Now what we have spent the last few years doing in the spiritual we are doing in the natural at the Vicarage. Themes repeating themselves continually…..

DEAR FAMILY- BREAKING DOWN

April 7, 2022 / joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

Dear Family,

I have to admit I am feeling more stress about this move than I thought and truthfully I thought there would be a lot. It is different than I thought it would be though. I expected to feel constantly overwhelmed. I don’t feel that. I just feel tired.

The truth is there is so much going on not just with the house but with the church that I have little time to dwell on my anxieties. I am in a constant mode of response and each response seems to create a new set of realities with their own sets of responses which require more thought and more work.

In the last three years our church has been through a breaking down. Like our bathrooms we have been taken back to the studs.

It has been hard work and it has been good work. But the breaking down of our church….going from 350 to 120 has only caused me to realize how much more work there is underneath to do. The stress is not manifesting in feeling overwhelmed or like I don’t know what to do. I am just tired and I realize we are just at the beginning of a long journey. Here I am talking about bathrooms and churches like they are the same thing. Principles hold true for all forms of reconstruction I guess. The first step is the breaking down. The next step is the rebuild. It’s all good.

Love,

Pastor Oz

A Note To Sevy 2-12-22

February 12, 2022 / joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

Dear Sevy,

I am so looking forward to you and your parents moving here to Winchendon. I am hoping you make it for the fall. It’s one of the most beautiful times of the year here in New England.

I do often wonder what you will really find when you get here. I remind your father often that The United States is not the country he lived in six years ago. So much has shifted. So much has changed. It has been even longer since he lived in Winchendon or New England for that matter. I think it is 13 years since he has attended Cornerstone Church. And we have changed.

We are smaller now than when he left.

We are also more relational.

When you come Sevy you will find us a people of the Word.

A people of much prayer.

In this regard I am not even the man your father knew when he lived with me. I crave the prayer space now. I am often afraid people around me find my lifestyle boring. I hope you don’t find me so when you get to know me.

We are also learning hospitality as a community.

We are a people of deepening relationships.

And caring.

Maybe it won’t matter what is happening in the big wide country so much. Maybe the real beauty here has nothing to do with our seasons or even our culture at large. Maybe the real beauty and what you and your parents will find attractive about this place is the love our community has for itself and the people around us.

May it be so!

A Note To Jody 2-10-22

February 10, 2022 / joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

My Dear Friend Jody,

First, thank you for taking prayer for me again this week as I stepped away for a few days of vacation! I know you have had a very busy time with all that is going on in your family. I pray for you guys daily as your wife works from Florida to help her Mom after the passing of Paula’s Dad.

HERE IS THE LINK TO OUR WEEKLY PRAYER MEETING.

I really appreciate the hard work you are doing for our church. Thank you for leading the worship of our church in its new direction. The team led model we are using is so empowering for our congregation. I love the opening up of the prophetic voice we are experiencing. Cornerstone is becoming this beautiful tapestry of gifts and voices being woven together by God’s hand.

This week as I took a bit of time to step away and gain some perspective the Lord has been showing me how I must begin to restructure my schedule. He has been speaking to me about some new practices of life which will involve sacrifices of me in the days ahead.

Someone last week mentioned to me that in order for God’s dreams to come to their fullness there must of necessity be a sort of a death of the dream. I don’t fully understand this yet, but my prayers and meditations this week have been about that. I know there is a letting go coming in order to grasp onto what comes next.

This may all sound rather sullen, but I am coming to see that it is not! It is hopeful because we have waited so long, as a congregation, for the promise to be fulfilled. I am convinced that is about to happen. But it only comes when we let go of what we have known to enter into that which is new!

I look forward to the pathway in front of us as a church.

Be Blessed,

A Note To Yve 2-4-22

February 4, 2022 / joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

My Dear Little Yve,

I know almost no one calls you that little one. Most people know you as Abigail.

But that has never stopped our family from coming up with our own names for each other. Most people will probably always call you Abigail. Most people call me Pastor J. Most people call your Aunt Pastor Amanda. But you ‘Lella and Sevy call me “Oz” and you all call your Aunt “Francine” instead of Auntie. So I will call you “Yve”.

I think having secret names for each other is very biblical…..Revelation 2 does say, “Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it.”

Who knows maybe “Yve” is your secret name from Jesus….probably not….but I could be being prophetic again. It has been known to happen.

I am so glad that your parents have chosen this point of life for you to move here so that I can see you grow, so that I can be part of your lives from such an early time in your growth.

I am so glad you will know me and Francine and Great Gramma. I am so glad you will grow up knowing Winchendon and the Vicarage and especially Cornerstone Church! There is so much living to do yet and we get to do it together.

Love, Oz

Rain, Covid Exposure and the SimplifyingWork of God

October 28, 2021 / joseph elon lillie / 5 Comments

If you have been following along, you know that we have been planning a big home renovation project for the Vicarage for the last several months.

The supplies for the shingle project, the gutter project and the painting project all arrived a few weeks ago.

The windows are 4-5 weeks out…I imagine they are stuck on some boat off the Pacific coast right about now along with so many other folks stuff. Supply chain problems…Yay!

We were stuck waiting for a building permit for two weeks and then of course there was the rain.

Photo by Genaro Servu00edn on Pexels.com

Things were supposed to start on Monday, and then Tuesday and then Wednesday…but RAIN! The rain stopped yesterday and so the construction team was finally ready to go for today and of course this was my day of big meetings. Then I got a call from a pastor I went to dinner with on Monday and found out…yep I have been exposed to COVID….No symptoms, but my doctor suggested that because of the closeness of the contact I self quarantine until I can get a test. That cannot happen until Friday afternoon

Here’s the thing God knew in advance that all this would happen. The product delivery….the permit delays….the rain delays…and the COVID exposure. As I look at it these next two to three days are perfect days for me to be forcibly stuck inside to help Mom as the construction crew tears the outside of our house off.

THIS WHOLE THING is God simplifying my choices.

Here’s the question I have to ask myself. Why does God not trust me to simplify things for myself? OUCH!

Notes From the Vicarage

A minister's family living in a micro forest garden

God

DEAR FAMILY- JUST KEEP SWIMMING

DEAR FAMILY- THE NEW IN THE OLD

DEAR FAMILY- ADJUSTMENTS

DEAR FAMILY- LIFE GOES ON

DEAR FAMILY- ASBESTOS

DEAR FAMILY- BREAKING DOWN

A Note To Sevy 2-12-22

A Note To Jody 2-10-22

A Note To Yve 2-4-22

Rain, Covid Exposure and the SimplifyingWork of God