MINISTRY

DEAR FAMILY- LIFE GOES ON

/ 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.

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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

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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

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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.

The downstairs bathroom.
he upstairs bathroom.

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

DEAR FAMILY- THE PASTOR OF CONSTRUCTION

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Dear Family,

Here is my next ten minute letter. That is right I am trying to add an atomic habit to my life by writing these letters as a part of my daily devotional regimen. Mostly I want to have some record of how this project advances at The Vicarage…for posterity of course.

I never in a million years I would be in charge of building projects as a minister. But here I am doing a major renovation on The Vicarage and major renovations on the church. It amazes me how God has prepared me for this through all the house projects we did as a family when you kids were little. I didn’t really have anything to do with them as far as the real construction. We all know that was your mother, but I at least learned how to work around those projects and I am putting the skills learned then to good use now.

Deconstruction of the bathrooms started yesterday!

Before
After

Dear Family- It Has Begun

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Dear Family, Well we at The Vicarage are in another transition. The next phase of our project has begun. We have moved next door to The Vicarage Annex and the construction crews have arrived today to begin the tear out.

Gram has been dealing with a great deal of anxiety with the move and the project. Pray for her. I am really excited to see what the place will look like when everything is done.

I am hoping during this season to become more faithful to updating this blog. My goal is 10 minutes a day of writing. I guess the project has more than one objective. I hope to overhaul the home space and I also hope to gain some new habits in the process.

Let’s see what the changes actually look like in the days ahead.

A Note To Sevy 2-12-22

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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.

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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.

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A people of much prayer.

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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.

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We are a people of deepening relationships.

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And caring.

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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!

Oz

A Note To Jody 2-10-22

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My Dear Friend Jody,

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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.

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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.

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Be Blessed,

J

A Note To Brenda 2-9-22

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Dear Brenda,

May be an image of sky, street, road and tree

Well it would seem like 2022 is starting off explosively right from the blocks. The world is changing around us and the Kingdom of God is coming more clearly into focus with each new sunrise.

Here at the Vicarage I am learning the year’s rhythm…figuring out how to accomplish the new thing God has given me to do in life and ministry. That one thing is moving from DLT behavior to DLT character.

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I don’t think we really know how to make this shift as a congregation, but I ask confident God is going to show us how. I believe that everything God has put in the calendar is a tool to help me/ us learn just how to do that: Our studies, our opportunities, our trials, even the upcoming Vicarage project and my first ever sabbatical coming in August.

My word for the year is “COLLABORATE”.

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And a big part of me learning to collaborate is me getting out of the way so God can use others to accomplish His purposes. I think one of my passages for the year is Ephesians 4: 11-13 “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

Now that right there is collaboration!

I am so glad that things on your end of the pond are moving as fast as they are here. I love the new car!

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I am also glad that lockdown has pulled back far enough for you to launch the first Bridge artist gathering!

And So It Begins!

Brother

A NOTE TO AMANDA

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My Dearest Amanda,

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It really is amazing how fast the years go. It seems like just yesterday I was watching you play in the backyard of The Vicarage (we didn’t even call it that then) in a pile of leaves. I remember a small dust devil came and whipped the leaves up into a circular whirlwind around you. It’s a picture forever etched into my mind.

There have been lots of dust devils , whirlwinds and outright tornadoes since then and somehow we have walked through all of them and we have come out on solid ground. Watching you grow into the minister you now are has been one of the great privileges of my life.

I loved the sermon yesterday. The unity and flow our staff is experiencing at Cornerstone is so amazing to watch. The picture God is giving us through the Word being preached is just so amazing. I cannot wait to see where He takes us all in the days ahead.

Love, Dad

PASTOR AMANDA’S SERMON FROM YESTERDAY CAN BE HEARD HERE.

A Note To Yve 2-4-22

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My Dear Little Yve,

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

May be an image of baby and indoor

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.

May be an image of baby and indoor

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