reality blog

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?

J: What Being A Minister Means To Me

/ joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

One of the things I hope our little family experiment at the Vicarage reveals is what life is like for ministerial families. I hope we get to give you a glimpse behind the curtain to show you that we are just a real family with all the same struggles everyone else has. Being ministers does not exempt us in any way from the normal trials and tribulations of life. Being a minister doesn’t come with a magic “bless you stick” that makes our trials go away on Sundays.

Being ministers though does indicate that we have embraced a lifestyle that is a bit different from the one most people experience. Our lives as ministers are governed by a call from God through which every job, relationship and schedule gets run. That call often leads us into unique situations like the one above where I had to dress up in this costume and go on stage in front of 1100 teen-agers to help teach a Gospel message.

As ministers we live our lives (or at least are supposed to) by prayer and we walk through our lives by faith (or at least are supposed to). Pastors live in the prophetic realm and are called to listen for the internal spiritual witness of God. That witness, that call can lead us into some crazy, exciting even at times harrowing situations.

The title Prophet has been bandied around about me a lot lately. I am not really big into titles but I know God has been doing something in me for a long time that is definitely prophetic. I feel like this family blog is a part of that prophetic call and I am hoping over the course of the next year to acquaint you more with it. Maybe at the end of this time I will understand more about who I am made to be by God. Maybe at the end of this time you will have come away with a better understanding of ministers, prophets, their lives and maybe even a little bit more of an understanding of who God made you to be.

The Saga at the Vicarage Begins

/ joseph elon lillie / 5 Comments

Thanks for joining us!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

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This is the story of what happens when the matriarch of a family

her minister son

her missionary daughter

a granddaughter who is a children’s pastor.

Three maltese dogs

and a flerken

decide to live together.

We all hope you will join us for the hijinks over the next year or so as we try this grand reality experiment while trying to keep the “peace of Christ”.