#reality

A Calling

/ joseph elon lillie / 5 Comments

I love what I do and I love the way I am doing it now.

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Getting here has been a life’s journey. I have always felt called to this thing called ministry (well since I was twelve anyway). The calling is necessary. The calling keeps you going when you don’t love what you’re doing or the way you’re doing it.

Honestly, there have been many times I have not loved the ministry. There have been even more times when I did not love the way I was doing ministry. I thought about giving it up more than once. I even tried it a couple of times. The calling did it’s job and called me back.

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I’ve had jobs before. I’ve even had what I would consider careers before. The ministry is not either of those things and I guess it’s both. It is a calling. It has a job component and it consumes more than enough time and energy to qualify as a career. Still, there is more to it more than job, more than a career. Ministry has an element of destiny attached to it, a hope a predestined future.It’s not a fate you can’t escape, but a direction you shouldn’t try to escape.

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I have embraced the call, I have made peace with the call, I have come to love the call.

Ministry is my call, my destiny. What is yours?

EXTRA PAGES, EXTRA PRAYERS IN THE HALF LIGHT

/ joseph elon lillie / 4 Comments

The sky has been dark with clouds all day. At nine this morning I was turning on the lights in the house against the twilight. The thunder has been sounding in the distance and rain has been washing the flowers and streets throughout the day.

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I was planning on working outside today. Instead I have been getting extra pages written and extra pages read and extra ideas studied and extra prayers prayed. Every day has advantages. They just need to be found, accepted and exploited.

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

/ joseph elon lillie / 2 Comments

Yesterday the Parks and Rec department of our town held the third annual food truck festival. We bought supper at the festival and then I volunteered to clean up when the event shut down at 9 P.M.

Today all that its left to show that a thousand people gathered in the park yesterday is the event tent, the portages potties, a flat bed that the Battle of the Bands used and the deflated bouncy house all awaiting pick up by the rental companies.

Today Amanda and I went for a couple of hours to help a church family with a move. Tomorrow I will preach the next sermon in our series from the Book Of Revelation.

Yesterday, today and tomorrow. Each day comes to pass. What remains is the relationships we build with each other.

A Few Boxes, a Few Days

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I just finished teaching a huge series at Cornerstone, The Bait Of Satan. It was awesome but very rigorous. I also wrapped up both men’s ministry and boy’s ministry last week. Men’s ministry I have handed off to two very capable lay leaders and boy’s ministry concluded for the summer.

Next month my son, Joe, his wife, Kristine, and their son, Sevy, will be arriving from the Philippines to stay with us here at The Vicarage for a while as they establish a new home here in the States.

In August my Sister Brenda will return from The Netherlands for a six week visit.

It promises to be a busy summer, so before it all begins I thought I would take a few days just to get myself ready, to work on the lawn, to prep the house, to prepare my own mind and heart for the changes in rhythm.

Today just after Prime a few boxes arrived from South Korea. They contain things belonging to my son’s family. Signs that the time is near.

A few boxes , a few days and the future is being revealed. I am feeling ready.

Sometimes It Takes a While

/ joseph elon lillie / 2 Comments

In 2013 I was given an opportunity to be part of a project geared to bring our community together.

Our small committee of very diverse individuals representing several micro communities and various town boards in our town met for months trying to come up with a project that would bring the whole town together.

After several months we came up with an idea. Ingleside!

Ingleside was a 43 acre waterfront property owned by a local private school. We wanted the town to purchase the property somehow and to turn it into a gathering place for all the communities of our community. The dream was that it would come become a uniting place.

It took a few years and A LOT OF MEETINGS to work out the land deal.

Obtaining the land was just the first step. Clearing the land and turning it into a meeting point was the bigger job.

The shifts in ministry in 2018 meant I ended up leaving the committee after the land deal was done. My little part of the dream of Ingleside was done.But others picked up the gauntlet and ran with it.

Trails were blazed

Uniting points were created.

Last year a grant was obtained to build an outdoor amphitheater.

On Saturday I got to volunteer as an usher for the grand opening of the amphitheater!

Sometimes it takes a while, but dreams really can come true!