One of the realities that we are dealing with at Grace Hill is invisibility. Lord willing, we won't always be invisible, but for right now, we are invisible. One of the things we are trying to do as a core group is to be more visible. We have started going on prayer walks in the neighborhood surrounding Cherokee Middle School, where we hold services. Last Saturday, we handed out water bottles to walkers, joggers and strollers at Sequiota Park. At the end of the month we'll be serving down at Convoy of Hope helping pack boxes and take inventory of their relief supplies. All of these are ways in which we are trying to be seen. And yet even doing these things, we can still be invisible unless God opens the eyes of those around us and makes us visible.

It got me further thinking about King David. Last Sunday I began a summer series on the life of David and I was struck in my study of 1 Samuel 16, where David is anointed king, how invisible David was to his family, to Samuel and perhaps even to God. He was left to tend to the flock while the other brothers got to go to the sacrifical feast that Samuel was putting on, even though unbeknownst to him, he was the guest of honor. David's invisibility was hardly an obstacle for God to overcome, and Grace Hill's invisibility is hardly an obstacle for God to overcome, or our being Presbyterian for that matter, which I think is an obstacle for people down here. But surely even our being Presbyterian is not an obstacle to God.

As you pray for the work of Grace Hill, pray for our visibility and receptivity as we seek to love our fellow Springfieldians so that they can come alive to the wonder of God's grace. Pray that God would not only make us more visible, but that he would make his Son more visible through us.

I've been looking to do some social media advertising and was pleasantly surprised to learn that there were 145,000 FB users in the metro Springfield area (pop. 425,000).  I put the ad on FB last night and as of 6pm, we've had 45 people go to our website and look at Grace Hill Church.  Don't know if it will translate to people coming for worship, but it's definitely good to get more traffic to our website. 

The parable of the pharisee and tax collector in Luke 18 is a dagger in the heart for someone like me who likes to make a big deal about his righteousness. I like to be right. A lot. My righteousness has many different faces. I have parenting righteousness which means that I raise Jackson and Anna Sloan the right way. I have music righteousness which means that I only listen to the right kind of music. I have merging-traffic righteousness which means that I merge when I first see the signs to get over. Space does not permit for me to list the rest, but you get the idea. The ugly result of this kind of righteousness is that my parenting righteousness, music righteousness and merging-traffic righteousness cause me to look down on and hold people who don't follow my righteousness in contempt. That's what the Pharisee did to the tax collector and the others who didn't share his same level of righteousness. It's no wonder that his righteousness was an ugly one and unacceptable to Jesus, much to the shock of those who held the Pharisees in high esteem. The only righteousness that is truly pleasing and beautiful before God is Jesus' righteousness. It's the only righteousness that we should boast in and look to. The Bible talks about our righteousness, our good deeds, as filthy rags...unsightly and unusable. Lord, help me to see, like the tax collector, my sin and my need for mercy. Help me not to trust in my righteousness but in Christ's.

while having lunch with a friend of mine at a nursing home, I saw this picture on a table. I don't know the truthfulness of this, but it sure was funny.

When we moved to Springfield to plant Grace Hill Church, we moved from a house in St. Louis that had a basement to a house in Springfield that did not. That meant that all the junk we had in our basement went in the garage. When I walked outside this morning to go for a walk, I realized that I had left the garage door open all night. That's not exactly the smartest thing to do since someone could walk off with our stuff and worse yet, they could have walked into the house (I don't lock the door in the garage because I have the garage door) and made off with more stuff. Well, I put that out of my mind as I went on my walk. (Side note: I left the garage door open while I was on my walk as well) As I was walking back towards the house I noticed how unsightly the front of the house looked with the garage door open and all of our stuff exposed. People that drive by (and many do since we are the first house into our subdivision) can see into our lives as they look at old golf clubs, crates full of magazines and books, lawn equipment, old bedroom furniture and shelves lined with kids clothes...oh, it's quite a sight. But once that garage door is closed, all is beautiful and orderly in appearance.

To me this is a spot-on metaphor of my life, and perhaps yours. There is all this junk in my garage (life) that I would be embarrassed if people saw it. There are boxes of regret, crates of fears, tubs of lustful thoughts, shelves of addictive behaviors, you get the idea, scattered in my garage. Instead of letting people into my life and letting them see all of my junk, I close the garage door and pretend that my junk is not there. I put on the appearance that my life is fine and "clutter-free," all the while my garage is a filthy mess.

As I learn more about the wonder of the gospel, I realize that God intends to take the garage door opener of my life and expose the "junk" in my garage, not so he can shame me (that's the work of sin), but so that he can save me...save me from my junk, save me from being held captive by it, save me from giving the appearance that my life is okay, when it clearly is not. That means that God intends to clean out my garage...to help me see the unhealthy attachment to those "things" so that I can put them to death. I need more than a "Spring cleaning"...a one-time cleaning, because frankly, I will fill my "garage" right back up with "stuff." I need a "Spirit cleaning," which is on-going and thorough, getting behind the cracks and crevices. Pray that I will have the wherewithal to let the Holy Spirit have His way in my life as he sanctifies me and helps me to walk in the light of Christ.

How sad I would be if Jackson or Anna Sloan were to turn to someone or something else than Denise or me when they were afraid.  We would have missed an opportunity to come alongside them and hold them and remind them of our love and protection over them.  How much more so does God want to hear about our fears and anxieties, not so he will judge us, but that he will come alongside us, through his Holy Spirit, and reassure us of His love and protection over us.  The work of the gospel, after all, is rooting out the sin, fear and unbelief in our life and replacing it with a righteous confidence and trust in the person and work of Christ. So - next time I'm afraid about something, I will turn to God first and in my prayers/confessions to him I will expect to receive the peace of God that will allay my fear.  Praise God for his grace and mercy!