Written by members of our congregation.  If you would like to add your creation, please submit a copy to Brigitta.

An Example of God                   

Rap by Travis Blaver 

To listen to this rap, please listen to the Sermon of 09/23/12.  Travis performs the rap at the beginning, just before the sermon.

 

All the Way Through                   

Poem by Jenna Dotts, October 2012

(To listen to this poem, scroll to the bottom of this page.)

I haven't stopped spinning

When I turn 180 I'm still twisting,

How can I see you when my eyes are blurry

How can I listen when farther away I'm running?

My feet are moving faster to get to where they stop

My mind tries to wrangle my body to a halt

My senses are out of touch with my daytime rest

The accelerator is down, full throttle non stop.

My mind is falling asleep and I feel sick and my body is aching but I know that the Lord is ministering to me in healthy ways today. Because what I've seen was so not about me, so different, what a concept! A dose of exposure shock therapy. And when I'm at this point, I am glad to be open and cleaned.

Have you ever considered that what your seeing is not really all of it? I believe the mistake is believing that half way is enough. That, well this is just life, isn’t it? And doesn’t everyone must deal with it? Well what is it that keeps us from seeing the truth of it all? Because the lens with unclear definition doesn’t give credit to the real image. Just like clouded perspective cannot ever decipher the wisdom.

All around us, the image is blurred. And when I look straight ahead, I see nothing, but nothing is better than what's around, so I look straight in front of me, and slowly, the nothing becomes the possibility of everything absent of obscenity. So really the nothing is everything that is pure and is clean. And when I think of these things, straight ahead of me is where I am to be.

If I stop this walk, what will evil encroach upon me? If I stop this pace, how far will I wind out of place? I am fully aware that anything, and possibly, everything, can push me around. Whether its from the inside or its from the out. But preparation and prayer go a long way together.

I do say, I don’t want to settle for half way. I've got a spot in the middle of the light that’s calling my name. If its all the way I have to go then its all the way I will go. And if on my way its every day that I have to cry, then every day I will cry as I mindfully deny the bits and pieces of my soul that so don’t belong there anymore. If I have to go to battle 10 times in an hour, then I will stop my work and retreat to your tower and I will call upon your love and your power so that in small steps I can go all the way through for you. I need you true in here and you out there.

I won't do anything that I don’t want to.. and I won't misuse myself like I used to. Like forcing myself to be uncomfortable and at the same time forcing a smile. How strange it is to self deny and self defile.

I may feel as though the past is what defines me, but your logicless love defies what defines anything and I remember from time to time that your logicless love defines me differently than what I can even think of thinking about me the same way your logicless love defines each soul differently than what they themselves believe!

The past is gone and nowhere close and when I fall into your arms I'm full of all this emotion. Lord, how do you make me? The way you know me is so sweet! The love of your creation is deeper than the sea! and I still may not know how to open my whole heart to answer your call, but I ask you lord to reveal the reconciliation to that very downfall. When I need it, please God, pick me up where I belong, even before lord, you know how to teach my life lessons. Hand me the sword to slay the dragons, hand me the torch to light my way, I'm full of this need and I know beyond all doubt the only way in is the only way out

I'm putting to death all my deathly ways.

I'm slaying the dragons of my ancient days

I'm answering your call on my heart of hearts,

I'm starting from the back, I'm starting from the start.

I'm giving into your sweet grace

I'm swimming in the waters of your strong embrace

I'm noticing the contingency, the fine red line

I'm fighting the good fight in the battlefield of my mind

And I'm not gonna stop I'm gonna be constantly coaxed into letting go

By your love and your power and how you know what you know

Patience

Poem by Jenna Dotts, October 2012

Patience is trying, HARD, to find what you are looking for, and fail over and over again.

Patience is waking up in the morning and telling yourself you can do it over again.

Patience is working through the simple mistakes that seem to cost you a whole lot of your sanity.

Patience is going into your insanity and emerging with a golden ticket back into your stability.

Patience is working 9 days a week, with a child on your back, living out of your parents home after two divorces and still having the courage to get up in the morning to face what you’ve become, or what you feel you have become.

Patience is knowing that you never become anything more than you ever were at the moment of your conception, but just life directs you to destinations that were and always will be uncomfortable to your soul, and your soul cringes to try to accept this bitter taste of a situation.

Patience is having the confidence to make it to church on Sunday when you were out drinking last night and waking up noticing that you were just searching for something to fill the void, and even though you told yourself time and time again that you were not going to fill your void with anything but Christ, patience told you to wake up and go to church, because you don’t know THAT forgiveness yet, but if you go, you will get closer to that blessing.

Patience is knowing that life is a blessing, and that as soon as you have, you have not, and as soon as you have not, you have again! Patience keeps you rounding the corners of your wealth and your poverty, spiritually stricken, patience comes to bring you an adviser. Financially burdened, patience comes to bring you a dinner. Forlorn and overcome, patience comes to bring you the soothing waters of God’s warmth, the sweet simple message that you are being held in his arms, in his arms you rest, right now, and all that matters is right now.

Patience brings you the confidence of knowing, that you don’t have to be grieved, guilt stricken, impoverished, or perishing to be resting in God’s arms. Patience shows you that in every moment, with every person, in each situation, you are free, because the chains have been loosened and you are falling into the love of Jesus.

Patience easily shows you how bittersweet the blessing is.
because patience makes you hunger for the prize that patience brings. And you never knew you could be so hungry or you never knew exactly how lost you were until you are under the throws of patience telling you that its redemption needs to be waited upon, and I don’t care you are gonna deal with it weather you like it or not, and if you don’t get up off that pity, then by God ill put a fire under your booty so hot you wont stop running until you believe, that Patience is what God calls trust. And trust is what God calls faith. And Faith, is what God calls Love. And God is love. And Love never fails.

Patience brings you back and forth, through this cycle, through life, so God’s glory can overcome your impatience.

Every day I am blessed, I can't tell you how much, is more than I can feel or relate to. My soul just knows, somehow understands so much, that no matter what goes on, no matter how the world is or isn't, I am blessed. I just am.

And I thank patience helping me write this song.

On Our Weak Days, We Have Our Strongest Days

Poem by Jenna Dotts, October 2012

On our weak days we have our strongest days

In the ways that we live when we are crushed to our inner being

We pull from inside what is perfect and right and to the outside

We shine something worthy of a “yes” from our society

Our strongest days are our weakest

Days when we don’t want to deal with the mess

We set it aside for a heavier time a time when our soul feels more alive so it can break and cry

And I come to realize that in every day of life there is death

Not only physical but spiritual, and even elemental-

We die when we deny what we are truly being

We die when we put aside what we are truly feeling

We die when we lie and put out an image

I've died, a million times.

The most intricate part of ourselves is that we can never be perfect. Once we realize this we can find our purpose. I wish I realized this when you were here, I wish I realized a bunch of stuff when you were here. But I can't blame myself for what you did not hear, nor can I say that even a line of great epiphany could have stopped you from doing what you did, or cleared up your mind for the better, or caused your innate nature to change forever so that I could selfishly have you like you selfishly wanted me. We so selfishly wanted each other to be perfect.

I found, in the year 23, that appearances can be deceiving.

In the milliseconds in moments I am connected to the creator.

I feel the earth shaking and I hear the voice of reason

I am pulled up just as the air is sucked in all around

I am pulled up for the millisecond so I can see.

Where it takes me is to the stars to be a witness

To the reality of my life and death and all that’s in between

Like a waking dream its all so real

And in the millisecond before its gone

I realize that it was never me, here or real.

Just like how I realized that you were never real, me, or here

I realized that you may not have ever even been true

I knew this time I would start to write, I would start to rhyme, I would start to cry

I knew this time I would seek to release the lie, to outlive the die, to retry the why

I knew this time I be,

I knew this time I would be,

I knew because I heard a voice, my father in my dream.

Now I'm grateful I see Christ in the midst of the deceit

When I sit and think of how each man is chasing his own destruction

Is see the end, and I see Jesus standing calling me to him.

When I break away and sit under the bridge near the train tracks

And I am broken and welling and the wind is blowing and I just need someone to hold me and I call out

Jesus hold onto me when I have nothing to hold! Hold onto me when I have nothing to hold!

A flicker in my soul knows

In that emotion, I am not alone.

He who died before me

Felt the pain I now know.

I knew this time I would start to love, start to love the hurting, start to love the streets.

For we all come from the streets, we all fall in the muck, we are all forced out of luck, we all live for the buck,

and only some have the luck to find

that our flesh is not meant for crime

that our souls are not meant to try, our souls are not meant to try,

our spirits are not meant to be denied

and our minds are not meant to be shy

but together, we need to live where the glory lies.

Father you are our strength of days

You are our yes when we only utter no

Father you are the flesh when all we have is our broken souls

You are our cup when our water ceases to flow.

You are the light that shines on our lives

You are the heart of hearts which cries and cries

You are the place we wish to sleep at night

Father you are the love we can't deny.

Help us to step away from the times

And give up, so we can be alive

From a Contrarian Point of View    

Poem by Brigitta Van Der Raay,  September/October 2013

From a contrarian point of view,
Jesus tells me what to do!      
No longer does man control my day 
God lights my path a different way!


But 
I guess I hear him imperfectly,
My days are pretty much filled with

me.

So when I take the time to think
Why did my great intentions sink
while oft I felt just on the brink
of something great that only You
had purposed just for me to do
and bring my life import on earth...    

What could I do of greater worth
than work 'longside my God and king? 
 
Why is it 
I don't do that thing?


Time again, He's given me 
some cool idea that couldn't be
And as I make excuse demure
I watched some other bite that lure
and thrive and glow in great allure 
as they do His will and I mature 
and mature 
and mature 
growing older without that glow
of things I could have done that show
the love I say I feel for Him
and yet 
let slip 
and slow grow dim

as though I'd never heard of Him

Awaken! 
Jesus rescue me!
From all this mediocrity
It doesn't fit my view of me  
This isn't how I want to be!
Would I deserve the words I crave
From God who sent His son to save?
“This is my daughter, in whom I'm pleased
My house is yours, so come to Me.”


I've got way more 
inside to share
So rid me of that busy snare
pull me somehow out of there
Don't leave me floundering in despair!
There must be more than daily chores
And habits, that eat up more and more
of every day, and month, and year
Till I don't remember dreams so clear
that came and went, no longer dear.


So 
from a contrarian point of view,
Come and mold my life anew
No longer let me smugly say
Hey, I'm a Christian so I'm ok
But with sweet notes of harmony
Draw me close and let me be 
more wholly, 
Holy
Your daughter true,
Saved by faith and swell to do
The things that make me more like You.