Click play below to hear the teaching from our gathering on June 28, 2009.
(Tracy Commons, one of our lead pastors)

“And that…is the most important difference between Christianity and all other religions: that in Christianity God is not a static thing – not even a person – but a dynamic, pulsating activity, a life, almost a kind of drama. Almost, if you will not think me irreverent, a kind of dance… And how, what does it all matter? It matters more than anything else in the world. The whole dance, or drama…is to be played out in each of us: or (putting it the other way around) each one of us has got to…take his place in that dance.”

- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

At Renew we say that we want to be a community of faith known more for our sending capacity than our seating capacity.

During last month’s large gathering Aarika Chilson told the story of her spiritual journey.
She mentioned that she and her roommate Jessica Salasin were heading to serve at an orphanage for young girls in Chiang Mai, Thailand for three weeks. This orphanage, Breanna’s House of Joy, teaches orphaned girls job and life skills in the name of Jesus to keep them out of the sex trafficking industry that is rampant in the country.

Aarika (a professor of literature at Montco) and Jess (a hairdresser in Doylestown) were drawn to the needs of these young girls in Thailand and wanted to see the lives of these young girls renewed, restored and redeemed. Their faith and availability to join with the God of the universe to see renewal happen is inspiring.

Aarika and Jess have been in Thailand for a week now and are doing well.
They have started a blog to record their adventures – and they are really engaging writers.
Read more about their adventure at:  http://jessandaarika.wordpress.com/

There are several ways you can stay connected & find out all the pertinent information about the rhythms of The Renew Community.
[1] The first one you’re already utilizing – logging on regularly right here to the Renew website
Check back regularly for updates, house church information, blog posts and calendar events.
You can also subscribe to our RSS feed.

[2] Subscribing to the newly created weekly Renew-wide email.
This newly developed email subscription service will be one of the best ways to stay in the loop. We encourage everyone who is a part of a house church, has attended one of our gatherings or wants to know more about our faith community to subscribe to the email (see link on this site). Even if you aren’t a part of Renew or live out of town, but still want to know what we’re doing, feel free to sign up for our once-a-week emails. We promise we won’t spam you, sell your information, send you pictures of cute kittens or email you a silly joke and tell you to send it to ten of your friends.

[3] Joining our Facebook group
Everyone’s on Facebook now. Join our group.

[4] Following us on Twitter.
Not sure how Twitter works? It’s easy to learn and free. Sign up follow us at www.twitter.com/renewcommunity

[5] Emailing us at info@renewcommunity.org
Take ownership. Ask questions. Get involved. Take initiative. Don’t simply wait for us to hear from us. We want to hear from you.

[6] Following J.R.’s personal blog
If you want to know what the lead pastor and cultural cultivator of Renew is thinking or writing about, check out his blog and interact at www.jrbriggs.com

Renew-wide picnic this Satuday 5pm-8pm at Plains Park (Welsh Road/63 and Orvilla Road).

Bring your own dinner, wiffle ball, frisbee, bocce ball, football.
This park has playground equipment, baseball field, shelters, picnic tables, skateboarding ramps, basketball hoops, etc.

Everyone is invited!

There’s a song by the band Life of Agony called ‘Broken Valley’. (you can you-tube it) In the strained delivery of it’s angst-ridden lyrics you can hear the echoing voices of almost an entire generation. Not just some brooding figures lurking in a seedy bar or some other shadowy corner of society, but rather almost all of humanity can relate in some part of their hidden selves. “Lift yourself up of that shelf, you’re not in this alone….. The Broken Valley’s a part of us all.”
At a time when more and more of us can sense the inevitable crumbling of the post-modern church, hearing such tidbits like, “just a sinner saved by grace” is sort of like being flicked in the ear by flying pieces of proverbial debris. Turns out we are so much more than that. We are wounded souls searching for a reason. With the blood stains still clinging to our weathered exteriors, we are wandering, straining for something real, some little speck of light in the blur of chaos and lies. When logic no longer over-rides the raw emotion that comes out of the ruggedness of human experience, then our pithy Christian answers no longer have a foothold. Not to down-play the gospel and the truth it reveals, but these are the questions blistering on our hearts… Let’s say it is true, that my soul is destined for eternal damnation and there’s only one person who can save me. Show me then that there’s something beautiful worth saving. Otherwise let me rot.
… And why Jesus? How does this fairy tale relate to my life? We live in an age where technology has provided us with a dozen different ways to connect to others at any given moment. Yet it seems we feel more disconnected than ever. So how can an invisible man form 2000 years ago be any easier to relate to? Sure, maybe he died, but it didn’t end suffering. Maybe he came back to life, but where is he now??? What does it have to do with us, today??? Nothing. Or perhaps everything. Perhaps the best is yet to be revealed. Maybe the only thing we can say now is that we know how it feels… to live inside this broken valley. Now we know how it feels to be kicked around, scoffed at, neglected, rejected torn apart and forgotten about. We know how it feels to live out of our pain, to see our wounds bleed. So now we can have compassion. We can FEEL compassion, and we can pick up a shovel and start digging our way out, or digging others out, because we know how it feels.
With that said, it’s still a matter of personal choice to dig, to believe there’s got to be something far better up ahead. Something outside of yourself that’s greater than yourself. Yet something that’s also ingrained in the fiber of your very being, and it wants to see us win. If we don’t at least have that to hold onto than we don’t have anything at all, and we might as well just give up.
Answers don’t come easily but they do come. Sometimes slowly, achingly, twisted, unsteady and almost unidentifiable. It’s up to us to adjust our lenses.
–Jess Salasin

Prayer can be hard.
Prayer can be scary.
Sometimes we don’t know how to pray or even what to pray for.
From time to time we need training wheels on our prayers to help us move in the direction of connection with God.

In our gathering on Sunday we spent time participating in prayer with the help of Post-It Notes. It was a great experience for us as a community. We placed tables around the room with instructions for specific ways to pray.

Local :: Write down your address and pray for your neighborhood

Finish the sentence :: God, I’m thankful for…

What elements of God’s character am I most aware of this morning?

Needs, Concerns + Desires :: Five times in the NT Jesus asks people the question: “What do you want me to do for you?” How would I answer that? What do I want Jesus to do for me? for us?

We had pens and Post-It Note pads on the tables and encouraged people to write down their thoughts and then spend some time praying for the other Post-It Notes around the room.

This morning we went through the dozens and dozens of notes. Reading and praying for each one – and each person who wrote them, though we don’t know who – was powerful. It also gives us a ‘pulse’ as to who God is bringing to us and where people are at in their spiritual journey.

We can’t possibly list them all here, but here were a just a few of them:

Global ::
Thailand
China
Cuba
Hungary
Ukraine
Morocco

God’s character ::
Steadfastness
Mystery
Unbelievable faithfulness
Your patience with my lack of patience

Thankfulness ::
Forgiveness
My family
This community of believers of skeptics and dreamers

Confession + Repentance ::
Selfishness
Lust
My lies
Hatred
Forgive me for wasting my time this week
Not being thankful for the place where God has me in my journey
For my hurtful words and wicked tongue
My critical spirit
Falling into hopelessness
Forgiving those who hurt me
Fear, mistrust and ignorance
Please take my jealousy away
Not seeing those around me and loving them

Needs, Concerns + Desires ::
I do not know where to go for the help we need…
Give me a sense of worth and purpose that I may play an active role in seeing your kingdom come
I need to save me – mostly from myself
I’m just really, really lonely
Help me to follow through on what I know I have to do
Healthy baby
This dark pit inside me
I’m overwhelmed by the needs of the world, the needs of our community, the needs of Lansdale, the needs of my own selfish heart
Help me to hear you more clearly
Help me with my deep feelings of loneliness