I love collaborating with people to make great things happen. When we put our creativity, imaginations, and gifts together, awesomeness occurs. For those of you who don’t know, I’m a provisional Deacon in the United Methodist Church. I work with an Elder at a local church north of Chicago. We are a great team and really embody well what I think the Elder/Deacon partnership should be like. Lots of mutual respect and collaboration going on

Our latest collaboration is a summer devotional called Ordinary Stories. I had decided awhile back that our summer series for children and youth Sunday school would be “Learning to Use My Bible.” She then decided to do an adult series called, “We’re Not in Sunday school Anymore: ‘Children’s’ Bible Stories for an Adult Audience.” We have been trying to provide our faith community with easy-to-use devotionals to go along with each season of the church year…Advent…Lent…so why not Ordinary Time as well?! We used the stories she had already picked out to preach on during the summer…added in the Wondering Questions used in Godly Play, along with some Response Options for people to use to respond out of the story…and we thought up social justice issues to go along with each story to encourage people to increase their awareness of the world around us and our neighbors in need.

We have an online component to encourage group reflection and conversation for those unable to meet in a small group setting. We’re providing two orientation sessions for those interested in facilitating a small group or family unit. We printed out the devotional and laminated it and are passing it out on Sunday morning. I’m super excited. Feel free to join us! No need to belong to our particular (or any) faith community. Visit http://www.numcordinary.wordpress.com for directions and to engage in dialogue online and/or to see the devotional.