07.26.06 thequest UPdate

thequest family,

We had an Assembly on Sunday that was very fun (pics on our blog belowHERE) . One of the things we talked about there was our logo. We haven't said much about it. There are just these ever-present orange and blue paper chain links [see the top of this email ;-)].

The logo seems to have 4 points of emphasis for me:

1) CONNECTING-it shows the relational connection stuff that we are all about


2) SIMPLICITY-it speaks to the simplicity of who we are and what we do. From the youngest ages kids make paper chains. It isn't rocket science--it's simple


3) FRAGILENESS-a paper chain isn't the "strongest" of chains. Because of that fragileness, we must have Jesus leading our spiritual community.


4) EVERYBODY PLAYS- beyond the simplicity, it points to the fact that everyone-men, women and children can be about finding where God is working and joining Him there. I talked about this one a few weeks ago, so you can check out this link


Last week I came across something I wrote 3 years about about our logo. I thought I would post it here for you (from thequest 05.28.2003 UPdate )


Number 3 jumped out at me last night as we were reading 1 Cor. 12 and a couple of verses really hooked me.

in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. . .

those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable,. . .

The unbelievably deep truth of those lines smacked me. God has arranged each person in thequest family JUST AS HE WANTS THEM TO BE. We all are very important to the whole. God stuck us where we are! We didn't just happen upon this, or have good luck, or anything else. God has put us together.

Some of us feel really fragile. We wonder if God listens to us, or even cares. We feel really weak in the battles we are called to fight, as individuals and as a community. We puzzle and stew over what God is doing and how to figure it out. We feel like if a good strong breeze came in it would blow us out to sea.

To those of us who feel like that God says we are indispensable. We as parts of the body seem to be so weak. We don't know which end is up sometimes, but God sees us as INDISPENSABLE to the work He is doing.

What a treat to serve a God that leans on us�a weak, humble, fragile, bunch of construction paper links to do His work. I hope this encourages your soul like it did mine. And let's press on!

Press on,

Mike

the rest of the 07.26.06 email here