Mark your calendars for:

March 30–31 for the Metro St. Louis Shop Hop!  If you enjoy sewing or quilting, you will love this event!  Watch for more details.

May 5 will be a Mother Daughter Luncheon with special guest speaker, Tammy Thayn.  Details and a sign up for this event will be posted at the Welcome Center closer to May 5.  Take a minute to read about Tammy below.

Tammy Thayn lives in beautiful Redrock country in Moab, Utah.  She has been married to her best friend, Mark for 25 years.  She has three great children, two wonderful son-in-laws and one beautiful granddaughter, Adyson.  She has one more grandbaby due this summer.   

Tammy loves to laugh and has a good time no matter what comes her way.  She has many different interests in life, which include….family camping trips, hunting, riding horses, helping at a cattle ranch, skydiving, but mostly, she loves being a grammy!  Tammy loves missions and has enjoyed being a team leader for the past 18 mission’s trips.  She has traveled all over the world on these team trips.

Tammy understands what it’s like to rise from the ashes and she trusts God above all to see her through.  She is an incest survivor and has learned to stand up for herself and truely give God control in every part of her life.  She has also survived a life changing heart attack at the age of 46 and continues to live with two stints and three more blockages.  Tammy has learned to trust God in all things.

Cookies baking in the oven. A soft summer rain. A gorgeous sunset. Seeing your favorite band in concert. Tweeting a “celebrity” and then they actually respond to you. Or simply responding to a request from your favorite radio personality for a picture of his listeners.

Yep, that’s right.

My name is Pastor Stacey and I like to tweet, facebook and even email Christian music singers and Christian radio personalities.

Is there a pill for this?

Anyway, on my personal blog I wrote about several things that I enjoy. You can read that here. One of those is the podcast from Air1 radio’s Brant Hansen. This guy absolutely cracks me up, encourages me and is VERY enlightening. He’s the one who requested pictures of his listeners for him to hang in his cubicle so that he can see the people who listen to him.

Although it may seem weird, I emailed him two pictures.

I selected these because #1. Us at the Cards game! What’s not to love? and #2. Us at our youth 70′s “The Thief In The Night” party. Judging from his personality on the show, I figured he would appreciate either.

I told him that I was a fan, I loved listening to his podcast (the talking parts of his show) and how inspiring he is and that he should feel free to use either pic he wanted.

Well, guess what. HE RESPONDED! He sent me an email telling me that my email was “12 levels of awesome” because we are Cards fans, and he is hanging our picture next his Cardinal Pennant and because our 70′s picture caused him to blog!

Now, I don’t mean to toot my own horn but, TOOT TOOT!!! Check out the blog here. Especially if you are my age or older, you have GREAT appreciation for it!

Enjoy!

PS

Well, during John McCain’s run for President in 2008, he put his campaign on hold to work on the Senate bailout package because as he said, ‘it’s not my style to
simply phone it in.’ ‘When I was thinking about using this phrase for the title of my
sermon, I wondered where the phrase might have come from.

In an article titled, “Phoning It In” By Ben Zimmer he talks about this American
idiom as resulting from the introduction of the telephone with Alexander Graham
Bell and its influence on communication in our world. He states…

“The luxury afforded by the telephone of transmitting a message from a distance
(rather than having to show up in person) [though extremely innovative and
helpful] led to all manner of jokes. Among stage actors, a “gag” circulated about an
actor with a role so small that he could phone it in… [later] Phoning it in moved
beyond the acting profession to become a widely recognized expression appropriate for any type of ho-hum public performance, from athletics to music to politics…”

According to A. Barbour, author of Louder Than Words: Nonverbal Communication, the total impact of a message breaks down like this:!
7 percent verbal (words)!
38 percent vocal (volume, pitch, rhythm, etc)!
55 percent body movements (mostly facial expressions)!

So, it’s not surprising that we incorporate idioms like “Phoning it in” into our
language to indicate that our communication is ho-hum, unauthentic, meaning we are less than engaged. Especially, when so much of real communication depends on something other than words.!

We have to ask ourselves if we are “Phoning it in” with our relationships with
coworkers, friends and family and I surely want you to give consideration to that
but more importantly, “Are you ‘Phoning It In’ with God?

Like this one.

At first glance, it’s my little one, pushing his toy around his room with a sleeve to a box DVD set on his head.
Oh, we giggled and laughed and he was having so much fun (don’t worry, DCFS is not in order. He was in no danger).
And then the lesson hit me. Can you read what the box says? Well, let me give some background.
You see, June 1, 2010, my husband was in a serious motorcycle accident. Recovery was a long road (just finished, by the way. He returns to work later this month!) Christmas of 2010, we were surprised with a huge blessing. Joyce Meyer had received a letter from a friend of ours explaining our situation. Financially it was dark. We had been blessed by so many of our friends and family but things were not looking so great for Christmas. Joyce read the letter and selected my family to bless! We were taken grocery shopping, bills were paid (for 2 months!) and we were given Bible studies. Never Give Up was one of them.
Never Give Up is the sleeve Colby has on his head. God quickly showed me that the perseverance of my 19 month old with a box on his head is no different than my own in my everyday walk. Colby trusted that I would not let him be hurt. Colby put the blinder on and was determined to make it through the door of his room to the living room. Never Giving Up!

My trust and hope is my Creator. He has NEVER failed me. He has NEVER forsaken me. He has NEVER left me. And He NEVER will.

I can persevere. I can run my race with out giving up. I will be victorious. I have overcome!

Each Sunday you will hear a message that challenges you toward deeper communion with God; Wednesdays in January we will have a time of teaching on prayer and then spend some time in prayer. We would like everyone to come out January 9th for our one-hour service from 7-8pm which will be a time of worship and directed prayer.

Psalm 27:4-5
4 One thing I ask from the LORD,
this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the LORD
and to seek him in his temple.
5 For in the day of trouble
he will keep me safe in his dwelling;
he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent
and set me high upon a rock.

Join us on Thursday, December 15 at 6:30 p.m. for the Women’s Annual Christmas Gathering and Cookie Exchange.  Bring your cookies ready to exchange by packaging them 6 cookies to a package.     Tickets are $3.