It’s not always easy having a sister that loves princesses and dressing up.
Congratulations to the Nora & Finn Etsy Site
Many people might not know that my wife was a fashion design major in Bucharest, Romania after she graduated high school in 1999. From what I’ve been told (not by my wife, but from others in her family), it was a fairly difficult program to be accepted. Seeing her work, however, it doesn’t surprise me that she was accepted. After going to school for a year and, as my wife eloquently puts it, “Only sketching models that wanted to get paid a minimal amount to pose nude… meaning, older, chubby Romanian men”, she applied to school in America (at Bethel College, Indiana) where she became a visual communications/art major. Three years later, I swept her off her feet with my undeniable and charismatic Loucks charm [edit: Ema rolls her eyes at my apparent lack of humbleness].
She’s had a passion to make clothes/sew for years, it just took having kids (ie. free models that weren’t naked, hairy old Romanian men… well, Finn is close to fitting that description… seriously, the dude is a hairy hombre) to motivate my wife in pursuing those skills. In the last two years, she has probably spent 1500-2000+ hours sewing, crocheting, and creatively making our kids (and others) look pretty stinkin’ cute. She’s also done quite well at it. On her Etsy site alone, she’s sold almost 800 orders. Through her shop in LaPorte (at the Co-Op Shoppes) and through word-of-mouth, she’s easily sold 200+ more. That’s 1000+ orders for stuff that she creates and designs. I love her stuff so much. For me, it is affirmation that perhaps others love it (almost) as much.
My wife isn’t a big fan of the moments that I brag on her and her work. She’s not nearly as confident in her skills/designs as I am. I know her work is great… and she is even greater. I’m really excited that nearly two years ago, someone somewhere took a chance on buying a hat from my wife which led her to continue to forge her abilities in developing other things. It has also allowed her to do something she truly enjoys. Happy anniversary, Nora & Finn and congratulations Ani.
This Friday and Saturday Ema will be having a sale on her Etsy site in honor of her two year anniversary. Use the promo code “TWOHAPPY” to take advantage of the sale her any of the hats or dresses included on the site.
N.T. Wright on Worship
“All kingdom work is rooted in worship. Or, to put it the other way around, worshipping the God we see at work in Jesus is the most politically charged act we can ever perform. Christian worship declares that Jesus is Lord and that therefore, by strong implication, nobody else is. What’s more, it doesn’t just declare it as something to be believed, like the fact that the sun is hot or the sea wet. It commits the worshipper to allegiance, to following this Jesus, to being shaped and directed by him. Worshipping the God we see in Jesus orients our whole being, our imagination, our will, our hopes, and our fears away from the world where Mars, Mammon, and Aphrodite (violence, money, and sex) make absolute demands and punish anyone who resists. It orients us instead to a world in which love is stronger than death, the poor are promised the kingdom, and chastity (whether married or single) reflects the holiness and faithfulness of God himself. Acclaiming Jesus as Lord plants a flag that superseded the flags of the nations, however “free” or “democratic” they may be. It challenges both the tyrants who think they are, in effect, divine and the “secular democracies” that have effectively become, if not divine, at least ecclesial, that is communities that are trying to do and be what the church was supposed to do and be, but without recourse to the one who sustains the church’s life. Worship creates – or should create, if it is allowed to be truly itself – a community that marches to a different beat, that keeps in step with a different Lord.” – N.T. Wright, from Simply Jesus
Restore | Week 3 | State Street Community Church
RESTORE – Week 3
Taught by: Will Lingle
Restore: The Self
Last week: Being restored with others
How are we to view ourselves? How were we intended to be? Has something gone wrong? How can we be made whole again? How can we be restored?
Ephesians 4:17-23 (NIV)
17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.
20 That, however, is not the way of life you learned21 when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus.22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds;24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
- The Problem
- We have hard hearts (Ephesians 4:18)
- We want the wrong things (Ephesians 4:19)
- We can’t restore ourselves (Roman 7:21-24)
- The Promise
- God softens our hearts (Ezekiel 11:19-20)
- God restores our desires (Ephesians 4:22-24)
- God restores us
- The Practical
- Challenge yourself
- Deny yourself
- Encounter God
Matthew 16:24-25 (NIV)
24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.
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If you want to catch up on our Restore series or would like to watch any of our past messages, you can do so at statestreet.tv/media.
Dear Young Church… | a State Street series
“The opening of the letter of Colossians serves equally well as an opening to everyone who reads it today. Our prayer should be that, through reading and praying our way through it, the same grace and peace will reach out and embrace us too.” - N. T. Wright
We’re starting a new series at State Street in February. It’s going to likely go 10 weeks but that’s not official. I’ve been wanting to teach through a whole book of the Bible for quite some time. Colossians seemed like a great book to choose from primarily because Paul was writing to a young church in Colossae about what to believe and what to value. It parallels much of what we’re doing at State Street. We’ve got 300+ people coming every weekend and we’re making a sizable difference in limiting hunger in our community. Those are great things… but what now? Who are we going to be? Will our maturity in Christ grow at the rate of our numerical growth? Will we be a church of disciples and not just church-attenders? Will we continue to love God, love others, and love well while still growing, adapting, and evolving as a community?
There is a lot of good topics in Colossians; prayer, Christology, reconciliation, deceptive teaching, church discipline, slavery, submission, and much, much more. It’s really going to be a fun series to work through. And, like usual, we will have our weekly discover class (formerly the “sermon-based study”) starting back up for this series. I’m looking forward to February at State Street.
Snowman Building 101
Nora has been waiting to make a snowman since October. It’s been abnormally warm in Northern Indiana this year but she finally got her chance yesterday. Nora told me about the snowman-building last night when I got home. Involved in the conversation was a demonstration on how to build the body and the importance of a carrot nose. It’s a good snowman. I’m proud of her and Finn.
15 Years Later | Thoughts About My Mom
It was 15 years ago that I stood barefoot in 12+ inches of snow waiting for an ambulance to arrive at our house in Rolling Prairie. The numbness that my body and soul felt was too evident to feel anything in my freezing feet. I already knew then what would be confirmed later that night. Standing in the cold that late evening I knew my mother was dead. It was the most unexpected moment of my life. A moment that will forever be tattooed on my consciousness. As one old gentlemen once told me, “You just never get over your mom dying.” I’m not sure if that’s true. But, 15 years later and I’m not sure if I’m fully “over” her dying.
In all honesty, this is the year that I’ve been dreading. It may seem a bit silly but it’s been on my periphery for quite some time. This year marks the pivotal turning point for me in regards to time spent with and without my mom. For 15 years of my life she was my constant caretaker and I her youngest child. It’s a story that weaves through a young and trying marriage, struggling in a trailer too small for a family of five, abusive husbands, and scarred lives that were propelled into adulthood far too early.
The older I get the more I realize that I didn’t really know my mother all that well. I knew that she loved me. As a child, that knowledge is enough to sustain you. You don’t really need to know more nor seek anything more. But now I would give anything to sit down with her to ask some questions. Questions about her life, my life, her choices, the consequences.
I’d ask her about what it was like being married at 15 and having four kids by the time she was 21.
I’d ask her about what she was passionate about. I never really knew her hobbies or interests.
I’d ask her why she embraced the heartache of her life and not my attempts to let her care for her.
I’d ask her what she thinks of her grandkids Nora (who shares her smile) and Finn.
I’d ask her to forgive me for not being active enough in understanding and loving her well.
I’d tell her that parenting is very difficult and that I know she did her best.
I’d tell her about my insecurities about parenting and getting it wrong.
I’d tell her about Jesus and State Street and how I think she’d enjoy it.
I’d tell her about Ema and how she cares for me.
I’d tell her about my fears and my passions and how I just wish she was here to share in them.
I’d tell her that she was beautiful. I don’t know if she heard that enough.
I’d tell her about Ryan, Brandon, and Heather. She’d like to hear about them I’m sure.
I’d tell her how much I miss her.
I realize that I’ll never be able to have this conversation with her. It’s cathartic to reminisce though. A few years ago I had to reluctantly admit that I’ve forgotten much about my mother. It’s now been 15 years. I’ve lived just as much life with her as I’ve lived without her. That truth makes me a bit sad.
But on the anniversary of her death, I want to honor her. Rest in peace, mom. I really love you. I’m not over missing you yet.
Restore | Week 2 | State Street Community Church
RESTORE – Week 2
taught by: Jim Conlin
Two types of Restoration: One to One and Many to Many
The One to One - Matthew 18:15-35
- We are told to go to the brother in private.
- We bring a witness for encouragement not condemnation.
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Present your issues to the church.
- The crux – We are meant to go it together.
The Many to Many
“I posted a notice on Craigslist sites all over the country asking non-Christians to send me any short, personal statement they would like Christians to read. “Specifically,” I wrote, “I’d like to hear how you feel about being on the receiving end of the efforts of Christian evangelicals to convert you.” Within three days, I had in my inbox over 300 emails from non-Christians across the country. Reading them was one of the more depressing experiences of my life. I had expected it to be a message of anger, but if you boiled down to one the overall sentiment most often expressed in the nonbelievers’ statements, it would be this: Why do Christians hate us so much?” – John Shore
Our View of The Outside World.
“We have allowed racial and religious pride to direct our attitude towards those whom we tend to call ‘poor heathen’. We have approached them as superior beings, moved by charity to impart of our wealth to destitute and perishing souls. We have used that argument at home to wring grudging and pitiful charities for the propagation of our faith, and abroad we have adopted that attitude as missionaries of a superior religion. We have not learnt the lesson that it is not for our righteousness that we have been entrusted with the Gospel, but that we may be instruments in God’s hands for revealing the universal salvation of His Son in all the world. We have not learnt that as Christians we exist by the Spirit of Him who gave up the glory of Heaven in order to pour out His life for the redemption of the world. We have not learnt the lesson that our own hope, our own glory, lie in the completion of the Temple of the Lord. We have not understood that the members of the Body of Christ are scattered in all lands, and that we, without them, are not made perfect. We have thought of the Temple of the Lord as complete in us, of the Body of Christ as consisting of us, and we have thought of the conversion of the heathen as the extension of the body of which we are the members. Consequently we have preached the Gospel from the point of view of the wealthy man who casts a coin into the lap of a beggar, rather than from the point of view of the sower who casts his seed onto the earth, knowing that his own life and the lives of all connected with him depend upon the crop which will result from his labour. This attitude of mind is apparent everywhere.” – Roland Allen, Missionary Methods
“The believing body is the image that the new world—which in light of the ascension and Pentecost is on the way—casts ahead of itself. The believing body of Christ is the world on the way to its renewal; the church is the part of the world that confesses the renewal to which all the world is called.” – John Howard Yoder
“We have simplified what it means being in Christ, and have put value in a line drawn in the sand and guarding that border rather than stepping out toward confessing the renewal to which all the world is called.” – quote from Jim
JAMES 1:17-25
Our reputation should be like that written in Philemon:
PHILEMON 1:4-7
Nora & Finn Clothing Line!
Anyone that knows my wife well, knows that she is insanely creative and artistic. When she has a spare minute, she’s using her talents to create a new dress for Nora or make a hat to sell on her very successful Etsy site (Nora & Finn). It’s not a stretch to say that she crafts for hours every day (either with our kids or after they go to bed). I’m the guy that finds a new passion/hobby every 11 days so I’m always in awe at her unbridled zeal to create and make new things and to be persistent at it. She doesn’t quit.
Many people stop and ask us where Nora gets her dresses. When we tell them that Ema made them, they normally respond with one of two responses; (1) disappointment that they likely won’t be able to purchase one or (2) an offer for Ema to make their daughter one as well. She’s been asked by boutiques and wedding planners and parents. To this point, Ema has been hesitant to sell her dresses in spite of the requests she’s received. But, starting on Sunday night (January 15th), she will have certain select dresses for sell on her Etsy site. I like to call it the “Nora and Finn Clothing Line”. Ema just rolls her eyes at me.
A bit about the dresses: Ema often purchases fabric from her favorite indie designers (Heather Bailey and Amy Butler to name a few) when they release a new collection. Every season (or so I hear) these designers release new fabrics and discontinue the ones from last year. What this does is it only allows Ema to make dresses with the fabric that she currently has in stock. She can’t guarantee that these designers will have more of the fabric that she uses. So Ema will only be able to sell dresses that she currently has made (unlike her hats that she can make to order). That’s not to say that you can’t inquire about a certain dress in a different size, but be prepared that it might not be available.
Please feel free to peruse the selections and spread the word. I’m a huge fan of my wife and I think her dresses are incredible. So consider this your head’s up.
Here’s some of her stuff for sale:
Some new music I’m digging…
I’ll just lay this out; I don’t listen to a ton of Christian music. Much of the popular styles of mainstream Christian music doesn’t align with my current sensibilities (I need more cowbell! …and banjo! …and a glockenspiel!). But, there are some artists and albums that I find very beautiful and moving that are closely aligned with “Christian music” (though that phrase itself seems to be fading in favor of Christians that just create music and call it “music” without a more proper and needless label). Two more recent offerings that I’ve loved are A New Liturgy by Aaron Niequist and Rend Collective Experience. I find, for me, the lyrics have significant depth and the music is palatable to the senses. You don’t have to like it (I won’t get my feelings hurt) but you just might end up digging it as well.
Here’s a 5-minute video about the new Rend Collective Experiment. You can purchase their new album anywhere or listen on Spotify:
Here’s some about a New Liturgy by Aaron Niequist. Aaron is a worship leader at Willow Creek but I first met him when he was at Mars Hill. I’ve consistently been impressed and moved by what he creates. You can purchase the first two liturgies on the site anewliturgy.com.
I am a pastor at State Street.
I am a husband to Ema.
I am a father to Nora and Finn.
I am a lover of music. All sorts.
I am a follower of Christ.
I am flawed but hopeful.