Today’s scripture:John 12:20-33 (NRSV)

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. ²¹They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” ²² Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. ²³ Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. ²⁴ Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. ²⁵ Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. ²⁶ Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor. ²⁷ “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say– ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. ²⁸ Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” ²⁹ The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” ³⁰ Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. ³¹ Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. ³² And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” ³³ He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. 

Today at the CoOp we are talking about pruning space.  This has created much conversation on the worship team. Out of all of our pruning weeks, it seems that we talk much about pruning ourselves and refocusing areas but in this particular topic you can’t help but talk about pruning stuff since we are looking at physical space.

When I moved to McMinnville, I knew that I wanted to buy a house but I knew that I wanted to look at smaller houses with enough yard to garden.  This was an intentional search for just the right location.  Houses here were so much less expensive than houses in Corvallis but I also knew that the larger the house, the more stuff would accumulate.   We tend to do that you know.  Plus I really thought about the responsibility of what size of house we have.  I sometimes still feel as though this house is rather large compared to the rest of the world’s population and that tends to get me moving to prune yet again.

But why do we prune space? What if we don’t have the space to prune? I think the why lies in our responsibility to the earth and to ourselves…do we really need that much stuff? why do we need that space?  And the what if lies in that refocusing I talked about…sometimes, especially in church buildings, we have to get creative to use the space to the greatest mission capacity we can dream.  I love churches that have little knooks that I can discover but I can’t stand a room that is being unused.  That room could house mission and could be used for the overall of God’s kingdom.  So these are the things we will be exploring and pondering today.

In the meantime, it might be interesting to walk through your own spaces and look around to see what might need to be pruned this week (or even today).  What needs to have your focus in which room? What has been sitting in the garage for years that you haven’t looked at?  What is that closet used for? Or what about those clothes that you never touch?  Prune away! It feels great and makes room for other energy.

Peace,

Court