Despite the 80+ degree weather and some lovely humidity, our off-church campus excursion to Duff park was quite productive.

After spending a few minutes in prayer, we continued our study and discussion of John Eldredge’s book Walking With God by reading the section titled “Making Room for Joy” (which begins on page 37). We read the section aloud and then talked about what it looks like to live in pursuit of the joy of the Lord. We also spent some time on the aspects of life that get in the way of being able to focus on God and seeking His joy.

After our discussion, we made our way to the nearby Marble Slab, got ice cream, and hung around out front like a strange Murrysville gang of middle class 20-somethings. It was delightful.

Next week, we’ll be back at MCC for our regular meeting date/time/location.

Stay tuned for news of an upcoming end-of-summer picnic and an early autumn white water rafting trip!

After surviving another grueling week of “real life,” we met up again for the second Project:Fracture meeting/gathering/whatever. Fueled once again by the culinary skills of our own Marissa, we discussed our study options for the summer.

Because of our late sign-up date, we just received our Relevant Network kit in the mail today, so we spent some time looking through the books and listening to the CDs that were included this quarter.

Books

• The Vow by Ed Gungor
• The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment by Tim Challies
• Deadly Viper by Mike Foster and Jud Wilhite
• Walking With God by John Edlredge
• The Gospel and Personal Evangelism by Mark Dever

CDs

• Leeland Opposite Way
• The Bridge Band Love
• Jared Anderson Where Faith Comes From
• After Edmund Hello

DVDs

• Everything Is Spiritual (Rob Bell)

After some discussion and a vote, we decided to start with Walking With God by John Edlredge. We’ll create an online form over the weekend so that anyone who wants to order one can do so on Monday. I’ll order the books on Tuesday and try to have them to MCC by Thursday (we’ll see how fast shipping can be!). We don’t have the budget to purchase books for everyone, so if you want a book, we’d appreciate it if you’d chip in $16 to help cover the cost of books + shipping.

ORDER A COPY NOW »

If reading a book seems overwhelming, don’t worry… there’s also an audio book on CD or for download from Amazon. But, you’ll have to pick that up on your own if you want it.

After we picked our study book, we watched the Rob Bell Everything Is Spiritual DVD from his national speaking tour. In the video, Rob discusses creation as described in Genesis 1 and its implications to science, faith, and being a human. If you’ve got an hour or so, it’s definitely worth the time. If you watched it and liked it, check out some of his other work at Nooma or at Mars Hill.

Next meeting: Thursday, June 26 @ 7:30 pm

It’s official. Project:Fracture has begun!

We had our kick-off event tonight with copious amounts of food and beverage, provided by Marissa. If you missed out on tonight’s meeting, fear not. There were leftovers, and we will bring the non-perishables to next week’s meeting.

Tonight, we played a rousing round of Apples to Apples, followed by several rounds of electronic Catch Phrase. Both of which sufficiently broke any “ice” that people may have felt. It was a great turn-out for our first meeting… we had 10 people!

For anyone who was curious about the Relevant Magazine I mentioned tonight, check out their website for more info. FYI, their weekly podcast is hilarious. I highly recommend it (especially if you think you might like random discussion involving Gary Busey and badgers).

In other news, we’re on Facebook (Thanks, Eddie)! So check us out there if that’s your kind of thing.

Next meeting: Thursday, June 19 @ 7:30 pm