Donna's 2005 Journal
Arlington Church 2005
We started this year with 8 houses in the church. Three just moved in last month and there is feeling of newness all around. Our first meeting was Jan. 8th and it was so fantastic! Mike and Diane started gathering all the saints house by house. It was dark out already so I waited at the end of my driveway with a lit candle. As I waited by myself I was reminded of all the time in years past that I spent “waiting on the Lord” because that’s what you’re supposed to do to be really spiritual. What a feeling to know that this time He was really, physically coming - coming to gather me up for His expression. My Lord arrived moments later in the familiar faces of my brothers and sisters. We continued on to the next houses yelling “join us Holy Ones!” We all walked together, singing thru the streets; Sheila jumping up and down, celebrating that Jesus Christ now has a physical location in Arlington. We started having meetings to turn to the Lord on Sunday mornings; brothers at 7:30, sisters at 8:30. We also had a visit from Nick and from Peer and Natalie from Bournemouth, England. Bill and Aaron were able to go to a conference that Gene did in Jax on “Knowing the Lord”. They brought back a letter that Nicole read to the church during that weekend. “Our relationship to each other is Jesus Christ. Let us reverence Him in each other. Let us fight for each other’s spiritual life, pulling and dragging each other to the Lord.”
In Feb, Robert Heroman, Bill’s younger brother met Jesus Christ. Bill traveled back to Baton Rouge for the occasion. The sister’s read and discussed “ Life Together”. This month four sisters from Arlington went to visit the church in St Paul, MN. All of the sisters prepared a box with a valentine’s day theme for the saints in St Paul . It contained love letters that the sisters had written from the Lord to His bride, a candle, some cd’s and a whole bunch of chocolate. For a church going thru a dry season, it contained only the Lord. They read the love letters to each other and we all ate of the Lord during that very special meeting.
We Had meetings on The Lord as 7th day Rest. One particular meeting regrouped after it had ended and for another hour we went walking thru the Godhead together. Sylvia shared how planets are really the inside of an exploded star. We saw how that part of creation is a picture of how we are portions of the broken Lamb from before the foundation of the world.
In March, the brothers sang “hooked on a Feeling” from the Lord to the church. The sisters sang “Secret Love” and a turned version of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”. We made another cd with some of our newer songs for Nick to take to Amsterdam. Some of the sisters did a skit portraying the “old man” falling down in the presence of the “One New Man” proclaiming the holiness of the saints like in Rev 3:9. We had an awesome meeting around the different meanings of the word “spirit”. We discovered that our bodies are the temple of Holy Breath, which dwells in us. By one Spirit we are baptized into one body, whether Jew or Gentile, bond or free, we have all been made to breathe from one Breath, Holy Breath. We found that no one can say that Jesus Christ is Lord, but by the breath of the Father within us. A brother shared that if you use only your breath to speak you only get one or two sounds, but when you put your breath together with the other parts of your body,(lips, tongue, vocal cords) the expression is infinite! Lord, your diversity is endless. May we find the ways to express You.
Also, in March, we had a meeting around ministry as discussed in Eph 4. It is one thing to consciously reject what you have been taught in the religious system, but quite another to see what Paul really said. We found that the “knowledge of the Son of God “ that we are to come to is actually “to recognize and be fully aquainted with Christ in the saints”. The increase that “every joint supplies” is not just what each member shares of the Lord. It is what comes from the joint. And the joint is what is in between two saints that fastens them together. That’s our Lord. What builds the Body is what is expressed when 2 saints touch their Lord TOGETHER! He is always the supply and the increase and the One who is expressed in the building up of the Body.
In April, the sisters discovered circle journals. Each sister gets a journal, chooses the theme for the journal, writes an instruction page and completes the first entrée. We had so much fun expressing our Lord with paper and ink. The instruction page of my journal encouraged the sisters to write what they wanted to leave for the next generation of saints living in church life.
Aaron and I went to a conference that Tim Richey was doing with the Dearborn church. He said “either you and I have the opportunity to know Him intimately, daily or the gospel is a fraud.” He said “ we are not a meeting. We can’t live on a meal once a week so we live close together so we can eat a few times a day. We find Christ out of one issue – poverty. I hunger for Him and a sister comes and pours water into my need and I see Him. These are the realities I have tasted. He shared how He stopped praying. And 4 years later, he realized that prayer is a man inside of him in communion and fellowship with His Father.
The sisters went on a camping trip this month to spend some quiet time alone with the Lord. Friday evening around the fire, Kim shared with us the first verse of “The Air of God” and Sarah and I wrote the second. Sylvia brought Lord’s supper. And Annette shared how the Lord is present to her in each of us—the different facets of the Lord’s life unique to the sister holding it. Some how we knew that as we were consuming our Lord together, that we were feeding our Lord and His Father as well. Sarah said “ this is so easy” like flowing down a river, I thought. We do live in His river. These are realities that we tasted together.
Quotes from the weekend:
I would rather stand in the doorway of Zion for only a day than waste my whole life in a house built by human hands. – sarah
All sunshine and sovereign am I. - sylvia
April 30th 3 sisters decided to take a different turn when they left the meeting. Instead of going home we decided to meet in Sarah’s back yard to love our Lord. It seemed that the Lord had been waiting all day for us to get there.
It was like the emotion that he felt upon our arrival transferred unto us. The excitement and joy that we felt was really His toward us. We sat, swinging together and loving Him in a garden that touched 2 realms. And oh, - the bells!
Ooh, how He loves Her.
Oh, how He surrounds Her.
Finds His home within Her.
They are one.
Our first meeting in May we had in the morning, at Pantego Park. A woman named Lisa walked over to us from her house across the street to see what that beautiful noise was. She came right up to the clump and joined us. – how neat!
The sisters expressed the Lord in a journal for the Philly church this month. And then sent Sarah to Philly to deliver Him.
Aaron and I went to the conference that Gene did in Durham, NC for the Berry students. And the sisters continued diligently with their journals. We had no idea how much fun these journals were going to be when we started them. I never imagined how much the Lord would be expressed. We poured our hearts out on those pages. We even had a corporate meeting to talk about them.
The first meeting in June was awesome. The brothers came ready to share about their abductions by the sisters during the week. The brothers each had one night of something special prepared for them by the sisters. But the sisters got to spend every night that week together sharing Him with each other.
Some quotes from the meeting:
Ben said “Here’s this classy lady standing at the curb singing a re-write of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to a truck. “Don’t forget He’s who you are”.
Ev said “It felt like my feet had been washed”.
Dan said “I had forgotten how unimportant I am”
Don said “That structure over there on Will Scarlet isn’t my house, it is the Lord”
Bill said “While everyone was sharing, I was thinking to myself “This is what the Lord died for”.
During a sisters meeting this month Annette was reading I have no idea what, but I was looking at her and seeing the Lord. I had an incredible sense of faith being something of the past. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. I remember thinking “I moved here with the hope of seeing the Lord in each of you.” I thought, at this moment I don’t need faith because I see Him in you. I no longer believe, I know. He is the author and finisher of our faith. I tasted for a moment my faith finished. For a moment faith was a memory. When the unseen God was visible in my sister, I no longer needed the evidence or the faith to tell me that the unseen existed. When the thing hoped for was realized, faith was completed. The church is the place where we can see unseen reality now! We are the substance of His faith. We, the Church are the evidence of the unseen God. In one of our meetings this month a sister testified that the words spoken by the Lord are often difficult to understand, but the “words in red” sound like the “language” spoken by the saints in the meetings. -- (and we found His voice comes out of us!)
This month we discovered the “real” meaning of the word “remember”. When we come together we are literally re – membering (or reassembling) the body of Christ. It puts new light on the phrases “do this in remembrance of me”.
In July, Neil and April Carter came for a visit. Tiffany and Miguel got married. Sarah and I turned the Wilson’s living room into Russell’s undiscovered cavern and brought a skit about brokenness being a treasure because it brings forth God’s purpose.
During our break in august, the Rosser’s moved into the neighborhood. The sisters continued to meet with the Lord together in the mornings. And we also celebrated Ben’s college graduation.
Finally, if the sisters walked an average of 2 miles per day(we know Sylvia did more) for 5 nights per week for 16 weeks, that means that the sisters walked a minimum of 160 miles this summer. We shared and discovered our Lord. We talked out problems. We laughed. We sang. And we exercised and we sweat together.
I spent September wondering why it was still 95 degrees outside. In September we had our brothers and sisters meetings at the Rosser’s house. When it came time to make the schedule for Oct, Bonnie said how much she enjoyed having the meetings at her house but she didn’t want to take that blessing away from everyone else. Somehow we found it in our hearts to let her take another month. The sisters would usually walk together up to Bonnies house for meetings. I remember some of those walks being as special as the meetings. Sometimes we would sing together and sometimes take a slow walk with the Lord together.
Also in October, the sisters and brothers each took a weekend to go camping together to turn to the Lord. 9 of us went this time and we never imagined it would be better than the first one, but it was. We spent most of our time alone and quiet; just being with our Lord. We met in groups of 3 to talk to the Lord together a few times. I remember hearing one of the sisters bursting out during a quiet time saying” OH!, THAT’S WHY WE LIVE TOGETHER; BECAUSE HE DOES. HE’S A CORPORATE GOD. IT’S NATURAL FOR HIM SO IT’S NATURAL FOR US.” We also placed a journal at a table at an empty campsite and throughout the weekend the sisters would go to this table and have about a ½ hour to turn their pre-assigned verses in Heb: 2,3 &4. and write them in the journal. We had an awesome meeting on Sunday morning when we met to read all that had been written. It was at that meeting that Sarah said “ I feel that I am deeper in the Lord than I have ever been and I needed you to get here.” -----
And oh… That weekend Sylvia locked her keys in her car and Sheila still doesn’t know how to set up or take down her tent.
Nick came to visit in November and we all participated in giving him an “Arlington pick-up truck ride”
He gave our brothers a new beginning.
He told us that our suffering has to be reduced down to 3 sentences in our life for it to work its full wait of glory.
He then opened up the Door to the Lord’s Name for us. He encouraged us to step inside and look around. Like the Lord told Israel, “everywhere you put your foot is yours”.
In uttering His Name we are accessing everything that makes up His Name.
In saying His Name we are uttering forth Him.
The Lord’s Name is a geographical location from which we pray. The place that just happens to be a person. We can consciously stand in this place and talk to our Father.
We don’t have to make requests in His Name anymore. We have been joined to His Name!
Anything that is not in His Name: sin, self and pride, doesn’t exist anymore. It is not a moral code. It is a matter of reality.
In December the sisters sent a circle journal to the church in St Paul, MN and a box to the sisters in Bournemouth, England filled with ideas and instructions for sisters meetings.
The brothers prepared an awesome meeting around the Lord’s supper and I am the vine and you are the branches.
The night before He died, The Lord said that He would not drink of the fruit of the vine again until He drinks it with us in His Father’s kingdom. That scripture is fulfilled in us today! His kingdom is inside of us. And we are the fruit of the Living Vine pressed into wine that our Lord is pleased to drink.
Also in December, seven of us went to jax for “The Task Unfinished” conference and came home with a new worker.
We are part of the Lord’s testimony outside the institutional church. We cannot go on on the basis of good and bad days, but on the basis of being a testimony to this and the next generation that Jesus Christ lives and speaks on the earth today.
Memorable quotes this year:
The Lord is Man enough to pastor His own Church.(Bill)
And the Church of Jesus Christ is Woman enough to be the Wife of God.(Aaron)
Plow your spirit today and Eternal Life will spring up today!(Diane)
I never thought that my destiny was a Person.(Sheila)
In the Church, Jesus Christ is Pursued-Found-Expressed. Everything else is baggage and clutter.(Nick)
The words that the church speaks in the meetings sounds like the red letters in the gospels.(Alison)
We are simply remembering pieces of the life we lived in the other realm. As it slowly leaks into your consciousness you remember more of your Lord. It was always a part of your experience; you had just forgotten.(Paul Ewing)
Lord, You are Liberty in my Consciousness!(Donna)
This is a purpose Road! And nobody should hold anybody back! (Lon)
Memorable Words:
Remember and remain,
The Swing,
The Cup,
The Moment,
Stay
We started this year with 8 houses in the church. Three just moved in last month and there is feeling of newness all around. Our first meeting was Jan. 8th and it was so fantastic! Mike and Diane started gathering all the saints house by house. It was dark out already so I waited at the end of my driveway with a lit candle. As I waited by myself I was reminded of all the time in years past that I spent “waiting on the Lord” because that’s what you’re supposed to do to be really spiritual. What a feeling to know that this time He was really, physically coming - coming to gather me up for His expression. My Lord arrived moments later in the familiar faces of my brothers and sisters. We continued on to the next houses yelling “join us Holy Ones!” We all walked together, singing thru the streets; Sheila jumping up and down, celebrating that Jesus Christ now has a physical location in Arlington. We started having meetings to turn to the Lord on Sunday mornings; brothers at 7:30, sisters at 8:30. We also had a visit from Nick and from Peer and Natalie from Bournemouth, England. Bill and Aaron were able to go to a conference that Gene did in Jax on “Knowing the Lord”. They brought back a letter that Nicole read to the church during that weekend. “Our relationship to each other is Jesus Christ. Let us reverence Him in each other. Let us fight for each other’s spiritual life, pulling and dragging each other to the Lord.”
In Feb, Robert Heroman, Bill’s younger brother met Jesus Christ. Bill traveled back to Baton Rouge for the occasion. The sister’s read and discussed “ Life Together”. This month four sisters from Arlington went to visit the church in St Paul, MN. All of the sisters prepared a box with a valentine’s day theme for the saints in St Paul . It contained love letters that the sisters had written from the Lord to His bride, a candle, some cd’s and a whole bunch of chocolate. For a church going thru a dry season, it contained only the Lord. They read the love letters to each other and we all ate of the Lord during that very special meeting.
We Had meetings on The Lord as 7th day Rest. One particular meeting regrouped after it had ended and for another hour we went walking thru the Godhead together. Sylvia shared how planets are really the inside of an exploded star. We saw how that part of creation is a picture of how we are portions of the broken Lamb from before the foundation of the world.
In March, the brothers sang “hooked on a Feeling” from the Lord to the church. The sisters sang “Secret Love” and a turned version of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”. We made another cd with some of our newer songs for Nick to take to Amsterdam. Some of the sisters did a skit portraying the “old man” falling down in the presence of the “One New Man” proclaiming the holiness of the saints like in Rev 3:9. We had an awesome meeting around the different meanings of the word “spirit”. We discovered that our bodies are the temple of Holy Breath, which dwells in us. By one Spirit we are baptized into one body, whether Jew or Gentile, bond or free, we have all been made to breathe from one Breath, Holy Breath. We found that no one can say that Jesus Christ is Lord, but by the breath of the Father within us. A brother shared that if you use only your breath to speak you only get one or two sounds, but when you put your breath together with the other parts of your body,(lips, tongue, vocal cords) the expression is infinite! Lord, your diversity is endless. May we find the ways to express You.
Also, in March, we had a meeting around ministry as discussed in Eph 4. It is one thing to consciously reject what you have been taught in the religious system, but quite another to see what Paul really said. We found that the “knowledge of the Son of God “ that we are to come to is actually “to recognize and be fully aquainted with Christ in the saints”. The increase that “every joint supplies” is not just what each member shares of the Lord. It is what comes from the joint. And the joint is what is in between two saints that fastens them together. That’s our Lord. What builds the Body is what is expressed when 2 saints touch their Lord TOGETHER! He is always the supply and the increase and the One who is expressed in the building up of the Body.
In April, the sisters discovered circle journals. Each sister gets a journal, chooses the theme for the journal, writes an instruction page and completes the first entrée. We had so much fun expressing our Lord with paper and ink. The instruction page of my journal encouraged the sisters to write what they wanted to leave for the next generation of saints living in church life.
Aaron and I went to a conference that Tim Richey was doing with the Dearborn church. He said “either you and I have the opportunity to know Him intimately, daily or the gospel is a fraud.” He said “ we are not a meeting. We can’t live on a meal once a week so we live close together so we can eat a few times a day. We find Christ out of one issue – poverty. I hunger for Him and a sister comes and pours water into my need and I see Him. These are the realities I have tasted. He shared how He stopped praying. And 4 years later, he realized that prayer is a man inside of him in communion and fellowship with His Father.
The sisters went on a camping trip this month to spend some quiet time alone with the Lord. Friday evening around the fire, Kim shared with us the first verse of “The Air of God” and Sarah and I wrote the second. Sylvia brought Lord’s supper. And Annette shared how the Lord is present to her in each of us—the different facets of the Lord’s life unique to the sister holding it. Some how we knew that as we were consuming our Lord together, that we were feeding our Lord and His Father as well. Sarah said “ this is so easy” like flowing down a river, I thought. We do live in His river. These are realities that we tasted together.
Quotes from the weekend:
I would rather stand in the doorway of Zion for only a day than waste my whole life in a house built by human hands. – sarah
All sunshine and sovereign am I. - sylvia
April 30th 3 sisters decided to take a different turn when they left the meeting. Instead of going home we decided to meet in Sarah’s back yard to love our Lord. It seemed that the Lord had been waiting all day for us to get there.
It was like the emotion that he felt upon our arrival transferred unto us. The excitement and joy that we felt was really His toward us. We sat, swinging together and loving Him in a garden that touched 2 realms. And oh, - the bells!
Ooh, how He loves Her.
Oh, how He surrounds Her.
Finds His home within Her.
They are one.
Our first meeting in May we had in the morning, at Pantego Park. A woman named Lisa walked over to us from her house across the street to see what that beautiful noise was. She came right up to the clump and joined us. – how neat!
The sisters expressed the Lord in a journal for the Philly church this month. And then sent Sarah to Philly to deliver Him.
Aaron and I went to the conference that Gene did in Durham, NC for the Berry students. And the sisters continued diligently with their journals. We had no idea how much fun these journals were going to be when we started them. I never imagined how much the Lord would be expressed. We poured our hearts out on those pages. We even had a corporate meeting to talk about them.
The first meeting in June was awesome. The brothers came ready to share about their abductions by the sisters during the week. The brothers each had one night of something special prepared for them by the sisters. But the sisters got to spend every night that week together sharing Him with each other.
Some quotes from the meeting:
Ben said “Here’s this classy lady standing at the curb singing a re-write of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to a truck. “Don’t forget He’s who you are”.
Ev said “It felt like my feet had been washed”.
Dan said “I had forgotten how unimportant I am”
Don said “That structure over there on Will Scarlet isn’t my house, it is the Lord”
Bill said “While everyone was sharing, I was thinking to myself “This is what the Lord died for”.
During a sisters meeting this month Annette was reading I have no idea what, but I was looking at her and seeing the Lord. I had an incredible sense of faith being something of the past. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. I remember thinking “I moved here with the hope of seeing the Lord in each of you.” I thought, at this moment I don’t need faith because I see Him in you. I no longer believe, I know. He is the author and finisher of our faith. I tasted for a moment my faith finished. For a moment faith was a memory. When the unseen God was visible in my sister, I no longer needed the evidence or the faith to tell me that the unseen existed. When the thing hoped for was realized, faith was completed. The church is the place where we can see unseen reality now! We are the substance of His faith. We, the Church are the evidence of the unseen God. In one of our meetings this month a sister testified that the words spoken by the Lord are often difficult to understand, but the “words in red” sound like the “language” spoken by the saints in the meetings. -- (and we found His voice comes out of us!)
This month we discovered the “real” meaning of the word “remember”. When we come together we are literally re – membering (or reassembling) the body of Christ. It puts new light on the phrases “do this in remembrance of me”.
In July, Neil and April Carter came for a visit. Tiffany and Miguel got married. Sarah and I turned the Wilson’s living room into Russell’s undiscovered cavern and brought a skit about brokenness being a treasure because it brings forth God’s purpose.
During our break in august, the Rosser’s moved into the neighborhood. The sisters continued to meet with the Lord together in the mornings. And we also celebrated Ben’s college graduation.
Finally, if the sisters walked an average of 2 miles per day(we know Sylvia did more) for 5 nights per week for 16 weeks, that means that the sisters walked a minimum of 160 miles this summer. We shared and discovered our Lord. We talked out problems. We laughed. We sang. And we exercised and we sweat together.
I spent September wondering why it was still 95 degrees outside. In September we had our brothers and sisters meetings at the Rosser’s house. When it came time to make the schedule for Oct, Bonnie said how much she enjoyed having the meetings at her house but she didn’t want to take that blessing away from everyone else. Somehow we found it in our hearts to let her take another month. The sisters would usually walk together up to Bonnies house for meetings. I remember some of those walks being as special as the meetings. Sometimes we would sing together and sometimes take a slow walk with the Lord together.
Also in October, the sisters and brothers each took a weekend to go camping together to turn to the Lord. 9 of us went this time and we never imagined it would be better than the first one, but it was. We spent most of our time alone and quiet; just being with our Lord. We met in groups of 3 to talk to the Lord together a few times. I remember hearing one of the sisters bursting out during a quiet time saying” OH!, THAT’S WHY WE LIVE TOGETHER; BECAUSE HE DOES. HE’S A CORPORATE GOD. IT’S NATURAL FOR HIM SO IT’S NATURAL FOR US.” We also placed a journal at a table at an empty campsite and throughout the weekend the sisters would go to this table and have about a ½ hour to turn their pre-assigned verses in Heb: 2,3 &4. and write them in the journal. We had an awesome meeting on Sunday morning when we met to read all that had been written. It was at that meeting that Sarah said “ I feel that I am deeper in the Lord than I have ever been and I needed you to get here.” -----
And oh… That weekend Sylvia locked her keys in her car and Sheila still doesn’t know how to set up or take down her tent.
Nick came to visit in November and we all participated in giving him an “Arlington pick-up truck ride”
He gave our brothers a new beginning.
He told us that our suffering has to be reduced down to 3 sentences in our life for it to work its full wait of glory.
He then opened up the Door to the Lord’s Name for us. He encouraged us to step inside and look around. Like the Lord told Israel, “everywhere you put your foot is yours”.
In uttering His Name we are accessing everything that makes up His Name.
In saying His Name we are uttering forth Him.
The Lord’s Name is a geographical location from which we pray. The place that just happens to be a person. We can consciously stand in this place and talk to our Father.
We don’t have to make requests in His Name anymore. We have been joined to His Name!
Anything that is not in His Name: sin, self and pride, doesn’t exist anymore. It is not a moral code. It is a matter of reality.
In December the sisters sent a circle journal to the church in St Paul, MN and a box to the sisters in Bournemouth, England filled with ideas and instructions for sisters meetings.
The brothers prepared an awesome meeting around the Lord’s supper and I am the vine and you are the branches.
The night before He died, The Lord said that He would not drink of the fruit of the vine again until He drinks it with us in His Father’s kingdom. That scripture is fulfilled in us today! His kingdom is inside of us. And we are the fruit of the Living Vine pressed into wine that our Lord is pleased to drink.
Also in December, seven of us went to jax for “The Task Unfinished” conference and came home with a new worker.
We are part of the Lord’s testimony outside the institutional church. We cannot go on on the basis of good and bad days, but on the basis of being a testimony to this and the next generation that Jesus Christ lives and speaks on the earth today.
Memorable quotes this year:
The Lord is Man enough to pastor His own Church.(Bill)
And the Church of Jesus Christ is Woman enough to be the Wife of God.(Aaron)
Plow your spirit today and Eternal Life will spring up today!(Diane)
I never thought that my destiny was a Person.(Sheila)
In the Church, Jesus Christ is Pursued-Found-Expressed. Everything else is baggage and clutter.(Nick)
The words that the church speaks in the meetings sounds like the red letters in the gospels.(Alison)
We are simply remembering pieces of the life we lived in the other realm. As it slowly leaks into your consciousness you remember more of your Lord. It was always a part of your experience; you had just forgotten.(Paul Ewing)
Lord, You are Liberty in my Consciousness!(Donna)
This is a purpose Road! And nobody should hold anybody back! (Lon)
Memorable Words:
Remember and remain,
The Swing,
The Cup,
The Moment,
Stay
posted by Ben at 8:09 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home