Bum Bonnie

On Wednesday, May 10, 1916 Bonnie Elmore wrote: Cool-Sunshine. Arose at 7 o'clock. Got to work at 8:20 a.m. Work dull in office. Got a letter from Dr. Payne and Aunt Annah. Rolled Norman down home and watered the flowers. Mrs. Raines came home from trip to Lynchburg, VA. I felt bum at night. Retired at 10 p.m. Little Poff boy is sick today. Completed statement for Burke. I just haven't felt too much like commenting here recently. I have not been too inspired I guess, though I do still love reading Grand-daddy's entries and passing them along for others as a glimpse into what life was like in the past. I do like seeing that Bonnie started going back to the theater again. I know he loved to do that and read. I think home ownership has maybe taken away some time from Bonnie as he writes more now about flowers, grass, sidewalks, leaks, etc. I fully understand how home ownership can do that. I also especially like how Bonnie seems to be so involved in his community. He makes notes when he meets new people. He writes about births, deaths, illnesses, parades, travels and of course culture like the movies and books. This leads me to more of a "faith" post today. God has spoken to me recently, through a guy by the name of Reggie McNeal, about the missional church movement. This movement basically says that churches should be doing more for our communities, more for "the least of these", and less programming for ourselves. Churches should be the hands and feet of Christ in the world and should just go about trying to bless others and give them a better life instead of better churches. It's not our responsibility to always try and have a conversation experience with someone every time we encounter them. We should just leave that up to God, but be ready to do that if the Spirit leads. Anyway this has really opened my eyes to the needs that are around us and what might happen if the church started to try and meet those needs. I believe God would bless those efforts and not only would the community needs be blessed, but in the long run we might even see better churches and people won to Christ. I will probably have more to say about this at some point later. Christianity is exploding in other parts of the world and it is basically because the church in other parts of the world is MISSIONAL but the church here in the US is dying because we are not. I have challenged the members at Springwood Baptist to be more missional, to BE the church and not just DO church and the response have been pretty neat, with most talking about how God blessed them in their attempts to bless other people. Now, if we could just get that to catch on...