a night of feasts

dinner at rob & nick's last night was tasty tasty, indeed! rob made pesto chicken and rice, erica made mashed taters, casey made a salad, nate & sandy brought chips, and nick & i brought the ice cream (of course) which all combined for a very delightful background to some good hang-out time.

my camera takes three timer shots in a row so it's fun to change up the pose every time. sometimes it's a little TOO much fun! (rob's face looks like it's going to split open!)

random observation: if you stare at these pictures, pretty soon the loveseat starts to look like an armchair and we all start to look like very little people...

after dinner, some went to the feast of tabernacles service. i did not but i would welcome anyone who did go to post on here and tell us their thoughts on it.

prepare yourself for an e-mail about next week's get-together! fun things are in the works :-)

eikon at kate's 9/19/07

hello friends!

if you know me at all, you won't be surprised by the idea i had to start an eikon blog!
it just came to me that this would be a great tool for anyone to use to keep us all up on the latest eikon happenings. this month especially we've been a little disjointed, what with the busy lives we lead, so perhaps this can lend a little unity and continuity?
we'll see.

if it's helpful, we can keep it up, if not, we can let it fade into the netherdistance of nonhelpfulness...

the main purpose of this blog is to give a brief synopsis of our meeting each week. that way, if you have to miss for whatever reason, you can check in here to see what we discussed, keep up on any ideas we had for future events, and share prayer requests.

i also think it'd be a neat idea to take a picture each week of whoever meets and post it on here.

i'm more than willing to keep this up (being the prolific blogger that i love to be) but if any of you would like to post something sometime, i'll invite each of you to be authors and you can log in and post!

if that's too involved for you though, you can always leave a comment.

so without further ado, here's the summary of last week's meeting, 9/19/07:

nate, sandy, erica, elizabeth and myself (kate) met at my house around 7ish. we did the usual socializing, then buckled down to brainstorming what direction we could take as a group for the future. it was a rather small gathering, but we came up with a good compromise of what we thought would be a good direction.
the general consensus was to use a study guide on a book of the bible with one person facilitating each week. that facilitator could feel free to get creative with his/her facilitating, but could use the study guide and the questions to give structure.

we came up with this by meshing everyone's ideas on what would be cool. those ideas were:

sandy really desires to study scripture but does not want to facilitate -- too busy this semester with other teaching things...

nate loves the new testament...

nick loves the old testament but also loves a freedom to be unique and creative in the direction of each discussion...

erica is always up for structure...

liz brought erica & nick's differences to a nicely worded compromise proposal and volunteered a navigator's study she's done before, along with any that she might raid from eric's library at school, if he's willing...

sandy has a study on ephesians she's enjoyed and agreed to bring...

i agreed with them all, and also don't want to facilitate, but would discuss heartily...

thusly and therefore, we're going to come next week with different studies to choose from, and tentatively plan out who could facilitate when? nate & sandy will possibly be hosting small group at their house on the 26th, but will let us know.

future event ideas we've thrown out there in the last few weeks are:

oct. 20: hamm ranch day -- with steve under the weather and the ladies retreat the next weekend, we agreed it'd be cool to go down for the day and help with anything the hamms need help with -- cleaning, outdoor work, fence-mending (??)... then stay for an evening campfire with a hotdog roast, s'mores, & good ole guitar singing.
we also thought this would be a perfect opportunity to open up our small group to anyone who wants to join in this endeavor. we would be the hosts, but invite anyone and everyone to help but then stay for a good campy time around the fire.

TBA sunday: eikon praise team! take our love of singing and our favorite songs and share them with harvest by leading praise and worship for a segment of the morning some sunday. this doesn't mean you'd be in front of a microphone or playing an instrument. whatever you're comfortable with, that's what you could do. options are: scripture reading, tamborine playing, egg shaking, djembe thumping, singing without a mic, etc.

prayer requests:
nick: still car-hunting
sandy: so busy at school these days
nate: new job -- needs a password for his pretty computer
erica: struggling with eikon's transition, also for students and galen in particular
kate: need car insurance to cover chiropractic care (p.s. they do, i just found out!!)

so there you have it!

this transition of getting into a new groove has been hard for some of us. in the midst of it, i love the things i'm learning about different ones of you. i'm seeing people's passions and desires and needs, and it's shaping my own passions, in turn. thanks for being in eikon with me!