Jerusalem-Cross-Gardening our Way into Covenant's Future

Sunday Readings
(click to open the leactionary readings for next Sunday)

Wherever I've been sent to serve in Eastern Washington, I longed to join other members of the congregations I served in doing some Jerusalem-cross-gardening-of-soil-and-soul. It seems like my own soul, and the vibrancy of the congregation, depended on it.

The Jerusalem Cross Garden at Leavenworth United Methodist

I did it at Leavenworth Methodist, then at Manito Methodist in Spokane, then in rural Wilbur on Hwy. 2 with the Lutherans and Presbyterians. Now I'm serving at Covenant Methodist, Spokane's FROG church, and in response to someone else's request it's beginning again. And I am thrilled.  We meet at 7 a.m. on Wednesday mornings for some Jerusalem-cross-gardening-of-the-soul.

We are learning together how to Fully-Rely-On-God (F.R.O.G.). This means we meet weekly for "Christian conversation" over coffee. We read the Gospel for the coming Sunday three times and talk about it. Nothing fancy. We just explore what God might be saying to us through scripture. Often times God touches our hearts through these insights shared by us ordinary folk. And it feels good to learn from each other how God really has "moved into the neighborhood" to work wholeness, healing and life.

The Jerusalem Cross Garden at Wilbur, surrounded by a circle

Todays reading was about Jesus calling Peter and Andrew, James and John.
    “Come with me. I’ll make a new kind of fisherman out of you. I’ll show you how to catch men and women instead of perch and bass.” 
We chuckled at the way Eugene Peterson put it. And we struggled with how God might be calling each one of us to become "new kinds of fishermen" who valued men and women at least as much as perch and bass.

Finally we check in. How have we done? Does anybody have anything to share about "walking the talk" this past week? Has anybody "witnessed to Jesus Christ in the world through acts of devotion, worship, compassion and justice" and feel comfortable sharing?

With that, the soul part of Jerusalem-Cross-Gardening-of-soil-and-soul is done. We end in prayer for one another and our wives and children, for Covenant and for the world. Then we leave to take the love of Christ Jesus with us into our daily lives. And the work of the pilot Covenant Discipleship Group at Covenant Methodist is finished for another week.

I have a dream of many such Covenant Discipleship Groups. There's nothing better than Christians who are intentionally discipling each other to "make (new) disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world."

And perhaps somewhere on Covenant's campus, one day soon, I'll be permitted to install a real Jerusalem Cross Garden, so that, along with our emerging Eden Community Garden, the Jerusalem-Cross-Gardening-of-Soil might help us "hear the footsteps of the Lord God walking in the garden" (Genesis 3:8) and be inspired by what is holy to work towards Eden's return, "on earth as it is in heaven" (creation care).