The TOOSI's

Parker and I tried a new church today that a friend (and fellow blogger) told me about. It's called The Shoreline and it is held at a local school in San Clemente.

'the shoreline' theme verse:
Then Jesus said to Simon, "Don't be afraid; from now on you will catch men." So they pulled their boats up on the shoreline, left everything and followed him. (Luke 5:10-11)

This church is casual and fun. I was mostly thrilled to discover that they are going through whole books of the Bible, instead of topical preaching. Not that there's anything wrong with topical preaching, but at the moment I am trying to read through the Bible and one of their goals as a church is to read the whole Bible in a year. Our goals match up! There are also lots of opportunities for service and volunteering and getting to know other people. Parker also did really well in the toddler room, even though the service was over an hour and a half long. He seemed to enjoy it as much as I did! I'm excited to go back next week.

Today we read through 1 Samuel 21... and we got homework for the week! Pretty cool. Psalms 34, 52, 54, 56, 57, 59 and 142 were supposedly written during the time frame of 1 Samuel 21. So we are encouraged to read one Psalm each day this next week. It will be neat to line up what David was going through when he was writing different Psalms. Reading through this chapter in 1 Samuel was exciting for me because I recently read through Matthew and the story of the disciples eating grain on the Sabbath was still fresh in my head. That is where Jesus references David eating the holy bread on the Sabbath. I didn't know where in the Bible Jesus was referencing... turns out it's 1 Samuel 21. Hey, whaddya know?

After my last post regarding my spiritual quest, I had several people contact me with advice and encouragement. One thing my Aunt Barbi said to me really hit home. She reminded me that sometimes God uses tools to bring us back to Him, but that the tool isn't necessarily the answer; in other words, God knew I needed a jump start (and kick in the bum) and he may have used Liz and Arlene to bring me back to Him, but that doesn't mean that their religion is His path for me. God works in mysterious ways, right?

Speaking of which, my hubby did some research on the Jehovah's Witnesses and shared some interesting information with me. Some of it doesn't ring true with what Liz and Arlene have already shared with me, and I am very curious to see what they have to say on these different matters, but so far if even half of these things are true, I could never join the Jehovah's Witnesses.

This list lines up closely with what I've already learned about the JW group.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/witness3.htm

This one lists some strange stuff, but not sure how accurate it is.
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/2919/reasons.html

Therapist (and former JW) describes mind control (cult-like tendencies) of JW group.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vISWAgy_emg&feature=related

I know my blogs lately have been kind of serious, but don't worry, I plan to post some more fun P-man stuff soon!