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Our church will be having a worship night on Friday, August 4. ZionFire will participate with a pageantry offering, and spontaneous participation as appropriate.



The service will start at 7pm, and everyone is welcome.



Directions and contact information available on the church website:

<URL url="http://ccotk.org/">http://ccotk.org/

<COLOR color="#9300C4">Those the Lord has rescued will return.

They will enter Zion with singing;

everlasting joy will crown their heads.

Gladness and joy will overtake them,

and sorrow and sighing will flee away.</COLOR>

A new life is coming into our family soon. I remember how special it was for me to receive a hand-made gift from the important people in my life, so I was inspired not only to pass some of those along, but also to make something for the new one. Something that will carry the blessing of the Word.



I was inspired to make a scripture banner for the nursery. It is a reminder to the new parents and eventually to their offspring to remember that we are all "fearfully and wonderfully made". The whole scripture verse is found in Psalm 139:14



I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.



The images in the background to me, mean it is the hand of God that connects with our flesh to create a new "heart", one that is cherished and protected by both the Divine and the human creators. The interpretation could also be the connection of the father and mother,in the creation of that new life in the secret place, surrounded by their hand of covering and protection. I trust God will minister the meaning as He speaks to their spirits through His Word.

I had an opportunity to dance at church today to Loren Daigles' "Once and For All". As I listened through the song list for this Sunday, that song spoke out to me as a message that could be enhanced by interpretive movement, so I went through it a few times to set the blocking and a few moves, but mainly it would be an "in the moment" choreography depending on how the music team interpreted it that day.



If you are not familiar with the song, you can hear it on youtube here:





I know that the Lord will give me choreography for a song if I can sense "life" in it when I'm listening to it. And this song had that. I have come to trust that God will do whatever he wants with the songs he has highlighted for me, so I don't generally try to analyze what is going on from that point. I just trust God and dance.



Little did I know that God had some personal business to do with me before I could offer this particular dance.



As I was experiencing the first part of the service and the praise time, the Lord began to bring back to me all kinds of shameful things I had done all throughout my life. Things I had not thought about in years, and I began repenting as each one surfaced. The sheer number of them shocked me, shamed me, and effectively dealt a death blow to any satisfaction I might be taking in leading a "mostly righteous" life. I know, that even sounds prideful in itself. Well, I repented of that sin too, along with all the other promptings. I should have known I would be called to account because of the starting lyrics of the song:



God I give You all I can today

These scattered ashes that I hid away

I lay them all at Your feet.

From the corners of my deepest shame,

The empty places where I've worn your Name.



Yikes. How could I have danced that without taking care of some accounting business with God beforehand? I couldn't have. At least, not honestly. So since I wasn't conscious enough to initiate the process, the Lord was faithful to do it for me. By the time I presented the dance, I had been fully crushed, leveled and undone by the ugliness of my sins. The dance offering came from a broken vessel, but a redeemed one. I believe that intense cleansing released the anointing to freely flow to God's people through the ministry of the dance.



I'm sharing this to say that as we move along in our ministry, even when we try to be always sensitive to the Spirits leading, we can become complacent, even dull, and fail to adequately prepare our hearts. This was a power reminder to me that I can't just blithely present something that asks others to lay themselves bare without being willing to do it myself first.



Today I also received two separate invitations to offer my ministry, after a long period of none. I very much doubt that is coincidence.


<SPOILER spoiler="Once and For All - Lyrics">

Once and For All - Lyrics

Once and For All

Lauren Daigle



God I give You all I can today

These scattered ashes that I hid away

I lay them all at Your feet

From the corners of my deepest shame

The empty places where I've worn Your name

Show me the love I say I believe

Oh Help me to lay it down

Oh Lord I lay it down



Oh let this be where I die

My lord with thee crucified

Be lifted high as my Kingdom's fall

Once and for all, once and for all



There is victory in my Saviors loss

And In the crimson flowing from the cross

Pour over me, pour over me yes



Oh let this be where I die

My lord with thee crucified

Be lifted high as my Kingdom's fall

Once and for all, once and for all

Once and for all, once and for all

A little update on me.



It seems my ministry of flags was to be short-lived. It started around 1999 and reached it's peak in 2006. At that time, I left the church I was in but despite searching, have been unable to find another church where I would be able to use flags, that had enough room for me to use flags and most importantly, where the pastor would accept flags in the first place! I did get the odd request to give a demo or join in worship with them but it was becoming obvious that the damage I was doing was getting bad.



Years rolled on and the pain in my shoulders finally got too bad for me to use them anyway. I now haven't lifted a flag for about 6 years and it breaks my heart to see them in the corner of my bedroom gathering dust.



Last year I had surgery on the left shoulder and the surgeon told me the damage was VERY bad and he was glad I hadn't left it any longer. He first suggested this surgery back in 2005 but I was content to get by with cortisone injections a couple of times a year. I am now on the list to have the right shoulder done but he's told me not to use the flags again. I replied that I wouldn't until and if the Lord told me to!



I still have my website up if you're interested [<URL url="http://www.flagsforworship.co.uk/">http://www.flagsforworship.co.uk/] thought I've had to build it from scratch more than once! But that's another tale!



However, so far as my faith is concerned, I am pleased to report that it's not wavered one little bit. My prayer partner friend and I still get together on the phone every week and have some quite invigorating prayer time together. She used to live in Spain and since we couldn't get together, we'd 'meet up' on the phone and even though she's returned to the UK last year, we're still having our weekly prayer gig!



Praise the Lord!

This summer, I completed a commission for a large tallit and menorah banner meant to hang in front of it.  The tallit and menorah banner reside in a local messianic congregation.



Here is a picture of the banner:

zionfire.com/forum/zbattach







Picture of first use. Hopefully they eventually got better at draping the tallit. You can't tell in this picture, but the beautiful metallic brocade that borders the menorah banner is also used in the stripes of the tallit.