So, what are the questions a curious, non-believing or "maybe" believing person might ask?

And what is it that might generate some fruitful curiosity? I thought of Dan Glover and Claudia Lavy. They wrote a book called Deepening Your Effectiveness: Restructuring the Church for Life Transformation. I can't remember a lot of it, but I can remember the analogy they used. Transformation is like a person at the beach! There are people on the beach that have no clue to even look for Jesus.  There are people dipping their toes in the water, at the water's edge who are curious but not committed. And deeper and deeper into the water they go. It's a great book.

For each location they are on the beach or in the water Dan and Claudia lift up "life questions" those people are most likely asking, and how the church should prepare their life around those questions.

Down at the docks, a woman I love and just met about 8 weeks ago said, "I'm getting into religion. I really believe. It's not because of the book [she's become part of a group reading The Shack]. It's you."

I'll come back to that in a moment.

Some days I'm overwhelmed by the necessity of following Jesus on this dock. I am here and all-in for Him.

But let me be a little bit honest. There are other days. On those days I am really, really trying hard to put Jesus first. Like today for example. I felt like sleeping in a lot longer on such a beautiful morning.  But I felt like God was nudging me to get up and spend time with him. And I'm trying to figure out how to spend my time today - on this glorious Labor Day Monday. Do I spend it with people around here, or go off sailing like I really feel like doing?? Which is God calling me to? Do I even want to hear if God has an alternative? (No, not really.)

You catch the drift.

So, I was praying, and heard God say, "read John 14." I started to turn to Luke 14 and heard a very clear correction, "no, John 14." So I did.

Did you know God just wants us to trust him? Did you know that in the overwhelming moments of ministry we don't need to worry ... because God is building rooms for people we meet faster than we meet people to show them Christ?

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going." (John 14:1-4, NIV)

I used to get a little hung up with Thomas on the next question: "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?" But ... don't get hung up!

So, here's the deal. We all head off to church on a Sunday morning, arrive in the same parking lot, get to our pew, listen to the same music, pray deeply, hear and think about the same scripture, get challenged to draw closer to who Christ is in a terrific message, have a spot of coffee in the same room with others, and then go home, sometimes saying something about how good that was today.

And some of us have a great small group during the week - or engage in serving at a soup kitchen or serving Christ somewhere along the path.

But is that community? And, is that church?

I was humbly convicted - again. I've been reading a book called Church 3.0 where Neil Cole shares his thoughts on starting churches, errhhh ... starting and growing disciples.

He is sharing about addressing the occult in a local coffee shop. An occult group targeted this coffee shop as their recruitment range. So, Neil's church, errhhh ... disciples ... decided God desired peole to know Him at this coffee house - instead of being drawn to the occult.

 What did they do? They prayed and believed God!

They showed up at the coffee house, and approached people considering the occult. They went to Satanic recruitment parties and prayed fervently inside and outside that party. Bold, huh?

Listen to this ...

As we've begun this journey, I've had to "unlearn" some key thoughts and bring them into the light of Christ for examination.

One thought has been: If it's about church planting, then the outcome we are going for is a group of people who occupy a building, and Sunday morning are all about producing the best God experience possible in that building.

Well, who said that?

Will I ever be able to live on land again?

Okay, possibly I've turned part amphibian! People, who live normal lives on land, look at our boat and living quarters and shriek something similar to, "You are crazy!" I look at our boat and living quarters and think, "How cool is this?!" Ah, to each his own.

  Like today, I was pulling out my clothes to wear. We've developed a system for keeping clothes dry and non-musty smelling on the boat. Now, I know you don't have to do that on land - well, usually.

So, we bought these "Dry Bags" - which are essentially watertight bags that you can squeeze the air out of and it keeps everything nice and closed up from any weather. I've got my socks in a bag like that. It was an experiment to see if it'd work when we moved on board.

I LOVE having my socks in a Dry Bag! You can pull the whole bag out, get the pair of socks you want, close it back up, and put it on the shelf. No drawer to stuff and try to wedge open. Nice, clean, neat - and the socks smell like they just came from the laundry. Nothing better than a dry bag.

 A line from one of our favorite TV shows, "Burn Notice", we recently watched said this, "You love the idea of people, but not people."

It's kind of an ethics question. Are people a vehicle to what you want? Or are they really people that you are fully engaged with? For a ministry and person who is very goal oriented or task oriented or vision oriented, the former can become the case, "loving the idea of people," but not really having the time for those same people on a daily basis. For a ministry and person who are described as "very loving" because "they're first and foremost about you," the opposite can be true - i.e. they lost sight of vision and mission and are following their own boat wake.

It's early a.m. (Well, actually it's 8:40 a.m. and some call that early!) I was thinking about writing my prayers online this morning and sharing with you.

Then a steady stream of instruction came through and I'm scrambling to remember it all. And, I'm like, "Wait God!! I don't have anything to write down with and You know how bad my memory is!"

So, now I'm writing down what God said before I forget it!

I'm designing our Water's Edge website and it's been more than challenging. The hugest part of the issue has been that I've been playing both designer and wordsmith. I've got a good design. But I figured out yesterday that I couldn't keep going down that road because the design is taking more time (too much time) and where my attention needs to be is on the words and images that, hopefully, move people to join with Jesus in life!

So, I just hired a guy who I think will do a fabulous job. After much angst, by the way, I've decided to use Wordpress as our CMS on this site with that consultant's input.

But I digress.What did God say?

Here's the way the dialogue went. (And honestly, I was minding my own business and just thinking ... until God butted in. LOL)

Okay, so apparently I'm helping plan a Dockside happy hour! Let me explain . . .

One of our liveaboard neighbors doesn't got off to work in the morning. I suggested that we go grab lunch together one day, and she countered with "How about breakfast?" Interesting and fun lady. It was my first opportunity to really go "deeper" with anyone down at the docks. So, we went to Jimmy's - a local spot in Fells Point. Great conversations about life.

That tumbled into her showing me around some - because I'm still getting to know the neighborhood and she's lived here a long time. She's got a great spirit of hospitality! That led into her taking me to the laundromat she uses to do her laundry. (Honey, got the laundry done!) By noon, we had parted ways happy to know each other ... and looking forward to more down the road, er water.

God has blessed me with simple friendship around simple things.

(Picture a movie setting with a voice over) Later, back at the docks . . . She's back "home" and I'm returning home with sacks in hand. "I really, really had a good time with you today. I was thinking that we should get together all of the liveaboards and have "Happy Hours" on Fridays down here at the docks! What do you think? My husband says I'm an instigator. But it'd be fun! Let's go talk with John (dockmaster)."

Okay, it was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But it counts!

The reefer (refrigerator on a boat) quit working this past weekend. All of our food went south fast. It was not a fun job pulling that food out of there, let me tell you! No, I did not take any refrigerator experiment pictures for you.

Moving onto the sailboat is filled with all sorts of challenges. We have been ferociously sorting, labeling, velcroe-ing, finding cubby holes to stuff, buying Rubbermaid/Sterlite containers, pulling extension cords through openings and figuring out how much an extension cord can take before you trip the breaker, making boarding steps and a landing area to the boat, filling water tanks and 'getting the antifreeze out of the lines', setting up the TV and figuring out how to keep it from falling over when weather is rough. Every surface area has been full of stuff to figure out it's future permanent location. It has been difficult finding one seat some evenings.