Tuesday, November 13, 2007

My Small Group is Awesome... well, they both are, really...

I have two small groups actually. I guess some churches call them Bible study groups. My sister's church calls them home teams. My church calls them small groups. I have two. One of them I've had for years and is comprised of three women (besides me) that I love with all my heart. We are all different, but we are all the same. We know each other, and we love each other.
My other small group has been meeting for a few months now and has the interesting title "Creative Not-So Small Group." It meets every other week and consists of all the artistic types in our church -- the video editors, the visual artists, the writers, the production volunteers, the photographers, etc. I used to lead a creative writing group, but that dwindled to nothing after a few months. There appears to be some debate as to whether to jump-start it... but I digress.

My small group. They met at my house last night, which is why there has been no blogging. There has only been cleaning. You see, I live with a husband, a 17 year old male, a 14 year old male, a male roommate, and a male dog. Although my husband is brilliant -- brilliant, I tell you! -- at laundry, dishes, and other general keeping-the-house-running type chores, dirt is generally invisible to him. The roommate and the teenagers are worse. And the dog, of course, just sheds mounds of black hair everywhere. So I spent two solid days reversing entropy, and one day nursing a horrific migraine. But I digress again. Going with my strengths.

My small group met here last night... there were munchies, there was social interaction, there was a fascinating lesson about finding God in the art of artists who don't consider themselves Christian. I don't know where Alex gets his lesson ideas, but I love them! This one was particularly great. One of the artists we talked about is on the web; I'd love to be able to post the link.

Theoretically the reason we met at my house was to show my torch to the group, so at the end of the night, an hour past our usual end time, we all trooped out to the garage, and I fired up the torch. I gave a little monologue as I made a single bead. I forget how interesting molten glass is since I work with it all the time; I almost laughed out loud at all the "oohs" and "aahs" when I wrapped the glass around itself using the flat graphite marver. I wish we'd had time to let some people have a try -- since they're all creative types, I'm sure a few people would have liked to -- but it was almost 10pm by then.

They were SO disappointed to hear that they'd have to wait a half hour to see the bead come off the mandrel (the metal rod where it's made in the fire). I actually didn't take it off until just now.

Here it is on the mandrel:



And off the mandrel, all on its little own:

3 comments:

Karen said...

Lisa, do you make jewelry out of these? They are so cool looking!

Lisa said...

Hee hee... funny you should ask. I try to blog about other things because once someone asked if this blog was JUST about my jewelry. *blush* This link will show you some of my stuff:
http://put-it-on-the-list.blogspot.com/search/label/beads
And watch the blog... my web site will launch soon (should be later this week or early next week). =)

Thanks for asking!

Jenny said...

That someone would be ME!! :) How funny! I am lol over here.....
I had a small group, too, of women, once. There were 8 of us, all different, but all the same; so I know exactly what you mean! God moved in our lives, and changed us and spoke to us, and has given all of us ministries to move out into. Mine is the basketball team. We met in a room on the 2nd floor of our downtown YMCA every Tuesday night for 2 years. God was so faithful to meet us in that upper room every week. I am who I am today because of what went on in that room. That's been about 2 years ago now. My, my, how time flies when you're busy working for Him!
I want to thank you for your encouragement over at my place. You were so right to read between the lines. And I have been honest with God. One of the hardest things is to know that He knows when your motives are pure, and He calls you on it when they're not. But, He will defend me when I do what He's told me to do. Thank you for any prayers you have lifted on my behalf. You are precious.