awake sleeper

Welcome to Awake Sleeper!

Hi, 

We are Jeremy and Heather McCool, and this our brain child.  We are super passionate about God and this website is an outlet for our passion and excitement.  We are keeping a log of our schemes, thoughts and plans pertaining to how we want to live.  We post them here for you to think about, talk about, help with, do on your own, ect.   We would love for you to take some time and look around.  You might want to start here:  About Awake Sleeper.

We are currently working on two things:

BC 1 - a bible study we are conducting within our church, The Flipside.  We are going through half of the old testament in 13 weeks.  Here is our schedule.  We are also trying to get the word out for a livejournal for BC1 which Jeremy hopes to update weekly with insights and things he's found while researching.   There are a few people out there that are not able to come to the group meetings, but have shown interest in following the reading schedule.  BC1 livejournal is for those people to communicate with our group and for all the group memebers to communicate throughout the week.

Personal Ministries - which is described here.  We are currently putting together a form for people to fill out and return to us so we can start putting together a list.  We will be handing out those forms to other Flipside group leaders within the next few weeks, to try out Personal Ministries on a small but significant portion of our church, before making it church-wide.

Heart for Service - which is being figuered out still but you can see our progress here.  Heart for Service is something I, Heather, really want to do myself even if no one joins me. In answer to my question of So, what about being a missionary in your own town?  right here?  how do I get training for that?  how to I go from, the bible tells me to serve, to acctually doing it and enjoy doing it and see opportunitites to serve in all situations?  how do I develop a heart of humility, the heart of a server?  Here's a list of current struggles with Heart for Service, maybe you could suggest something, or pray on these struggles.

In the last month, Jeremy and I have made little time for Awake Sleeper.  We havn't pushed certain things as we should have.

And I think it's all for the better.

We have an opportunity to serve with our church, to grow spiritually with our church and give of ourselves to see others grow and benefit as well.  Which, upon reflection, is really what Awake Sleeper is all about.

So, we are post-poning pushing this.  Maybe Awake Sleeper will never be more than a personal motto for Jeremy and I.  Just a life long learning, to keep ourselves awake and to see others awake.  Let our little lights shine.  Maybe Awake Sleeper and getting all of our thoughts solidified was an excercise God was pushing us to do to prepare our hearts for the direction our church is heading in.  Or maybe, we need to learn to serve under people and see the ministries of others come to fruition before we will be trusted with our own.  Whatever happens, I'm excited, as always.

I'm thinking, maybe Jeremy and I can use this as a documentation of our spiritual revelations along the way.  A place to just describe what we are going through.  Maybe, just maybe, even one person will benefit.  And that, would be incredible.

last night, our meeting led us to the library at victoria gardens to use their computer.  the library was closed.  so we decided to walk around.  we ended up in borders because I have a gift card there.  and i found a book called Knitting for Peace.  The book is about knitting for charity and lets knitters know there are a lot of different ways to provide comfort to people through donating your finished knitting projects.

so, since I now know where to donate, I'm going to talk to Alisha and see what to do to get this started.

also, in the meeting we decided we have done as much as we can really, we need to talk to the people at church to see how to make these things happen.

so, we'll do that.

i was thinking it would be really cool, durring the summer to hold vesper services every weekday night at church from 7:30-8pm.  It could be put on by the college group.  since we would be leading in prayer and worship and lots of silence.  maybe we could get one of those fire pit things and do it next to the church, right as the sun is going down.  I think it would be a welcome change from the house parties, although they should still happen or something a kin to them durring the week.  

we could just gather at 7, pray, sing accoustic around our little camp fire (or fires if we have more people), read some scripture, hold candles, have scilence for personal confession time, pray again and then hang out, or go home or both.  it could be amazing.

we could have a team of 2-3 people commit to leading it one day a week, every week for like 6 weeks.  and it would be open to the whole church.

i like it.

i would go a bunch of times durring the week.

-heather

so, along the same line as the baby blanket idea, is the quilt idea:

I church I attended for a short time, had this group of women who got together to make quilts for people and the church sent them to Africa.  it was pretty awesome!  maybe, we as flipside ladies interested in quilting or learning to quilt, could come together like once a month and quilt for a few hours together and then work on it durring the month at home ( i guess we would all need sewing machines, but who knows, we may get some people to let us borrow theirs because I know tons of people have them, and then don't touch them for years).

we could just make them, and pray while we make them for God to reveal who needs them, maybe local children, or local families or maybe we will hear of people who are going on missions who can take them along.  who knows.  but we could make them, then let God provide the need.

today I got a flash back to a conversation Jeremy and I had about Free Hugs.

in this coversation we decided it would be awesome to amass a bunch of people ready to give free hugs, arm them with signs, prayer and God and send them out in small groups all over Rancho Cucamonga, for Free Hug Day!

we could be everywhere.

and when I say everywhere.  I mean it.

it would be incredible.  and I'm going to try to pray about this all week.



we could even do Free Hug day in other cities in conjuction with other college/post college groups at other churches.  sort of like church without walls.  Myabe we could even get a Hug Team together to help out other churches in other cities every month.

lets pray about it from 2.21.07-2.28.07

this http://www.backyardmissionary.com/ and I was thinking:  are Jer and I playing a part of this emerging church with our Awake Sleeper?  if so, we didn't know it.  I've only heard it mentioned twice in my life.  I just want to do what the bible says.  is that what they all say?

strange.

stranger: the writer of that blog has said goodbye to posting in it for some unmentioned reason and in previous but recent posts he has said he is re-commiting to conventional church.  hm.  

question:  isn't the church and being a Christian all about community?  and aren't we supposed to carry eachother's burdens?  and how can anyone who doesn't participate in community consider themselves Uber Christian?

So, in the Heart for Service area there is one big struggle and a few minor ones:

1

I copied it from word, so if your printing it, you'll probably want to move it back into word.

thought:

take the heart for service idea and do something like that every other saturday or every first saturday of the month.  

I'm thinking a few things:
-jeremy and I may be the only ones who want to do it sometimes, or a lot of times, so we should be prepared to accept that, and just do it anyways.
-I feel like we should really get involved with the closet, but I also feel like doing the mobile closet was ridiculously overwhelming and I realize we are not at all prepared to do any good in our present state with the people who need the closet.
-the heart for service/missionary in your own land idea spawned from our being overwhelmed by the mobil closet experience we had durring church without walls.
-so, maybe this should be an alternative to that.  some services we could do are a little safer and easier for now because going and trying to help and then being face to face with a homeless person was enough to scare a lot of people away, including us.
-heart for service will be steps that we can take to gain confidence in dealing with people.  free hugs was incredibly awesome for making people seem approachable and breaking our society's isolation barrier.  it was awesome.

lastly, WE CAN DO IT!  WE CAN DO IT ALL YEAR LONG!

-heather

here are two articles about finances. 

We'll start with a sermon from John Wesley.  I, Heather, found it most amazing because it acctually tells us to make all we can.  But, we are to make all we can, save all we can, and give all we can.  It's incredible.  And here it is!

And the second is an article from the news found earlier this year about some people who went a whole year without buying anything new!  Imagine the savings.  Imagine the freedom from being a slave to having the newest thing.  Imagine the awesomeness!

I just remembered this and how I wanted to post it.  Enjoy!

this is exactly what I needed today.

http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001243.cfm

it's an article about having passion for your local church.  and oh how happy it makes me.

The Bible Marathon came to me through this: http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001082.cfm

1st bible marathon in review:
lots of people didn't even know it existed until like the day before because people don't pay attention to the announcements.
(lets think of some ways around announcements)
on the day of only 5 people showed up.  including the three that set it up.
we read through the first three gospels and phillipians.
we were all excited about what we were reading.  it was very awesome.  and even though i was terribly sick, I thought it was really cool how reading the bible together like that helps you bond with the people in the group.  There really wasn't a ton of time for bonding.  but there was occasional bonding.  and Heather Anderson read with great enthusiasm and said that someone who had done one before told her that if you read all dramatic like, it helps people pay attention and acctually remember stuff.  I noticed that happening for me.

looking ahead:
i think if we can get little flyers made about a 2-3 weeks ahead of time and then disperse them to all the college/post college sub groups as well as the growth groups that also fall into that category, we'll get a lot more people interested.  ok, even two more would be amazing.  and then, we rearranged our living room to fit more people, so if it is under 10 people there is a good possibility we can fit everyone into our appartment without them being uncomfortable.  Also, if we schedule it to go around what the church is doing, as well as advertise it for the full 22 hours, it could be incredible.

i'm excited about this.

so I still want to start a kick ball league.  it would be awesome.  and it's a sport that is fun for everyone!  we could do pick up teams sundays between services and have each team tie a different color bandana around their right or left arms.

it would be rad.

Hey there.

so, today February 6th, I decided to change my livejournal's name. And now I have to move all the entries over. luckily there are only 20. which wont be as hard as it seems. I hope.

The Flipside does what they call The Closet.  Which is amassing large amounts of clothing shoes and accessories from donators, organizing them, setting them out in the church parking lot and giving them, for free, to people in need.  It's really pretty awesome.  And it is held, at church, every second saturday of every month. 

There is also Mobile Closet, which is coming together slowly, where small groups fromt he church take some of the organized clothes to parks around southern california and offer them to the homeless who populate that park.

For more information on this Click Here.

We hope this helps you reference what we are talking about when we say The Closet or gives you some thoughts on what you could do to serve.

Also, if you want to go in a group, let us know.  We'd love go with you!

We are encouraging everyone to pray about all things.

Pray Before Considering - We really want to discourage people from jumping into anything, including what is on our site, before praying and asking God if this is where He wants you.

Pray For Us - We are nothing without God.  Period.  We are also humans, who error, and forget to pray as much as we should.  Please keep us in your prayers, as we are keeping you, dear reader, in ours.  Also, pray for any event, idea and ministry you feel called to pray for on this site.  

Help Us Pray For You - We love to be a part of people's lives.  We love having things to pray for.  Let us know what you need prayer in, or even reply to this post and anyone reading here can pray for you as well.  If you would like to contact either of us directly so we can pray for you immediatly click here for our contact information.  Also, let us know if you are considering joining us in any endeavors we have going so we can also pray for God to give you direction.  

Lastly, Pray For Churches and Christian Communities Everywhere - We are called to have Unity in the Spirit (Eph 4:1-16) and nothing can bring us closer together than praying for God's gift of love, joy and peace over every and all Christian communitites.

We found that February is a very busy month.

so - our next meeting, well in all honesty, our first meeting, will be

Monday, March 5th - 7pm

 We will go over:
-callendar of events
-what events to do first
-how these events will happen

Events we hope to plan:
-Personal Ministries
-Heart for Service
-Bible Marathon

If you would like to help:
Start by letting us know, so we know how many chairs to put out.
We will meet at our apartment.
Please read all that we have about each thing we wish to cover so we don't have to spend a lot of time describing what each thing is.  Also, please read the other things we have listed on our website to see if you are interested in any of those.
If you have any ideas of your own, please bring them with any planning of your own you've had time to do.
Also, please bring your bibles, pen and paper and excitement for doing awesome things!

We'll keep everything updated as to where we are on each event, so please check back.

yay!
-heather