Jonathan Shradar

With a collection of busy schedules and kids to corral, coming together each week for our Grace Group (church small group) can be quite the feat. But last night we did it again. One family was sick, in my family one spouse was sick, otherwise four other couples assembled around kids playing on the floor to talk about the promise of a child born to save the world and what it meant for us to be living in the promise. We started off by singing some Christmas hymns reminding each other of the grace of Christ in song then we talked traditions of surprise and eventually we opened the Word and saw Jesus. As I sat there, asking a few questions to keep the conversation flowing around the distractions of our kids parading through the house, I reflected on how good and right this felt. A group of people once strangers now bound by the truth we cling to. There were some tears and long pauses as we recounted the difficulties of life and sighs of relief as we declared the gospel to each other and fe

Something rather strange has come over me this fall. If you have known me for long enough, you would know that the preparation and celebration of Christmas, at least in my opinion, is meant for a very specific block of the calendar that falls just after Thanksgiving and ends immediately after Christmas dinner. My wife has called me a Scrooge, and I have been fine with the title. Enter 2016. This has been an interesting year. On the home front it has been wonderful. Our big focus was adoption and now Adia is home with us and advancing by leaps and bounds. The big kids are great with their sister and all three are such a joy to parent. Stacy has taken on so much and handled it all with grace and poise. Even the dogs are doing awesome! For all of its goodness 2016 has also been a hard year. Sickness and hospital visits/stay for the littles. Some difficult transitions of families from our church. And friends that have faced devastating prognoses, relocations, heartbreak, death, you name it

This week I was having a conversation with one of the leaders at our church and I realized that the model and instruments I assumed would always be in place at our church were shifting. New things were happening and they wouldn't look like I expected. It surprisingly discouraged me in the moment and had me contemplating every possible end point and result, all of which seemed harsh or too difficult. Then I took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese and had some healthy distraction. Now, this is where I might get a little weird for some readers. I am going to talk about a dream and how I think the Lord was using it to teach me something about relying on him. So there I am catching winks and my mind goes to dreamland. As a bit of background, as a family we bake our own bread using a thrift store acquired bread machine. So there I am in the dream and what I remember of it is a couple had come to buy my machine; the lady had brown hair and the man wore a blue blazer (not that those details mean