Notes // doodle & draw

I sketched the above drawing during the 6:30 PM Sunday night service at Journey Church in Bend Or.   I love the fact that a page labeled "Notes // doodle & draw" is included in the program that is handed out to each person as they arrive to church.  It is very freeing to my artistic spirit to be encouraged to fill the page with images and notes during the service.   Today, I found myself feeling very thankful for the church that my family calls home, and the people that are working to live out Journey's simple yet powerful mission:

Mission (what God has called us to):
Transform the world – starting in Bend on a journey through faith, hope, & love in Jesus.

Purpose (how we accomplish our mission):
Love God. Love People.

Journey believes the church is the local expression of the face of Jesus. The way the world will see God will be through Jesus Christ living in and through us. The core values are found in the thoughtful living of each member of the Journey Community. Our mission comes from a place in the Bible where love is being described. The writer (Paul) says, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13 NIV)

Read below and reflect on, "Love" the way God designed and intended it to be:

1 Corinthians 13 (NIV)

13 If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,^[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.