A New Week. A Time to Prepare.

Today begins our ascent to our weekend service. This Sunday, we will be continuing our series called "Life in the Margins" and our focus this week will be Marginal Time :: Creating Space in our Crowded Schedule. Last service, we did a small exercise that helped us picture the concept of margin and space. If you weren't at the service, here is the exercise:

• Take a 3x5 index card and draw two lines down the center

• In the center section of the card, list all the things that take up your time in a given week

• In the "margins" write the following words: BELONG, GROW, SERVE and PLAY

In our lives, we tend to live in the center space - we often call this space the urgent space. However, when God speaks into our lives, He most often speaks into the margins of our lives - the important space.

When I was in college, I discovered that by changing the margins I could make my paper seem longer than it really was. In life, we tend to do the opposite. We shrink our marginal space to allow more room for the center - the urgent things that yell for our attention. When we do so, the space where God most often works gets smaller and smaller until eventually He is crowded out all together.

At The Springs, we believe our margin should consist of four primary areas - belonging, growing, serving and playing. Every person needs a place to belong, a place to grow, a place to serve and a place to play. One of the unique things about our church is that we believe that these four "places" are actually one place - the neighborhood. The great thing about investing in the marginal time of our lives is that when we do, the center space often gets smaller and it forces us to choose only the things most important.

This week we will be discussing how we can all create some space in our chaotic schedules. Join the discussion and let us know some of your victories and some of your failures - either way, you are not alone!