Musings of a Minstrel

6 Months After Seminary

2009-06-23T22:04:00.000-07:00

So I have been graduated since January, still had to work on my Presbyterian ordination process, working in the mean time and still figuring out life in general. The whole church thing is really slow and filled with more hurdles than a marathon with hurdles. I’m still only beginning to come out of the cloud from the explosion that blew my brain to bits as I went through seminary. I’m still picking up some of the pieces. Here is what I know so far…

Seminary can take it apart but doesn’t know how to put it back together: Seriously. I’m still trying to reconstruct a complete understanding of my theology. I have a statement of faith that is getting nitpicked on the ‘conjunctions’ level (What is the difference between ‘with’ and ‘within’ in the context of a sentence.) You would think they would want to put that stuff back together before they sent us out to be pastors and actually engage with people, novel concept. Now that I’m sitting on the outside I’m realizing that I am NOT ready to be a pastor. My friend Sarah basically said that the degree of Master of Divinity is an oxymoron. Some of me is worried and wants to be an associate of some larger church, but in all honesty I’m not sure I’m supposed to be that guy. The more I understand my call, it is a call to youth ministry. I just wish I had someone help me out with that.

There is no time to think: Between finals, midterms, papers, reading, lectures, money, food, laundry, bills, parents, going crazy, coming back from crazy, going back to crazy because you forgot something there, getting lost in crazy, … you get the point … there is no space or time to actually think for yourself. Some of this goes up to point 1, but still what free time I had I spent in the space of napping and recovering sleep that was lost due to school work. The last thing anyone wants to really do is talk about class outside of class either. Some people do, but I think they are a bit wrong in the head. I can understand some discussion but I don’t want to be in a place of just living in the realm of theological thinking. I would like to think I have some humanity in me still.

The Academy needs more Teachers: NOT scholars. Looking at most of our scholarship we have done such a good job of writing down everything we do and we no longer have to think for ourselves. I might be guilty of this but I don’t care about the Greek and Hebrew because I have commentaries, computer software, and other tools that allow me to just slack off on that stuff. On some level I think that there are some very brilliant minds who have no idea how to communicate that information. I relate much better with professors who have been pastors, or who have a pastoral like nature.

Somehow we have gotten it backwards: A friend of mine once told me about the praise band he was in “We don’t have our own sound we just copy everyone else’s note for note.” I understood him and about 4 months later I realized that it ran deeper. There was a point in time when there was no internet and while we had a hymnal the only way new music would come into being was if someone from the church wrote it. Go a little bit bigger picture and we have churches who write libraries on how to build, nurture, and manage a church. I’m kinda in the nay say-er category with the idea that you can’t just plug and play someone else’s game plan. So we learn about things and then are told to go do them and when they don’t work (and most of the time they won’t) we throw up our hands and wonder what went wrong. We have lost our ability to listen to God for his guidance and direction in navigating the church. Some churches do and they HEAR from God that their ministry will be small, and yet they embrace it.

I had a good friend who is a very gifted believer, could have been a pastor if God had called him to it, who was offered a job as a part time pastor in a small church of under 50. The pastor only made 30k living in a town where that was probably below poverty line. The church couldn’t pay my friend, and the pastor offered him 10k OUT OF HIS OWN SALARY to have my friend on staff. My friend prayed and couldn’t take the job but found in that moment a sense of what God’s purpose was for people. I still love that story because I’m not sure I could do it. Drop 1/3 of my salary to someone who is gifted in pastoral ministry to allow them to be on staff of the church

I wish we could change our culture to that of the Acts church. Where everyone gave so that no one would suffer. I’m in a time in my life where I’m accepting and looking for handouts till I get back on my feet. It sucks and I don’t always like to be in that spot, I do like to give away what I have. Is it a bad thing if that I want to own two houses for the sole purpose of letting seminary students have housing on a seminary budget? Is it odd that I wonder why the church in Africa will pay for their pastors in full, and America will just let us graduate with piles of debt?

I find that the fringes of my theology shift depending on what my life situation is. This is probably obvious to most people who know me, but it is new to me.

Happiness is …

2009-05-18T19:58:00.000-07:00

001: playing guitar
002: watching a sunset
003: a nap
004: a text message from her
005: laughter
006: making others smile
007: good food
008: good company
009: a good sci-fi novel
010: a good sci-fi movie
011: holding her hand
012: a day where nothing is the only plan
013: teppanyaki dinner
014: seeing someone understand … light bulb included
015: J-Mo getting the best of me in verbal sparring
016: silence
017: serving
018: the comfort that I don’t have to know everything
019: seeing high school kids grow to be adults
020: listening to Victor Wooten
021: choices
022: being a nerd and/or geek
023: the fact that she likes my nerd and/or geek moments
024: playing Presidents with the cousins
025: Laura’s lessons on tea
026: a devotional series entitled: ‘I am like the Pharisees’
027: watching people get lost in worship
028: reflecting on the journey behind
029: being on the verge of being able to support myself
030: getting older
031: getting wiser
032: getting ‘wise crack’ier
033: traveling the journey ahead
034: Katie’s friendship and honesty
035: a spuderito
036: being comfortable enough to have and carry around a teddy bear
037: leaving Santa Barbara knowing I will see her soon
038: Barry's openness to discuss
039: a jam session with all the time in the world
040: having no great achievements
041: Settlers of Catan
042: the question of ‘Life, the Universe, everything!’
043: ‘The Princess Bride’
044: the smell of BBQ
045: sushi
046: playing bass guitar
047: Mercer’s theological discussions
048: midnight movie showings
049: knowing that she runs to the door when I knock
050: my brother with a beer in hand
051: soccer
052: Sophie’s facial responses to all things
053: inside jokes
054: good wine shared among friends
055: failing when I know I have tried my best
056: teaching Scripture
057: Peet’s Scottish Breakfast Tea
058: Yard House happy hour
059: holding her in my arms
060: Sarah’s imparting of wisdom and kindness
061: being broken knowing that healing is coming
062: a foot of freshly dropped powder
063: the men of AGO
064: my Mom resting
065: relaxing in a hot tub
066: falling for someone
067: having them fall for you
068: reminders from God regarding his creation
069: a thought-provoking book
070: Carrie’s music
071: being able to not sweat the small stuff
072: being able to realize that all stuff is small
073: a couch for the couch nomad
074: understanding how much God loves me through my relationship with her
075: waiting on God
076: ‘The Emperor’s New Groove’
077: Becca’s parties and pranks
078: homemade cookies
079: all you can eat pizza
080: a wooden cross that reminds me who I am
081: a bracelet that reminds me what I am called to do
082: a Barry Taylor class
083: The Chronicles of Narnia
084: The Lord of the Rings
085: my Dad on a surfboard
086: Noah’s Bagels
087: Lake Tahoe
088: praying with her
089: my birthday cake
090: chasing a frisbee
091: bidding and making slam
092: Farmers market
093: living so simply that it all fits in my car
094: being comfortable with the fact that the divine is not weird
095: Arroyo Grande strawberries
096: Libby’s opinion
097: Star Wars Original Trilogy (IV,V,VI)
098: being in Pasadena
099: having it but knowing how not to use it
100: 100 posts on way to 200

Gaining Ground, or Maybe Just Securing It

2009-05-17T16:45:00.000-07:00

So aside from the new Jars of Clay album that sounds like something that I just can’t put my finger on (feels like a little Mae with something else …), life has been good. I’ve been kinda traveling more than I care to admit and looking for work that seems really elusive. I’ve had many random ideas that have been buried in the need to find work. What is worse is that I have 2 unfinished blogs on my desktop that I remember what I was talking about but don’t feel like exploring them anymore. One was basically ‘fighting the man’ … cause that is what most Presbyterian graduates deal with. The other was on music and how it isn’t about skill but the soul of the musician. I might come back to the second another day (ya know … cause this is kinda a musically based blog)

I find that job hunting is a very weird place to be. It is like being on the verge of being able to claw my way out of a hole that I got dropped into after I graduated. I wish I could say that I have used this time to have some time to read some fun stuff, but … I haven’t to be honest I’m rereading a music book that is so beautifully written it takes a while to process each chapter.

On top of that I picked up a very challenging devotional book that is challenging me in ways that are on the order of the question: “If everything the Bible said was true, how would you change your actions?” One of those deep brow beating books. It is set up for a passage a day, but I’m working on 2 a day.

After that there is just this thing that I have been enjoying for 5 months and could not be a happier person. I think most of my blog energy has been reapportioned to this situation. So you all get the short stick … sorry … but I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

So this seems like a weak blog … but that’s all I got.

... Hun ... next blog is #100 ... might have to do something awesome with it.

The iTunes Hymnal

2009-02-09T21:47:00.001-08:00

This is something that I picked up from a friend of mine. I have a playlist in iTunes that is called Hymnal. This is a collection of songs that mark less than 0.5% of the songs in iTunes. (62/2987) They are not specific albums but are rather songs that have the ability to modify my mood in such a way that I cannot resist the change. They are songs that can bring me to tears without effort or fail. They are songs that can calm my angry spirit into a place of worship. Songs that I will sing in my car at the top of … whatever lung capacity I have. They are not songs that you would expect. They are not the stereotypical hymns and praise songs that one finds in Sunday service.

They are songs that are to be cried out from the pit of one’s soul.
They are songs that have understanding that transcends religion and culture.
They are songs that ask questions that have no answers.
They are songs that would not preach from the pulpit
They are songs that question so hard that it hurts
They are songs that express theological ideals that you cannot find in a textbook
They are songs that dance with both light and darkness as a golden fiddle is played.
They are songs to weep to
… to dance in joy
… to fall to your knees
… to sing with all that is within

These are the songs that drive me to embrace music. Understand very clearly … to embrace music.

Not to lead worship with my guitar, not to play bass and appear happy, not to sing my heart out. If I’m leading music for the sake of the congregation I may as well have not shown up. It is about the target and the purpose. It is about the music that comes from the soul and is translated through an instrument (voice = instrument too).

Someone once mentioned to me that there are two types of musicians: The first needs good equipment to sound good, the other makes whatever they play sound good. I have always strived to be the second; not looking for Taylor or Martin guitars, but making the guitar I have sing and proclaim the cries of my soul to a savior that have no words that can be typed here. If this doesn’t make sense the most concise statement to describe what I am talking about is this: I speak in tongues using a guitar rather than words.

Yea that is kinda a bold statement, but it make sense to me, and might help you understand what I’m trying to say here.

Lost in the Mix

2009-02-03T18:10:00.000-08:00

So … I have come out of the catacombs with Ords, and working on some things for this coming weekend with my birthday. For some reason I do lots of thinking when under stress … most of the time not directed the thing I need to be working on. While I was working on my Exegesis paper I had a bunch of random thoughts that went through my head and I put into another word doc to think about later. I thought I would share some of them with you.

--- What is the theology of the end for a NCD, as that may provide the end target/result.
This came out of one of my systematics class. Where theology is not built from creation and then move linear through time, but rather you start with the end and work backwards. I think what interests me here is that there is acceptance of a final goal, and what that looks like. Some of this I think extends to any ministry that I would get into. I think what I take away from this is that if I know what I want a ministry I am given to look like is that I won’t build programming or sub-structures that isn’t part of that view.

--- The First Jars album spawned the growth of guitar playing Christians who wanted to be that cool … discuss
Ok … music helps me work through stuff and got some stuff, but I keep going back to that first almost ‘unplugged’ album. There is something about that album that just … dwells … in someone. Maybe it is some of the songs, or maybe some specific songs, but they sit with people and are not always ‘difficult’ songs to play, and can be done with very basic skills. (shush don’t tell anyone else they are easy to play)

--- Why is it that the questions asked are not of the pastoral nature, but more academic?
This was in reference to the exegesis questions that I was answering. Paired with this question was a statement of ‘The sermon I feel God calling me to preach from this text have nothing to do with the issues raised in the questions.’ Along with a statement of ‘Can you give me a bibliography of the works used for seeking the questions asked?’

A little frustrated? … Only about as sarcastic as my response of … ‘Are you Sherlock Holmes?’

I think more the issue is that the work is done with such a hypothetical situation that it is almost a waste of time. Part of me wanted to fill out another review sheet after taking the Exegesis exam and basically go: ‘WTH!’ That probably would have been without clarity of thought, but I have been known for that and been right up until the point I realized I was wrong. Still … I have no framework for a congregation, sure ‘make up your own’ would be an interesting and if it wasn’t for the fact that I am graded on this I would probably put down: ‘My church is a congregation of mindless drones who do what I say and have no idea how to transmit academic understanding to action in the world.’ So I had fun taking a shot at Tony Campollo (who I’m still not a fan of to this day, but he doesn’t care), and raising the question of the phrase ‘do not let the sun go down on your anger’ in the context of the Artic and Antarctic.

--- QFT: “Of the three characteristics that Ephesians says should mark Christians, unity, maturity, and morality, the third is the most overt and easy to distinguish. A major breach of unity is, of course, visible when it eventuates in a church split, but underlying attitudes between Christians are less easy to observe. Maturity by its nature is gradual; neither maturity nor immaturity is always apparent. Immorality, on the other hand is often glaring, especially when expressed in gross acts and sadly, when committed by those in leadership.” (Liefeld 111. Italics mine)

(QFT = Quoted for Truth, geek thing … deal)
Two things here. One: Church unity or disunity is easier to see than Liefeld gives churches credit for. I’m sure there is a correlation between unity and the different between the apparent age minus the actual age of the Sr. pastor. Two: Everyone loves a good scandal. The reason it is so glaring is that people want to know more, like flies in a compost pile. I wish it wasn’t so, but people don’t let go of stuff easily either. I think more than anything we have forgotten what forgiveness really means (and yes I realize that I might be a hypocrite just by writing this blog with that statement in it, let me blow off some steam in ignorance).

Ok … I’m done … I feel better now. I know I sometimes throw a barrage of ideas out here, and I think sometimes I wonder if I’m the only one thinking some of this stuff. As a final word for this addition of Minstrel rants: What is the rhetorical shape of this post?

I’m sure this is a bad idea…

2008-12-24T08:30:00.000-08:00

So we were watching Wanted last night and my grandparents were wondering if Wanted was based off a book or something. I said that I thought it was based upon a comic book (wikipeda says yes, although losely). Earlier in the week we watched Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, which is about 40% invented storyline, with the other 60% being a spot on for the main characters. Which got me to thinking …

Are there any movie adaptations that don’t mess up the storyline completely? The closest I have come to is the extended version of Fellowship of the ring, and Two Towers (with some minor issues). I don’t include Return of the King cause they should have done the ending as it was, not playing tribute to Styx and “Come Sail Away.” Aside from that they did a good job with what they had to work with and they probably needed 6 movies to do a proper adaptation. The Harry Potter movies are in trouble cause they are going to have to do flashbacks in the last two movies to get everything they need, and still they are going to come up short. All this to say … I had a bad idea for a comparison …

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice vs TBS 5 hr Pride and Prejudice

Now … Before you call me crazy … I have seen the TV series before in 12th grade and actually managed to not gnaw my arm off to get out of my handcuffs. And on some level I did enjoy it, then again I did have a buddy and we spent time making jokes. So here I am with time to kill, the DVD version in my parents collection (a mother’s day gift that is still wrapped from a few years ago), someone to watch it with, and all I need is to give up a piece of my manhood and go pay for a copy of the book … in public …with my own money.

And then read it.

Now most of my female friends managed to read it, they didn’t comment after that. Some swoon at the very mention of “Mr. Darcy” (SWOON! … err wait a minute). Others have expressed a deep seeded sense of existential dread only 20 pages in and had to put it down as if it were filled with cooties and then wash off the effect with some other reading to get the filth off.

If I don’t come back … tell my parents I love them, and not to come looking for me, because my mental state will have reduced me to a person who does not recognize them.

Ok I have a breathing moment.

2008-12-16T21:10:00.000-08:00

So I don’t have any more jokes from my Thanksgiving trip nor do I have much to update about in terms of where I have been, that is still classified from the blogging world. (Although I think 4 out of the 5 people that read this blog know exactly what I’m talking about.) Anywho … I got back from MO with a fun sense of goofball energy about me and put it to good use, spent a week in Pasadena working on my directed reading and seeing what friends I could in their mental state of panic. I even got to see J-Mo on a sudden phone call (made by day … w/out the added syllable). But I am feeling that graduated feel even though I need to write one more paper and turn it in, more about that on another post.

So while I was back in Pasadena I swung to a few of my regular visit spots and hung out with my usual friends. I got to see my pastor buddies and again share breakfast with them. That trip was very affirming in processing through some things. There was a place of peace and feeling like … although I was venting … that I was doing from an objective standpoint, and that I’m not crazy, well maybe not crazy enough to throw into a crazy house.

Spent some time at my old church internship as they were having their annual Bethlehem
Village where there are all sorts of cool random fun things to do, and Baby Jesus gets born every 30 min. It was cool to see the whole church come together for an event that is as involved as it is. There are probably over 100 volunteers over the two days, and almost everyone from the church attends in some fashion. Was much fun.

After that I have been in Santa Barbara for the most part basically helping my mom do home repair on our ‘new’ house. Everything from mopping, fixing, installing film on my bathroom window (which goes right into the shower), and waiting for any number of other people to show up and fix something. Most of that has passed, but there are still things to fix.

Either way I’m getting as settled as I can before I spend 10 days on the couch, yielding my bed to my grandparents. More stuff to come soon enough.

Of Cousins and Star Wars

2008-11-25T13:14:00.000-08:00

So ... my mom was telling the following story ...

'So the boys (aka my little cousins) were in town and just wanted to play with the other kids in the neighborhood. So they met them and they decided to play star wars ... and went in and got their full costumes with robes and light sabers and everything. The kids around the neighborhood saw this and said "HOLD ON!" So they all ran and got their robes and light sabers and they had a fight and they even had a Jedi Council ..."

At which point I turn to my brother and said ... 'So a group of hyper kids sat down and had a political discussion?'

In his best Mace Windu: 'We will bring candy to the republic.'

I died laughing.

Traveling with Beer and Turbulence

2008-11-25T07:54:00.001-08:00

So I flew out to St. Louis yesterday. Went with my brother to be out for 8 days and we will be celebrating Thanksgiving with my mom’s extended family. All 25 of us will be in one place again and causing no small amount of trouble. However we had to make it out there first.

The adventure began at John Wayne airport at about 4pm, for a 4:50 flight. It is at this point that I would recommend for those flying out of the LA area to look into Burbank, Ontario, or John Wayne (Orange County) for getting out of town. My brother checked a bag, and we were clear of security by 4:10. BO YA!

It was at this juncture that my brother informed me that he is not a huge fan of flying so we hit the bar. My brother surveyed the full bar, and I looked at the Sam Adams on Draft. I informed my brother that I didn’t want a pint, yet one magically appeared along with a tall glass of bud light for him along with a shot of jagermeister. I thanked my brother for being a quality type of gentleman and he replied that I owed him 7.50 for a pint.

We then boarded the plane and began to wonder if my parents were checking bags (they were going to arrive about 20 min after us) and we began discussing the nature of 7.50 for a pint and how one could easily find a quality 6 pack of beer for 7.50.

Me: Man I should just get you a 6-pack of something.

Bro: Nah, I’ll take a case of Natty Ice.

… It should be noted that Natty Ice is widely recognized the least expensive beer on the market running about 50 cents a can if you get a 12 pack.

Me: Really? I’m offering you good beer and your going for quantity over quality?

Bro: Sir, you do not realize the quality beverage that Natty Ice is. You will note that it was not served at the bar because of it’s high quality.

I rolled my eyes at this point.

So we boarded the plane and took our seats and my brother proceeded to scan the Airline shopping magazine in hopes of something that would calm his nerves further. We saw an infant who was dressed in a white star outfit looking somewhat quizzical as to what was going on.

Bro: Oh here it is … the nerve massager … removes unwanted flight stress and anxiety.

Me: How much does it cost.

Bro: … about 300 dollars … it is perfect

Me: Maybe … but think about how much Natty Ice you could get for that, which would also go to cure the aforementioned symptoms.

Bro: (smiling holding back laughter) … that was well done.

Me: I know …

Around this time we were getting ready to taxi out and take off when the captain came on and gave us ‘special’ takeoff instructions.

Captain: Welcome aboard … yada yada yada … if this is your first time flying out of John Wayne airport I wanted to let you know that take off is slightly different. What we are going to do is lock our brakes and rev the engines until they are warm. Let the brakes loose. We will then take a bit of a steeper angle upward till we reach about 1000 ft (1/6 of a mile) and then we will cut our engines down to almost nothing to keep it quiet for all the local residents below us. Then hit the ocean, rev them up bank to the left and go for cruising altitude.

At this point I thought to myself … ‘so … we have to be quiet because the people on the ground built their houses under an airport takeoff route and every person that has to leave from that airport will get the feeling of taking off and then a split second of freefall and gliding over orange county. I realized why my brother was anxious about flying. Doubly so when the ride went up and then the engines cut and I almost waited for the plane to take a nose dive and crash into the ground, it leveled out but … seriously.

It gets better … This is where the turbulence kicked in and I was thankful for my brother’s 7.50.

We then had turbulence from JW all the way to Phoenix where we had a stop to make before continuing onto St. Louis. This prevented the crew from serving wonderful beverages that quell motion sickness. About 3/4 of the way there the captain finds out that there is a 30-40 min line to land in Phoenix and the plane does not have enough fuel to wait to land. So we turn around and land in Ontario, pick up some gas, and then head back to Phoenix. Many of the passengers were wondering if someone could order pizza and Natty Ice for the delay. 20 minutes later we are back in the air with clearance to land, and no pizza or Natty Ice, nor are they able to serve us on board beverages because the turbulence was still in effect. We get to phoenix and by this point people have been displaced and a crack team of overworked and underpaid individuals are trying to figure out how to get everyone where they want to go and not lose money in the process … on the Monday before Turkey Day. If they had asked row 22 the two gentlemen there would have mentioned that pizza and Natty Ice would have calmed many problem individuals.

One such individual who was flying to Omaha was to stay on the plane, be put up in a hotel in St. Louis and fly out in the morning. This individual decided to work the system and made an effort to get a flight voucher. He returned empty handed. Not even wine from a box.

Bro: You will notice that he did not even bother to ask for Natty Ice as this establishment is not high enough caliber for their product.

So now it is 9:21 PST, 11:21 CST and we are probably somewhere over a farmland state. My brother will soon have a distant second to his desired Natty Ice, and I will have some water to wash down the Ritz snacks that were served. We are ‘due’ to land in about an hour in what will probably be sub-freezing temperatures. And while I am wearing jeans, socks, shoes, and have a winter coat in the overhead … part of me wishes I was in shorts and sandals … just on principle.

Post Crazy Pre Insanity

2008-11-20T21:09:00.001-08:00

Ok … the Cliff Notes

1) Finished Internship
2) Moved in with Parents
3) Have 2 weeks of traveling

Expanded version

Internship: So I finished up my internship at Highlands Church in Paso Robles on Nov 14th. It was lots of fun and while I could go into some detail about what I learned I think I will refrain for a while, I haven’t had a full chance to really look back and see what I learned. However the Staff did send me off right by having a dinner party and I got a couple of gifts from the gang and I was sad that I didn’t get the chance to get to know some of those people better, some due to time constraints, some due to missing each other due to schedules. Either way I’m sure I missed out on some things.

Moved: I now reside in Santa Barbara as my ‘home base.’ My parents moved here a week before I did and we are still waiting for the contractor to install the moat and hot oil defenses. After that we will quest around the land to search for knights wishing to join the cause. And after my quest I shall return home to renew old friendship with those who I have lost touch with in the area. I started that, but with number 3 it makes it hard to set stuff back up. Either way life is still a little crazy and there are still boxes to unpack. However, the house is … functional in the sense that things like meals, TV, sleeping, and bathing can take place for the sake of others who might wander through the front door.

Travel: I leave tomorrow morning for Pasadena, Fly out from Irvine on Monday to Missouri for 8 days, get back on a Tuesday and stay in Pasadena till Wed night or Sat night. The first trip is to help a friend move and spend some time with friends down in Pasadena before they all go crazy with finals. Mental overload pending. Then I am flying out to Missouri for two reasons: The first is Turkey Day, and the second is Family. In a rare alignment of the planets all 26 family members from my mom’s side of the family will be congregated within the same town. Now normally we plan to do this every other summer, with some success. However this is winter and I’ll be packing my cold weather gear and gloves … GLOVES! I’m going to take a picture of myself in snow, shorts, a T-Shirt and sandals on principle. Then I will be going down to see the Methodist church that a few of my cousin’s go to that is about 4k people and just see the fun stuff. Planned highlights … playing music with my cousin who can sing.

Flying back into town comes the random section of the travel. I will be back in Pasadena on Tuesday probably around noon, or so I hope … this is the flight where I have to change planes in 40 min … Oh Joy! Anywho … After an overnighter I’ll be having B’fast w/ the Burbank Pastor crew and then meeting with my directed reading Advisor at 1pm. Then things get interesting. One of my friends is playing the Seminary Coffee shop on Friday night, and then another one of my friends is hosting a cookie decorating party (in her studio) for whoever shows up. Stay longer … maybe; Go home … do I still have clean clothes? Either way I’ll be back in Pasadena in time for the Christmas season to shop and need to do some purchasing.

I’ll have my camera and I’ll try to take pictures, but I’m sure the cousins will as well. I might try to get some fun video too. Of course … then I have to figure out how to post it.

Strengths and Weaknesses

2008-11-11T17:29:00.000-08:00

So we were sitting around staff meeting a few weeks ago … probably close to a month and we were discussing the scripture that was going to be used for Sunday service. I can’t remember the context exactly. I remember we were in a series on faith and getting to the last couple before the sermon series would switch. One of the things that came up was a comment that in examining our self realized strengths we sometimes loose sight of the other things that God might want to teach us and prefer to fall back on our strengths, which become a crutch rather than a powerful movement.

This has been stewing in the back of my head for a while and I have been trying to decide if I am leaning on my own history and unwilling to learn new skills through internships that have much I can learn from. I think I might have become something that I was afraid of when I went into seminary. I have become more academic that practical in my mindset.

There I said it … I’m not happy about it … and a part of me is weeping inside.

This isn’t to say that I don’t know how to be pastoral in any given situation, but the thoughts running through my head end up being some messed up sociology experiment rather than trying to see and meet the needs of the person in front of me. I think I miss doing ministry for the sake of ministry, when there wasn’t the issue of what is the right way to examine a doctrine, but rather to just care for people (or in my past life JH/HS students). Where the message of the gospel was not spoken in words but in actions. I think more than anything I would just like to remember the basics of ministry and throw most of my seminary education out the window.

I think I need to examine some of the baggage I’m carrying around … trying to prove that I am strong enough for ministry … and instead surrender. Or maybe I'm just thinking too loud over here ... God only knows.

Toys and Tools

2008-11-03T15:01:00.000-08:00

Toys: Something that is more fun than practical in use.

Now granted this toy has practical uses, and Becca always did say that I looked happier with a bass in my hand than a guitar, and I agree.

Tools: Practical use for a situation, job, or ministry

My internship pastor gave me this as a thanks for my work. Needs some cleaning but is freaking sweet.

The top marking is residue of some old label on it ...

So now I have a very nice sounding 4 string bass and a portable communion set. Sometimes I like the small things in life.

Nobody Loves me Like You

2008-10-27T08:05:00.000-07:00

Reasons for doing this below …

RULES:
1. Put Your iTunes, Windows Media Player, MP3 Player, etc. on Shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.
4. Put any comments in brackets/w.e after the song name.
5. HAVE FUN.

How would you describe yourself?
Fad of the Land (Newsboys - I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come. Times I have actually played this song according to iTunes: 0)

What do you like in a guy/girl?
Warrior (Caedmon’s Call)

How do you feel today?
You are on our Side (Bethany Dillon - More like where I want to get … more on that later)

Your life’s purpose?
Nothing but the Blood (Charlie Hall - Passion: How great is our God)

What is your motto?
It is Well With My Soul (Jennifer Knapp + Audio Adrenaline)

What do your friends think about you?
Wake Up (Leeland - point iTunes)

What do you think of your parents?
Pantala Naga Pampa (Dave Matthews Band)

What is 2 + 2?
The Marionette (Phil Keggy - I think he is playing in 4/4 though …)

What do you think of your best friends?
Inspiration (Sanctus Real)

What do you think of the person you like?
The Servant Song (Richard Gillard - I think this could turn into a blog unto itself, ironic. Sarah laugh with me … 5 points itunes)

What is your life story?
Free (Shaun McDonald - Yea … I paused here and actually listened to it: point to iTunes)

What do you want to be when you grow up?
For the Lord is Good (All Together Separate)

What do you think when you see the person you like?
You Are Holy (Michael W. Smith)

What will they play at your funeral?
Believe (Newsboys)

What is your hobby/interest?
God Only Knows (Joy Williams)

What is your biggest fear?
Candle (All Together Separate - Song about missions work)

What is your biggest secret?
Fuel (Metallica - Song about engines … hrum …)

What do you think of your friends?
Have you Ever? (Shaun McDonald)

What song best describes you?
Nick & Norah’s Theme (Mark Mothersbaugh)

What song best describes your crush?
Get Down (Audio Adreniline)

What will you post this as?
Nobody Loves me Like You (Jars of Clay)

This was done in a distraction to the following
Ords: 4, Minstrel: 0
See Question 3 ...

Honored

2008-10-23T20:03:00.000-07:00

So … I’m doing music for my friend’s, Chuck and Sarah, wedding, which is both exciting and kinda scary. On one hand I have had the joy of watching the two of them walk into their relationship, which has really been something beautiful to watch (and call Sarah out on it). Seeing the final step as the walk into the rest of their lives will feel like bookends.

On the scary side I have never done anything this big in terms of music and while I don’t feel any pressure now (cause I only have one song they want so far), I’m sure that I will feel much more pressured as the time gets close and as I work out how to get the musical instruments from wherever I am to Minnesota, where I’m playing, what music I need to bring, and the pile of last minute details that go into ANY event.

At the end of this whole thing I know that God will be glorified, and that stuff will work out, and that some of the mistakes will be some of the things that will be treasured and remembered for the rest of their lives.

On the plus side … I think I will have the best ‘seat’ in the house … since the wedding party will have to be standing the whole time. At least I think I will have a seat ...

Why I Could Never Play Intramural Football at Fuller

2008-10-21T13:02:00.000-07:00

The other part of this is why I could never make Becca’s Birthday parties. Simply put, every third weekend in October I travel up or down to Pismo Beach to play football on the beach and remind myself that I’m getting older for the next two days as I recover from muscle soreness. This is an annual tradition that brings together the whole of the Fraternity that I was a part of at UCSB. There are active teams and alumni teams (commonly referred to as the ‘old-man division’ … our trophy has a walking stick attached to the Hiesman stiff arm hand.) Now before you go … ‘What … Alan in a Fraternity?!?’ it was a Christian Fraternity … that still upholds those ideals. Most of the time is spent asking about lives and what God is doing in them. Most of the alumni are dealing with kids, getting married, dealing with life, going to Masters schooling, and so on. But out of all of the guys that go through that fraternity 90% of them continue to serve and be involved in church on some level.

Either way 8 Alumni played with about another 3 to show support and just catch up on life came. And we wrecked shop…

4 games and we went 4-0 allowing only 2 touchdowns on us through the whole set of games, one by freak and fluke accident. Otherwise we scored an average of 20+ points and had about 4-5 interceptions a game. It was kinda evil. I think most of the time we had more interceptions than the other team had punts. I think the game finals were 33-6, 26-0, 19-0, 29-6. The last two were after we changed the time from 25 minutes to 20 per half … another side effect of ‘getting older.’ Basically Pismo football is like Intramural football except we are on sand, and everything is pretty much full contact. The full contact and injury issue is off set by the fact that sand makes you slower.

Running Power I formation has never been so fun :)

After what has been dubbed the ‘domination’ of Pismo we retired to the world of Roundtable for pizza and Presbyterian Beverages. It was a good time and such a fun fun time. And now we recover …

So True

2008-10-17T09:15:00.000-07:00

From xkcd

I'm not sure if I should laugh at myself, or hang my head in shame.

Saints and Sinners

2008-10-13T14:55:00.000-07:00

Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future

- Warren Buffet, CEO Berkshire Hathaway
(Said regarding pointing blame in middle of the worst of the economic downfall)

I remember being in high school and not quite being a Christian in the sense of I had made my own choice for Christ. At camps we would always hear about those people who had been at the bottom of the spiral and reached up to accept Christ and the sudden and somewhat dramatic shift in life. And I couldn’t identify fully with these stories. The idea of heading in the direction of ‘downward’ just to experience God’s sudden and dramatic grace didn’t seem like a good idea either. I had this strange idea that I ‘needed’ to have an emotional and somewhat spiritual engagement with God in order to be saved, even if I knew I was ‘basically’ a Christian.

Strangely enough that was about 10 years ago and I don’t think I knew the ride I would have since then. For some reason Buffet’s quote above stuck with me as I have kinda been watching the economic stuff in the background of my life. In a sense I realize that I’m not quite a saint, but I still have a past; and that I am a sinner who stands on the brink of a very unknown future. Not just in the sense of where I will get a job, but will there be a denomination that will still exist for me to go into. My adviser for all things Presbyterian told me ‘Think about the Presbytery that you get ordained into, as it could have some long range implications.’

This saddened me.

Mixed into this whole mess is a confrontation with the quote ‘Hate the sin, love the sinner.’ This is something that I used in the back of my head for a decent period of my seminary career. I was confronted with an idea (by a fuller prof) that our sin makes us who we are and to try to separate the two is not only impossible, but also insulting to the person. I realize more that my sins have long shaped the person that I have become and the person who I continue to become. This person has laid up many sacrifices of what I have wanted to say for the sake of love. They have never been easy points to reach in life, but they remain places where I seem to learn more about myself and become more and more able to accept the fact that I am not the judge, but God is.

One of the things I’m learning here in my internship is that God is using the very foolish here to confuse the wise. The unbelieving are coming forward to be baptized. The sinners are placed in charge and the church grows. The ideas that are crazy, above and beyond normal sanity, are the ideas that bring people to follow God and to enter into community. What saddens me is that most of the issues of the Presbyterian Church are on the order of detailed theology, which almost makes me angry. Not in the sense that the issues don’t need discussion, but that we have forgotten the whole mission of the church for the sake of one detail.

Do we spend too much time trying to be saints and burying our sins when we need to embrace both? In trying to become saints ... do we become the worst sinners?

6am

2008-10-09T13:10:00.000-07:00

So … I figured it out finally.

Now most of the people who read this blog on a regular basis know about my internal 6am alarm clock. I wake up then if I want to or not and then have the option of going back to sleep. It is to the point where I don’t need an alarm clock to wake up. Even worse is the fact that my body will normally wake up before that in a state of semi-awake which leads to some interesting ends to dreams.

Now depending on when I went to bed I will either get up or roll over and go back to sleep. Most of the time I do the former however there are occasions that I will my body back into a state of slumber. Much of this last week has been that way, I have figured out going back to bed is not the healthy response to me waking up.

My normal mode of operation is that of a patient and slow moving turtle (although I have a jet pack for emergencies). Waking up at 6am gives me time to start my day without a rush of things to do, without a need to feel like I’m behind, and simmer into consciousness rather than being flung off the deep end. Basically I am a happy camper rather than a grumpy camper. I tend to think ‘clearer’ and have time to do all the things I like to do in the morning (like read my comics and play a few games) and not have to leave them till later, when they become distractions rather than fun.

I also have a time to center life around peace and calm rather than panic and insanity that then leads into the rest of the day. Yea I’m a morning person, but I’m finding more and more that is helps me to be who I am without the need take time out of the day to catch up, but rather I have time to rest when there is space between one thing and another. Being ‘Terminally Early’ isn’t a bad thing, it gives time for life to catch up to you, to close your eyes and allow God to become the renewed center of the day.

The Sabbath is limited to a single day, but rather a place of rest. What if we took 2 hrs out of the day to just focus on God (24hrs - 8hrs sleep =16 … 1 hr per 7 hrs = 2 hrs total). Not in study, but in reflection, prayer, company, and joy; all the things that we ‘enjoy’ in life. To take the scenic route, and enjoy the ride.

So what’s going on in Paso?

2008-10-02T13:37:00.001-07:00

I’m glad you asked :)

So aside from my ‘cut short’ last post, life is actually really good. I have my first ‘what I’m really going to be doing during my internship’ meeting on Tuesday (10/7) where I will be sitting down with a group of Pentecostals who have found themselves in a Presbyterian Church … suckers. But seriously I will be in charge of empowering these people to do the ministry of compassion and reconciliation. How I’m supposed to do that … I’m not entirely sure, but me and my other half are going to get on our knees, pray and see what happens. The church itself is in a huge transition as it is moving from rented apartments and will be moving into its permanent offices near the end of this month. I got here just in time to see one of the large scale events take place.

Clicking ->here<- will pull up two videos, one is a mock staff meeting that is funny on a couple of levels, I don’t think you even have to know the staff to get some of the jokes. The second is actually footage from the event and it was lots of fun (but really cold).

This month will prove to be just as busy as we have two events. The first is a concert that the church’s praise band will be putting on to have tickets help pay for the building fund. Should be lots of fun and the praise band is pretty talented in terms of creativity and musicians, but they will probably do mostly cover songs. I don’t think the worship director has had time to write some of his own stuff yet. He is a busy guy.

The second requires some set up. The pastor here is a true blood Scotsman: plays bagpipes, owns a kilt, has a good accent when he summons it up … whole nine yards… yes on Guinness. So they have an annual Kirkin of the Tartan. Which is basically a bagpiper band in service with kilts. I might have pictures soon enough, as disturbing as that might be to some people who read this … I’m sorry, I’ll give you fair warning.

Playing in someone else’s playground

2008-09-28T20:27:00.000-07:00

So one of the things that I tried to communicate to my last internship, with I would say about 80% success, is that I was an INTERN. My job was not to implant myself within the church and to take on huge projects that would then get left by the wayside when I left. The more I start to get into my new internship the more important I realize this issue is.

So in essence I currently have 3 months to prepare the church’s deacons for ministry, build them up so they can function, and then instill in them a sense of ownership so that they fall to pieces when I leave. Wait check that … 2 months, I’ve already been here 2 weeks.

Either way it will be a fun, if not insane, ride in Paso.

In other news God is teaching me about obedience and listening to him. Most of my mental flow got sideswiped by this. He is teaching with the Big Hammer. More to come later ... maybe ...

Getting Settled

2008-09-13T14:34:00.000-07:00

So moving didn’t go as smoothly as I would have liked. I found I had WAY more stuff than I realized. Most of it junk and after spending a good solid week an a half of slowly packing stuff up, and throwing stuff away (I understand garage sales sooooo much better now) It took two loads of my car plus one load from my parents Ford Explorer to get me moved home. Not counting the one load left down in Pasadena at Dave Barry’s place (sorry!) that is becoming more of a hassle to get up to my parent’s place than expected.

On top of that I got sick. Mostly in the throat/sinus region of my body, and it is almost over and I’m hoping some good hard work will make my body kick into overdrive and kick the last of it. So what I had hoped was going to be a 2-day move up to Paso took the better part of a week. I’m finding that it isn’t a bad thing. Two of my aunts were in town so we got to annoy each other and cause trouble. I did make my first staff meeting on a short drive up and tried to get my calendar mostly in gear. Then went back to my parents place to get the rest of the stuff I would need for my 3 month tour.

While I was home I got this:

And life was awesome.

Men of Issachar

2008-08-29T16:42:00.000-07:00

1Chr 12:32: “Men of Issachar, who understood the times and knew what Israel should do.”

Finished my last day of preaching practicum today and our professor took a moment to stand on a soapbox for the sake of preaching. He recounted his experiences with Kennedy and MLK assassinations, Watergate with Nixon and then posed to us his reflections over the past 24 hours.

The Democratic Party supported and endorsed an African-American President.

The Republican Party announced that they would have a female Vice-President.

He went on to mention that as pastors we are better orators than anyone as it is our craft and livelihood. But his point was that, in a few months, history will be changed for better or worse. This Presidential campaign has deep implications for religious institutions. For people who are afraid of multi-ethnic situations, for people who are used to the gender dominance of males, and for every single institution of academic, religious, business, and social ladder.

As part of a younger generation I have known that a time would come when my colleagues at Fuller, notably on gender lines, would not have to worry about gender being an issue in the process of ordination. With the possibility of a female being moved to the second most powerful position in our nation I suspect that most of those issues will start to fade away. I suspect that the ethnic issues will fade as well.

As I’m getting ready to move into another stage of life with graduation, my professor reminded me that there will be many things that will change. One comment from class was ‘I wish Dr. Scholer could have lived just a few more days to see this VP nomination.’ I think he knew that the time was coming soon; All he had to do was look in the eyes of the women he taught. He could see it in their eyes. I can see it there myself.

1Chronicles still holds much of the patriarchy that is common in the Old Testament. We are keepers of a different context, and I’m just beginning to understand the times.

T-minus 7 days

2008-08-28T20:59:00.000-07:00

I’m moving in a week. This is a mixed bag of emotions for more than one reason.

I’m going to preface what follows with the following statement. In the past 7 days I have taken ‘Ords’, which are basically 4 ugly nasty cruel tests that are, in my opinion, designed to drive the most sane person crazy, and someone like me to madness. On top of this I have had to preach a sermon for class. You have been warned.

I can remember when some of my other friends left Seminary, and while they were still close I didn’t have a pile of really good friends just suddenly up and disappear. So now with me getting up and disappearing, I have that sense of losing a pile of wonderful friends. But right now I just have a sense of loss as I’m having to say goodbye to not just friends but people who I hope to call colleagues in ministry.

Now I have always been a relationship guy and as a confession most of the angry posts from April-May or so finally came back around and I had to look at myself in the mirror and realize I was the jerk. Reconciling relationships or developing relationships are a central point in my life and really drive the core of my being. I finally reconciled that situation and even though it was done somewhere between the tenth and eleventh hour it is done, and I feel peace, and I was wrong … so very very wrong … to be angry.

In some ways I’m trying to tie all the loose ends I have up and feel like I have closure with those around me. I’ve just made 2 new friends on my hall and I’m going to be gone as suddenly as I arrived. It will be sad because they are two very interesting people.

Part of me wants to vent about Ords but at the end of the day I wonder how much of that is a means to answer the specific questions and how much of it is do we know how to use the methods we have learned. I still think some of the questions we were asked came from left field … Deep deep left field … and others were very appropriate for formation. The part that I keep trying to come back to is the pastoral nature of the tests, this succeeds … right now … about 30% of the time. The pastoral parts of the questions are what make the test worth the effort and the experience.

Maybe it is this intersection that is making me think right now. Or maybe it is a need to speak in non-intellectual terms and prose. Maybe I’m just trying to get back to the place where I can talk normal.

I Miss Having a Driveway

2008-08-06T22:18:00.000-07:00

Something I was thinking about a month ago while I was home for a few days before my intensive started. Probably around the 4th of July or so, I think I was home for Mom’s Bday. Anywho I remember spending the time inside my parent’s house, having a driveway to wash my car, a backyard with grass, plants to tend and garden, or plants to have your children tend. It isn’t about the driveway but rather the sense of a house and a building that is a place to call your own.

I think after having lived in an apartment for almost two and a half years on a renting agreement I had forgotten what that sense of ownership does. It isn’t that I haven’t done some nice things with my very small space, but rather all the things that I wish I had time to do, or want to do, or would do if I knew I was going to live here for another 5-10 years. But there is something about having a driveway that appeals to me.

This apartment/condo living where basically the landlords build parking lots around buildings just don’t appeal to me anymore. It is a way to live, but it just doesn’t feel like home to me. Now I’m not sure if it is that I’m just getting older or graduating or having a late 20s crisis of life, but I have never had this sense of needing a ‘house’ to feel like I’m living. But the more I think about it, and as I helped some friends move from an apartment complex into a house, I find that I miss having a house with a driveway.

I think there is something inherent in a house that is welcoming, inviting, and feels like a place of rest. I have seen this not only in my parent’s house but also in some of the people that live in houses that have been converted to housing by Fuller. Some of the intentional communities are just welcoming just by the nature of their construction. It isn’t like your walking into a two-room place where there is a living room/study room and then a bedroom that is just used for sleeping. But a house has this living room, where you like … live (weird I know) … and beds and study places are tucked away behind doors and there is a sense of division between work and play.

I think it is a little like multitasking … I have a studio loft, which is basically a one-room thing with an upper floor where I store my bed and clothing. The downstairs is my study room, living room, kitchen, dining room, music room, library and spare bedroom all in one. I can entertain dinner for 6 but I have to fold up my coffee table hide it under my couch/futon (which is where I keep my guitar cases when not in use), slide the couch/futon about 4 feet, and then pull another chair out of my closet for 4, barrow 2 more chairs if I want to do 6, and set a table that is a little tight even with 3.

I love cooking for others, and as a general rule I find the most joy in my life when I am serving others. Often that is in the form of food, but functions in conversation as well. I would host more … if I felt like it wasn’t a chore to do so. So I miss my driveway where 4 cars could drive up and unload guests to share food and fellowship (and maybe an occasional game) for the sole sake of having a place that doesn’t just feel like home, but is home.

Maybe it also has something to do with the issue that I’m moving in a month too. Could have something to do with this as well.

We blasted the control pannel for the bridge

2008-07-31T15:41:00.000-07:00

So I have a clear head about some stuff and feel like I need to make a calm statement in response to my ‘uppity’ statement regarding Holy Spirit things.

A little background … I have no doubt that the gifts of the Holy Spirit work today. I have no doubt that I have a couple, and I’m man enough to admit that I get them wrong sometimes. Secondly, I process things very slowly. Like tell me a thinking joke and I’ll get it two days later and just bust out laughing for no reason … (Awkward Turtle). The other part of this comes from a rather odd definition of the term ‘Faith’ as defined by one of my systematic theology professors (I think) … ‘Faith is not what you believe, but what you cannot deny.’ I cannot deny some of the things that I have seen, done, or heard of. I cannot deny that people are stupid at times as well; nor can I deny that we get it wrong sometimes. So I end up somewhere in the idea that Anslem stated: “Faith seeking Understanding.”

I guess where I end up is a disconnect with the basic statement of needing a ‘quantity of faith’ for the Holy Spirit to work, without also stating the fact that God is the source of faith giving (at least in my theological world), and is there a statement that would make more sense that combines the Faith and Sovereignty issue. And this is the issue that I’m trying to figure out, it feels like there should be a bridge between the two. I can see some of it, but it falls in the realm of the ‘so-and-so died for a reason’ which is neither comforting or should EVER be said to someone.

I find the bible a little fuzzy on this issue as well. In some cases there are Roman soldiers who come up for the sake of a servant and ask for healing without needing Christ to come, and at the same time you have the opposite end where the Disciples can’t heal a boy and Christ points to a lack of faith. And while these are just points on a spectrum it seems like there is always a connect of points on one side or the other between faith or lack of faith. While I would like to try to describe this as an ‘on-or-off’ situation I don’t think that it is that simple. While most of the time there are the sudden and immediate responses, there are those things that take a little longer to get answer from. That’s why I like the bridge analogy rather than the switch.

I guess I’m getting this picture of like a ropes course team-building thing. Where you have a group of people that are trying to do things together, but each individual person still has to do their own part. And there is the illusion of fear with heights and a quick what if cycle that leads towards the worst-case scenario. An individual still has to get across to the other side. The strange thing is that there is encouragement from both sides. Those who have gone before, who get it and who are beckoning you towards them; and those behind you, watching your every step, not sure if they want you to fall or to succeed.

I know that success would be the best case, but failing might be another worthwhile option. In failure there is a need to regroup and refocus. I kinda like failure if only in the sense that in failure faith is what has to carry a person. It means that a person dared to do what others considered foolish and ill advised. But they tried to get across, and got saved by the equipment holding them up. Then we figure out what went wrong, and we succeed or fail at that.

I’m digressing and trying to work my way back, but there is a place where God is involved somewhere, but I just can quite figure out how say it or how it works with my limited vocabulary. Whilst I still have faith and still acknowledge all the things that the Holy Spirit does, logical and sometimes crazy, I wish I had words to better verbalize or to figure out where people are coming from. I feel like I’ve already crossed the bridge, but I’m looking back to try to figure out how it stands up, and how in the world I got across. Just a little understanding.

Even when the rain comes/Even when the flood starts rising
Even when the storm comes/I am washed by the water

On Sunsets

2008-07-23T07:07:00.000-07:00

I think I've decided that something like a sunset is not something that can be described or captured in a picture, but must be experienced. This coming from driving back from San Diego during the sunset and wishing I had my camera out, and then thinking ... 'Ya know, I wouldn't know which moment was the best. And I have to do all this driving too.'

It was a calm sunset, and you had to be there, sorry.

Oh Saddleback

2008-07-22T21:44:00.000-07:00

As a preface I’m not a huge fan of big churches. You get over about 1000 people and I start to wonder how ministry will get done and how it can be helpful for the people in the congregation. I know that things like small groups have developed but I’m still a little skeptical. But I have a strong saying that I won’t knock something ‘fully’ till I get down and experience it for myself.

So 4 of my friends packed into a car and drove down to Saddleback to see the purpose driven church in all its splendor and people. I was not disappointed, but I was also surprised at some of the things I saw that made me take a second look.

Before I talk ‘programming’ I just need to comment on how beautiful the church campus is. I didn’t take my camera but I’ll link stuff after people post up some pictures. We basically called it the Disneyland church because EVERYTHING has a theme down to fish tanks, lockers, video games, and even a brewery type of feel. The landscaping has waterfalls, beautiful gardens, pathways and rocks that pipe sound from the main service (oh yes … they were singing). The main ‘worship center’ was basically a warehouse that you didn’t realize was a warehouse until you looked closely. Everything was pretty masked in terms of function vs aesthetic (Don’t ask me where I picked up the aesthetic piece but I did it at Bel Air Pres. too). Everything felt very Orange County and was rather impressive.

So after hearing the rocks cry out (which was kinda weird in the sense that they should only do that if no one is singing praise to God), we went in and heard the sermon. In an auditorium of about … 2k people, the topic of the day was the Nicene Creed (no I can’t get away from them.) and the interesting thing was the polarity between what was taught and what we saw happen. The Nicene Creed is centered around a ‘We believe’ as opposed to an ‘I believe’ structure, and the sermon continued on with a message about being within a connected group of people and becoming relationally active within the context of the church.

Here’s where it got fun, people watching …

So the sermon ends, and about 5-10% of the people get up and leave outright. Now in fairness (and my mom pointed this out) I don’t know if they were going to stations, or just leaving to go home, but a noticeable number of people just got up out of their seats and left. And we still had an offertory and announcements to do. Then in a final plea the preacher (Doug Fields just fyi) asked the congregation to meet some of the people around them. And meet they did, in line to get in line to get to their cars to get home. Moses couldn’t have parted them no matter how much he wanted to. So the five of us just sat and watched this congregation walk out and maybe another 5% stayed around to just talk.

-----

As we were walking to the main worship center we passed a number of ‘tents’ that had alternate styles of music and then would pipe in the sermon from the main worship center. And we joked a little at the fact that we were attending the ‘consumer church.’ For as much as that is a true statement, what I will take away from the trip down is that the pastoral staff is aware of it, knows about it, and is desperately trying to figure how to build relationships, community, and intelligence about the Gospel message. This fact alone is what I took away from my trip. Not the glitz or the glamour or the ‘themes’ of each area … but that this monster of a church is trying to figure out how to drive this monstrosity of a ship they have built and not run aground for the sole purpose of teaching Christians how to follow Christ, and live in community. I think I left that day with a much more sympathetic ear, and a much more open heart rather than my normal setting of ‘cynicism.’

God help them.

If your Jedi Mind Tricks don't work, use the lightsaber

2008-07-20T09:37:00.000-07:00

Where to begin …

Superficial updates

The Dark Knight - Go see it, it isn’t overly ‘scary’ but it is very dark and the late Heath Ledger may have gone insane from doing this role.

Two week break - Will be making a couple of trips to San Diego to see my fam while the fam is on vacation. But it won’t be much of a break.

I’m moving up to Paso Robles sometime shortly after Sept 1 (My last day of living in my apartment is Sept 6th. *sigh*) So in a way … last call.

Here is the point where I pull my really big hammer out.

I still don’t know where to begin, so I’ll just say that the hammer is out and I’m talking about Creeds class. In short I think I would have liked the ‘planned’ material if the ‘planned’ material had actually been covered. The unplanned material however was as controversial as it was uninformed. What I saw and heard and experienced was … well lets just say I’m not happy.

Issue 1: Homosexuality - Right on the heels of the Presbyterian General Assembly (that I heard was not very orderly), we of course have to talk about the proposed Constitutional and Creedal changes, as a point of concession we can talk about the creedal ‘adjustment’ but the Constitutional changes and the other stuff that is related to the issue was more a waste of my time than anything. We had been talking about it for about a month since before GA and will continue to talk about it for the next year as the votes come in. Yes it is a big issue, but it is also a dead horse, I really don’t want to hear your opinion. At this point opinions I will listen to are votes cast one way or another. As clarification I will listen to you if you are a friend and we are able to discuss, but I think I’m not far off when I say that all of my friends are a little sick of it. Moving on …

Issue 2: Gifting and Movement of the Holy Spirit - I think I’ll back into this slow by saying that this is a dangerous and often perilous mire of quicksand. A little background on me: I got an intellectual instruction to the Holy Spirit while I was in college, where the college group I was attending did a 15 week summer series on the Holy Spirit. This was in a Calvary Chapel context and I very much had walked away from my Presbyterian roots, but they were there, I just didn’t realize it. From that I have continued to pray and ask for God’s guidance and wisdom as I use what I consider to be some of my own gifts.

We opened with discussion on Lakeland Church and Todd Bentley’s revivals going on in Florida. We had a Pentecostal prophet come in and do his thing. We had Presbyterian pastor come in who lost his job and sparked the General Assembly to look into how the Holy Spirit works and to give guidance to the denomination about how they function in a reformed understanding. And then of course we have our professor’s input. Under this were numerous articles being transferred on the ‘black market email’ that showed a different side of the Lakeland issue, the prophet sticking his foot in his mouth (outside of class), and a sense of existential dread would form when the professor would begin to smile a Holy Spirit Smile (TM). The Presbyterian pastor did right by the class and I hope to build a friendship there before he reaches the point where he passes on.

I’m not going to go into detail about the specific things said in class but lets talk a little about … what do I want to call this … ‘selective disclosure’ … It wasn’t until the last day of class that the other side of the Lakeland Church (ie the ‘horror’ stories) were even discussed and only because they were brought up by one of the … shall we say inner six. (I would have done it but I know better than to speak out in raw anger as I only stick my foot in my own mouth. Btw we need a name for that group … srsly.) However our professor simply deflected the issue by saying ‘Of course there will be counter points to something like this, you just have to decide for yourself’ … to which I want to ask, how can we make that decision unless we are given all the details. And you could tell the weak minded peons that did not have Jedi skills to resist the Mind Trick. (This is not the movement of the Holy Spirit you are looking for.)

* deep breath *

I heard it said once that a person once had a preference for praying spontaneously in front of a congregation during worship and often asked why people wrote out prayers. The person said that ‘the Spirit would move when he got up to the podium/lectern/microphone and that the concerns would just come.’ One person who enjoyed writing prayers was confronted by the Spirit prayer person, and the response to the questioning was another question: ‘Are you saying that the Holy Spirit can’t move through the use of ink and paper? Because I have a Bible that says otherwise.’

1Cor 14 talks about how the Holy Spirit functions in a sense of order and functionality and not out of disorder. I felt lots of disorder in this class and in some of the stories that I read about Lakeland. The only sense of order was in the Presbyterian Pastor … and he is the one without a ‘job’ … funny.

A Call to Arms

2008-07-16T22:20:00.000-07:00

Ok … it has been a feisty day … this is a feisty post … you have been warned.

The class I am currently in feels like a waste of my time, to the extent of what I was expecting it to be. What has come out of it is chatting with my fellow students during the course of the class about this denomination that I’m about to enter, which has not been a waste of time. What my classmates and I have discovered is that none of us agree except on the issue of scripture. Once we start to interpret it … everything gets a little fuzzy. (or at least this is my point of view … and I have fuzzy logic to begin with … I warned you.)

What we are kinda finding out is that we all have calls to the denomination, but not so much the ‘How’ and in some cases the ‘Why’ with not much of a response. As much as I have come to love questions I found myself in conversation with a classmate after class and finding out how much I value the opinions of others, not only presently but in the sense that as I’m going forward in ministry I’m going to be dealing with this beast of polity, red tape, and theological differences with these same people. And that these people who I call my friends, are going to become my peers and colleagues in steering this religious denomination that literally spans the world. Intimidating … yes. Doable … I dunno but I think we are going to find out. But I would rather have my friends at the table on whichever side of the argument than be fighting with and against people who I have no relationship with. I can ‘work’ with people I don’t know, but that doesn’t mean I like it. One because I normally function like a blunt instrument in direct confrontation, which has the ability to rub people the wrong way; and second because I respond better if someone blunt-instruments me back (read instruments as a verb).

There is another soapbox that I need to get up on, but I think for now I’ll finish here. My friends who read this I hope you take the following statement to heart. I’m of the mind to give our denomination a good looking at and challenge some things that I don’t really like, or I wish they would do better. I’m not asking you to pick one side over another on whatever may come, but to pick one and stand. And if by chance you want to lead I will stand, with or against, but I will stand.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

2008-07-14T09:36:00.000-07:00

The Good
So I went up to Highlands Adventure in Paso Robles where I’m going to do my internship starting in September. I got up there on Sat morning as they were finishing a 3 day event, and stayed through till Wednesday.

I’m excited.

I found out that there are people that are crazier than I am.

So the Saturday event was basically a community open flag football camp. I showed up and they had about 140ish kids (give or take 10) and about a third of them were not from the church. I got to see the whole gang in action as they were just having fun and being themselves. I meet the gang that I was spending the weekend with and had lunch and dinner with them and just had a mellow evening meeting some of the rest of the church at dinner. There was a missions thing going on and I attended and had a wonderful time. I went to bed early cause I had to get up early to be at the ‘church’ at 5:30 to help set up.

Now … basically they have to do a full sound and lighting setup between 5:30 and 7:30 to have a first service by 8am. This is a little crazy, they can get the stuff set up in about an hour and are adjusting for 15 minutes and sound checking from 6:30 on. This is because they don’t have a church building, although they are working on that. They also set up two other rooms for 0-5 year olds, and 6-12 year olds, and a third room for over flow with video and audio being transferred in. And by rooms … I mean theaters.

A look from outside.

Now playing: The Dark Knight, Mamma Mia, and Church. Showtimes listed.

Walking in the front doors.

Down the hall for Kids.

They convert 4 theaters in a movie theater into 4 ‘rooms.’ Now here is the crazy part … they have services at 8, 9:15, and 10:30, which run for 1 hr on a very very tight time limit. The first movie showing is normally at 11am. This leads to … shall we say some cross over. What takes about an hour to unload and set up is torn down and placed outside for loading in 30 min flat. I went to the 8am service and then just kinda walked around for the rest of them to help clean up afterwards. And it was almost too much to take in as the church actually has a sense of community that I don’t think some smaller churches have. This might be the fact that the two main towns are kinda isolated due to no civilization for about 15-20 min on the south to San Luis Obispo, 2 hrs to the east for Fresno or Bakersfield, and about 2ish hours to the north up to Salinas.

Anywho after everything was packed up by about 12:30 or so, and everyone looked like they needed a nap I got an invitation to ‘squeet’ so we went and got ‘something to eat.’ After that I ‘think’ I got a nap, but I don’t remember much.

Monday was another lunch day, had a meeting w/ the pastor, met most of the staff, ‘squeet’d, saw Wall-E and just had a mellow day. Tuesday I drove around town, and then spent the day with the worship pastor and went with him as he took his car into the shop, which ended up taking about 4 hrs before they finally gave us a loaner car to go back up. But it was time well spent. Wednesday I went to staff meeting, the Pastor’s bible study and then drove back to my parents home to spend the 4th with and celebrate my mom’s Bday.

I think what was the most interesting was the fact that I (and a couple people on staff) almost think they should stay in the theater as long as they can. If only from the numerous reports of the following conversation (with variation):

“Hey (so and so), what are you doing here?”
“Oh I just got out of church.”
“Church in a movie theater? Interesting, I’ll have to come back and take a look”

My emergent church friends are getting a warm fuzzy I’m sure :)

The Bad
Gets skipped over and goes right to …

The Ugly
There are times I hate being right, and I’m in one of those right now. About 2 months ago I called something to the date, and it came true give or take a week from when I called it. I feel like the reluctant prophet and I feel this deep pit in my stomach that just churns away at something other than the breakfast I just had. I told a couple people about it, including one who regularly reads this blog, I’m not going to go into too much detail here, but email/call/talk to me and I’ll let you in on the story.

Then again most of the prophets had this message of God’s love, but most of the time the breaking and the repentance had to come first. I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come.

Cellphone PSA

2008-06-24T07:14:00.000-07:00

A Public Service Announcement for churches

Clicky

Faith, Hope, and Love

2008-06-23T16:21:00.000-07:00

Every now and again I get all serious about navigating the deep dark places of my own soul. Sometimes I’ll invite friends on the journey but most of the time this is a solo travel. I’ve been doing a little navigating recently and most of it has been centered around a desire to love specific people in my life that are just easier to be angry with sometimes. A few days ago I finally looked in the mirror and asked myself ‘why are you angry?’ I still don’t have a good answer.

If you look through a few of my recent blogs that are not just random spouting of gibberish and sarcasm, there is a deep current of questioning going on (starting around April). If you know my personal life, you know probably about half of the situations that I’ve been working through. Through this time I have had pretty much a consistent sense of faith, even developing a line to get me through most of the difficult times: ‘Cynicism, may it never screw up our faith.’ Most of this cynicism stems from a strong belief in Murphy’s Law, but I think what has happened recently is more that I have lost hope in some of the situations, and it was the hope that counteracted the cynicism.

Now in some situations hope has been restored, but it is in those places where doesn’t resurface that I find difficulty in working through. It is difficult to love, to care, and at times to even have a conversation. I want so very deeply to have hope, and I think I have been subconsciously searching for it since April, and only now can I explain what I’ve been looking for.

It isn’t so much that I want hope more than love, but rather I find I am only able to love when hope is there to counter cynicism. Faith doesn’t help there as I link faith to individual relationship with God. Hope might be better stated as faith or trust in a human person much like faith is in God (or at the very least a bad analogy). This gets all messy with the final line of 1Cor. 13: “Now these three remain; Faith, Hope, and Love, but the greatest of these is Love.” And I ask myself … ‘On this earth can you love a person without the faith or hope?’

If I’m honest with myself, I’m not sure I can.

'Can you have any one with one of the others missing?'

I dunno … and I wish I had an answer.

Back to normal

2008-06-17T13:45:00.000-07:00

I have peace again.

Been that way for about three or four weeks now, and life has just been good. This will be kinda conglomeration of two partially done blogs that make perfect sense in my head, but I need to cut some stuff out.

First off to all the graduates and pseudo-graduates (I say that because some of you have to take summer classes … close but not quite. And yea I know I’m taking a Fall quarter but your still not done either so neyah). You inspire us all simply by showing us that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, although some is only a blip of light before there is that tunnel known as ‘job hunting’.

Good news from the Minstrel’s household, nothing I can share yet, but the whole family is really excited. I’ll share more after information is made ‘public’. For reference it is really hard for me to keep it in thus it is making a slight ‘taunting’ here. I went home for Dad’s day and we did some early family celebrating by playing lots of bridge (I played a 5 hearts hand that should have been a small slam, but ‘they’ were throwing out preempt bids that were screwing with everything.)

Now for the random tidbits...

Random thought of the moment: My friend Becca ROCKS. She just does; she may never read this … but she does.

The more I read Don Miller the more I really like him and the honesty with which he writes.

The spiritual gift of discernment is a blessing that feels like a curse sometimes. The curse is figuring out how to say what you know in love.

I might go up to Spirit West Coast this summer, I think the youth group back home has a few spare tickets if anyone is interested (Wed July 30th - Sun Aug 2).

And Finally:
This made sense when I wrote it … well I think it did.

There is a story to be told.
It isn’t mine and it may be yours.
For life is lived in the other with those around.
A balance of love and hate, now and again there is a twist of fate.
Where one might find joy the other will find pain.
Though the scales have fallen off, and the wounds have healed
There is a mark that reveals,
It shows the way forward by looking at the past.
Roads that have converged and divided.
Sometimes the road is traveled alone,
At others we move slowly along the thoroughfare,
Taking our time with those around.
We realize that there isn’t such a thing as ‘normal’
But rather just that which is.
And the roads we travel, whether alone or together, are the ones we choose.
I travel the path alone to meet myself;
I travel the path together to make sure I’m not lost.
Where we go from here is not so much about the company we wish to keep
But the question of which we need more: To lose ourselves or be found.
We go out seeking God
Yet God has always walked beside us in the busy thoroughfare;
We have just not seen it.
So to the roads we travel with wonder and reflection;
To the roads that we travel laughing and skipping.
May we travel together as long as God allows,
And meet again on the far side of the roads that part.

Random Musings

2008-06-12T13:40:00.000-07:00

Had lunch w/ Mischievous B this afternoon. I just finished finals, she had slept in till 11:15.

We digressed to the following:

B: There is no such thing as the perfect boyfriend. Well Jesus would be the perfect boyfriend if he wasn't all transparent (tries to hug the air)

A: Jesus would be the best boyfriend if he wasn't interested in everyone else.

Point to A.

Jaw Dropping

2008-05-16T22:07:00.000-07:00

Click here. Yes it is deep deep science, bear with it and listen to the final few words.

Here and back … wait nope still here

2008-05-11T12:26:00.000-07:00

Some random tidbits of mental depositing

Random Interweb Fact: xkcd. It will go over some people’s heads but there is enough in there that can be understood for basic humor. Knowledge of physics not needed for every comic.

Random Weird Fact: The night before I preached my sermon for class (so 5 days ago) I had a dream that I remembered. Since then I have fallen asleep with the simple prayer of “God help me remember my dreams” in addition to the rest of my conversation with God before I fall asleep. Result: 5 nights of dreams that I remember having. I just threw my dream journal back upstairs, time to take some notes.

Random Awesome Fact: Ironman. Go see it if you haven’t. Like go over to your movie showtime browser of choice and do it now. Not like tomorrow … Now! Yes it is that good. (And stay after the Credits)

Random Presby Fact: I am a candidate in the Presbyterian Church. For those who are not familiar with the Presbyterian process of ordination … that means that I am almost done, and the hard stuff is what is next.

Random School Fact: 4 more months of classes and 3 months of internship … that is it … WOW … (hasn’t fully sunk in yet).

Random Awareness Fact: Always try, and always say your piece. And then be willing to listen.

Random Monkey Fact: Kernie might be staying over for a week. SWEET! (Pocket hide your car)

Random Sermon Fact: Children’s sermons are always cooler if your sitting on a pink plastic stool only a foot high.

Random Music Fact: Trace Bundy is still brilliant. (Youtube)

Random Bonfire Fact: My guitar smells like burnt wood although it was nowhere near the flames.

That should do it. Oh wait ... Disneyland

Fuzzy Logic

2008-04-23T07:37:00.000-07:00

I’m finding that life, in general, is fuzzy for me. Not like cute cuddly fuzzy but more like your not sure if the fuzzy has retractable claws and is waiting to maul on you. Not exactly my favorite place to be, but I’m there none-the-less.

Most of it is a … well I don’t want to say wrestling match … but more of a discussion and talking out with God surrounding a variety of issues. The one that seems to be surfacing more often than not is ‘what happens in 5 months?’ That is starting to settle down and take shape but it is only a 3 month thing so the question is morphing into ‘what happens at the start of 2009. Those of you who I have mentioned this too have some idea about what I’ll be doing but for everyone else … I have an internship at Highlands Adventure church in Paso Robles that is almost finalized. For a little background this is a church that is about 2 years old, still classified as a church plan and has over 500 members. This year they had 1500 for Easter and 750 on low/cannonball Sunday (Sunday after Easter). Something up there is being done right and I’m very interested to see what is going on.

The other has been God nurturing me through an emotional and spiritual dry period. I have been pulling out my songs in minor keys, songs of feeling down, songs of trials and turning to God. They aren’t always the most enjoyable to sing, but they always seem to resonate with my mood. For some reason they always come in pairs though. A song that I’m going to sing for the public on Monday (Apr 28) that matches my mood almost verbatim, has been paired by a song that I would like to do as a corporate worship song. Both songs are a little out of my range but I think I can get the ‘mood’ song. The other I would probably drop for worship, but is one of those songs that catches the soul and draws one into worship. We will see … it doesn’t sound good if I’m the only one playing guitar either …

For all of this school seems to always be looming over my head. It is harder with most of my classes starting to shift towards the technical and nitty-gritty and is just hard to sit through. While I’m finding a new appreciation (and definition) for theology, it is still sometimes difficult to wrap my head around ideas.

Through all of this there is light at the end of the tunnel, although it is a little sad. My friend Sophie has taken a call (got a pastoral job) in Texas. There is hope, and while I will be sad to lose a friend in presence, I am exceedingly excited for her.

Came up for a quick breath and now back to school, back when I come back up for some more air.

I Wanna get off the Ride Now

2008-04-03T06:59:00.000-07:00

It is the first week of classes and I’m already spent; Physically, Mentally, Emotionally. Classes are, at best, what seem like mundane distractions. It isn’t so much that I don’t like them, but I “don’t have the emotional bandwidth” to deal with them (thanks Starla). About 25% of my iTunes library is off limits for one reason or another, and I repeat the axiom laid out by Jeff Bjork: ‘Enough: Enough is what God gives you.’

I’m not going to go into the full details but I am more broken now than I think I have ever been in my entire life. Questions that have no answers keep me up at night or wake me up every 2 hrs; either that or answers that only provide more questions.

On the good side of things I have never felt more like a prophet than I do now, the irony being that the prophecy would affect me directly. About 2 months ago I got up in front of chapel to reflect about community in front of the Presbyterian community. What was about a 5 min off the top of my head reflection is summed up along the lines of …

This community is a group of people, we are not a structure of chapel or the structure of church, but rather we are a church of broken, stupid, foolish, sinful people (of which I think I lead some of the charge); but in that we have Christ and are commanded to be Christ-like to others. Seminary will chew you up and spit you out faster and more efficiently than the working world. It is only in the friendships and relationships that are developed here that you can survive. It is only in these relationships that you will learn how to be a pastor.

Never have I been so thankful for the friendships that I have here at Seminary. Some that have never experienced strife, others that were forged through conflict, and some that just fell into my lap out of nowhere. While I want to get off the ride, my friends have chosen to get on the ride with me and help me through the hard times.

Thank you.

Lenten Reflections

2008-03-02T18:55:00.001-08:00

So I gave up listening to music when I have control of the sound system for Lent. What that basically means, is no leisure music around the house, in the car, when studying in the library, etc etc. Not quite as drastic as one of my former plans to try giving up playing guitar for Lent one year … that would have been bad.

What this results in is lots and lots of time to sit silently and think. Which can be both a good and bad thing. For the first week I just tried to entertain myself by putzing around on the internet watching movies on youtube, or playing small flash games online; neither of which is all that productive.

The tricky part has been the car drives. Even with music car drives have always been a time to just sit and muse about life, insanity, and solving the world’s problems. With about two weeks left, and finals looming on the horizon God has directed my attention to the darker parts of life. Not only in some of the class material we are discussing, but also in how real life has been manifesting itself. I have found myself dealing with very troubling life issues to which I have wanted to step away from, and it probably would have been the easier. In turn God guided me to preach a sermon on the topic of endurance and perseverance. I found it funny too.

For all these crazy things that have been going on it has been directed to getting to Good Friday. I have found that there are deep seeded understandings of Good Friday, and that while everyone likes it most of the time it seems to be a very personal experience. As planning has taken place some very beautiful gems have come out of the woodwork that have been put out on the alter of encountering the darkness that surrounds the day of the cross. Not so much that the day of the cross is dark to us, but rather that we often take part in Maundy Thursday and the Last Supper, and then skip right over to Easter without so much as a second glance at the importance of Good Friday. No disrespect intended, but we kinda have to kill Christ in order for him to raise himself back up. Can’t raise the living to life.

So in these moments of quiet and reflecting on God during the times of silence I have found more comfort with the darkness in my life. Granted I try to visit the darkness in my life. This is not to say that I go out and purposefully try to do bad things, but I take time to reflect on my actions and asking if they are in line with God’s Kingdom. These are also times where I normally visit the worst case of a scenario, normally to go that far, get it out of my system and then come back to the land of the insane.

It will be weird to go back to the noise of music come Easter, but at the same time I think I will find myself reflecting in times of silence more often. Although I apparently have about 5 CD’s that I need to catch up on.

Another Trip Around the Sun

2008-02-12T08:01:00.000-08:00

Another year, another Super Bowl, and one more left at Fuller. It is quite a bit surreal at the moment. Not for the sake of being surreal but more that I have had some very pleasant and wonderful surprises come into formation in the past month that I’d like to share.

As for the B’day itself, I guess things started on Saturday with a visit down to the brother’s pad in Irvine and playing Guitar Hero on his ‘Christmas’ Wii as well as some fierce some battles of Mario vs Sonic Olympics by all members present. It was good to see some friends from home who came out to wish my brother a happy B’day and then watch the Super Bowl with him. I have pictures, but they all came out blurry, but that might be very appropriate for the evening. I, on the other hand, had to drive home and thus did not take part in the festivities.

My Birthday was slightly more entertaining and there are a set of photos from that outing, of which I did take part, nay, lead the festivities and had a wonderful time. I had many friends who were there to take care of me and make sure I didn’t make too much of a fool of myself. Mischievous B came out and played with me too, it was a good time.

Finally not 5 days later I got to preach my first sermon in front of a full congregation. I spend most of my teaching in smaller groups of high school kids, so this was a little different. I had a great group of folks come out and support me, which was a wonderful joy to have. We had an after party, which my brother came up to take part of along with my parents coming down to pay a visit.

Sheesh has it been that long?

2008-01-19T18:48:00.000-08:00

From October to January … good grief. I can’t even remember what was going on at the time (looks back at his calendar) … Oh now I remember. Yea … got past that stuff.

It is MLK weekend, I have gained more time to relax and unwind that I’m probably forgetting that I have something to do, but for now I’ll take a little ignorance. What I’m probably dealing with is a bit of left over vacation from Christmas break. I think Christmas was the first time I had some good time off for about 1 year. There was just something that was nutty about last year and I felt like I really didn’t have time off.

I cannot begin to tell ya’ll about how little I did over Christmas break. Well I did a lot but you know what I mean. I got to see many old friends and lots of youth group kids. Wished one of them a well being away to Austin, TX. He will be much missed when I go home. Did bunches of random stuff around the house, got cool new toys (see below) and all in all had a wonderful time at home.

One of the things that has kept me sane this whole time has been a Disneyland annual pass. I have been to Disneyland 3 times since September with plans to go more as the year continues. More than anything it is just a wonderful time out to goof off and get away from the think tank that is at home. Or at least be able to think clearly. Fuller seems so crowded sometimes. I’ll take a 20 min line and it is a little more open than the atmosphere on Fuller. Or maybe that is just the goofball in me.

Speaking of Fuller …
I’m taking Presbyterian History and Programs (feels like a one sided review of history, but there is a stronger sense of Reformed theology so I connect with it a bit better), Homiletics (Preaching - excited and nervous), and Biblical Organization Leadership (Now that you’re a leader, what do you do with the rest of the church body?). I’m auditing Leadership in Youth Ministry (Chapland - woo hoo!), and am continuing my internship in Burbank (Preaching in Feb, Doing Good Friday in March).

My birthday is coming up and all I would really like is to not have a midterm the next day. I have some stuff that I can't talk about yet, but I'm super excited! But for now … as the daily show would say … your moment of Zen …

This truck was being towed down the mountain due to heavy snow.

The Punching Bag

2007-10-26T21:57:00.000-07:00

I’m not sure what it is and I think I have many friends who would verify this: but for some reason I have a nice big bull’s-eye on my chest for attracting problems. Not like your run of the mill problems, but the like … requires more than 1 week to fix type of problems. Things not included in this category:
- 10 page papers
- Car repair
- Computer repair
- Anything that can be solved by a visit to ‘theological beverage’-house
- Cleaning my apartment
- Greek
- Curing insomnia
- Mono

Now … how do I put this … I wasn’t ‘sideswiped by a wrecking ball, eighteen-wheeler, and the Titanic in one blow,’ but more like somewhere in between the eighteen-wheeler and Titanic. But this isn’t a tale about how cruddy my life is but a moment of clarity and rejoicing.

For all my times of trials they have always led up to something wonderful that God will do.
For all my times of trials I have found that my friends have stood by me, even when I was the problem.
For all my times of trials it has never been my own doing, but God’s.
For all my times of trials ... I’m still here and God still uses me.

I think the last one is what is in my mind now, and just how cool that is. I have comfort in that he has not given me something that will cause me to break, just bend a bit. I’m not asking for more trials, but I am ready to face the ones that come my way.

Something's wrong ...

2007-10-04T13:30:00.000-07:00

Ralph's has discontinued IBC Cream Soda on it's shelves in its Lake Ave., Pasadena store ... One man riot ensues.

New School Year for the Minstrel

2007-09-26T08:14:00.000-07:00

So ummm … yea: First week of school and Welcome Week, and some small BBQ that I’m in charge of planning. It piles up a bit. Anywho I’m not sure where this will go (serious or goofy) so I wish you good luck.

I am excited to be back in classes. I’m a little worn out from this week, but I was expecting to be. It has been fun seeing the campus alive with energy and movement as a bunch of first years gather on campus; each bringing a new story, new worries, new energy, and new anxieties. All of this energy is without the understanding of just how good Fuller is, and when they talk about their classes they only get more excited. Very cool to see. I think I have helped quite a few new students that I have met over the summer and just recently in giving advice on how to approach Fuller classes, as well as my personal biases on which professors to take.

I have started my internship at Burbank Presbyterian Church in … Burbank … (duh). I’m really excited as I sit down with (Pastor) Ross and discuss ministry and the inner workings of the church he leads. He reminds me of my dad in many respects in that he has found the balance between work, family, and personal study. While I have only known him for a bit he has a wonderful sense of humor but underneath it all is an honest caring of his interns, church, and the relationships that they have with God. While this week has been a bit nutty, I am trying really really hard to not jump into the deep end, but rather take it nice and slow right now and work out the rest.

Brings me to classes: I am taking 12 units and auditing another 4 for personal enrichment/enjoyment. I am taking Ethics, Systematic Theology 2 (Christ, Salvation, Spirit), and Exegetical Methods. The audit is Foundations for Youth Ministry of which I feel compelled to do the work even though I don’t ‘have to’. I’m excited about all of these and have friends in all the classes (although slightly fewer in Methods) that are fun to just hang out with.

All in all I have a nice peace about this quarter and the workload that is involved (no final tests). I suspect that Ethics and ST2 will probably continue to stretch my personal struggles, and Foundations will be a nice balance to these as I work out what it means to ‘do’ ministry.

There are a few serious musings that I'll work through after this week, and maybe post. But for now ... this is life

I Can't Make This Stuff Up

2007-09-09T22:26:00.000-07:00

As spoken by Fuller's President Richard Mouw during his 'musings' portion of the trustee's meeting dinner ... on grits ... theology ... and sermon examples ...

"A Roman Catholic friend of mine went to visit the south and took a look at the menu, he called the waitress over to ask what grits were. He said, 'ma'am, what's a grit?' She replied, 'Hon you don't get just one ...' The body of Christ should be like grits, all stuck together and many of us."

"Another friend of mine who I told this story to called me one day and said, 'I have a grits story for you:'

A man walks into a wafflehouse in the south and orders waffles, bacon and eggs. Waitress brings the order and it has grits all over it. The man turns to the waitress, 'Excuse me I didn't order any grits.' She replied, 'Sorry, you get 'em whether you want em or not.'

Grace is like grits ... you get it whether you want it or not ...' "

I think I'm going to have to save these for any sermons I give in southern states.

Ok time for a gamer/nerd post

2007-09-07T19:35:00.000-07:00

First of is a an hour long keynote speech given by Wil Wheaton at Penny Arcade Expo that took place in Seattle about 2 weeks ago. Some of you will not get many of the references but there are many great comments about the state of video games. If you have no idea who Wil Wheaton is … he was Westley Crusher on Star Trek: TNG. Mild language and content warning.

The second is the keynote speech given by Steve Jobs about the new ipods. Now … I don’t need you to watch the whole thing but if you fast forward to about 58 minutes and watch the 10 min presentation given by the Starbucks representative. If you understand anything about Emerging church, so does this man … it is scary.

And finally ... music, comedy, and zombies

Heroes, Once, and A Piece of my Mind

2007-09-04T09:54:00.000-07:00

So as part of my procrastination therapy I went out and purchased the first season of Heroes. I have only one word …

Ohmygoshthisshowissofreakingcool!

Aside from being a semi nerd this show really does have a good mix of storyline, character development, and showing off cool abilities. I think the thing I admire the most about the show is that it does have that mortality aspect that sometimes doesn’t exist. I liken it to a cross between The Incredibles and Spiderman but with more people. A couple parts are not for the squeamish and there are a couple of moments where there are some very … visual effects. In general the show has a sense of greater purpose and larger scale than one season can encompass (similar to Lost, I’ve been told). It does have all the standard superhero abilities that you come to expect: flight, regeneration, variations on telepathy, and so on … but puts them in characters that are not always able to do much with them. I also appreciate the fact that some of the more prominent characters have no powers yet are still able to make contributions.

So cool a show … which brings me to a really cool movie: Once

It is an independent movie that is from Ireland and is really one of the more beautiful love stories that I have seen in a long time. It has won two Audience Awards (one of which was at Sundance) and I highly recommend it. I could go into more detail but it really needs to be seen and talking about it doesn’t do it justice. It will probably be playing at the independent movie theaters for a while as it is just starting to come into buzz in the US.

Which brings me to a portion of my Mind

Beginning these are always dangerous and I’m not sure what is on my mind at the time. I think right now it is watching the differences between newer students and graduating/graduated students and the differences between them. I was picking up one of my neighbors from the airport and we were talking about the sociology project that could be done on Fuller’s Campus. It was interesting to figure out some of my own thoughts in broad generalizations that have their exceptions but it was interesting to consider some of the differences between the schools in mindset and age. Looking at the Psych school they have the ‘older/wiser’ aspect as most of them are PhD candidates who are paying cash for 5-6 years (in most cases) to get their degree and do counseling once they graduate. For the Intercultural Studies (Missionary) group there is one of two mindsets: I want to go into missions, or I need to know more so I can do missions better. In general I think of this group as a couple of years older and with some experience going outside of the US to do missions work. In general I find that this group of people come with a sense of purpose and a maturity and perspective that has been tempered in another country. Which brings me to the Theology Students … My guess is that about 70% of the non-doctoral students here are fresh out of undergrad and I would say that the Theology students are probably the youngest out of the three groups. I get the feeling that many of the Missions and Psych students view Theology as the misfits of the campus, but these are my ‘perceptions’ of which I have very little to base it upon, I’m a Theology student … and a closet misfit.

Here is the part that confuses me … Missions and Psych have integrated communities within their programs. These groups are called cohorts and they basically allow for outside integration of class material as well as providing a place for discussion and friendships to form not only with each other, but also with professors. Theology doesn’t and this confuses me. A Theology student could effectively do an entire M. Div (pastoral degree) without ever really engaging with fellow students, and yet these are the people who are going to go into congregations and lead a group of people towards God. As I approach the end of my 2nd year in Seminary I look at this picture and I don’t really have to say much about how upside down my head is at times (see some of my previous entries). I’m sure I’m not the only one but here is the fun part. It has been my experience that many people are very careful about who they have the deeper conversations with. I have encountered a number of people who I can only touch on the surface with about the things of life and confusion. Now I’m not saying the Missions and Psych don’t need their cohorts, I’m just wondering where ours are.

Am I far off in my assumptions or am I close enough to be scary. Also, those of you who have been having some conversation about the past post I made, I have responded in the comments if you wish to ‘counter-counter-point’

Where has the time gone?

2007-08-23T16:58:00.000-07:00

No … I haven’t been to Saddleback yet.
No … I haven’t solved world peace, but I’m working on it.
No … I haven’t danced with the devil in the pale moonlight
No … I haven’t seen my neph-monkey since Memorial day
No … I haven’t taken over the world, but it goes along with that whole world peace thing.
No … I haven’t gotten a date. (Despite Becca’s top 10 list)
No … I haven’t misplaced my brain, … err … maybe I have
No … I haven’t figured out the meaning of life, I’m still trying to figure out my own life.
No … I haven’t considered what type of chocolate I’m on at this phase in my life

(Warning: you are now entering serious thoughts, there is no shallow end)

Now that that is out of the way, I have finished classes for summer and with two papers outstanding I’m going to take this weekend off and have some fun and contemplate some of the things that I have been putting off this past quarter. Mostly having to do with some serious theological thinking regarding church. I’m not sure I have an answer, nor do I have all the front-end research done. I think I have a very basic building block understanding of what ‘church’ is supposed to be, and the tension lies within my understanding and experience of what Reformed church is and what I have experienced within a more Charismatic setting. I have to be honest in that I’m not fully understanding of what the underlying foundation of the Charismatic tradition is. I have been reading Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places (for fun) by Eugene Peterson … slowly … and looking at the balance between what could be seen as the spiritual gifts and what is a perversion of the gifts in the sense of where Glory is given. I’ll let ya know how the book goes.

I can remember one day during my first quarter of a friend of mine coming out of class after having just finished a John Thompson paper and saying ‘I now understand why I am Reformed, I am Reformed.’ … and thinking, ‘that is odd.’ My problem is that I know I am Reformed, in more ways than I can count, which makes me odd, yet I still struggle with this tension in the Charismatic movement. Most of this falls in the music movements that are taking place. Now I’m at the point where I have a respect for the church music forms that I have encountered. I understand the beauty of the hymns and the drive that comes from a more contemporary side of things. Here is the fun part: Looking at the majority of the worship artists, who produce music in the contemporary style, are on some level within the Charismatic understanding. One of my fellow musicians at Fuller has a strong preference of hymns over contemporary music, and has stated as much. This musician has many skills that I wish I had as a musician and I respect her choice, and on the other side of things there are entire movements (such as Indelible Grace) that serve the primary function of trying to bring hymns within the realm of guitar and ‘band’ type of settings. At this point I want to have my cake and eat it too, but the 'I want' doesn't work to well with what God wants. And thus I reach the question: is there a way to mix some of the two, to … walk the line … while still being considered ‘Reformed' ... AND still feel like God is praised before the band is.

This is my tension and struggle as I carry on through Seminary. I see it as I visit churches with a 'budget' to support music in their churches and have very charismatic leaders to support their beliefs. I'm guilty of this, giving credit to Tomlin, Crowder, and so on rather than the God who wants our praise. I blur the lines all to much even in my own life where I take compliments rather than directing them Godwards (I must be in Seminary, I'm making up words).

It isn’t so much about what I want nor is it about pleasing a congregation but finding a place where God is worshiped by everyone. If I had to pick one or the other (which is not where I feel God leading me) I would end up Reformed, but then that is what I have grown up as. Yet as I learn more and more about different church styles I find a peace surrounding most things that might prove to be difficult theological issues. Or maybe it is coming to a place where ‘I don’t know’ is an acceptable answer.

I think I have another rant that I need to flesh out too, but I'll save that for another time.

Thoughts? Comments here or in person are open. I know I have holes in there somewhere, but take the rough meaning.

Sacred, Space, and Buildings

2007-08-09T11:09:00.001-07:00

One of the things that I have picked up on my journey through life is an appreciation of the function of an object. This has carried somewhat into my church experiences where one looks at how a church functions, and also at the ‘air’ around the church. I visited Bel Air Presbyterian church in the hills looking over the North LA county. For being one of the more populated Presbyterian churches in LA it had a very ‘home’ feel to it. To be honest it didn’t really feel like a ‘church’ but rather a large meeting hall where friends gathered together. Much of the technical oriented stuff was tucked away and hidden to the best of their ability but there was just a feeling of peace and home that one does not always find in a building alone, often one needs people to make that happen. Yet I could easily see myself spending a morning there alone in quiet contemplation.

I just read this article on buildings, beauty, and the idea of ‘sacred.’ I find that this concept of sacred is important to many and that others are often not aware of it. In many of the churches I have been to it is difficult to separate the sacred from the social. It is the sacred that I have tried to recreate in my own space, and am moderately successful. Yet I don’t think that everyone understands a need for the space of the sacred.

One of the things that is mentioned in the above article is that buildings and spaces get forgotten over time for what they were built to create space for. Yet the building still holds meaning in the form of ‘sacred’ and it is understood that sacred is something that is now an adjective describing the building. The perception that a congregation has on a church is easily noted in how they tend to their pre-service activities. Often I will see friends in fellowship talking at normal volumes without consideration for others in the sanctuary/chapel. Other people will be near by and seeing to have a moment of contemplation and silent reflection but are unable to do so with the conversation.

I’m going to Saddleback sometime in the next two weeks to see what the church is like and I’m not sure what I will find. I have to say that I’m not a huge fan of the whole 40 days of purpose thing, if only cause I had to do it for 80 days back to back, but I have never seen him in person so it should be … interesting. I know I haven't made a point or anything concrete, but then again I'm still doing 'research.'

Blood and Tears

2007-08-05T19:44:00.001-07:00

I finally found my brother’s blog tonight …

Strangely enough he posted yesterday, and seems to only post when he is getting all fired up, and thus I only see the hurt side. Yet within all this pain and struggle he has paid me two comments of genuine respect that have not only touched me deeply, but they have also allowed me to see him, and feel his pain. I barely have the words, yet I’m sure my tears could speak more than any words could ever do justice.

This isn’t really for any of my friend’s benefit, but rather for my brother’s. I know he reads my blog from time to time, and probably understands me more as we spent a few years growing up together, but what gets me is that he is excited for me and my moving through Seminary. I don’t quite get why as it probably means we agree to disagree about the nature of God and the universe. Yet at the same time I do understand, if only because I am excited to see where his life takes him. The both of us really had a few years after college where we were still trying to figure out what to do with our lives. I had only just begun to understand God’s call on my life, and my brother was figuring out his own life. Now the both of us are stepping into our lives and finally figuring out what we want to do with them … aside from having fun.

I don’t think I would ever call my brother the black sheep of the family and mean it. I can’t begin to describe the challenge that Luke 15:11 and following scare me sometimes, sometimes I wonder if this case there are two men on the porch waiting.

My emotions are kinda out of whack right now, but I think they have been moved to the right place.

Sunsets in Tahoe

2007-07-15T07:52:00.001-07:00

Well I am in Tahoe. On my second day and we got some cloud cover to get some very very nice sunset pictures. The first is facing South East and the second one is facing West. The sun is just behind in the mountains in the picture below. I probably should have gotten the picture in the middle to watch the change in colors, but these two were the more interesting shots.

Either way, I am officially on vacation. I have decided to read the Harry Potter series, and I'm about 80% through the second one. More pictures to come as we cause some more trouble.

The Theology of Harry Potter

2007-07-11T13:55:00.000-07:00

Yes … I went and saw midnight showing of Order of the Phoenix opening night. I’m not sure how I am presently awake, but I’m trying to make progress.

To prepare myself for the new film I watched the fourth one again and something struck me as very interesting. At the end of the fourth movie Harry and Dumbledore are talking and Dumbledore says the following that struck me as interesting, “You will have to choose between what is right, and what is easy.” This quote played tricks on me this morning…

I went to bed at 3am post movie. I had class at 8am. I forgot to set my alarm. My internal alarm woke me up at 6:45, at which point I rolled over to see that it was indeed 6:45, and then rolled back over to consider five more minutes of comfort from my pillow. At this point I rolled back over and found that it was now 7:30. At this point my brain proposed the idea of just skipping class, I rolled halfway over and had Dumbledore’s quote run through my head. At this point I complained audibly to no one in particular, rolled out of bed and was in class by 8am (with shower and caffeine).

Right vs Easy is in a very interesting contrast to Right vs Wrong. While I think that I have though in the terms of a ‘gray’ area for quite some time now, it was interesting to put it in this context and have a succinct quote that sums up those ideas.

As to the movie: I will simply quote Ron Weasley

“Wicked!”

Comedy by Becca

2007-07-06T19:58:00.000-07:00

This is intended to be funny, and I didn't have any direct part in writing them, I did give basic suggestions that my friend Becca then wrote down, for maybe 2 of them. Other than that the below have no input from my finger strokes other than basic editing.

Top 10 reasons Alan is a better catch than your current options...

10. He notices details. Your favorite color, who your friends are, what you like to drink.

9. He says he will let his g/f decide what to do with his hair.

8. He will play sweet love songs on the guitar outside your window in the evening that will make you melt.

7. He likes Spuderitos, He will even pay.

6. He's in Grad school ladies, that means he is in the top 10% of highly educated people in the United States. You know what they say about a guy with a big brain....
(Big feet... in the theological sense)

5. He is secretly a member of the Geek Squad and can fix your computer problems... for free. Or at most for the price of a Spuderito.

4. From frisbee to football, you can see him take control of the field. Sweat is a natural pheromone by the way...

3. He has all his mom's recipes! You can expect a homemade meal. Cookies, salmon, fajitas... that's at least 3 nights or wining and dining (4 if you throw in a spuderito one night).

2. He has a good sense of humor. Like during finals week he wears his Monty Pithon shirt that says "I'm not quite dead yet."

1. And the number one reason Alan is a better catch than your other options is...
have you looked at your other options?

Respectfully Submitted by Becca

Thoughts that Haunt me …

2007-07-01T22:29:00.000-07:00

It is now Sunday night … this has been going since about Friday mid-day

It started with an emotional snap. Those who are within my closer group of friends and know my immediate life get two guesses but should only need one. I’m not going to discuss that here, as it seems very minor in the grand scheme of things. What followed was about 20 hrs of work over a stretch of 36 hr stretch.

Mimeistry is a performing arts group that uses dance, mime, and comedy for the sole purpose of delivering the Gospel message. Their campus overlaps with William Carey International University. They have summer intensive learning classes near the end of July and their performing troupe was doing their fund raising on Fuller Campus through the Brehm Center. Friday was about 10 hrs of Tech/Dress rehearsal followed by 2 shows on Saturday. Aside from being really good at what they do, some of those images are still haunting me, as well as the music. To put it in perspective: I have learned to play one of the songs. Twenty hours … little tired.

Third ingredient: Systematic Theology of Ecclesiology, which is just a fancy way of saying what makes a church, church? I am Presbyterian by creed which means that I’m supposed to believe that the church is one thing (and from what I understand I do think that way, or I wouldn’t have gone to church this morning) and while there is room for some of my other understandings of what makes up an ecclesiology. Most of these are centered on my like for a sort of charismatic worship energy, something where I can ‘feel’ the presence of God.

And now for the fun part … season with short sleep, and restless sleep (I literally just came out from Ratatouille, sorry for all the cooking references) Snap leads into work, which shows me a glimpse of some who have embraced a ministry call, leading to a looking at my own call, and maybe trying to figure out how to take all the new information I have and combine it with the old. Mix in little sleep and a mind that has been trying to work on all of this at the same time.

I’m pretty much emotionally, mentally, and physically done. It is about 10pm and I doubt my mind will let me get more than 5 hrs tonight (I can hope for more). Yet it is the following words that haunt me:

(Chorus)
There are tears from the saints
For the lost and unsaved
We’re crying for them come back home
We’re crying for them come back home
And all your children will stretch out their hands
And pick up the crippled man
Father, we will lead them home
Father, we will lead them home

(Bridge)
Sinner, reach out your hands!
Children in Christ you stand!
Sinner, reach out your hands!
Children in Christ you stand!

- Tears of the Saints by Leeland
(Yahoo login needed for the video, but the audio is on their myspace page as well)

I am brought back to the passage that haunts Chap Clark (Mark 10:13-16) in his ministry. So much of his natural being is emulated within those verses and much of his ministry philosophy resonates with me on levels that I am only beginning to understand. God and I are very far from done with this conversation, and I’m not sure that the goal of this weekend was to just be ‘having a conversation.’ There are times that I want to stop and regroup, and God lets me be for a bit, but the conversation always continues at a latter point.

I have so many mental images from the Mimeistry show, so many questions in talking with God, countless requests for rest and sleep. The images haunt, the questions nag, and sleep is restless. At this point I had expected the weekend to be long, and that God was going to do some work on my heart, I didn’t realize that he was going to fiddle around with some other things while he was in there. I know they are being fixed for the better, but for now the work is not done, so it still hurts. Or in my case haunts my every hour.

My week off... so far

2007-06-13T22:15:00.000-07:00

How hot it is it?

So hot that soda cans explode while sitting on the counter.

This must be why I got a mop for cleaning … it got its second work out tonight.

-------------------------

So I just finished working the Allelon conference put on by the Depree center. What that basically means is that I go to go to a nifty pastor’s conference for free. It was rather interesting listening to the chaos that was going on in the background. Each person who was at the conference had brought his or her own case study about a frustrating ministry experience. Then in groups they discussed them looking at options and then how to proceed. Now I came in during the middle of the conference so the basic teaching had already been done, but I was able to keep up enough to pull out some very interesting things.

The theme of the second day seemed to be frustration. I think what most of the pastors wanted was answers to how to now proceed, the problem came about when the panel of speakers basically said ‘there are no answers.’ It was interesting watching a series of questions centered around wanting an answer that will fix the problem when the speakers were only giving a method of moving the church from internal to mission/community minded.

By the end of the third/last day many of the people were comfortable dwelling in the tension of not having the answers to the question, but rather a mindset that there is a need to listen to the church congregation, not only by the pastors but by other members of the church leadership.

As I was sitting down with one of the pastors during dinner on the final day we had a discussion on the differences between generations and dealing with listening to every person. The whole conference has been building on a feeling that the church is about to make a change; how, what, and when it will happen is still an interesting question.

Summer ... at last!

2007-06-08T16:32:00.000-07:00

There is a week of bliss, known as the week between quarters. During this time there is no class work, no papers, no tests, only moments to enjoy life and catch up on all the junk that has piled up over the last three weeks. It is now Friday and while I will be spending the later portion of the evening among friends, I am currently enjoying the blissful ability to do on of my favorite pastimes: as little as possible.

Tomorrow I will probably clean my apartment and make some minor revisions in the morning that need to be done, followed by a joyous party of chaos at the graduation party of two dear friends. But more importantly I should be getting to do some free time reading, which will be … odd. I’m not sure if I want to read some more theology as I have about 5 books that I have been wanting to read, or allow myself to have some fun (which is probably what will happen).

Normally around this time I begin to reflect on seminary, and seeing as I am officially at the mid-point of my seminary experience I’m sure some of that will come this week, but there are many other things that need to take place to allow for ‘clear’ thinking. But for my posterity and preview of things to come here is a short rundown

Finished Greek, and all my history classes; then took Pentateuch, Youth and Evangelism, and Grief, Loss, Death, and Dying as my side classes. Somewhere in there is the forgettable Foundations for Ministry class.

More to come as life carries on…

Truth (Tell no lies)

2007-05-29T21:55:00.000-07:00

Preface:
1) This is my first song I have ever written, so ... it is what it is ...
2) This is what I can piece together of the day my mom found out she had cancer

Truth (Tell no lies)

It’s Dad’s Birthday today
Home from school I see my mother first
She freezes as she tells me
Dad’s birthday is now six months away

Walking in the door
I can see that something’s wrong
And the Script that’s rehearsed fades as

I see into her eyes,
They tell me all I need to know
That you are afraid
So tell, tell me no lies
So I am not alone
To make up all the ‘coulds’ and ‘ifs,’
If you go …

Dad is doing his best to be strong
But he is torn apart I don’t notice
He is crying on the inside
And I simply dismiss the pain in the room

Going back to my life
He follows me outside
With a breath he says everything

I see into his eyes,
They tell me all I need to know
That you are afraid
So tell, tell me no lies
So I am not alone
To make up all the ‘coulds’ and ‘ifs,’
If you go …

I count myself one of the lucky ones
He and she are still with me
I have not felt the pain of death
But somehow I know when …

I see into your eyes,
They tell me all I need to know
That you are afraid
So I, I you no lies,
That I don’t understand it all
But I will be here
If you call

The Minstrel

2007-05-27T09:34:00.000-07:00

I wrote a song over the last week. Granted it was for a class, but it has some traction. I'm not 100% happy with all the words, but I'll post them here after Tuesday night when I play it for class.

It is kinda scary...

I Don't Know

2007-05-25T10:15:00.000-07:00

It isn’t quite finals week but it feels like it…

“Only when grace is recognized to be incomprehensible is it grace.” - Karl Barth

Turned in a paper on Wednesday (the 23rd) regarding Karl Barth and Adolf von Harnack. And while the paper is done, this quote still comes back around to bother me and comfort me all at the same time. Last night was no different as the Presby group on campus had their graduation banquet and one of the main points of the evening was being a steward of the mysteries of God.

Now … I find myself a very practical, logistical, almost strategic person. When doing a task I normally can see most of the angles and many of the problems that could arise from any number of situations. I am a firm believer in Murphy’s Law and to some extent enjoy a good challenge. Yet through all of this I try to be aware of where and when God moves through all of these things. I have seen moderately planned events that should have been stressful turn out like roses. I have seen the most structured plans go off the deep end and drown. In both of these cases I have seen God affect lives and work through hearts.

It is in these mysteries that I find an odd combination of peace and nervousness. I want to understand, I want to know, I want to have something tangible to grab onto. I want to have a little bit of God in a box, just to say that I understand that much. That isn’t to say that I don’t understand the purpose of everything that has been done, but the ‘how?’ and from time to time the ‘why?’ trip me up. When dealing with a mystery we, or at least I, want to find out the answer. And where there is no answer, then I have to accept the fact that it is a mystery and … be OK with that? …

I forget how one of my professors put it but the basic idea was to ‘dwell with the mysteries of God.’ Dwell is an interesting word and it is almost ‘living by choice’ rather than just ‘being among.’ I think there are some mysteries that I dwell with, although I can’t describe them. Other mysteries have maybe come over and spent the night. Perhaps there are some that I dwell with that I don’t even know about. More than anything I think the acceptance of the mysteries of God allows me to say ‘I don’t know.’ And there is a peace in those words, some tension, but a peace an humbling that works as a reminder to recognize that there are things that are incomprehensible.

Breaking Stuff

2007-05-16T21:58:00.001-07:00

So I have broken a few things in my lifetime. Some have caused me personal injury, others were a source of personal anger management errr relaxation therapy, some things were meant to be broken, and other things were not.

These are a few stories about the ‘nots.’

This idea came to me today as I have broken my capo for my guitar. For those of you playing the home game; a capo is a piece of metal that goes on the strings of the guitar to alter the sound that the strings make. It is commonly used to make playing songs easier instead of having to use difficult to maintain finger positions. A capo is basically spring loaded and I broke the spring. Now the spring is a solid piece of metal that, although under a great deal of stress, should not break easily. The broken off part would probably require a tetanus shot if I poked you with it. Now … Guitar playing lends itself to strong hands, more notably so when you learn to play bar chords (one of the reasons to get a capo). But I didn’t think I was THAT strong. This resulted in me going to guitar center and picking up a new one, but I did have a solid 20 minutes of shock trying to figure out what in the world just happened.

A memorial service will be held for the capo at a latter date…

The earlier memory was back a few years when I was playing in a high school youth band. Now … guitar strings break all the time, I don’t break them all that often, but when I do they are more of an annoyance than anything else. It is such a common occurrence that volumes of jokes have been written about the 4th string down from the top. However, in the high school band I didn’t know how to play guitar … just bass guitar. Now I didn’t break the smallest string on my bass, I broke the largest. This string (I just looked on my current bass) is about the same thickness as my capo spring. Luckily this was in practice so that I could just go barrow the pastor’s and play for the rest of the evening, but I received many jokes about the 4th string down and many comments of fearfulness that I could crush someone with my thumb. That and our acoustic guitar player would always break strings so it was his turn to get some of the sass out of his system. It was ok, he still breaks strings on a monthly basis.

I feel like I should have more funny stories about this … but nope. As it is my hands are going to have be registered as lethal weapons to musical equipment. Mothers, do you know where your pianos are?

Musical Intermission

2007-05-01T06:42:00.000-07:00

So I have a paper due this week (in 24 hrs). So here are a couple of fun pieces for your enjoyment by a guy by the name of Trace Bundy. Really stinking good guitar player.

Pachelbel Canon

Carol of the Bells

Your regular nonsensical drivel will return next week.

Enjoy

Musical Blogs

2007-04-22T16:37:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to do this blog thing once a week since the start of this quarter and been doing an OK job of it. I find my life isn’t all that interesting some weeks, so from time to time I might have to make up some fake news, but there will be warning signs when I get there.

This week has been very … musical … I guess is an appropriate word. I led worship in chapel last Monday playing some of my favorite songs, more cause well I wanted to and nobody was going to get in my way so neyah. This was followed with many many airport runs (ok 2) where I played ‘airport taxi’ from LAX to Pasadena for a few friends who went to Cursillo for participation as well as staff members and one other traveler who managed to land around the same time as the others. This afforded me much time in my car with my slightly damaged Ipod. It still plays but it does have the minor issue that part of the screen is unreadable. These trips afford me some time to enjoy some good driving and good driving music as well as get a better feel for some of the lyrics that get brushed over as they play while my focus us elsewhere.

Thursday night was much fun. I joined my friends Josh, Rebecca, and Laura for a jam session of banjo, guitar, bass, piano, mandolin, and voice proportions. Rotating through songs and just learning a bunch of music while having fun around friends who I had not seen in a long time (in Josh and Rebecca - They got married over spring break and are not on campus much this quarter.) It was a very relaxing experience that will have to take place again.

Friday was lots of fun as I got to revisit my Cursillo experience with a few of the people who had been. It was a time of talking, remembering, good food, a little worship but in general it was fun to just revisit memories that I had forgotten about, and hearing from the new people about their experience as well as finding out that some of the folks over in Houston were asking about me. Odd, yes. Comforting, yes.

Saturday I took the evening out to go see Rosie Thomas in concert at Fuller for Art’s week. It was a very slow style of music but they were just having a good time. The band had gotten lost on their way to Pasadena, and ended up getting about an hour south before they realized they had gone too far. Their minds were kinda gone, but it was funny to watch. It was interesting to see Rosie who has a singing voice similar to Sarah McLaughlin (or that was my first and second impression) and then to have a speaking voice that was … well … not. Still it was interesting to see a very simple musical background that gave way to very powerful lyrics. I noticed a few things that I want to try on guitar, but that will probably have to wait some. It is a working weekend and I’m about 1/3 the way done with my reading for my next paper.

Final thoughts: Rocky Road Brownies (sans nuts) are quite tasty and I still have about 1/3 of the batch left at the time of writing this … ummmmmmmm.

A Little R&R

2007-04-15T06:57:00.001-07:00

I have said this verbally to some people, but man … am I glad that last quarter is over. I can remember feeling like a punch-me clown that would get back up only because I had to and not because I was taunting someone. This quarter has been much more fun with much less stress (so far)

I think the first thing is that I am again playing Frisbee (aka Therapy). Never have I had so much joy from running around like a dog catching a circular object. I almost had a diving catch this morning, instead I have a small grass burn but it is better than stress. I turned in my first paper of the quarter without having to stay up late, or feel like I was in crunch time. I have had time to play guitar not because I am slacking (well I kinda am) but because I have the time to do so. I have four-day weekends. I have my internship lined up for next year. my room is clean and able to entertain guests. I get to blog every week (or do if I remember to). But mostly I think I don’t have weights attached to every limb of my body and a pack strapped to my back.

I don’t say this to brag but over the past couple of weeks quite a few of my friends have commented on how worn down I looked at the end of last quarter. Looking back I can see the concern they had at the time and the love that they showed. I owe those people a thank you for being a calming force in my life when I normally try to fill that role for others, even in the middle of my own personal chaos. I have never had this much peace when looking ahead to a quarter, my calendar is not filled with 5 million things to do, but has a manageable number of events, activities, and leisure time.

As this quarter continues on I know that I will get busy, but for now I have rest, and it has been quite some time since I have had it.

The Stone Age of Comics

2007-04-09T07:01:00.000-07:00

There will be more laughter in heaven these days: Johnny Hart, creator of B.C., Passed away on Saturday.

As Becca would say "Sad day."

What now?

2007-04-08T21:58:00.000-07:00

Holy week is a little odd for me sometimes. For the first time in any times that I can remember I was simply a congregation member of the church for the entire duration. No worship to prepare, no Easter eggs to hide; my only role was to sit back and watch. I attended a Maundy Thursday service in Burbank and a Good Friday service in Glendora and then celebrated Easter back in Burbank. And somewhere in all this the background music to this Play in 4 (or so) parts has been a soundtrack of Bethany Dillon’s new CD (more on this in a later post).

Thursday was spent catching up on errands that needed to get done, but the afternoon and evening was spent celebrating a friend’s B’day and then going out to Burbank and hearing Schubert’s Mass sung by the choir. While they had been doing them for Choral anthems for the past few weeks the added string quartet was … new. I think I slowly let myself go and allowed the music to tell the story. It was all in Latin and while the translation was given in the bulletins it wasn’t needed. The soul of the music carried everything that needed to be said. Voice and string told the story with notes that danced and played and at times cried. It was a beautifully told story, yet no words were needed.

Friday was another relaxing day of doing … well … nothing productive. But the end of the day found me fighting traffic eastward, and what is normally a 20-minute drive takes 20 minutes plus an extra hour. We got to Good Friday late and had a restful evening in consideration of the dark night.

I spent both these nights with a pair of good friends and we talked about the whole weekend as a whole. And while my only thought on Friday night was ‘It has all gone horribly wrong.’ Without looking ahead of what was to come I could not see past that moment and putting myself in the place of the disciples. Scattered, fearful, hanging by a noose, crying at a personal betrayal … all of these emotions sort of sorting themselves out with no real answer to the question of ‘What now?’

Saturday I found myself out playing Frisbee and remembering which muscles I used when I played (if only for the soreness). That afternoon was a nap followed by finishing some reading for a paper that is due soon. I was at a friend’s house and we spent the post-dinner in conversation and then playing guitar/singing and working through songs, and while I didn’t realize it at the time, we were doing exactly what we were supposed to be doing. Praising God in song, in fellowship, and by simply gathering together, till midnight (aka way past my bedtime).

This morning (Sunday) I returned to Burbank to worship with a 4-part brass section. I should probably preface this story with the information that my Dad (a pastor) is very pro-baby in his services. That if a baby cries out during his sermon he takes it for an ‘Amen’ and then he continues right on. So when the brass section finished the first hymn (Christ the Lord is Risen Today) in … a very triumphant processional type of feeling, from about the middle of the church a young boy simply cried out in joy “Yeaaa!” And in that moment he was the one who understood everything that Easter meant.

It isn’t strings, horns, Thursdays, Schubert, Fridays, or why everything seems to have gone horribly wrong. It is about Sunday, when we find out the answer to the question of ‘What now?’

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“YEAAA!”

The Spring of aut 7

2007-03-30T08:25:00.000-07:00

Finished on week of school already and I can tell that this quarter is going to be draining but highly encouraging. I have been looking at my quarter and there are very few large things that need planning for but many small ones.

Greek - 3rd and Final Quarter
Finally … I get to put all the pieces together and have it make sense. Translate and deal with tough stuff and work through some of the intricate things that go on between word relationships. I feel more energy about it than I did last quarter, but then again memorizing verb paradigms is never fun.

Modern Church History
Sometimes referred to by professor name (aka Thompson, John), this is the last bit of church history that I have to take and it has been quite a ride in going from one quarter to the next. This will probably require most of my intellectual energy this quarter, as it is a paper and reading type of class.

Grief, Death, Loss, and Dying
This will hands down be the most emotionally draining class I have every taken and probably will take (except perhaps from the school of hard knocks). I am pretty sure I will be staring down Tuesdays with a mix of joy and dread. Having already finished one book for the class I know that it is just going to be lots of self-examination. I am very happy that the class is not a pile of papers but rather the molding of hearts. Tuesdays have taken on a very odd feeling, I’m not sure if I am a “Tuesday person” yet, I hope to be by the end of the quarter.

Everything Else
I think my room has been the cleanest it has been since I moved furniture in. I actually feel like I can have company over and be hospitable rather than feeling like I have to apologize for the state of my room. Posters are up, I have a table for two that can serve four with a little shuffling around, my room has the feeling that I am able to live and not feel surrounded by chaos.

So I have sifted through most of my new music, and I make the following recommendation to everyone. Pick up Toby Mac’s Portable Sounds CD. The music just sits with you no matter the mood and has lyrics that inspire. It will be getting me through most of this quarter; it works as study music, relaxing music, and free time soundtrack.

Random Musings

2007-03-23T00:03:00.000-07:00

Preface:
I have misplaced my brain, all of the below comments referring to specific people are meant in jest, sometimes those moments are wonderful if only for the lack of sleep (apologizes to Sarah now).

The world has officially moved into the computer age: Goodwill no longer accepts typewriters for donation.

So I am officially a tea fan. My dear friend Laura has been a wonderful instructor in the preparation, ritual, and intricacies of tea. I know ‘roughly’ what I like and I must say that it was nice having chai to wake me up to write papers during finals week.

So I’m at home doing Spring, Summer and Fall cleaning at my parents house for a couple of days. (Yes I am talented enough that I can do 9 months of cleaning in the course of one week) This involves yardwork, garage work, and the strange necessity to shower twice a day, and I still have dirt behind my ears …

When I picked up Sophie and Sarah from the airport about … 2 or 3 weeks ago, they both had just come from playing Guitar Hero. Both thought I would love it (not realizing that I already am a guitar hero in disguise), and highly recommended that I find someone who had it to try it out. I have, I like, I want. Anyone wanna sell me a PS2?

Going back to having ‘moments of clarity’ that are basically the realization of something taught in class and then seeing it in reality. I have had quite a few of those while I have been home. Mostly after the fact but I can think of about 7 (and counting) specific instances where I have had my mind wander and then stop on one of these moments.

In the world of 24 … someone is about to get messed up cause Jack is … well ticked off is too much of a understatement, so I think ‘homicidal’ is probably more accurate. That and Charles Logan is officially on my ‘Good Guy’ list.

Is it a bad thing to be taking more stuff back to Pasadena with me when I already am very limited in the space I have? *Looks in his trunk, Looks in Sarah’s direction* “Yes Sarah, my car does have a trunk.”

Having finished Foundations in seminary has left me with a feeling that might be more joyous than when I graduated College. As if a great weight has been lifted off my shoulders and thrown into the lake of fire with great fanfare and pyrotechnics. Followed by a great choir singing in angelic voices giving praise to God for the defeat of a horrible foe ... I think I feel like river dancing.

Junior Highers that I watched grow up when I was at home between College and Seminary now have their driver’s license. I’m getting old(er).

After having 3 months of intense schoolwork I have worn out most of my music collection. Additions have been made that require large portions of my free time to sort out and figure out what I like and what I don’t.

Oh there is my brain … right on top of my head.

Confessions of a Seminary Student

2007-03-18T22:13:00.000-07:00

Ok a slight confession, well maybe two:

1) Most of the time I have no idea what I am talking about:
One of the things that was made abundantly clear to me this quarter is that I am here by God’s grace, because I just don’t think like an academic theologian most of the time. I have found that my beliefs really are more of a cloud than well thought out and cemented into my brain and life. Example: In one of my classes we had to write a paper on Calvin and predestination. While I wrote it myself a friend of mine had a long conversation about the sovereignty of God and how that applies to her beliefs, which began to make me wonder about mine. What I have realized is that growing up I never had a confirmation class where I was taught all these things within the context of the church, despite being a PK (Pastor’s Kid). Now I want to sort this out but the reality of that situation was that the paper was due not 8 hours from that conversation … inopportune? I think so. Now that Spring break is here I have been able to look back and consider some of those things as I begin to put shape to the beliefs that are this cloud in my head.

2) I have a terminal case of Foot-in-Mouth Disease:
What this really means is that my brain fails to engage with the words that come out of my mouth. What results are some poorly timed sharp words that really never should have left my mouth. Most of the time no good comes from it, but hindsight is always 20/20 and some good has. I have learned two things:

The first is how to deal with conflict and to put my self, pride, ego, stupidity on the side and reach a point of sincere apology, and then to work from there. For all the shoe leather that I have tasted over the last year or so, I don’t feel as if I hold the label of being a jerk, but rather that I have jerk like moments.

The second is that I have been fine-tuning my ‘filter.’ Or in some cases I have just engaged my brain, as that is all that is needed. Some of the more delicate conversations I have learned to approach from a safe angle rather than cannonball into the shallow end.

What is really fun is when the two problems I have get together. This is commonly called ‘digging one’s self into a hole.’ When this situation occurs I normally dig with a really big shovel or small explosives, whichever is handy at the moment. Either way those that I have managed to be a jerk to have returned with grace that is beyond what is due, and for that I am thankful. For the friendship, and for the patience to deal with me.

-- Non-serious post coming later when I either feel in the mood, or am on cold medicine, or when my head doesn’t feel like it is 10 pounds heavier.

My Current State of Mind/Mush

2007-02-28T06:50:00.000-08:00

I just finished writing one of my many papers that seem to all be due within a few weeks of each other, (Must be finals time) and to celebrate I went and visited my favorite site that tests useless information: You Don't Know Jack. Around December of aut-6 they came out with a weekday series of questions that can be taken online, these can be done in under two minutes and normally inform me of how little I know about Jack. However this morning's adventure left me with a 0 out of 7. I mean ... I normally get at least 4 right and it is multiple choice of two options (most of the time).

Anywho: I hope that 0/7 doesn't give me a sense of how this day is going to go, I'm going to go get something w/ caffinee

Of Worship...

2007-02-22T15:58:00.000-08:00

I have a feeling that I might be doing step exercise on my soapbox here, but I’m well aware of that going into this. This post I think is a result of a combination of things. First is my internal nature to view everything ‘church’ in light of worship. Not just musical worship, but time spent worshiping God with time, energy, talent, etc etc. While music is probably a major part of my theological reflection in that everything that I see about church comes from music and how music interacts with the worship service with special attention to the congregation. Second is a one day worship seminar put on by Fuller’s Brehm Center that looked at worship from an exegetical standpoint (Talks were from Exodus 33 and Isaiah 6). Final is a reading of A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian Mclaren, which has been interesting to read and consider.

A short preface before I put on my gym clothes and probably get a little ‘uppity’ in my choice of words; I have very little training in my denominational background. My dad is a pastor and while I am following in his footsteps, my youth was spent building a church with no programs, youth groups, or even church building until I was in high school. Never had a Confirmation class, or any form of spiritual discipline training until I was supposed to be enacting all these things as a volunteer youth leader.

The catalyst for this fleshing out of worship came from a comment that was made within church service. I could repeat it here but I’m not sure that it would be useful other than getting me fired up. What should be noted is that if the band was mine, the person would be sent on a time of refection as to what worship is, the person would ‘take five’ (weeks) to consider the comment, and the concept of worship, and how good shoe leather tastes.

But enough uppity and more on reflection… The conference this weekend was one of the best events I got paid to attend. (A perk of working for Fuller’s on-campus audio/visual tech group.) The first talk from Exodus came centered around the Tent of Meeting. While I was only listening on and off while trying to read a book for class; the central focus was meeting God, not just worshiping him. Meeting God then required a conversation, which leads to a relationship. That relationship leads to marriage, where God’s people take the form of the bride. The bride language goes through the whole of the Bible. The funny part is Moses in Ex. 33 ASKS to see God’s Glory and get it. As a result he has to wear a veil (Bridal? I think so).

My theology of musical worship is based out of John 3:30 and works something like this: It’s not about me. Strangely enough much of my theology is centered on that statement. John 3:30 is John the Baptist’s statement “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (NRSV) I have always viewed my musical worship in this manner that I am not a leader but a participant as well. Many times in my room, I will sit with my guitar and play it, offering up notes in worship. Many times I do this if I find myself for a lack of words for prayer (which is often) and normally the music and tone affects the sound that my fingers produce as if echo my heart.

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I wrote the ‘above the line’ a few days ago. I have calmed down some, and gotten sick so that I have ‘less’ energy to finish my line of thinking. I’m not even sure where I was going with this post. Sometimes I just have to get my head put in some other place if only so I can focus on my schoolwork. While I am very particular about worship, particularly musically, it is because that is where I see most Christians are in their faith. Sometimes called pew potatoes, which is fair to some and not fair to others. Try this sometimes when visiting another church, where does the worship point, and what is the reaction of the congregation to the various things that come up over the course of the service. It is really really interesting.

But I have good news; I have secured my internship for next school year. All is well and I am really excited about learning all the behind the scenes stuff that happens in a church.

And if a Spuderito sees it's shadow ...

2007-01-31T16:11:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite quick stop food places has gotten an extension on it's closing. Rick's is has another 9 months of making my stomach happy. They were supposed to close sometime right around now so that they could be some low income condos (read with dripping sarcasm).

Spuderitios for all!

Ritualistic Aging

2007-01-30T21:56:00.000-08:00

On the 5th (of February) I turn 27. The celebration, however, has already begun. One of the signs that my birthday is arriving is the need to consider what to get my brother for his birthday (on Jan 31st). Now the both of us being guys we have kinda reached the point where we just look at each other and go out and buy something in the name of the other. It is kinda sad, but it works, it is less work and probably a sign of our relationship. (that last part coming from the nagging part of my brain.)

That thought aside I spent the weekend with my family and doing very little schoolwork, with the exception of scouting out my Youth and Evangelism project. Saturday night I played volleyball and, after a shower, drove down to San Diego to celebrate with some old friends from High School and a bunch of my brother’s friends from college. Being the only Christian in the room it made for an interesting evening. I learned how to play a drinking game (they allowed for soda or water to replace your alcoholic beverage of choice), watched another (alcohol required), and had some really grubby carne asada for dinner. It was a good time where the games even allowed for conversation and enjoying a good time of making fun of each other. There was of course the evilness that eventually comes out of a few extra drinks and is not fit to post in a blog, but is still really funny to describe if you ask.

That night I stayed at the brothers-girlfriends-parent’s house. This is an experience that I have had before, and the second visit confirmed some existing suspicions, and made me realize some others. The family has some of the most ordered-chaos that I know of. Let me explain … no that would take too long, let me sum up. The family has 9ish kids, I can’t remember the exact number, but ages range from 30ish to 7 or so. They live by the strict code of “You sleep where you fall.” When we walked in at around 11pm, the dad was on the floor curled up in the fetal position and sawing logs while the rest of the family was getting a second dinner, or chatting about upcoming events. Think Cheaper by the Dozen, but with added chaos and larger variety of ages. Yet the thing that was confirmed for me the most, was the family unity that flowed through that family. That family functions in some form of unified front that defies natural logic. I can’t explain it, nor do I think that I would understand it if I spent a week there (granted I would probably go insane first) but there are admirable qualities within the chaos.

I spent Sunday morning recharging batteries, checking email, talking about life and plans, then drove up to Mission Viejo to scout out my Youth Evangelism project. That is another story, but after spending about 3 hours there I left and met my parents for some pre-dinner dinner. Had a good talk with them about classes and looking at youth ministry and trying to form what I have learned into coherent thought and having only minor success.

After that we went to dinner at a restaurant called The Five Crowns in Corona Del Mar. Spent the evening in fine dining and good company. It was a nice rest, and a good time to just enjoy being a family again, even if just for a moment.

As I get older I realize how much friends and family mean to me. As I get old one of my hopes is that I become wiser. I think it is weird that at almost-27 I still get comments on my teach-ability. I think more than that is an understanding where God has blessed me. I have come to an understanding that one of the greater gifts that have been given to me is that of friends who surround me and are there for me. Those of you who are just around, all I want for my Bday is to enjoy time spent together.

A Dim Mirror

2007-01-19T07:22:00.000-08:00

Ok Ok … I’m putting the soapbox away and actually going to go against what might be my better judgment (This in itself is a paradox as if I am lacking in judgment how do I know if I am having good judgment to begin with). For all the talk that I did in my last post about video games I am going to get in my car and go see what potential there is. To be honest I am not sure what I am going to find down there as I have been removed from being a member of the world. Now I come and view from the outside looking in, and I’m not sure what I will see.

I know on the surface I will see a large number of individuals playing computer games and having a good time. What I am scared of is finding out what is underneath that facade. I think one of the dangers is seeing my own dark side, or at least a shadow of it. Understand that I am aware that I still have my dark side tendencies. I normally don’t have to go very far either. Now as an ‘outsider’ looking in what will I see? Or maybe better yet is what will my reaction be?

One of [Professor] Chap’s biggest things about doing youth ministry is to be looking at a group of kids and to see, understand, and feel for the kids; and as a result be unable to hold back the tears. One of my mentors in my younger years commented on the difference between seeing the crowd and seeing the faces of the individuals. I have seen the crowd most of my life, and while I have seen the individual faces it was a smaller group and there was no crowd to blur the lines. To be talking to a larger group of people and to see the difference between the crowd, as a single unit, and the individual faces. To see the individual needs, wants, aspirations, pains, joys, sorrows, trials, and so on.

One of the topics of discussion that came up in our foundations small group was a youth pastor’s role; specifically in the difference between being a friend and being an authority figure, spiritual as it may be. My personal mode is of a friend; I have not been in the situation where I had to be the authority figure. I take that back, I choose not to be in at least one situation. (It is a good story, but not presently applicable.)

What am I going to see when I go down there … I’m not sure. I am sure I will see glimpses of myself. I am sure I will see glimpses of my future ministry without knowing it. But I am not so sure I will see the faces come out of the crowd.

Note: After typing this whole thing I looked on my calendar and realized I am working on that night … figures.

Soapbox: Video Games and Youth

2007-01-06T07:39:00.000-08:00

I am a video game addict. Not was, am.

While I have done ok through the course of my seminary career I still have my ear to the sounds of the electronic gaming industry. I realize that I could open up a whole can of worms here, and I might.

What is often missed is that people are not very stupid anymore. Sony made a very very large advertisement mistake this Christmas when they hired an advertisement company to use ‘viral’ marketing. (viral Marketing is basically a word of mouth marketing, but using internet tools such as myspace, blogs, etc etc) Three days later: Sony had removed the information from the site and had been found out. (Link) Next fun thing is the Christmas releases of both the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3. How bad was it? Gaming stores gave individuals redeemable tickets after robbers held up a line waiting outside overnight.

Now I don’t care how anything really gets advertised, more than anything I normally buy second hand stuff in a technology oriented system. Any computer is outdated normally by the next year, and video gaming systems have a life span of about three. Here is where it gets fun: video game consoles (Xbox, Playstation, Wii) all have price tags starting at $400 and up. That is more money than I spend on food in a month. Add on the joy of games at $50+.

Now I have never been a true console gamer, I normally try to barrow a console and play the games that I want to once through and then be done with them. My vice has always been computer games. Most notable was the modification for Half-Life called Counter-Strike. In my heyday I could sit down and play for 5 hours straight with only breaks for a refill of my soda, or get another snack. I can rationalize the time spent as well; at least to myself, others might disagree. Shortly after college I got out, and let that part of my life go.

Even in college I had my limits: it was the age of Everquest. One of my early rules in playing games was that I would not pick up a game with no ending, nor would I pay money beyond an Internet connection to continue to play the games. Today there is World of Warcraft. How popular is it? It has been on Jeopardy.

Blah blah blah … so what’s the point I’m trying to say here? Seminary class: Youth and Evangelism Final project. One of the choices is to spend some time in an area where youth hang out and just listen in on conversations. In the back of my head I want to find an Internet gaming café and hang out there. I know of a 300 computer/100 Xbox café south of Irvine (40 min drive) that is open till 2am on Friday night. One of the largest fights in my ministry to youth has been that of dealing with technological attraction to video games. The literal truth in some cases has been that paying for the kid to play on the computer is cheaper than a baby sitter and the kid has more fun. Now granted most conversation over video games are those complaining about how the game is cheating them or some other player is cheating, but there is a who culture of video gaming that I would say (blind guess) 85% of males have been exposed to, what is scary is the slow growth of female population find interest in the games. (At least of people that I know) One of my old high school girls could probably put on a clinic at some console games. (She can also hurt me if she really wanted to, so I try to stay on her good side.)

I concede the point that there are some people who should not play video games. Not for reasons that uses up time, but for reasons of mental instability. I know of multiple stories where individuals have logged onto games, then killed themselves while logged in. (I just don’t feel like using my google-fu) I have had friends where the relationships within games were more important than those outside. I could take this into a whole different realm of online anonymity, but that takes a whole rant unto itself.

Part II to come next week when I get some free time ...

Decompression

2006-12-30T20:19:00.000-08:00

Seminary is amazing, but there are times when there is no choice but to react and not think about some of the things that are being taught in class. Nor are you given time to fully stop and consider self-belief in some of the topics brought up. So here I am with about 2 weeks to consider my last quarter/year of seminary and think about some of my personal beliefs on each of the topics. These are boring and uninteresting to common readers, or at least they bore me.

Yet I am sitting typing this, waiting to go out to dinner with my Arroyo Grande friends for all you can eat pizza, I am turned back to a simple cross that is around my neck and what it means. It is odd to think that it was not a month ago I was in Texas at Cursillo, and I had a whole post on the sudden shock of going back into the real world, and not much changed about my life. With the sudden dunking of papers, finals, midterms, third declension of Greek nouns all looming over my head, I was just able to scrape by to Thanksgiving, and then crawl my way through finals week and into Christmas break. I have only one regret about Cursillo: That I did not go out and stand in the Texas Thunderstorm, despite every instinct to do so.

So now I am at my parents house and have just been listening in on some of the things that my Dad has commented about being in ministry. About problems, about congregations, about governing Presbyterian bodies. He is getting close to 20 years at the same church with is a statement of commitment to his goals, but being in Seminary has shown me many things that have just gone wrong in churches. The question hasn’t come down to ‘why are there problems?’ but has become more along the lines of ‘which problems do you want to deal with?’ Slowly I am beginning to see how each church is a living breathing thing that has a personality (or multiple) that needs help in more way than one.

So here I stand with this understanding of agape love: a love that loves until the object of the love gives in. Looking back at the ‘work force’ that I am going into, I wonder how I could ever give up on someone. I look back and can see that I wasn’t able to help out everyone, but to give up on someone who had invested time in? My little brain cannot compute that equation. Maybe it is that I am tired at the time of writing this, but I know I am able to remember my failures more so than my successes. Yet when it comes to this I can only see the faces of the kids who I ‘know’ were affected by my presence and interaction.

Sometime later …

Back in Pasadena and reading this over again. Not much has changed, and I don’t have any answers to the questions, or worse the answer only produces more questions. I have finished one year of schooling, and have 2 more to go. With school starting on Wednesday (for me, I have no Tuesday class this quarter) I'm looking ahead with the question of: will I have time to ponder all of my questions? Wondering where I might be in two years is a little ambitious, maybe just three months out is far enough.

Merry Christmas

2006-12-25T11:03:00.000-08:00

Sometimes others have better words than I do. Today is such a case.

And the first time that you opened your eyes, did you realize that you would be my savior?
And the first breath that left your lips, did you know that it would change this world forever?
And I, I celebrate the day
That you were born to die
So I could one day pray for you to save my life
Pray for you to save my life

- I Celebrate the Day, Relient K

Christmas Nostalgia

2006-12-19T14:37:00.000-08:00

Around Christmas time I get nostalgic for some very specific memories. One of them is hunting up a copy of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation if only for the sledding scene. With the invention of YouTube I have found a pair of hi-larious claymations from my younger years. I found the whole thing in a Three Part Series. But there are two classic pieces that are here now for your viewing pleasure:

Angels we Have Heard on High (No Penguins were harmed in it's making):

And - We Three Kings:

Post finals wrap up

2006-12-11T14:12:00.000-08:00

Today is Saturday. Today is the first ‘official’ day of Christmas break. Today is the first day of me being a second year at Fuller.

SHORTEST

YEAR

EVER!

Since school is out that means I get to return to one of my joys in life: Running like a crazy man after a Frisbee. This is sometimes called therapy for me, if only because any frustrations are run out on the field and put out in a friendly game of who can catch the flying disk. For those in the audience who are wondering: ‘Frisbee, therapeutic … not quite sure I follow.’ While yes it normally wipes me out for the rest of the day, It allows me to just enjoy a day of doing little to no work. While I had intended to clean my apartment, prepare some food so I could make fried rice later, and go out to replace my now empty supply of cream soda. Instead I watched a movie, played a little guitar and still might go out for the cream soda. Priorities people … gotta have ‘em.

I have a really boring Christmas break coming up. I mean I’m going to go home, do my favorite vacation activity (as little as possible), and then come back to Pasadena. I will get to see the family and talk to my home church but for the most part it should be a nice week of relaxing and enjoying the rest. I do have a week to watch Season 4, courtesy of Blockbuster. If I don’t emerge from my apartment for 2 days, send for help.

It is a little odd to think that I am 1/3 done with my seminary career, but it is true. I can no longer claim ignorance in the face of questions of how things were done the year before. Not that I won’t try, but still it is sometimes nice to play dumb. Either way it is the first time that I have enjoyed school. It is weird to have professors walk in and say that teaching doesn’t feel like work, from what I have seen I believe it though. There is not an all campus aura of stress, and struggle to try to figure things out. I sometimes wonder if I am make-believe land where life is perfect and nothing is ever wrong.

Well maybe not … A buddy of mine just had his first son. One of the classes we shared this quarter was patristic theology covering everything from post-apostles up till about Augustine in the early 400s. We talked about baptism and opinions. While I’m not really in the mood to rant it has brought up an interesting consideration. While it is not limited to this one topic I have been challenged in areas where I don’t know the answers. For all my fear of systematic theology, I am beginning to wonder if I should start taking some.

Sunday:
Season 4 - 4 disks down, 2 to go. I call 24 my drug of choice, I’ll be admitting myself to rehab Monday night.

A Small Problem

2006-12-03T15:48:00.000-08:00

I have become a Latte snob ... of the Vanilla persuasion. I have spent mornings driving down Lake to get one at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf rather than walk to the closest coffee bar. I feel like less of a person. I will be seeking help after finals.

Pre-Finals Brain Dump

2006-11-30T20:56:00.000-08:00

So where do we start? I think in New Mexico: A flash presentation of Weird Al’s Albuquerque. Set aside about 10 min for random stupidity.

Casino Royale
It is always nice to be driving home for thanksgiving and having your mom call and say the following words: “So sushi and the new James Bond movie … I’m buying” Yes please! So after getting my healthy dose of wasabi we go to see the new James Bond. A very different James Bond.

He is just mean … I dunno if it is a director’s choice or a progression in film making but normally James Bond movies are pretty ‘subtle’ in the progression of violence and blood. This is not. I will say that the movie is never over till the credits role (and they should have put in about 15 more minutes) The humor is not the normal dry, but has some very nice sarcastic comments and play on words.

The best scene is the first one after the credits, and I’m pretty sure they did it without wires and the scene is just a little insane.

Thanksgiving
I love this holiday. First off is the nice 2 days off of school, but the best thing about it is the food. My family normally has a group of about 15ish people over every year with homemade everything. First thing in the oven are the blueberry muffins, the true sign of the holidays around my parent’s house. Right around 2ish the house starts to smell good. This is important to me since I can smell good BBQ from about a block away including what is on the grill. Sometimes I can have a two-block radius if I am hungry, but that’s another topic of discussion. This is one of those days where it is required that you eat thirds and fourths, followed by desert.

The other love from home was turning on my parent’s fireplace. My parents have tile floor which gets really hot in the sun, and really cold at night. I must be becoming wimp (or getting a cold) because my body has been cold at home where the temp has been about 20 Degrees colder than ‘summer’ in LA. I might have to go put some sweat pants on. Something about a fireplace signals the holidays and the changing seasons where nature doesn’t react to the change of seasons. We also pulled down the 2 car loads of Christmas stuff for my mom to decorate our house.

Being Thankful:
I tried to be clever and do the whole A-Z thing, but I found out I’m not that clever. Aside from family I found some things that were things that have snuck up on me in the past year or so of Seminary.

Guitar
Something about sitting down on my couch when my brain is full of stuff and just playing music is so very comforting. Many times God will lead me to songs that echo where I am and draw me closer to him.

And Bass Guitar
Quote of the week goes to Becca: “You just look happier playing bass.”
I love playing bass but it is very hard to lead worship on a bass. Some of it is that I am able to cut loose a little more and articulate some things better on bass than on a guitar. It is kinda hard to put into words, but there is something about playing my bass that is fun, either that or it brings out my goofball persona.

Tightening the Screws
I am sarcastic from time to time … ok most of the time, but one of the things that has been amazing to watch is how God has been using Seminary to really turn the pressure up on me to return to a life seeking him. The combination of theology and personal conduct make for a very stressful life, but in the end I come to a better understanding of my actions and myself.

Mountain high to valley low

2006-11-18T21:51:00.000-08:00

So I got back from Cursillo (outside of Huston Texas) almost a week ago, I’m still not sure what happened there or what I’m doing back in California. If (a very big if) Cursillo could be summed up I would do as such: Cursillo redefines love. Three words don’t do Cursillo justice so allow me to elaborate, expand, and unpack (my suitcase) for a moment.

In every form of love there is an understanding of the limits of love (with the exception of Christ’s) or at the very least a fear that love will not always be faithful. This is seen in the world around us as people are looking for some measure of love but find it in the worst places for the wrong reasons. Cursillo is three full days involving 24 hours each where Christ’s love is expressed, encountered, and cannot be avoided; and trying to resist only makes it worse. For perspective Cursillo is like filling shot glasses with a fire hose on full, and Cursillo doesn’t let you empty the glass at all. The result is that you have no choice but to give in and switch up to the swimming pool with the waterslide, and diving board and then have a cannonball contest in an attempt to empty the pool to keep up with the inflow. 72 hours of this, with surprises along the way effectively function as flash floods in filling up the pool.

You break, everyone does at some point. I broke, took less than 24 hrs too, and I’m very stubborn.

But enough about Seattle … Normally after something like a Cursillo weekend or camp weekend there is a time of decompressing that needs to happen. Decompression needs to happen at a slow rate or else bad things happen. Healthy Example: Your ears pop as you go up and down in elevation to rectify pressure. Unhealthy Example: Space shuttle loses compression. I could go in to details but Hollywood has done a few good examples, but that experience is the opposite of fun and is not recommended. I didn’t get this time, and got thrown right back into the middle of life. I can remember having a conversation about how do we as post-Cursillo people (who have the temporary thinking capability of mush) go back into the world when the world isn’t on the same page but more like in a different book in a different library. I’m still not sure I know, well I know the opportunities and some I intend to do. However, life was waiting for me on the trip home from Texas, with it’s own needs time involvement and challenges; All of them demanding.

So what did I do? Our transportation to the Huston airport (who was a staff member of Cursillo) gave me a simple wooden cross, on a simple leather band. I’m not much of a jewelry guy, nor do I like broadcasting that I am a Christian by use of bumper stickers, mostly because I don’t always represent my beliefs well; yet this cross stays around my neck. Since it is new I am very aware of it, and when I put on my school bag I can feel it, I can feel the edges and corners when I put pressure on it. It is very very tangible in reminding me of what I should represent, and what my actions should be. It has variable weight depending on my situation where it might just hang and then there are times when it weighs heavy and I can feel it against my body.

My life right now is in a slow motion upheaval. Everything is already up in the air it is just a matter of where things are going to fall, and if they are going to break, bounce up again, or come to rest. In these times I look for constants, like finding joy in worship, and sometimes constants present themselves in the form of a simple cross around a neck. Sometimes that variable weight is very comforting.

As the world wakes up

2006-11-06T18:08:00.000-08:00

It is still dark and my eyelids don’t want to open, but I’m stilling here at a cabin by lake arrowhead at 6am watching the world wake up. Darkness fights to keep its hold on the world as the edge of my world begins to glow. Slowly darkness is pulled away and shapes and objects are visible. Slowly God turns up the color in the world with the dead leaves that turn in this pine forest. It takes a bit longer but slow the green comes in, and even the white on the patio is dull. It is still dark and the horizon is still just shape and dark. The sky has turned grey as it begins to get some of it’s blue. The edge of the world is white with a tint of orange.

Slowly the world begins to warm. In undergrad I learned that breezes are caused by sudden temperature changes to the ground. So at sunrise and sunset the world warms or cools and a breeze will pass over the land trying to even out temperatures as the ground heats the air, or begins to become cooler than the air around it. Heat flows towards cool. This still life of progressive color begins to dance, birds cry outside for food.

The far ridgeline begins to take on some color as the greens near me begin to look like the life that they stand for.

The trees begin to get nervous in their dance as the guest of honor progresses slowly up the far ridge. The finale, when darkness is no more, when life begins to flow, when nothing is hidden, and everything is a peace. But it isn’t time yet; there is still some waiting to be done. So I wait …

The parade begins to move in full motion as the sun rises on the far ridge, judging from the light it looks like I am in the wrong place to see it crest and blind me. Soon the sounds of the rest of the house begin to move, and the world outside goes on with the parade that lasts until the sun sets.

Nov 4th near Arrowhead Lake

Good Idea. Bad Idea.

2006-10-23T17:10:00.000-07:00

First I would like to thank Jenn Moore for indirectly reminding me of one of my great childhood joys. On evening when I needed to ask her something I saw her away message of “Goodnight moon” which triggered the memory one of my favorite after school cartoons … Animaniacs. The trigger was directed around a remake of that line into “Nighty night toon.” This series has given me much joy in remaking a variety of already funny jokes even funnier. I’m not sure why but falling anvils are funny, and I have not seen that level of comedic writing in quite some time.

So ….

Good Idea: Driving home after you go to church.
Bad Idea: Driving home after you go to a 3 hour evening concert at church.

I went home (again) to play in the annual fraternity flag football tourney on the blistering sandbar of Pismo Beach. (Say that last like a la Chris Burmen and it will make sense) My intention was to play football Saturday, go to church on Sunday and then drive home to recover. I found out that there was a spare ticket (or two) and could think of about any number of reasons to NOT go to the concert.

[The concert in question involved 4 bands: Last Tuesday (as opposed to Late Tuesday), John Ruben, Sanctus Real, and Superchic[k]. The last two are on my normal rotation of music listening, the second I have heard of but not investigated, and the first I had only heard of.]

Needless to say (well maybe it does) I really didn’t care about my physical and mental well-being … So I went to church again. Hey it still fell in my line of planning of going home after church … well minus the recover part.

I have no regrets about going to the concert, other than the insanity that I demonstrated this morning, and might be having right now, but I might need a third opinion since the first two are my own.

Shock and Awe

2006-10-14T19:43:00.000-07:00

So I went home this weekend to work for my mom and support my Seminary habit. While I have never seen the Disneyland fireworks extravaganza, I have seen fireworks. The drive home put them to shame. I was very thankful for prayer right before driving home. I hadn’t even gotten to the 101/405 interchange before seeing two accidents and hitting traffic. Not my favorite way to start a trip. Round about Santa Barbara the show began.

Most of the time my drives home are moments of reflection, and contemplation, or arguing. I had much to contemplate on the drive home but it kinda got pushed to the side. God was doing some late night artwork in the form of an electrical storm. Lightning alone is somewhat intimidating; it is bright, scary, and can kill you. Yet God was at work lighting up the sky with stroke after stroke after magnificent stroke.

Traveling over Cachuma Pass (shortcut that I take that goes up into the mountains above Santa Barbara) I had the storm displayed before me. Bending arcs, crawling arcs, Arcs that would strike, and then another would 1 second later, but the sky where the first strike was still black because your eyes were still temporarily blind. It wasn’t raining either, and I could still see the stars in the sky. Now and again lightning would arc but not be visible and polarize a white background with black clouds in front. Red tinted strikes, blue tinted strikes. Strikes that would synchronize with the music I was playing.

The teaching part came in 3 different strikes (no pun intended). The first was the fact that I had Tomlin’s Indescribable playing at one point and understood maybe for the first time the truth of that song. The second was a concept of God’s creation from my Pentateuch class and the ‘speaking’ light into darkness. Granted I had headlights, and orange dials showing some light as well as random lights from small towns, but they were pale in comparison. There is only one thing that I know of in human creation that can light up the sky like lightning: It ended one war, was the cause of another that was more of a race, and is in the news on the other side of the ocean. The last part came when I reached Santa Maria and the storm was overhead getting more of the ‘Awe’ part of the storm. Having the world go from dark to daylight to dark again is a little startling, if not creepy. I was reminded of many of the first sayings of angels who appear to people: ‘Do not fear’ when in a more direct meaning awe is a fearful reverence.

I normally get reminders when I have forgotten something…

Climbing out From Under the Pile

2006-10-02T06:28:00.000-07:00

Oh … I’m sorry, have you been looking here for me? I’ve been a little busy and things are kinda a mess around here. But I’ll try to catch you up to speed. The last two weeks have been a little nutty and if I seem to be a few screws short that is because they fell off somewhere along the way.

Orientation Week
I got a job working on-call for ATC at Fuller (Audio/Video tech for the campus) I worked three larger events and got to use some random fun stuff that they have. (rear projector screens are interesting) I got to play with the sound gear at First Cong. as well as see what goes into a weekly Travis chapel service when my first job was doing sound for the staff/faculty chapel.

The more and more I hear Dr. Mouw speak the more and more I like him and what he stands for. The man has stories and life experiences that are almost surreal in the grand scheme of things. The man has been everywhere, done more than a few things that are worthy of note, is in conversation with more people than I would be able to count, and at the same time has a sound and firm understanding in his faith. The man has a theology centered on the third verse of hymns, but more than anything he is a storyteller; something I aspire to be in my ministry.

First week o’ School
Classes are going to be a wonderful experience this quarter. I have good friends in every class that I am in, as well as getting to know a few new students in Church history. Greek is going to be enjoyable and difficult at the same time. Church history is going to be 1 part history, 1 part theology, and 1 part comedy, season with doughnuts, simmer at medium heat till ready. Pentateuch is going to be a little slower, but I think as we get moving it will start to interest me more as we get to the narrative sections. Foundations: I’m still slightly bitter about this class for other reasons, but in the end I think it will be a good time. I have a group of people that I know all but two of them through other relations.

Then there was the BBQ
Much fun was had, I got the hard question of “If you were able to take over a character in a movie, who would you be?” While I answered Han Solo, the real answer is Malcolm Reynolds from Serenity. Some of you are sick of my Serenity shtick; what you have to know is that you’re just going to have to deal with it. I’m not sure anyone else at the BBQ would have known who he was.

I can educate you on Serenity, but expect that it will take up at least 2 hours for movie watching for the basic course, and if you want to see more, then plan on a weekly event. Enrolment is free, and you get 4 units that will not transfer or apply to any degree program other than that of being a nerd.

What did we learn? (plays veggie tales lesson music)
And so what we have learned applies to our lives today, and God has a lot to say in His Book.

Yes, I did Google these words, and yes I'm posting them here.

You see, we know that God's Word is for everyone; and now that our song is done, we'll take a look.

I’m writing this at the end of the weekend, I have had a nap each day as the physical tiredness of the week finally caught up to me. They were two good weeks, and more than anything I had to trust in God to do things that I could not do. I had many things that I had expected to do taken away from me. Looking back it was a good thing, not only for me but also for others who helped pick up the things I had to give up. I say that I am good at delegating things, but I think I have a lot to improve on. I know I have a stubborn button in me that makes walking across hot tar look easy in comparison to trying to overcome my stubbornness.

Something that I heard recently was on the subject of asking for help. It was a discussion on how to help the homeless. But I think the principle stretches beyond that. The idea is that asking for help makes you weaker and allows the other person to have confidence in their abilities. I don't ask for help all that often, and normally when I do, I'm so far in over my head that my weakness ends up affecting other things. The bible alludes to many situations of being strong in faith, but in most of the day-to-day things, God asks us to rely on him rather than ourselves; a point that I am only beginning to understand as I write these words. These words should shuffle around in my head for this week.

Afterthoughts:
New Movies:
Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang - FUNNY!!! Mystery flick
Ice Harvest - Another Mystery flick - So So

New Music:
Jars of Clay - Good Monsters: I can’t get enough of their lyrics, I need to give the slower half of the album another chance, but I have one song that I can keep playing on repeat both for the truth of the words and the music behind it.
Evanescence: New Album on Oct 3rd, going to run to Target and pick it up before class.

Feelings ...

2006-09-19T16:16:00.000-07:00

For those who feel like my friend here does ... This one is for you

I hope I have friends like Animal: Supportive, and there for me. I hope to do the same.

Musings at 3am

2006-09-13T03:40:00.000-07:00

My body has been waking up at 1am and 4am consistently for the past week or so, with me finally getting out of bed around 6:30. So I’ve been awake for about an hour now (since 2am), which is not a good thing but my brain is operating in 4th gear with the grammar of reverse so this should be interesting.

I have been watching much of the Firefly episodes of which the movie Serenity is based off of. Mostly for humor and to enjoy myself, but something about the ship itself has been dancing around in the back of my mind, and it centers around the last lines of Serenity. The captain is telling a new crew member the first rule of flying a (space)ship:

"Love. You can know all the math in the 'Verse, but take a boat in the air you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turning of worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells ya she's hurtin' 'fore she keens. Makes her home."

I sometimes wonder if the same principle applies to churches. I church I attend is done up in a cathedral style that is quite elegant, but it was pointed out to me that the ceiling looks much like an inverted boat hull. I have seen some movies where there will be ships as part of the sanctuary (I can’t remember them even if it wasn’t 3:30am). So what is the first rule of pasturing a church?

'Love. You can know all the administration in the world, but pastor a church you don’t love, she’ll shake you off just as sure as the sun rises and falls. Love keeps her going when she should close doors, tells you her problems before they show up. Makes her home.'

Now abide these three: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.

Time to go back to sleep … I think I'm starting to make sense ...

A Moment of Silence

2006-09-04T12:58:00.000-07:00

I will admit that I am not a 'huge' Steve Irwin fan. But I still respect the man, and he will be missed.

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Select, Start

2006-08-31T09:49:00.000-07:00

I am a nerd.

Names

2006-08-23T09:07:00.000-07:00

I’m writing this as I wanted to use it for my film paper on The Final Cut, but found that I couldn’t fit it in thematically or logically, but most of all I need to get it out of my head so I can finish my thought processes.

When I look back and remember things I have learned or experiences I have had they normally have a name associated with them. For example: When I encountered God for what was the first ‘real’ time the names of Bart Tarman(former chaplain of Westmont College in Santa Barbara, CA) and Jill Pole are some of the first things that come to mind, more so Jill. In the two times I have had to move away from people who were very close friends I have simply told them to remember my name as it has more power than anything I have ever told them. I mean think about it: as Christians use the name of Jesus there is a certain understanding of what his life was like, we sometimes forget the tiny details. We can remember the major events, the type of person he was, and what his goals in life were. Jesus sent his disciples out ‘In his name’ knowing that he would be with the disciples if they remembered and spoke of Jesus himself.

I could list out probably 50 names of people that have directly affected me. Not many of them would be people who I barely knew and spoke from a pulpit once a week. Some people would have two names that mean two entirely different things. All of these are the names of friends who have shaped and molded my life whether they know it or not. The memories I have shared and remember are the things I treasure.

The premise behind The Final Cut is that technology has the ability to record all the visual and audio sounds that a person experiences over their lifetime. When the die those memories are stored in a computer file and then a person makes a movie of their life. The person who makes the movie is not involved with the family and has a huge computer to aid him in the film making process. The conflict of the movie revolves around how should people remember each other. Do you have a life distilled down by someone who has no emotional attachment; or do you remember what you have in your mind?

I have been to only one funeral in my lifetime. It was with someone who I barely knew, but after coming out I knew how the rest of the room felt. The memories and emotions that those in the room felt transmitted more than the words they spoke. Sometimes that which is unsaid speaks more than what is.

My name is Alan, my friends call me Cletus, and my closest friends call me a dork. And I embrace each of these with much joy.

Concerting …

2006-08-09T19:20:00.000-07:00

I’m kinda a music guy. At any given point there is music playing in the background, even if everyone else can’t hear it, and I have really really cool background music. I don’t quite have enough money to hire a band to walk behind me and play ‘walking music’ but I can imagine.

Anywho Summer is normally the time for going to concerts since I have free time. I say normally as this year I missed my annual trip to the world of Spirit West Coast - Think Woodstock but all Christian artists. I just got a phone call from my normal partner in crime and got a report from this year’s trip and I must say that I am very angry that I was taking class, and I might just have to take 8 units next summer. I don’t want to discuss specific bands that I missed, as even in going I miss bands that I want to see only because there are three stages going on at the same time.

The Joust (As told by ‘the champ,’ exaggerated by me):
It is a long standing tradition that junior and senior high school students like beating up on their youth leaders. So the bet has become this: If one of them can beat up my buddy they are entitled to a free ‘vendor food’ of their choice, if they loose they become errand boy for the leader for one meal (leader pays). My buddy is about 5’ 10” and about 220 lbs, I am 5’10” just under 200. I am the gatekeeper, and they have to get past me to get to him, and I am undefeated. I have made more of my students look stupid than I care to admit, and I enjoyed it very much.

The joust is not our medieval joust in the sense of horses and lances; it is basically a wooden pole with really soft pillows wrapped around the end so no one gets hurt. Well except for one’s ego, but that already got hurt during the preflight trash talk.

This year I was not there, so my buddy replaced my with a very energetic 5’5”ish 120ish lbs (this is mostly from the last time I saw her a year ago) angel of a girl who graduated from high school a couple of years ago. Nice girl, no real Joust experience. So the champ is called to do battle (he is only the champ because the High schoolers want a piece of him more than they want a piece of me.) On the podium is the high school kid who really wants a piece of my buddy. I think this kid is 5’7” ish 130-140lbs and just a scrappy fighter. The kid is all set and joust in hand standing waiting to do battle. My buddy puts on his headgear, climbs up, and reaches down for the joust. At this moment the kid takes a swing while the champ is off balance…

The champ’s nickname when he is not jousting is “The Bear.” And the general rule is that “Don’t poke the bear or he will maul you.”

… and it was called the poke heard round the ring, as the crowd knew the result of the fight. The bear decided to ‘play with his food’ before putting it down, but the Kid did get his chance.

My Dad the rock star:
Audio Adrenaline is on it’s farewell tour and will not be a band at the end of this year. This is mostly due to the lead singer Mark Stuart’s voice basically being spent to the point there is scar tissue (I think). So the group made some “Adios” T-Shirts to wish the band goodbye and they all wore them to the concert. (They have obviously not watched PCU.) Their big hit “Big House” they normally do in concert and then at the end they have someone from the audience sing the last word.

My dad is a self-proclaimed geezer, he has made T-shirts and hats (I have a hat,) and SWC has a ‘good seats’ option where you can pay extra cash to be right up next to the stage. He and ‘his’ partner in crime purchased two of said seats. At the point in the song when the last line was to be sung, Mark hops down into the crowd and PULLS MY DAD UP ON STAGE. If I was younger than I am today, I think I would be embarrassed. So on stage, my dad gets to sing the last note of “Big House” I can only imagine it will be coming soon to a sermon example near you. I have been told there are pictures to record this event, and I just hope they are not cell phone pictures.

Casting Crowns:
I did make a road trip up to see Casting Crowns in concert with two friends and aside from the crazy drive (till 2am) we had a good time. I enjoyed a good time of touring the Mid-state fair and just getting away from school and out of LA. It was a nice change of scenery and in general a very worshipful evening that gave me a nice spiritual recharge after my vacation week of physical recharge. (More on vacation when I think about it)

Minor Things:
Newsboys: Rumor has it that with their new ‘non-worship’ album the greatest gift to a drummer is making a comeback to their set. Describing it would not do it justice. It must be seen to be believed. I’m getting giddy just thinking about it.

Movies, Movies, Movies

2006-07-17T12:52:00.000-07:00

I am on two weeks of vacation, and have been spending my money wisely. Good things (movies in this case) always come in threes and we go from funny to serious … I think. Please note that I hate receiving spoilers about movies I know I am going to see, so I will elude to spoilers, but not specifically come out an say it.

Cars - Fun

First off: Its P I X A R … that is all you need to know. If you have not seen this movie you need to seek another website that displays movie times and pick one.

I think the best part of this movie is the part dealing with a play on one of the greatest urban myths around. I will say no more, and if you see it coming, you will still enjoy it. All in all there are so many great moments within the movie, and make sure you stay around for the credits. Pixar has a superstition about John Ratzenberger that I never knew until I watched the commentary for The Incredibles. The part on the commentary is pretty much in the very last part of The Incredibles. Then again, you might be able to figure it out during the credits of Cars.

Final Comment: This movie will be added to my collection the day it comes out on DVD.

Pirates 2 - Scary fun

(Deep breath in, Deep breath out) I wish I could do an acrostic using the word amazing to describe my enjoyment of this movie. Between a furthering of the storyline (not going to say plot) and nice twist at the end I wait for the finale next summer with slightly less expectation than I had with Return of the King.

I appreciated some of the camera angle and the creativity of presenting some of the situations. On the top of my list is the organ, the watermill, and most of Davey Jones’ ship. However this movie is not for the faint of heart and is much ‘darker’ than the first one.

Final Comment: Now and again someone comes out with a very good review on a movie, this is pure satire by your neighborhood ninja. Also there is a post credits thing that is a final joke.

Saved - Scary serious

Ok a slightly older movie that I haven’t seen, but I have to watch it for my class in August so I figured I would get a head start on it. While I’m sure I will be watching it two or so more times before mid August, I can say that I will be enjoying the time spent. Aside from being enjoyable and a couple of years old, it is so modern that it defies logic. I wish I could call this movie satire, but I know people that are like some of the characters in this movie. Most of them I haven’t seen in a long time and are really only second hand information.

I have watched it twice now (second time with the two main actress’ commentary) and working through some of the deep questions, and how perception and intention got blurred. Also how some times lines come across as a natural understanding have quite a different meaning if the brain is skewed just right. (It is in the scene where the HS pastor is talking to his son). In the end you have every character dealing with real life issues. Hits closer to home than is sometimes comfortable.

Final Comment: Good movie, makes you think. Not quite a Dogma thinking, but in my future dealings with a youth group I’m sure this will come up.

Superman Returns

2006-07-03T16:45:00.000-07:00

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. For your consideration I leave you with my thousand words.

Stones

2006-06-30T20:02:00.000-07:00

Friday!!!!!!

Ok so I just experienced what 10 weeks feels like condensed into 2 weeks. It is a little nuts. Luckily for me my next two-week session doesn’t start till Wednesday (pending getting an email) so I have time to work through some stuff, but there really is only one thing: The group presentation project that we had to do for class, and the naivety that I have about the church.

Our project description was to present a bible study for seminary students that would go beyond what a normal bible study did and to push the people in the crowd to make a decision to actually do something about it. We did John 8:1-11 … The Stoning of the Adulterous Woman. Not something easy to do, but we felt very strongly about it. So we went for it, and our goal was to make the class look at the woman as the adulterous church rather than just a sinner. The link was drawn from the OT idea that Israel was called an adulterous bride in that they had turned away from God.

Rewind to Thursday: So we passed out rocks to everyone in the class … and then said this:

Sin exists in the church, sometimes in obvious ways, sometimes as wolves in sheep’s clothing. Sometimes it is a person, sometimes it is a doctrine, and sometimes it is ‘the way things are.’ Some of us have heard of churches that have fallen because of sin. Rory spoke two days ago about picking your battles within a church. Think about the battles that you want to fight, but just are not able to with the resources you have. Do they get under your skin? Do they keep you awake at night? Do you clench your fists till your knuckles turn white? Do you sit in your car yelling at God?

Perhaps the church has done something that has hurt you. I have a scar on my arm from when I broke my arm but this scar might be on your heart. Do you see it from time to time as you look inward? Has the wound healed? Is it still open? Is it festering with infection?

Lets come back to the passage, and put yourself in the place of the crowd (if you have difficultly doing that just pick your rock up.) Your standing there getting a good grip. Maybe picking a sharp side that you want to end up hitting her. Now that you have your grip, your eyes rise up off the rock and look up to see the woman. But is not the woman you see but the church that has hurt you, or drives you nuts. That something or someone embodied there. What do you see? The accusers are talking to someone on the side, but there it is, helpless, cant move, point blank, it’s a free shot.

After some more discussion we changed the point of view from the crowd to that of Christ. We had everyone look at their rocks and give a name to the rock in the form of the hurt or the thing. We went on to point out that Jesus acknowledge the woman's sin, and while the crowd had every right to throw stones, Jesus showed grace. We put a bucket up in the front and let people come up and drop their rocks if they wanted too, and gave them room to state what it was. I cried at some of the responses I heard

- I need to let God judge his own church
- The church that wasn’t there for me
- The church that sucked the life out of my family
- The church that destroyed the pastor’s marriage
- Fake Christians

- We have to be whole before we can make others whole.

If it were not for the fact that I had to catch up with some homework I would have done this yesterday. There were a few people who slammed their rocks down, others who just went up and were barely able to hold themselves together.

I do not claim that this short summary can even come close to the atmosphere of the room, but the hurts that were there were real.

Come back to Friday: I saw one of the rocks in class. It brought me hope. After the last of the presentations our professor got up and lost it, all the presentations hit very close to home in so many lives of the class that the class was for the better. Beyond just our presentation the Holy Spirit showed up each day in the sense that the groups that were on the same day, set up and complemented each other. We did not have a time for presentations but we had a teaching by the Holy Spirit. Our professor had to stop slight and collect herself some, and then she blessed us.

From this issues we discussed, we will need it.

Post Finals Sanity

2006-06-11T21:50:00.000-07:00

If such a thing exists… Mostly I am just tired of seeing my cynical blog up when I really don’t feel like that anymore. That and the more and more I look at it was a combination of final’s stress and paper writing. After I got my head screwed back on straight everything was fine. I has been a long, busy, but rewarding weekend.

Friday

This was the last day of paper writing, but I was done by around noon and had the rest of the afternoon to take a nap and then I got to go to my introduction to working commencement on Saturday. I had my first night where I was not worried about anything except getting a good chunk of rest. The guitar was out and I was very very very thankful and I probably could have sung for hours, if not for being exhausted, and having to get up at 5:15...

Saturday

To be at commencement by 6:15, looking shaven and pretty like. In the end I think I got the easy job doing student line up. I saw some of the ushers, they were having ‘fun’ and making sure others were sharing in the ‘fun’ More than anything I learned how not to screw up my on graduation some years ahead of me. By 1:30pm we were done both mentally and physically. I came home had some munchies, got a second shower, and just staggered around my apartment. By about 4 I finally figured out that I could actually enjoy my evening, so I decided to pick up a book I bought at the beginning of summer to read at some point, but never did: Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game.

Now I wasn’t always a seminary student, in fact I have the driver’s license to prove I was a nerd (In the nicest sense of the word). Stopping 30 minutes for dinner, and an hour when two buddies showed up, I went to bed at midnight having read the book cover to cover. I look at my iTunes and I went through 5 Caedmon’s Call Albums, 2 Casting Crowns Albums, and 2 Chris Tomlin Albums, with timestamps to show for my marathon reading. Ender’s Game resonated with me on so many different levels I am still working through some of the relationships and deceptions that are in that book. On some levels it reminds me of seminary, on another the idea of relationships. The book is basically a wartime strategy type of book and the one exchange that stuck out early in the book and then emphasized the point throughout was this:

“Individual human beings are all tools, that the others use to help us all survive”
“That’s a lie.”
“No. It’s just a half-truth. You can worry about the other half after we win this war.”

The more I try to process through this concept, the more and more I see the truth in it. In a sense it frightens me as well when I slowly begin to grasp the full measure of it’s worth. I had been told by many that I needed to read this book, and after doing so, it will be one of the few books that I will read again.

Sunday

I went to morning service at Cornerstone Bible Church in Glendora, where my roommate from college works as the worship pastor and youth director. It was a well-rewarded trip of worship, and fellowship. One of my older high school students from Santa Barbara was in town and we had a good talk before we parted ways, but an afternoon among believers and sharing a meal was a much-needed rest. I left my apartment roughly at 10:30, attended 11am service and got home around quarter to 4, and then promptly took a nap. I was reminded again of the importance of fellowship, and the power that it has to relax me and remind me of why I am paying as much money as I am to get an education that will drive me nuts. This trip was refreshing, renewing, and a reminder.

The rest of the day was relaxing as I got to see some other friends that were now done with finals, I get to watch the US world cup game in the morning, and I have a whole week to recover from this quarter before diving back in to the books. I think I might need it.

Cynical

2006-06-07T20:52:00.000-07:00

I don't know what has gotten into me, I'm posting daily on Finals week ....

I’m not alright/I’m broken inside/Broken inside

Sanctus Real came out with a new CD recently and it has been my theme music for the day, I have spent most of the day in a rather poor state of mind, dealing with things that I should have to. I spent 20 minutes basically yelling (typing) at a blank MS word document getting all the junk in my brain out before sitting down and writing my short paper and figuring out what I wanted to say for my long one. I am quickly remembering that writing is a good way for me to work my thoughts out and lets me focus on the tasks at hand.

My brain is a tacticians brain, so when I run into a problem my brain likes to look at all the wrong ways of solving the problem and getting it out of my system so I can make the right choice in a course of action. I have tried to work the wrong choices out through prayer, focus on God, music, but it isn’t until I put it to paper it comes back and haunts me. Think of typing it as writing a draft that you don’t like and then crumple up and add to the pile of paper balls by the trashcan. The rest of the stuff you see up here on the blog.

To day I learned that I am quite broken right now, when dealing with finals and life issues at the same time. Most of the day was trying to calm myself down, and I’m glad that I really didn’t see to many of my friends today or I very likely would have put my foot so far in my mouth it would have gotten stuck in my throat. I was angry with them for reasons that they wouldn’t have known which wouldn’t have helped me explain myself. My problem is that I was only singing the first line of the chorus and missing out on the second

And all I’ve been through/leads me to you/it leads me to you.

So I pull out my guitar having stopped the song in the middle of the chorus, and go sit down playing some minor chord combinations, just feeling like a miserable waste of biomass. Some how I start playing Jars of Clay: The Valley Song:

I will sing of your mercy,
Which leads me through
Valleys of sorrow
To rivers of joy

Broken again only a slightly different type of broken. I looked back at my day and realized the fractures, the one toward friends and the one toward my God. This was roughly about the same time that I started typing this. Those of you who I was angry with, I’m sorry, I might let you know someday, but with finals looming there will be no added stress. And for the record I do have an evil side, it just normally stays in check.

Time Wasters

2006-06-06T20:16:00.000-07:00

Strangely enough my serious side isn’t the first side that shows up when I meet someone. It is much easier to engage someone with humor and popular culture than a deep theological conversation. It is much easier to goof off instead of studying. If you are studying read no further unless you are willing to accept the loss of multiple hours of your time. Please note that if you are reading this you are already wasting time or need something that isn’t a book or paper to fill your time. I just finished my tests this morning and haven’t done anything productive all day, neither should you.

www.askaninja.com - Just start from about question 13 and go forward, one of my new favorite sites to visit.
www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html - What not to do if you plan on taking over the world.
www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail.html - If you don’t know what this is … I’m sorry
www.albinoblacksheep.com - About half the stuff is good, just go to the best of sections under flash. Language and content warning.

There are more, but these are the general knowledge ones, I have comics that I read that center around video games from my life before seminary. If you get through these I might have more later.

The John 15:13 Protocol

2006-06-04T21:48:00.000-07:00

There is a part of me that would follow this down to the very letter. I can picture the faces of those individuals who I would do this for with out second though or regret. (If I had a moment to regret the finality of the ‘to the letter’ execution) Some people might be surprised to be on that list of people, others know that they are there and in the end we would probably fight each other on who gets to lay down and who gets spared and both go down, then look at each other on the far side of death and roll our eyes at each other.

There is a lesser form of this Protocol, that doesn’t involve pain and suffering, but rather a commitment of time. Today I took 4 hours out of my day (5 if you count lunch) to pick up one of my old youth group kids about 1hr south of where I live and transport her 1hr north of where I live. (Santa Ana to Ventura) This was after I found out on Friday that she was stuck in Santa Ana after a miscommunication with one of her rides. So I call her up late and I am pretty sure she is shocked to hear me on the other line, but in the end she is thankful. I had planned on going to Glendora for the day to worship in the morning at my old college roommate’s church and then crawl into a Starbucks and hide from the rest of the world for the day and get the outline for my Old Testament essay final done.

No hesitation, no thinking, my left and right hand were in agreement as they worked together to call her. She was blessed by the ride and I was one of the cool people who got to hang out with her on her 2.5-week trip to California (from Florida). I gave up hanging out with my friend and getting a good morning with God to bless a wayward traveler, all I got in return was a hug, which was all that was needed. There are more details by which I would explain myself, but she may read this and she isn’t ready to hear the rest them. The simple part of me hopes that she simply understands that she is loved, and that there are good people in the world.

Carly Hudson: If you are lost, stuck, or in need of help; I will be there for you if it is within my power to do so, but you already know that ...

This goes for everyone else too.

The Difference a Day Makes

2006-05-25T21:29:00.000-07:00

Thurs 7:40am

Now, I’m an early morning person (my internal alarm clock goes off somewhere in the vicinity of 5:30 - 6:00am every morning, The snooze button works maybe once a week) and my day normally begins with a slow wake up in front of my computer. After checking my email, reading a few comics that I frequent and doing a little goofing off it’s a shower and then off to wherever I am going for the day. This is normally done by 7:30 at the latest.

This morning after my shower I realized that it was going to be a good day. It’s Thursday, I get to see two of my ‘grown up’ high school kids from Santa Barbara, lead worship, and pick up the keys to my new apartment. All in all it should be a good day.

So then what is the difference between seeing a good day and a bad day coming. Monday looked like it was going to be a good day as well. A morning of quality worship, many of those who were gathered there thanked me for just the time of worship as opposed to another morning of usual routine. I went to class slightly exhausted, as I normally get when God has used me, and things are looking good. After class I run into a good friend of mine and for all the joy that she had in the morning she got sideswiped by a wrecking ball, eighteen-wheeler, and the Titanic in one blow. Good day to bad day.

On the other hand I can remember many a bad day that turned out for good. In college the youth group was putting on a large scale outreach event: 130ish kids planned to show up, 4 inflatable games, BBQ, music, etc etc. I was in charge of food and BBQ, cause I’m like that. So I trade out my 2 door sports car for a 2 door truck to move all the food, I am at Costco by the time they open, and load up around $200 worth of food in to the back of my buddies truck, by myself. Go to drive the food to the church and the truck doesn’t start. The engine doesn’t even try to turn over. So I go get my car (same parking lot) and try to jump his car, no luck.

$200 of food + broken truck = not cool.

I start making phone calls looking for another truck and help moving the stuff. I need another truck because the BBQ we are going to use looks like someone cut a metal barrel in half, welded a frame around both ends and then put a grill on the top. Very cool, needs a truck to move it. By this time I have gotten over panic mode and am really just starting to enjoy and see every single irony that was happening. Quite literally I was missing every singly light, I had to drive behind every slow driver that was passing another slow driver who was passing a semi, the list goes on.

4pm rolls around and I finally have everything set up, fire started and kids should start to show up around 5ish. I was supposed to have precooked the burgers and have been done cooking around noon - 1ish. Band practice is done and the inflato-games are being delivered. Music and message yields about 40 kids coming up to accept or rededicate themselves to Christ.

There is no such thing as a good day or a bad day, not until it is over at least. But rather moments and chances for God to use our gifts, abilities, and our time for his glory. How we react to the trials in our lives builds our character and shows those around us what type of person we are. If my cynical, sarcastic, depressed mood had kicked in on that day there may not have been as many who would have come up to accept Christ. The attitude that we show affects those around us, even if we don’t realize it.

9:30 pm

It was a good day, I'm tired, packed, and I think I'm going to have another fun day tomorrow.

Introduction/Worship

2006-05-22T18:36:00.000-07:00

The funniest thing about attending seminary is that only now am I being tested in what I believe. Granted I have had no Systematic Theology classes or church history to build a foundation on, but at the same time I have even less time to truly sit down and consider the whirlwind that has been the past two months. I’ll get to that another day.

What is worship? Worship is normally accompanied by the word ‘praise,’ but is it limited to just that. I have been told on more than a couple of occasions that I am a ‘talented’ worship leader, most of the time it is shortly after leading worship for Seminary Chapel or on a Sunday morning when, in my opinion, everything ‘came together.’ Yet for all the flash and spiffy things that happen during worship it means nothing to me if there is not an encounter with God.

This morning I led worship in chapel for the entire time period that we had. Afterwards I received high fives from about 5 people and nods of approval from others. I knew that it had been a time of sincere worship (mostly due to the fact I was exhausted) and that joy and peace had come down and rested upon those that needed it.

For all of these things I do not know if I could trade places with anyone worshiping in the chairs and find the same joy that I do when I lead. When Matt Redman wrote the song The Heart of Worship it was not just a normal songwriting experience. A year earlier he was at the top of his field and was beginning the well-known Soul Survivor movement in Europe somewhere (I think it is more in England). The head pastor commented that most of the church was too addicted to the music and banned music and singing from the church for a year. ‘Worship’ took on a whole new meaning where there was time of testimony, speaking, drama, prayer, and silence. At the end they truly had discovered the heart of worship.

On such a small scale how does one rediscover the true meaning of worship? A term that has risen out of the same Soul Survivor group is that of ‘Lead Worshiper’ as a replacement for worship leader. The more I lead the more I realize that this is true. One cannot evoke emotions in others through forcing it upon them, but rather if one leads sincerely others will follow. “Come follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” In some respect those who are worship leaders have missed out on what it means to worship in an effort to focus on getting others to go where they themselves do not tarry.

If you ask me to lead worship, I will show you what I do when I worship in my own house. Should you say I did a good job, you will find that I am as big a dork as the next person, and that my guitar skills are not amazing. Should you tell me that ‘I’ inspired you, I will tell you that I am simply a servant and child of God and that I have no power of my own, it is Christ who strengthens me.