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
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
On Sunsets
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.
It was a calm sunset, and you had to be there, sorry.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Oh Saddleback
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.
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.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
If your Jedi Mind Tricks don't work, use the lightsaber
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
A Call to Arms
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 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.
Monday, July 14, 2008
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
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.
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)