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.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
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.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
Faith, Hope, and Love
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.
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.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Back to normal
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.
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.
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