this is how i’m doing: in case you were wondering…

It’s been a while since I’ve gone to church on Saturday.  I went last night and I have to say I’ve missed it.  I don’t know why, but it feels like home.  Sunday night always feels so last minute and I’m not allowed to go on Sunday mornings (the 9am and 11am on Sunday are ALWAYS overcrowded so they ask members not to go to either service).  Saturday it is then…

I woke up extra early (for me) on Thursday to check out the men’s bible study at the Village taught by Matt.  I got there at 6:32 (two minutes late) and the parking lot was much more crowded than I expected.  I walk in and Matt is already taking and there are like 300 men there - unbelievable.  It’s a 4 or 5 week bible study called “The Art of War” which will cover conflict and how Godly men resolve it.  I love it when the Church does things like this to help equip men for their role as leaders - I firmly believe that most problems in the church and in the home are caused by men who will not lead.

In recovery we have a saying that goes “expectations are resentments waiting to happen”.  One of the biggest causes of conflict is when expectations go unmet.  You expect your co-worker, child or spouse to act a certain way and when they don’t you get upset, disappointed or annoyed - even when you haven’t communicated your expectations to that person!  I catch myself doing that all the time.  At church I got annoyed with the tall guy sitting in front of me blocking my view.  Every time I would move to where I could see he would shift or tilt his head right in my line of sight.  I caught myself getting mad at the guy and then I thought “well it’s not like he’s doing it on PURPOSE” - he was clueless to my problem.

I’m looked back at my notes and somehow I went off on a tangent and jotted down some notes about trust.  I wrote 3 statements:

“Will I trust her (my future wife) to have my best interest in mind?”

“Can she (again, my future wife) trust that I have her best interest in mind?”

“Can I trust that God has my best interest in mind?”

He must have been talking about conflict in marriage or something that triggered my mind on trust.  These questions relate to how we, in our sinful nature, don’t trust.  I don’t want to be that way in my marriage.  I want to live in a way that makes my wife trust that I have her best interest in mind.  I want to trust her in the same way.  Imagine what it would look like when she says “hey, you know you probably shouldn’t do that” - I could think “she’s looking out for me” instead of “she’s trying to control me”.    Imagine if we could trust God like that.

Can I use pop song lyrics as a reference for a master’s level paper? No? Dang it.

Semisonic has already said what I wanted to say in their song Closing Time with the line “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end”.

Back to work…

I’ve been busy trying to balance my life which has left little time for blogging. I found a moment, so here’s a quick update.

School is going, well, okay. I didn’t know my brain was capable of reading 3 books at a time and keep all the information straight. I got off to a bad start; I didn’t realize that the readings were suppose to be completed BEFORE the class began so I’m still playing catch up. Now I’m thinking I’ll have to skip what I’ve got left to start on my readings for the next 3 week block. I’m going to have to learn to speed read.

I’m finally getting into a groove at work and I’m starting to see how extremely blessed I am to have a job where I can pretty much take time off whenever I want to. This is going to play a key part in my academic success.

I donated my TV and dvd player to help raise money for the church (we’re trying to buy an old Albertson’s and turn it into our new church building). My home group and one of our sister groups had a garage sale last weekend; we raise $1600! The Village needs to raise 4 million by the end of the month for this all to go down without incurring any debt (last count we were at two mil). Anyway, I realized that for this whole school thing to work I’d have to make reading a full time hobby which left little room for TV - I didn’t have cable anyway. I have, however, been buying episodes of Psych on iTunes which I think is a fair compromise.

Since work and school and church weren’t enough I decided to pick up a part time job recruiting for Lon Morris College. It’s only a few nights out of the week and only for 2 weeks but it is putting a strain on my delicate time balance.

If I can survive this first semester then I think I’ll be okay. It’s all going to be a matter of priorities, budgeting my time and a little discipline. Maybe trusting in the infinite God who exists outside of time will help too.

“A budget is telling your time [or money] where to go instead of wondering where it went” - John Maxwell

I got to hear Eric Mason from Epiphany Fellowship preach tonight (he’s filling in for Matt this week while he’s in Asia) - he brought it. He preached on brokenness, which I don’t think anybody can really get enough of. What really got me thinking - aside from his sermon - was the mission of Epiphany Fellowship: to reach the Hip Hop generation. He described this generation as one who since birth has been exposed if not engulfed in the hip hop culture. This made me wonder, are we (the Church) just selling a brand of name or are we reaching people where they are at with the Gospel? Are we engaging culture or just trying to make “them” more like “us”? A guy in my home group that used to go to Fellowship Church was telling me about their Miami, FL church plant and how it wasn’t going over very well. They are trying to push alternative rock, white American contemporary Christianity to a culture that sees no relevance in our tight fitting rock-star jeans.

While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.
…
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. - Acts 17: 16-17; 22-23

To engage a culture you have to get in it, walk around, get to know it. Maybe it means hanging out with the guys from work instead of going to ANOTHER bible study. Maybe it means joining a non Christian group in college (and not lamenting over how pagan they are). Maybe it means loving our neighbor IN their neighborhood.

I’ve been reading some information on Preterists (the view that all Biblical prophecies were fullfilled on or before the destruction of the temple in 70AD) and I have to say its rather depressing. I mean, the more I read the more it seems pretty logical - the arguments combined with scripture but I’m left with an emptiness of, “What about me? What about us?” I just don’t think I can buy into it. I’m bummed out now.