Friends Profiles

In the weeks to come, I'm going to be having quite a few visitors. I'm very excited about seeing some old friends in the near future. Thus, in my time either preparing for their arrival or basking in the glow of good time recently spent with them, I think I'll write a blog post about each. This weekend Ben & Katie are coming to visit. Sometime in the following two weeks I plan on getting together with the Shorbs (they don't know this yet, but I'll let them know soon enough). I'm hoping that my dad comes to visit me for a long weekend thereafter. There's a big Fall Break road trip from Indiana out here to PA which will include, among others, Polly, Tower, and Missy. Finally, I am working on getting Barnett out here sometime in early November. So, let the friend profile posts begin.

Church 'shopping'

One of the few frustrating things in my life right now is finding a church to attend, often referred to as 'Church shopping'. I can't stand the term mostly because it alludes to a terribly consumeristic approach to church. Just like at the mall, we look for a church with a trendy pastor or where all the cool Christians are going or with a hip website. We can stop by, peruse the isles to see what they're selling and if it fits your style. If so, you can casually associate yourself enough to be cool too. If not, then you can peace out and look for somewhere else. No commitment necessary. Now, I know this could just be semantics. But I can't help but feel like I am doing exactly this. It's extremely frustrating!

At the root of the problem is that I simply cannot figure out what I'm supposed to be looking for. I think before I moved out here I felt confident about what I was looking for in a church. But now, I would be hard pressed to feel confident about any answer I would try to give you. Am I supposed to look for authentic worship? Expository preaching? a thriving congregation? a bunch of people my age? an active community? a comfortable environment? a focus on evangelism? missions? social justice? a place where I feel welcomed? challenged? encouraged? supported? a place where i can use my gifts? where my gifts are needed? Someone tell me just what it is that I'm supposed to be making my church decision on? I think the thing I’ve been looking for the most is preaching that is challenging and full of conviction. Whether this is right or wrong, I don’t know, but what I’m sure about is that none of the teaching I’ve sat under while I’ve been here has been anywhere near what I would call full of conviction. It’s made me wonder whether I should lower my expectations for fear that I’ll look forever without finding it.

At the end of the day, I’m confident that the pastors I’ve heard are disciples of Jesus, that the worship has been an honest offering to God, and that the congregations are likely full of followers of Jesus. Who knows, whether the week I attended each church was actually representative of what the church is or not. Maybe I’ve had a poor approach to my church attendance, which may have affected my ability to feel drawn to that particular body of believers. In no way am I trying to exact any judgment on any of the churches I’ve visited. I’m critiquing to whole process by which I’ve gone about all of this. I’m pretty sure I’ve gone about it all wrong, which is discouraging. Even more discouraging is the sense that if that’s true, then I’ve wasted about 2 months of Sundays trying to find a Church to plant myself in. And I’ve got no idea how I should go about doing things differently.

The times they are a Changin'

I graduated.... again. I now hold a Masters Degree in Higher Education. I realized just a few weeks ago that this makes me sound far more educated than I feel I am most of the time. All in all, I am content with how I ended things at Taylor. Spent a lot of quality time with quality people. Made a lot of intentional effort to put words to thoughts and feelings for people who've said and done so much for me. To tell the truth, I'm pretty pleased with myself for this. I think I would have expected to have foregone that sort of thing in the past, leading to regret and frustration later. But, hey, I guess I'm learning.

CRAM came and went for the 3rd year. This was a particularly challenging year, as human depravity and unbridled selfishness made themselves more clearly felt than in previous years. Though, learning happend. Students were challenged. And growth occured. Also, I made a bon fire out of my couch. Yes, finally (RIP), my mother can sleep more peacefully at night knowing that her baby boy is not being somehow infringed upon by her old sectional couch.

While at CRAM, I also got a job. From the end of school to CRAM I actually ended up being called in to 3 interviews. I went out to William Jessup in California, Indiana Wesleyan, 15 minutes down the road, and Eastern University, in Philadelphia, PA, which is where I am writing this post from. Never before have I experienced God's great providence at work so personally in my life than through this job search experience.

So, I packed up my crap into a U-haul on July 7th and drove the 11 hours out here with my parents to drop everything off, then jump back in the car and drive home so that I could attend Phil's wedding in Indy a few days later. That's right!!! PHIL GOT MARRIED! It was quite an experience and I'm so glad that I was able to push off the start date for my new job until after the wedding. There were lots of memories flooding my head as I sat through the wedding rehersal and the rehersal dinner. Phil is someone who will always hold a special place in my heart and it was great to see him so happy. At a time in my life when I get a front row seat to lots of guys getting married whom I'm incredibly skeptical about, Phil is a man whom I know will love his wife for the rest of his life in as close a fashion I can think of to how Jesus loves us all of our days. So, I shipped out to Philly directly after the reception. Needless to say, there were a few tears in my eyes.

And now here I am, sitting at the front desk of my building, Eagle Hall. We're the newest building on campus, which is nice. I've got 170 students. 2 floors of women and 1 floor of men. 8 RA's who have been another one of God's great blessings in my life recently. More about them later, I'm sure. Now, I'm gonna call it to a close so that I can go play ping pong with Zach, one of my RA's.