new years

i am not sure how you feel about making resolutions. i remember back in high school giving up soda for a year. i was pretty proud of myself for keeping the resolution. it was the only time i ever made one. so if you ask me that is a pretty good record for new years resolutions. i have found i do not really have a need for resolutions. today the biggest three resolutions are about getting in shape, quitting smoking, and not swearing. all of which are very admirable.

as you know i am a huge red sox fan. the other day while reading an interview with jacoby ellsbury, their center fielder. they asked him if he had made any new years resolution. he responded by saying. "Normally, I'm a person that will make goals all year round." so i guess he has an idea of how to get to where he feels he needs to be. it is not about making resolutions but setting goals, continually re-examining those goals and figuring out if you are reaching those goals.

i think the goal of setting a resolution is transformation. while i do not set resolutions i am all about setting goals to see life transforming change.

so for those of you that might be setting resolutions good luck. have a fun year

santa?

He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake

You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town
Santa Claus is coming to town
Santa Claus is coming
Santa Claus is coming
Santa Claus is coming to town

from the lyrics of this song santa could be a deity or a stalker. either way i am scared of what he has become.
all we have to do is sit on his lap and he will make our wishes come true. all we have to do is believe in him.

the sound of silence

the last two weeks i have driven around in silence. you have to understand, i love music. i have never understood those who like to drive without a cd playing in the background. i also like talk radio and podcasts. but for two weeks i have not listened to a thing other then the revving of the engine and the blowing of the warm air.

you see two weeks ago my car was broken into. i noticed it on a tuesday morning as i was about to leave for work. my door was open a little as i approached and i thought, thats weird. as i walked closer i realized glass was on the ground. when i looked into the vehicle i notice the cd player had been yanked out, at about the sametime i realized why i could not find my ipod. it had also been in the car. so literally there has been no sound in my life as i have been driving or working out.

i thought that silence would be tougher. but it hasnt. in some ways i have very much enjoyed it. i have been praying a little more. i have been processing my life a lot more and when jenny rides with me a lot more conversation happens then normal. the other day i drove our second vehicle and after a couple second after turning on the car i realized there was music. it was almost a shock.

the insurance covered the cost of the cd player. but i havent been in too much of a hurry to go out and pick one up. i know if we had a long road trip coming up i would definately rush to have one installed. but for now i kind of like the silence. i am not sure if it is related to my day job. you see at the moment i work at a ymca before and after school program where there is absolutely no silence. my mornings and afternoons are filled with screaming, crying, laughter, whining. for now a silent drive is actually invited.

how big small can be

i frequently look for new music on myspace or purevolume. today i found a band that is absolutely amazing. you might have heard of them. they are starting to get quite a name for themselves. check them out at www.myspace.com/1000generations. they are very refreshing christians/ musicians with original lyrics. this is one of the songs.

My hands cannot hold the world,
But they can help someone in need,
And my cash could never end hunger,
But it will help someone to eat.

It may seem insignificant but lately,
I think sometimes we forget…

Just how big small can be,
it doesn’t have to be, all or nothing.
How big does small have to be,
for us to do something?
And find how big small can be

A fire starts with a single flame,
It’s not hard to see its attribution.
A storm starts with just a drop of rain,
And it only takes one, one man to start a revolution!

So if it seems insignificant then maybe,
It’s just that we are prone to forget…

What if one person changes one person,
Is that worth the time?
What if one difference makes all the difference
And we start to find…

a christian

i have been thinking about the definition of a christian the last few days. i had a conversation with andrew who i met when i was his youth pastor in new york. he is now studying youth ministry and business at iwu. he mentioned how a girl spoke at chapel the other day and seemed pretty mad about the direction of the church. she claimed no one took the name of christian anymore, how we are all ashamed to be associated with the church. sure i was not there and did not hear her speak on this topic, but here are some of my thoughts.

is there anything wrong with with using the term "follower of Christ," what could be so wrong about this? personally i do not think it matters what you call yourself but how you represent what you believe.

christian is defined as a "little Christ." in essence this is a great word. everybody should aim to be a little Christ. Christ is so much bigger then we are. he is the Son of God. he has no beginning and end. he is human and God. perfection at its peak. so we really do not have a shot at being "all Christ." so we settle for being a little like Him.

follower of Christ can be defined as a sheep to a shepherd. we follow him because he is our protector. but i also think it could be imitator of Christ. similar to the game follow the leader. we do things because we have seen him do it. like being a child, we see how our parents act and we learn from their example.

but in reality there is no difference. on facebook under religion i am listed as a follower of Christ but i did not do it to say i am not a christian. i never considered the possibility it might upset somebody. i gues i have more things to be worried about in my life then the semantics of who i am. i have a hard enough time living it out.

transparency and the church

i have never been great at being transparent. i do wear my emotions at all times so people know how i am feeling but for me it is hard to admit to others that i sin. sure i am open that i do sin and will even be open about some of those sins. sure i sin but it is the small sins of coveting my neigbors mustang, anger while driving. nothing that actually affects someone else. so it is ok.

i guess you could call it pride. i have been in the ministry now for 7+ years and because of this i am supposed to be good or at least better then those that i minister too. it is a hard standard to meet when you hold yourself to this kind of pressure. yesterday jenny and i visited a church where our friend is the pastor. it was a great time of worship but there were a couple things that stood out to me during the service that i would like to see more often at churches.

the first was right before we took communion. the pastor asked each one to look into his own life and confess the sin in their lives. this is something we have to do more often as christians. the second was two girls came forward probably both in the young twenties and you could see that both of them were pregnant. however there was no ring on either of their finger. they both came in front of the church to apologize for their sin. not only that they admitted that they did not feel comfortable in the church, that they felt judged.

so often when there is a single parent pregnancy it is looked down upon to the point where it is not talked about. this only causes more controversy in the end in what could have been settled easily. the transparency between these two girls should be commended. and how the church received tem is even better. they showed them nothing but love.

acts 1

our sunday school class started to study acts a couple weeks ago so i wanted to discuss a few of the things from acts that stood out to me or some others during that class.

acts is a great book. it starts out with Christ promising the disciples the coming of the Holy Spirit. it is hard to understand for the disciples because what could possibly replace Christ? he tells them that this is not the time to free israel. i think if i were one of the disciples i would start to question if Jesus was ever going to restore or if it were just talk, however Jesus did just rise from the dead so he atleast does have that on his resume. Christ tells them to spread the word about him which is really one of the few times he asks the dishowciple to tell people about him. up until now he didnt want to draw attention on himself.

Jesus does go to heaven and then the disciples walked back home to what is considered the upper room. there are 120 present and in verse 14 said they were in this for the good or until the end. they were completely together or united in which is a miracle because having 120 people united on something can be a hard task. specifically at this time unity is very important as it is up to them to carry on the gospel as Jesus had commanded to the very ends of the earth. what is also nice about verse 14 is that it says women were included.

what took place next was deciding whom would replace Judas as a disciple. we were kind of wondering what the purpose of this might be. suggestions included Jesus had chosen 12 so they wanted to keep it at 12. another was said Judas was the treasure which is a position that should be filled. yet another was that the disciples traveled by 2.

how they chose the next disciple to replace Judas is interesting. they concluded through prayer that the person must be someone who had been there since the baptism up until the ascension including witnessing the resurrection. so obviously there was some criteria that this person had to meet. they decided on two candidates and after prayer cast lots. we all kind of chuckled because we knew this would never happen today. lets draw straws to see who our pastor might be. but then this lady at our table rose her hand and said she had been a part of a church growing up that deciding things buy placing the names in a hat and drawing them out, after much prayer of course.

i am defianely looking forward to the rest of this book. i understand that i didnt touch on all aspects of acts 1 but that should give you enough to chew on for now.

lost in suburbia

the other day i left work to go to church. there was a heavy amount of traffic so i took an alternative route. i eventually came to a T in the road and decided to turn left to get back on the original road thinking that traffic might not be near as bad this far west. i passed house aftter house, subdivision after another subdivision. and then i hit a dead end. i was lost in suburbia. i eventually got out and found the road i needed.

as you might know we recently moved to north indianapolis, just a stones throw away from the very nice suburb of fishers. fishers is laden with 300-500,000 dollar homes that are no older then ten years old. without saying more it is a very nice community. i work in fishers so i come into contact with a lot of the children growing up with their parents driving land rovers, mercedes and bmws. the kids are dressed in tommy and abercrombie and are always styled very nicely.

we attend church in fishers and have enjoyed getting to meet and know several people within the church. we have been to a few of the homes which are on the higher end of the scale.

this is something i am not very used to. i grew up in a town where the average household income was 18,000. went to college in marion, indiana and also for a short while i lived on the other side of the tracks in greenville, sc. so upon moving to fishers i am a little overwhelmed to the lifestyle. the other day i drove by what i later found out was reggie millers house, probably the nicest house i have ever seen.

i am wondering though how this lifestyle effects those in it. some i have met seem very well grounded and use this position for good, helping out others. i have also signed up for the newsletter which is sent out every week and how we are consistently under budget. something tells me that we are somehow off in our stewardship. it is not like we have an exhorbiant budget but somehow we are not reaching our goals.

are we spending to much so we do not have any left over to tithe to God's kingdom or do we just not care about the work of the kingdom. are we too complacent in our nice homes and beautiful care to realize and understand what is going on in the world around us? are we just trapped or lost in suburbia? used to the designer clothing and somethat apathetic in our existence? how will we get out? how will we not allow this to become part of our lifestyle. how do we not become trapped by what seems so inviting?

connect

not that U2 has all the answers but as i thought about the disconnect between the church and the world but as this song played "randomly" on my ipod last week i thought atleast they have one. grace was first given to us as something we do not and will never deserve. how we are horrible sinful and fallen and do not deserve anything. but for some reason we were given grace. there is a way out of all the shame, guilt and horrible things that we have done. but yet as much as we, the church, have been forgiven we forget to to give grace ourselves. instead we look at others and condemn them because of the past and maybe even present.

i went home on vacation a while ago and one of my friends played a special music on his guitar at church. he introduced it as as a song that whenever he got down on himself, felt guilty about all the things he had done he goes back to this song. it is titled "what can wash my sins away?" i always go back to that moment when i saw him and remember that song. all these people who feel lost and all they need is Jeses to wash their sins away. it is not something they could do or they would have done it already.

i think this is why it is important for us to have relationships with a variety of people. whether religion or race, sex or age, poor or rich, it helps us to understand others. to see where everybody is coming from. and having these relationships without a hiiden agenda of, i am going to win these people to the Lord. but rather approaching it out of love for everybody. anyways the song i listened to was grace by U2. here are those lyrics.



"Grace" by U2

Grace, she takes the blame
She covers the shame
Removes the stain
It could be her name
Grace, it's the name for a girl
It's also a thought that could change the world
And when she walks on the street you can hear the strings
Grace finds goodness in everything

Grace, she's got the walk
Not on a ramp or on chalk
She's got the time to talk
She travels outside of karma, karma
She travels outside of karma
When she goes to work you can hear the strings
Grace finds beauty in everything

Grace, she carries a world on her hips
No champagne flue for her lips
No twirls or skips between her fingertips
She carries a pearl in perfect condition
What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark no longer stings
Because Grace makes beauty out of ugly things
Grace finds beauty in everything
Grace finds goodness in everything

disconnect

yesterday in sunday school our teacher posed a question, "is it okay for those outside of the church to judge those within the church?" quite an interesting question. one that i have thought about a few different times but really havent blogged on. so here are my thoughts. and i hope to have the 2 people that might actually read this to answer the question as well.

the question was posed with a couple scenarios. the first being about a woman who was reading her bible during a break at work. she is an unbeliever and was taking a business class at iwu that required a bible study. so she was doing the class work and enter in three people who she knew went to church and were believers of Christ. this was their response. "what are you doing reading the bible? you are too unholy to be reading that."

we as christians judge the world. we look at them and say they should not be doing that. or we might even tell ourselves that we will witness to this person because they would make a good christian. i am not sure how we have gotten to this place but i know it is not a place where the church should be. why would someone come to the church when they feel judged, or they will never measure up because they have messed up so much. why would they want to follow Christ when there only representation of Christ do not even measure up themselve.

we as christians also judge other christians. we look at them and say we are better then them. we do not struggle with the same sins as they do. they also do not know near as much scripture as i do, it must because they never read the bible in their spare time. or how could they struggle with their faith. isnt faith easy. this is also a place we shouldnt be. this is why so many people have left the church. they feel judged, and if they struggle in their faith then maybe they really do not belong there.

the world might look in on all of this and say it is not for them. they like this guy named Jesus. but have never seen Jesus represented well. they look inside the church and see all the stuggle and hypocrisy. i do not want to be like them.

the church is portrayed by the church as a safe place for those outside of the church. in fact the church is one of the few places that exists for those outside of the church. but i think we forget that. we have all these things for us to grow as christians and we call it discipleship. we have all these programs that bring people together to praise God and we call it worship. during the week we small groups and bible studies and we can call it fellowhip. we do these things because we love God and want to become closer to Him

i think the answer of changing the stereotypes that people have on the church is to be more involved outside of the church. which we call outreach or service. we do this because we love our neighbors and we want to be closer to them, which we call community.

so back to the question. is it okay for the unchurched to judge the church? no one wants to be judged because it shows where we lack, how we need to grow. it is never fun to be judged but we also need to stop judging those outside the church.

programmed or learned

i have always enjoyed charles stanley and this weekend was watching him while flipping through channels but i was dissappointed. he was talking about how parents need to "program their children." let me explain he said that teens are graduating from high school asking lots of questions and they are going off to college and having them answered the professors who are atheist and very liberal. he said that they were being programmed by these professors and said that it was the parents job to program them first.

first of all i am not a parent. so i am not sure how it works. but i do believe that programming isnt the best way of going about it. a child is not a piece of technology that has different software that can be downloaded or deleted any time one wants. i do believe that children are very ingrained to trust what the parent tells them. most of what a child sees in their parents behavior is learned and will be repeated. i know a very special girl who is five. she is one of the most caring individual who is able to care for her friends and is concerned about their feelings. was this something that she was born knowing what to do or was she able to learn this from spending lots of valuable time with her mother?

what is the difference of being programmed or learning these behaviors.i see the need to correct, train, rebuke and teach but i do not want my future children to believe just because i believe. i want them to own it, personalize their faith. i want to see them grow and be doctrinally grounded but i want them to search and question. i dont want to see them programmed but i want to see them believe.

accidentally

wednesday morning i was minding my own business as i was on my way to fall creek to prepare for the core 56 (5+6th grade) program. i was driving the speed limit as i went through a very green light at an intersection as i saw the purple dodge intrepid decide to turn right into me. sometimes vehicles turn to try to hurry infront of someone but she broadsided me in the passenger side door. i am not quite sure what she was thinking but i pulled over to the side and went over to the vehicle to see if she was okay. she was shooken up but physically okay.

she was a high schooler and her parents were there within minutes. the paremedics drove the 50 feet from the fire dept to there parking lot to where she was pulled over to check her out. we were both okay the vehicles damaged a bit but we werent moving very fast so there wasnt a lot of damage done. we talked to the cops and went on our way.

i left to go to wal mart because there was some glass inbetween the tire and the rim. the tire turned out to be okay and was back on the road $10 and an hour later.

today however i came back home and opened up my mail. there were two different letters from lawyers saying they heard that i was in accident and it wasnt my fault. they were asking if i knew my rights and if i was hurt that i could take them to court. in a way i feel more violated by the lawyers then by the teen who hit me. has anybody else ever gone through this. it seems a little odd to me.

faith in the elementary school

as some of you that regularly read this blog i just started a job at a before and after school program at the ymca. it is more a of pay the bills position while in grad school rather than an i love this job and going going to make it my vocation. but it can still be a ministry. in fact i have to see it as a ministry or it wont last that long. i have also started helping out at fall creek wesleyan church in launching there brand new 5-6th grade ministry on wednesday night.

when i came to indianapolis i wasnt necessarily looking to work with elementary school ages but it kind of fell in my lap. there was a need so i filled it. but the kids have been interesting in both places. in small group the other night a kid named conner kept on bring up wrestling, i guess you could say it is his golden calf. while others are just the pastor kid/ grown up in church my whole life and Jesus is the answer to every question type of kids even though we were studying elijah and the prophets of asherah and baal. do each of them have faith, sure. just a little wild at heart.

on the school side of things this morning somehow the topic of veggietales came up and i asked them what they thought of it. these are k-4th graders. but not one mentioned liking it. the biggest reason was that they were talking vegetables and that could never happen. they said that they dont walk but bounce. i was saddened, not because they didnt like veggietales. but more because they didnt have the sense of imagination to think that vegetables could actually talk.

mike yaconelli mentioned in his book dangerous wonder that "when a person loses there imagination it loses a huge piece of his soul." he needs to be able to believe in the unreached and the impossible. because isnt faith in a way imagination, believing in things that seem impossible and unreal. miracles and faith are a part of christianity and we need to have a believe that God can and will do things.

i am not saying that the second graders faith is in trouble but it does still seem depressing that he can not be and do what should come easy to him. a world that was captured in both narnia and a bridge to terabithia. a world full of wonder.

amazing lyrics

How deep the Father's love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure

How great the pain of searing loss,
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One,
Bring many sons to glory

Behold the Man upon a cross,
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice,
Call out among the scoffers

It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I knoww that it is finished

I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection

Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom

we sang this song in church yesterday. I have heard the song a lot but it has been a while. i was really taken back by the words. they are so powerful and ring with truth.

calling

i grew up going to camps and youth conferences that would express the need for people to be called into the ministry. every year no matter who the speaker was it seemed that he would give an alter call for all those who had felt a call into the ministry. at the time i really didnt understand the concept of being called into the ministry. were some people more important that God wanted them. was i less of a christian because i didnt feel that call. i had friends go up. i was happy for them, but in a way was glad it wasnt me who God was calling.

fast forward a few years. i had just finished my first year of classes full of general education courses that all students must take at a private christian college. one of those classes was called world changers, a brand new class where we as freshmen in the fall of 1999 were the introductory class to this positive, uplifting class that we can and eventually will change the world.

i didnt understand at that time what God would be callling me too, but as a freshman studying business i thought it might be as a layperson and would be able to support missionaries and other ministries because of all the money that i would make. that would definately change a lot of people, maybe not the whole world but atleast the community that i lived in.

that summer i took a position as a lifeguard at the iwu pool and was also asked to be a sponsor at a local youth group. i said sure and really enjoyed the time on wednesdays. it started to become a passion of mine, something i would look forward to and would start to schedule things around what the youth were doing.

i found myself at camp again that summer like i had many times as a high schooler only now i was the adult with the teens but yet i felt drawn to the message like dr. lo was speaking directly to me. it didnt matter if there were 500 or so others there but at that moment in time i felt that i was the only one he was speaking to. and then it happened the inevitable if you feel like you are called to the ministry "come on down you are the next contestant on the pastor for life." before i knew it i was at the alter knowing that i wanted to give my life to the direction of Christ. i had felt the call. i had finally understood what all my other friends had felt like when they received the call years before. i finally felt that God wanted me.

it has now been 7 years and i have worked in youth ministry ever since. 3 years as a youth sponsor at the same church and then the last four as a youth pastor in two local church settings. but now as i reflect on that time 7 years ago i stil ask and question myself if it really was the call to ministry that God was looking for. i am sure that God is excited every time a person realizes their "call" but i really believe that God is looking more for the surrender of that person then the realizing of a persons vocation. it was that willingness that God wanted from me so many times. he wanted me to be obedient. he wants me more to be a fully devoted follower of Him. He wants me sold out and to live my life as a sacrifice.

i think this is so much more important then the emphasis that so many people put on the call to ministry. i think we as a church are more excited when someone feels their call to the ministry but not as excited as when someone is called to work with the mentally handicapped or as a business man. that same person could be more humble, loving and willing to serve, and he or she might actually do more to change the world.

what happens when someone who feels the call but really isnt fitted for the position. everyone thanks God at the time but what is set in place for him to actually confirm that. what if this person goes to a bible college because he feels the call but the professors are not really sure about that same call. many people that i went to school are no longer serving in churches or might not even still be following Christ. were those people called to ministry or did they not make the cut because they should not have been there in the first place. was it satan attacking telling them that they were not good enough or was it churches just not hiring them because they really were not good enough.

i am not sure but i have been dwelling on this quite a bit. i have even been questioning to some point my call. but i believe that God is still calling me to follow Him in ministry. for now that means grad school and a volunteer ministry position. later it could be back in the church, maybe a college setting or an inner city ministry but i do know that he will always be calling me to follow Him.

indy

we are now finally settled in our indianapolis one bedroom apartment. we moved in a week ago today and fell like it is almost home. i definately think it will take some time getting used to the new surroundings. i am not necessarily a person who loves the city but there are some things that are starting to grow on me. we are close to jenny's family which is nice. her brother, sister in law and two kids are only about 7-10 miles away. we are going to have some good friends living close by as well.

life is anew and fresh and i am looking forward to what life brings. i started working for the ymca as an assistant site director at a before and after school program. i think it will be a good job to go along with grad school. i will be starting on-site at the iwu keystone building in the ministerial leadership. i look forward to the program and should be the type of masters that i really will enjoy.

we started attending fall creek wesleyan church and i have been asked to help lead a 5th and 6th grade program there. we are lauching it on wednesday. it should work out pretty well. steve bray has assembled a really good team to lead it. on it is a 5th and 6th grade school counselor, a childrens book author, the head of the childrens deparment in the wesleyan church, a youth pastor (me) and a couple of young kids fresh out of high school. i think it has a real opportunity to reach a group that other then young adults are the most unreached age group in the church. a little old for kids club but still not old enough for youth.

so life is moving on going forward. it will be different then what i am used to. God is changing me alot through the process of the last few months. he is opening my world up to "ministry" and "service" which i will be addressing in future blogs. as for me it is almost 1am and i woke up at 6 so i am quite tired. so i am out for the night.

prisoner

I then, as Paul—an old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus— Philemon vs 9

we have been told many times that we are to be servants, to be humble. we have been told that we need to relinquish our rights and hand them over to Christ. i really have been thinking about this passage since i read it yesterday morning.

so many times as christians we have plans to have a certain job, go on a certain vacation and choose what we will do or will not do. we think we have the right for love, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. but i have been wondering what are my rights. God did say that if He provided food for the sparrows then of course he would supply our needs. but is that our right. are we deserving of anything that we have been blessed with.

i then think about being a prisoner. limited to a small confines and is only able to leave when he is told he is able. he is fed at a certain time, not when he is hungry or he is not given a choice of what he would like to eat. a prisoner doesnt have any rights of his own.

but what does that look like in the area of God's kingdom. does God care about our rights or would he rather see His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. paul i think can best say that he was a prisoner, since he was one literally, but figuratively as well. his body was worn and went without food many times, was shipwrecked and imprisoned. i do not think he chose these things, but when he chose to follow God he chose the possibility of being persecuted for his faith.

it is this choice that makes us prisoners. God wasnt the one who decided to imprison you. it is and will be our choice to be a prisoner of God.

just a though

i would drive 4000 miles...

and i would drive 4000 thousand more. it really was worth it all. to see everything that we did within a two week period. it was filled with some of the coolest sites (bear tooth pass, old faithful, the grand tetons and more). the time was filled by driving 4000 miles with stories of college as we went with two good friends justin and lindsay gentry as well as catching up, deep theological discussions as well as rants about life. it truely was an amazing experience.

our time in estes park was awesome. we tented in a valley and had the amazing rockies surrounding us 360 degrees. we were able to catch up with six others from iwu there and had a great time playing board games, hiking, checking out estes park, swimming, playing horshoes and we even rented jet skis for a while.

but now it is back to the real world where jenny and i have to find a place to live, work and worship in community. we went looking for apartments in indy today and found a couple possible places. tomorrow i will concentrate closer on looking for jobs. we have a couple churches we are looking at, we will let you know where we end up.

go west young man

10 days ago we packed up the van and headed for chicago. we spent the day at navy pier, had a tour down chicago river and celebrated our anniversary. on july 30th we met up with our good friends in naperville and headed west. the destinations would be plentiful and have actually grown since our trip began. for the first two days all we did was drive. we stopped somewhere in eastern south dakota and woke up morning to do it all over again.

we saw a sign for wall drug starting 400 miles away. despite jenny telling us it wasnt much we had to see the purpose of having about 100 signs advertise it. we thought we could stop for five minutes and be okay but we wer wrong. by stopping at this tourist trap justin and i missed out on deadwood, sd which has gunfights daily.

we drove on to billings, montana where jenny's aunt and uncle live. we stayed there a few days and took in little big horn. (custar's last stand) and then it was off to yellowstone.

we had alot of fun there. we saw elk, buffalo, and proghorn within 2o feet of us. the drive alone let us see mountains and other amazing scenery. old faithful was amazing spewing between 4-8000 gallons of water. we went on hikes, went swimming at a firehole and enjoyed low 40s at night while we shivered inside our tent.

we drove through the tetons which were definately grand and lake jenny was beautiful as well.
we are now in colorado springs and yesterday went to the garden of the gods. today we will be going to meet james dobson at focus on the family.

community

i am learning more about what community is and what it should look like. two weeks ago i was able to be a counselor at rainbow christian camp. (where jenny attended as a teen and worked during summers.) it was an amazing camp where we and another pastor led a small group throughout the week where we would meet and debrief over the days events. we became a pretty tight nit group and were able to be quite transparent with each other. it seemed like each one of us were in a period of searching. the other pastor had resigned his job the day camp started. and the teens were either all going into their senior year or had just graduated from high school. that week we had community.

this past week i read the book "the irresistable revolution" by shane claiborne. it was the most inspirational and what i hope to be transforming book i have ever read. (yeah yeah of course other then the bible, but i hope you realized that already but just in case i felt i should add this.) he took chances for the kingdom, for community and for love of his neighbor. i am not sure how exactly this book will change me but if i can learn to love my neighbor like shane does then it will be worth it. this is a guy who has been persecuted for his faith. he has been in jail. he was in a car accident caused by a u.s. missile in iraq. he has slept in the cold, gone without food, boycotted taco bell because of unfair wages to migrant workers. this book showed me more about community.

tomorrow we leave for chicago. jenny and i will celebrate 3 years of marriage. . so for about 24 hours we will celebrate that as we spend the day on lakeshore dr, walk navy pier, maybe go into a museum, enjoy dinner together. but she more then anyone has taught me about community.
then on monday morning we will wake up in our best western hotel (thanks to the kindness of bob keisinger) in naperville, il (a suburb of chicago) eat our free continental breakfast and pick up our friends justin and lindsay for a short 20 hr drive to montana. we will stay in billings with jenny's aunt take in the sites at bighorn for a couple days and then head to yellowstone and the grand tetons. we will be tenting at grant village for three nights right on yellowstone lake. i am really excited about vacationing with such good friends as justin and lindsay. we are both in the same place in life as we are looking for jobs in the indy area. justin and i will both be starting grad school in nov at iwu. after we leave yellowstone we will be going to rocky mountain national park and meet up with more college friends. i am looking forward to the community.

i miss the community we had back in college. able to hang out all the time either playing cards or eating every meal together. we all became pretty close. something i havent really had for the last four years. sure i had some good friends but i think college sets you up in how you view community. i hope for that community again.