What a Weekend

Finally the weekend is coming to a close.
Two weddings this weekend (congratulations to Bryan and Jennifer today and Kyle and Becky on Saturday) with rehearsals on Friday night and Saturday night. A worship service in the sanctuary on Saturday night and two this morning in the Worship Center with HEbrews Joe.
To tell you the truth as much fun as all of those things are individually I'm just pooped!
So after a couple of days of getting things ready for next week I'm hoping that Kathy and I can get away for a couple of days and just take it easy somewhere (somewhere warm would be nice).

Why?

Why did I say that I would have an article ready by Friday on my Doctoral research? Yes, I've planned on doing this and I've started it a couple of times, but tomorrow is Friday and I basically need to start from scratch.
The article is for a leadership gathering that I've been interested in attending but was already booked last year and knew that I couldn't attend so was planning on trying to attend this August. Well after Easter I'm catching up on all my e-mail that had been set aside during the midst of it all and I saw the invitation for papers for the MAY conference with papers due the middle of March. So after a couple of e-mails back and forth I'm blocking out most of today and tomorrow to see if I can't get this written and out of the way.
Your prayers are appreciated!

Walking Into the Dark without a Night Light

Today during a consulting group meeting at A Quiet Place we were invited to consider the benefits of darkness. Darkness that is not just physical but spiritual as well. As a part of the exercise we were invited to bring a part of us that we have kept in the dark into God's presence. Immediately I went to that need I have to be in control of myself. One thought led to another and before I knew it I was asking God where He was at in my childhood.
Now obviously I'm leaving out a few steps in how I got there and I'm not sure that I'm wanting to be that open and vulnerable right now in this place. But it leaves me with a lot of processing to do around the reasons why I fear/resist some things and embrace others.
The more I learn about how childhood and family history impact the ways I respond today the more amazed I am at how complex we are as people. What an amazing thing God does in our lives to bring us to a point that we can function semi-coherently and with more grace then we might give if we were only a product of our circumstances.

Bird in Hand

Here is a picture of the wood sculpture at A Quiet Place carved out of a tree trunk that was left after having to take down the rest of the tree.

I just find it very peaceful.

Post Easter

Easter day started out cold but clear for the Sunrise Service and then continued to improve for much of the day. This year I didn't preach/teach in any of the services but rather did a short Object Lesson to help kids (and adults) connect with the theme of the service. I must admit that it was a bit different but not a bad different not to be primarily in charge of one of the services. Russ and Shannon both did a great job in the sanctuary and in HEbrews Joe. It is great to be a part of a team that can really carry the message in powerful ways no matter who is leading.
I went ahead and led the Sunrise Service as I had less duties for the rest of the day. For the service I went through the Gospels and collected all the "Why" questions that Jesus asked. As I read through them and pondered their implications I was struck by how much I needed to really spend some time answering those questions for myself. So in the coming days we just might visit some of those questions for some self-analysis.
But today I'll just take a deep breath and get ready for another week that promises to be as full as last week. (Sermon to prepare, 2 weddings with rehearsals, and all the usual stuff that happens each week.)

View from the other side

I spent the noon Community Good Friday Service in the sound booth running Easy Worship. I thought the service went well from my perspective but I also gained some much needed perspective about what it takes our volunteers each weekend. It really is something that you have to pay attention to what is going on the first time. Our folks do a great job up there on a regular basis and I'm not sure how they do it when they have to listen to the same sermon 4 times on a weekend.
One of the things that I noticed though was how much more I could have helped out during the service if I had things a bit earlier and taken the time to work them through. I tried to include a variety of images that we could use during breaks in the camera shots so that we didn't have to go from one camera directly to another. I think that most of the time I was able to get decent pictures up there in a timely fashion. I was sorry that I wasn't able to get a picture of the painting up that Pastor Phil was describing though. The connection speed is just a bit slow in the sanctuary because of all the bricks and I had to try a couple of different sites before I could find the right picture.
Anyway the experience opened up my eyes to help provide some cues for the folks to be able to use and fill in their expressions of what is being communicated. So now if I can only follow through with a great idea.

Someone's Headed to Rome

My daughter is off travelling in Europe during her spring break from classes in England. She ended up making plans to be in Rome (not realizing that it is Easter weekend). So I wonder what she will experience in the midst of the pilgrimage to Rome this year. While I'm not really into the real traditional mass and liturgy I still think it would be kind of neat to experience. If you want to check out her travels she posts here, though you probably won't see much for a couple of weeks until she gets back from her travels.
It is exciting for me in many ways to hear about what she does and sees as I was at the same University in 1981. So now I get to hear about her impressions and remember my own travels. Though I got out my pictures a couple of weeks ago and they were sure fading. I don't feel like I'm that old, but I guess the days march on and time catches up with you.

Maundy Thursday Services

In a couple of hours we will begin our Maundy Thursday Services. We will include Feet Washing, a symbolic meal with foods from the traditional Passover Meal, a lot of conversation around the dinner tables, communion, and end with prayer. It never ceases to amaze me how this evening of remembering Jesus' last meal with his disciples effects people. When you have your feet washed or break bread together and have the chance to do so in the quiet reflection that comes with a night like this it just seems to get into your soul.
I wonder why there are churches who refuser to consider that possibilities of incorporating a feet washing experience into their Holy Week services? When Jesus says, "Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet." Why can people ignore it so easily when they make other thinks so cut and dried and leave no room for debate?
Just wondering. Maybe you would like to share your experience of Maundy Thursday, please feel free to add your comments.

Closing Down the Store

In response to Starbucks recent early closing for retraining Gordon MacDonald thought about what lessons we might learn from this in church. He suggested;

"While the doors are closed, we might ask if the present way of doing church life really works. Does the generally accepted institutional system generate courage, wisdom, and solidarity in such a way that its people really do learn how to carry the servant-spirit of Jesus into schools, businesses, and neighborhoods?" (For the rest of the article check here.)

My initial reaction is that I'm not sure shutting down shop to have a time of retraining will do that much good. Isn't this really what happens on a weekly basis in many churches in North America anyway? The church gathers together with everyone knowing each other and not a stranger/visitor in sight and we continue on as if all is right with the world in God's eyes. Sometimes I wonder if people become more Christ-like in spite of the church rather than because of the church. So do we need retraining or do we need a reminder from the owner that if we aren't going to do business his way there are others who can take our place?

What?

So as far as I know Oral Roberts University sells itself as a Christian University. When this happens does anyone ask the question; "How does this reflect upon the image of Jesus in our culture?"
(thanks to Bradly Wright for the link)

Overloading on the Trinity

So I've posted recently on trying to teach/preach on the concept of the Trinity in the Christian faith. Now I thought I was going to be done with it for awhile and what happens? The next book on my to read pile was, The Path of Celtic Prayer by Calvin Miller, and he starts out by focusing upon the importance of the Trinity in the prayers of the Celtic people.
As Sheri said last night, once you start thinking about God as three in one it becomes difficult to think of them as separate.
Oh well, it must be the season of the Trinity for me.

So So

After preaching three times on the Trinity (maybe that is significant, maybe not) I think I did OK, not great, but OK. It really is a difficult concept to communicate and one that I think is not completely understandable. After all how can God be three and one at the same time? But folks were able to stay with things for the most part. I think I did a bit better this morning than I did last night (if you were at any of those services please feel free to chime in and give it a thumbs up or down). While I think the Athanasian Creed was helpful it wasn't one that people completely got into and said; "Yes, that's what I believe!" (Feel free to check out the full text here if you want to.)
So now it is on to another week and gearing up for Easter (both the best of times and the worst of times).

Trinity

OK, I've been working all afternoon on trying to find ways of teaching/preaching on the reality of the Trinity in the Christian faith and while I understand it in principle I'm having a tough time of figuring out how to engage people with it in a way that they can make it personal and a part of their lives.
The direction that I'm thinking of taking is to focus upon the concepts of the heresies that made the teaching of the Trinity so important. This way we can see that the Trinity even if we can't fully explain it or understand it holds things in tension and keeps us from falling into the extremes of one aspect of God over and against another.
I'll see how it all turns out Sunday afternoon.

Family Dynamics

I've been reflecting upon the the nature of family dynamics over the past couple of weeks after spending some time with my parents and sister and brother and their family's in Idaho. I spent a lot of time asking my parents about their families growing up. I never really new my grandparents and so I was asking about what they were like. It was interesting then to have them get out old pictures so that I could put faces to the personalities that they were telling me about.
As I heard about my grandparents I thought, well that begins to make sense of who my parents are/were while I was growing up. So then I began to wonder about what my children will say about Kathy and I? Will they look back on their growing up and think about their grandparents and say, "Now it all makes sense!" or will they say, "My parents aren't anything like their parents." I'm not sure I know how it will all turn out, but I know that I'm spending more time trying to figure out who I am, why I am the way that I am, and who it is that God wants me to become in the image of Christ.
All of this is coming together as I'm planning on leading a Wednesday night class after Easter on "Family Mapping: Why we are who we are." It should be fun.

Another Picture

Here is another picture from Zion National Park.

Home Again

So I got home last night, having made a fairly quick trip of it on the way home because I was ready to be home and because the weather was changing and going to be fairly nasty behind me.
Now I'm spending the day pondering. I'm trying to make sense of the experiences that I had in California and what they mean for my present and future. It would be nice at times if God would provide an owners manual along with life, but we just have to make do with what we can learn along the way I guess.
I'm guessing that as I make sense of things I will slowly reveal those things that happened in little ways here and there. Sorry to tease you with it all, but it just isn't formed clearly enough yet to make it a big public proclamation. So just hang in there with me please.

Just a Few Pictures

Before going to San Diego I drove down through the dessert and was impressed with the stark beauty of it all. Here are a couple of pictures from the drive.