A lot of stuff in a small place

I have like 25 minutes to write.

Been a little while since I've sat down to just write a spur of the moment blog.

Anyway... what's been going on? The weather is starting to break and just as it seems that things are going to get warm and nice and all that jazz it becomes quite the opposite.
Go figure.

School has been going well... I'm definitely busy, busy, busy there. I've been thinking for awhile about what I'm going to do after I achieve my degree and the thoughts of seminary keep creeping up in my head. Although I do have a lot of issues with academia and the way students are taught in the current teaching model. So we'll see how things turn out- I've been checking out the online programs available at Western Seminary in Holland, and I've been checking out the online format available at Fuller in California. (One can dream right?) Besides Western Seminary would be obviously closer if I needed to physically attend the school for something and they are on the “cutting edge” of teaching, pastoral, and worship styles. So that's that.

I've realized that when I write these little blurbs I definitely am not aware of spelling issues, paragraph structuring, or grammar. So sorry for the lack of comma's and such... I rarely get on here and when I do I'm not willing to analyze it as if it's being turned in for a grade. Lol
I'm excited about everything with Soul Quest, Tina and I have been going to the church for the past couple months and I have never been a part of something so powerful and entrenched in the spirit. It's weird how God works in situations and how Tina and I bounced from church to church before we arrived at Soul Quest and that each church was often dramatically different from one another. I meet with Pastor Dave weekly on Wednesday mornings and we chat, drink coffee and go from one discussion to another. I'll be looking to work with him and a few others regarding an online site this summer (all that Specs stuff is surely to come in handy- If I remember it at all...lol)

Sometimes I'm overwhelmed about the level of stuff that I really don't know about, and I wish I could get in more time with scripture and prayer. School is so backwards in this particular section because you read from thirty other books before you even touch the Bible. I guess there is an assumption that you're reading the Bible already...yet that's a tough thing to do when you have thirty books to read and not everyone can speed read (Tina!... j/k) I'm consistently told that “Lance your just getting started” and of course I know this but honestly I really want to get to “there” wherever “there” is. I know that I will never “arrive” as some would say it- I get that... I get that I will always be learning and engaging the world differently but is it okay to want to get to a point where you can start teaching, ministering and not having to do the 9-5, 6-3, 11-7, 2-10 work that I'm doing now? Truly I'm blessed to have a job but its tough knowing that you are supposed to be somewhere doing something different with your life and instead your spending it picking up stuff that little brats (can I say that?) leave on the ground and parents who have nothing better to do than complain and argue with you all day. Ugh. (I know, I know this doesn't sound that grateful... but hey I never said that I wasn't dealing with the Spirit and the Flesh on this issue!)

I was going to take courses this summer but it looks like I'm going to slow things down and I'm going to address some independent study and help out with different functions at the church... now what to do about work...hmmm

Lol

I have been doing a lot of different studies on the emerging church movement, and I'm really intrigued about the different methods, and worship styles being presented in different congregations. So that has grabbed my interest. I've been looking around for a giant dry erase board- I'm looking for like a 48” by 72” dry erase board (yeah I know that's mammoth) that won't cost me a fortune. No luck so far. I was going to build one but would much rather not staple gun my sleeve to something. So if you know of a dry erase board available or would like to help me out. That would be awesome. (I mean it, it would be awesome)

Overall things have been going good with life... I'm still confident that everything will work out here in the near future with Tina getting pregnant. I feel that God is preparing us for something in the near future. Also I've been really caught up in what does it mean to live like Christ today? What does it mean to be a people group that worships and lives as community with God as their Father and the Spirit as their guide. I'm transfixed by the level of irony of living in an empire like America while modeling the life of a man who opposed the empires of his day. I'm not looking to be unpatriotic but I AM looking to be a Christ follower and when those two things come in conflict with one another (and they always do) I'm with God on this one.

Seriously though I've been really caught up in this idea of empire, and what it means to be a part of a big machine that has no conscience or morality. I'm not okay with a system that allows people to be on a street, and attempts to cover them up so others can't see them. It's not okay that people go to bed hungry, children are in abusive situations, some walk from place to place looking for shelter because they have no place to call their own. I'm not okay with this. Some would say that is a part of every system and that no matter what you do you will always have the upper class, middle class and lower class. You will always have the extremely rich and the extremely poor and I will tell you that I do not agree with this. I can't agree with this because the system proposed in scripture as “the way” does not allow for this. There is a better way to run a community, and a country and its not designed by men and women. I'm not willing to accept it because my Faith will not allow me to. The homeless signify the weaknesses in our system, the hungry represent the fall-out from a system that takes, and takes, and takes and when we take- we take from somewhere and someone.

Imagine if we were in a world where we gave to others before we gave to ourselves.

Imagine.

Or

We give to ourselves but that we live within the “means” of things and then we give our excess over.

You see I'm not about allowing people to remain lazy, or what not. Yet I'm also not so ignorant that I believe for a second that everyone who is on the street has mental issues, there lazy and or there on drugs. I believe that this can be true for some but not all. I believe that this can be true for some but not all of CEO's also. So just because its true, doesn't make it right. Just because we've always done things this way or that way doesn't make it right. We need to stop, pray, listen, analyze and be drawn to action.

So I'm caught up in Kingdom language. I do not think violence is the way of the cross in fact I know that it's not. Violence will not solve issues and its never the best possible way. This conversation about violence is a whole other set of issues... lol

Anyway I'm at my time limit for today. Off to church and off to changing the world.

Be in Peace,
Lance