WELL, I'M BACK

Back here in good ol' oihO. And it is a treat to be home. Every time I am away, I invigorated into newer, fresher places of heart for our work here.

Well, to get this out of the way, the flights were fun. A one-hour, ten-minute ground stoppage on the runway in Dayton on my 737 was luscious. Of course I was monitoring the Chicago radar every fifteen minutes, but stopped short of offering my fellow passengers weather updates for fear of not being able to stop myself.

When we did finally get up and make our approach into O'Hare, the pilot was doing some pretty cool maneuvers that I wasn't sure I wanted to see a 737 make, like dips, dives and pull-ups over convective towers, like in the pic I snapped below.

I didn't know at the time, but one of our team members was in Detroit on his plane ready for departure when they discovered a mechanical problem with the fuel line or something. They performed a repair and did a taxi down the runway. I suppose as they were doing so, there was an even greater malfunction and fuel was being sprayed all over the plane. Yikes. No, make that a double yikes. Obviously that flight was canceled and,unfortunately, he didn't get to join us.

Coming back I got to fly in a Fairchild 328, which is Midwest's regional jet. I was scheduled for a United flight from Milwaukee to O'Hare then to Dayton on a 737. But guess who had a ground stoppage when I got to the airport in Milwaukee? They offered me a non-stop on Midwest to Dayton, which I took. You know that when you go up in gate letters and numbers you are getting a rinky-dinkier aircraft. So I got to gate D-52 and out the window there were nothing but turbo-propped "crop dusters" which I knew they weren't about to fly to Dayton, but I had to make sure. And I did. For the next 1.5 hours, I saw one Fairchild after the other land, deplane and take off again. These little boogers looked like mini-cargo planes and I immediately began to wonder how it would handle the turbulence we were about to get into.

It got a bit bumpy going up because the winds were gusting up to 30mph that day. But coming into Dayton felt like a riding with a drunk on a Rock-O-Plane at a gypsy carnival. I suppose a larger craft could have absorbed some of the bumps better but even as buffetted as we were, the crew did a good job landing.

The trip to Wisconsin was quite fruitful. We(our task force) have been compiling our findings from the past several months into some presentable material for our churches and their leaders. We have been receiving feedback from both groups and incorporating it into our material.

We started out with at least a premise that people in North America are largely unreached for Jesus and we aren't doing a very good job at ameliorating the problem. Intially, we were going to identify the barriers in our churches that kept non-professional ministers, (i.e., "lay" persons...regular church folk) from doing the Kingdom work they can and should be about, but have been kept back because of leader insecurity and just plain ignorance.

That is built upon the idea that soley relying on professional, trained church planters- the deployment of which are ridiculously resouce heavy- hasn't cut it. In that vein, we thought we were going to identify ways we could empower "lay" persons (we even have difficulties with the baggage associated with that word) to see that they could engage in planting in ways that- perhaps by perception- were reserved only for professional minister-types.

Well, now we are reasonably sure that the true spirit of what we think God is about in this is not to get people to "start" churches, per se, as much as it is about people being relationally available, persistent and connected to what God wants them to do in their own neighborhoods. When that happens, churches are often born in many kinds of forms that please God. That SBaptists have always taken the Commissioning in Matthew 28: 19, 20 to heart is not novel. More revolutionary in SBC life is that the goal necessarily isn't to pump out churches, but to create simple, redemptive communities where the spread of God's Kingdom is possible. This implies a radically new approach to disciple-making for some, if not many.

Not revolutionary for most of you, I know, but there is a groundswell amongst the everyday Christ follower in SBC churches that we are finding are longing to be released to do this and be free from programmatic/unnatural/inorganic approaches to impacting our neighbors for Christ. To be sure, there are deep pockets of control that factor into this being a bona fide release and empowerment.

But I think when people are free enough to realize their place and identity, God may move amongst us like we've not seen in ages, and in a way that isn't solely to save denominational face or feather the beds of our deep-seeded control issues. It will be something in which God alone can truly be glorified.

This much we knew from our first gathering in Orlando last October, when opening our journey together in a time of prayer, we were pretty literally driven to our knees- our little hotel conference room being filled with God's presence in a powerfully humbling way. It seemed God was telling us that if we were serious about what we were setting out to do, he would be the one to be glorified. I'll not forget that visitation of the Spirit upon us that day. We have a chance here. I know.

I hope.

Stuff You Just Hafta Blog About

God still loves the 'burbs. I love it when he uses the whole creation to show us.

I'm at the Lutheran church tonight at about dusk cleaning windows. It is beginning to get dark enough just to make out the crescent disk of the moon and Venus which happen to be in conjunction tonight. I had known that, but forgot.

I wasn't done with the windows, but there was an inner urgency to get home and get my scope out. And not just get it out, mind you, but something told me I had to get out on my sidewalk just in case I would encounter anyone. Ordinarily, it ain't no big thing that I yank out my scope, but just as I was ready to dismiss the idea and wonder what I would do instead when I got home, I could find the only other thing I was leaning toward was walking up and down Dana Drive and maybe praying. I think God was telling me sumpin'.

I get home, set up and begin viewing the moon and Venus with Cathy, which were both visible in my 25mm eyepiece. That doesn't happen a whole lot. Just then, a lady on her bike with dog in tow, slowed to a stop at my drive. I had seen her before, but had never talked with her.

She asked if there were an "event" going on. I told her about the conjunction and asked her if she'd like to look. She was all for that. I proceeded to take her on a tour of Venus, the moon, and Saturn. She was ecstatic and almost got her shy roomie to come out.

Turns out, Maria's a recent grad of Miami and a botanist who's been working with plant experiments with the shuttle, which includes prep studies for future Mars missions. She had also thought about being an astronaut (and was maybe being "tapped" to become one) because of her small frame, but the one-in-ten fatality ratio of the job made her think otherwise. How freekin' cool is that? She's currently a research assistant at the University of Cincinnati. But, lo and behold, she loves Oxford and wants to stay here (and mentioned she's willing to drive the hour just to stay here). That in and of itself is an anomaly.

She asked what we did, and I told her I was (gulp) a pastor with a lil' house church. She proceeded to share that she had become a Christian while living in the Northeast. And ever since she had been in Oxford, she had never connected to any community of faith.

Big open door here. Yeah, we took it, because this was a divine set-up.

We traded numbers and she said she'd be here Sunday for our gathering. I hate I have to be gone, but she's in great hands. And what a cool person. We can't wait to get to know her more.

Pray that God helps us to meet a need and possibly embody the kind of community she's looking for.

You see how God ties up things together for his purposes? If God can take our second planet from the Sun and our only satellite, combine it with my nerdy love of the cosmos with a thread of thinking on Kingdom stuff, he can do the same in your life if you're open. And I know, this is old hat for a lot of you out there and is pretty simple, but still cool nonetheless.

If anything, we have a new friend and know how to pray for her. So yeah, another reason why we are here on Dana.

Off To Madison, WI...

Hitting the skies yet again for what is going to be the last leg of my stint with the North American Mission Board's Task Force on Lay Church Planting, which began last October. Altogether, I think my total flights since then have racked up to about 14 or 15, which, if you know me, is 14 or 15 more than I like.

I've really been impressed with the the passion and depth of the people I have served with on this team. It has totally reminded me why being connected to a larger family of believers is so important. Seeing that God is faithful to building his Kingdom no matter where it is we go and to whomever we talk, I'm just glad to be journeying with these people on a larger basis and for all my pipples in the 'Nati and the Oxford area.

Talk back at you Wednesday...

GETTING UP IN A FEW HOURS....

We are going to open our house for prayer on Thursday mornings now from 6-8am for our community and anyone else who'll come. We are figuring prayer is a good thing to do together.

You know if something is requiring my presence this early in the morning, it has to be God. For the LOVE OF GOD!!!!

Literally.

Veritas 2007 Spring
Retreat...

Pic By The Kimminator

....is history. Much thanks to the Convent at Vineyard Central for their tremendous hospitality. It simply gave us the room and space to go to some places we were needing to go as a church.

For some time, I've felt --(and now see many others do as well)-- that we've been at a threshold of sorts for our community. We came together for an overnight retreat to pray, worship, evaluate and dream for things to come. It had indeed been awhile since we had done so.

We had eight of us there and I was frankly amazed at what was already on everyone's heart. It was the kind of situation where you open your mouth to share what's been stoking your heart and what it is you're dreaming of and people say stuff like: "That's what I've been thinking about too!!" There was a bunch of that happening in our short time together. I just didn't really realize how pregnant this "thing" was, though there's still some gestation to occur.

There seemed to be quite a consensus on a couple of things.

• We're getting pretty serious about the next phase for Veritas, which stands to be rather enduring.
• ...serious enough to enter into a concerted season of prayer not quite like anything we're used to
  
• It is definitely going to involve some intentional, missional communities.

These communities will be missional because we're stumped by the immense need and darkness surrounding us. And because we ain't got nowhere else to go except to Jesus and He just loves on us and then turns us back out and sends hurting people our way.

We are now convicted of this: the kind of work that we feel like we're being called to can really only flow from and be sustained by disciplined, embedded communities. We'd eventually love to see them on several fronts here in Oxford and the surrounding area.

Coming back into Oxford this evening, I felt a renewed sense of calling to this place and to these people and overjoyed that I get to be with the people who are around me who are looking to see similar things. That is stupendously overjoying.

We are really in the beginning stages of conversation about this and some other things, which I'll go into a bit later. There's no timing on anything, just words and possibilities to fit a passion and a longing. We talked of things to come with fervor and with tears and I can't tell you how much I've needed to see this.

We're having to let go of some things, some for clear reasons and others for-- well, I couldn't even begin to tell you why. It's just part of the sacrifice I suppose.

The invigorating thing is we've turned the corner for sure because it doesn't feel like we're still high-banking in preparation like we have been. There's the issue of timing, but when that's borne and he gives the green light, it's mostly just pedal to the metal from there.

Since It's Severe Weather Season....

Lightning is a main killer in storms, and this guy is pretty doggone lucky he wasn't part of the main channel that made the connection from the ground to the stepped leader from the cloud base.

Note the plasma discharge from the metal on his bike where his hand is placed.....the charge obviously worked it's way up his kickstand, deployed beneath him on the other side of the bike. You can also hear what appears to be a door alarm tripped possibly by the strike.
WARNING: Some rough language.....but hey, tha dude bout got 30,000 AMPS and 300,000,000 volts.

It's Lionel Richie's annoyingly bad "All Night Long" meets every bad episode of Kung Fu Theater you've ever seen. It's actually Hiroshima-San Say, straight from 1983. And it's the only ninja music video I know of. But that's not saying a lot. I would have embedded it, but yootoob wouldn't let me.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Yq7D-NfDxtY

SUSTAINABLE LIVING?

There is a gnawing impetus to unplug myself from the implacable videodrome. To stop taking more than what I need in the form of hand-me-downs from the falsely-flattering industrial complex. To live more justly, concretely simpler. How do I ameliorate the sneaky need to acquire a rural Idaho compound versus remaining in the "abandoned places?" How do you do it? How do you excise the consumption beast when his salivating fangs are polished and chiseled by your own hands?

Been here in the house minus my wife this week. She's been in Tennessee seeing after her mother in her convalescence during her spring break. I'm not too used to her being away...I'm usually the one gone if one of us has to be.....or we're usually together. I think the last time she went off and left me fending for my bad self was perhaps the mid-nineties.

I've learnt a few things this week. My dog definitely prefers Cathy. She truly just tolerated me while she pined away faithfully on the landing at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for her return, scattering a whimper here, a whine there from out of nowhere. I tried to take her several times on walks this week, with me on roller blades and her tagging along....all for her, to get her "out" and get exercise. It was akin to dragging the beast to the vet. I think once we got going, it felt like she was doing it for my benefit. She comes around me only for sustenance and evacuation of her bowels. I feel like I'm being used.


I guess she sees it better than I.....I'm just not my best without m'ladee.

HOODATHUNK IT?

Another Veritasian has done a big ol' can-opener in the bloggin' pool........and it be Jenny-licious.

PROUD OF MY LIL' TOWN

The April 2007, Men's Journal has listed Oxford as one of the 50 Best Places to Live in the US, under the Best Commuter Towns section.


I'll take it.

The Dry Heave
The confounding thing is that there are so many conflicting desires and distractions to dissuade me in my quest for God. Mostly, I can barely even call it a "quest" because I can be so radically aloof in regards to a requisite Kingdom-mindedness. Dryness, emptiness, weariness, unworthiness may flood in and push us away from discipline and ultimately from community. But I don't think they are the enemies:

It will happen again and again that the person who is charged with
offering the prayer for the fellowship will not feel at all in the spiritual mood to do so, and will much prefer to turn over his task to another for this day. Such a shift is not advisable, however. Otherwise, the prayer of the fellowship will too easily be governed by moods which have nothing to do with spiritual life. It is precisely when a person,who is borne down by inner emptiness and weariness or a sense of personal unworthiness, feels that he would like to withdraw from his task, that he should learn what it means to have a duty to perforn in the fellowship, and the
brethren should support him in his weakness, in his inability to pray. Perhaps it is right here that one will realize the profound truth in Paul's words: "We know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." (Rom. 8:26).
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, LIFE TOGETHER, p. 64-65.

At least they don't have to be.

ReTREAT

I am back in O-Town after a refreshing weekend at the Convent for a mini-retreat. It certainly was all I could have hoped for. No agenda but to relax, focus on God and engage in some scintillating conversation with the crew down there. The place just oozes hospitality. I mean, what a phenomenal set-up. There can be no doubt that God is all over the situation there in Norwood.

Some realizations:

• I hadn't realized how much I had "flipped" this past year in response to the loss of Chad and Palmer and watching my friends and colleagues stagger and grieve. I confronted my own mortality and misplaced my trust and looked for validity in other people when I should have sought sustenance from God. I had to repent of that.
• "Shimmering" Verses: Psalm 51:17 "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." I don't even know sacrifice yet. My Christianity has been relatively "easy" and safe thus far.
• God, the Sneak: Something's creeping in on me from behind....from the horizon....from around the bend.....the sneaky feeling that God delights in me, despite my being prone to great treachery as a Kingdom vagabond and often traitor. Fleeting moments emerge, promising the hope of transformation and stepping into something greater. I sensed this driving down in the fog, rain and dusk, and, although the surroundings were appropriate to where I've been the last bit in my life, that stab of joy seemed simultaneously mine and yet not mine.
• Dave Nixon, the Omeletteer: When Dave says, "I'll get up and make everyone some omelletes..." one does well to fashion one's schedule around that.
• Dave Nixon, the Squirrelinator: Beset with this rhodentious invader, I would learn of it when Jody came down after breakfast in a hustle, crying out: "I saw it....it's running around." Heidi tells me the "it" is a hapless squirrell on its last legs that was trapped in the building for the last five days after having finally chewed its way through the wall. Well the beast would not extricate itself and Dave made haste to the third floor. Soon after, I made my way out the door and no sooner had I closed it when I hear a "THUD" and, turning, I beheld a deceased squirrell bouncing off the ground about 15 feet in front of me. I knew instantly. That had to have been one of the most awesome things I've witnessed in a while.
• What I Need More Of: A deeper, more sustaining hunger and thirst for God. A truly Spirit-empowered life, inwardly and outwardly.
• Pray without ceasing: Still as haunting as it is inviting.
• I like the ways God just lets me know that he's glad I'm here.
• I was greatly heartened by the time the Dave gave to me and Matt Saturday night at the Speckled Bird. He didn't have to, but he made time. And thanks to Jody for that time as well.
• A few days is not enough for a real retreat. I was indeed just starting to unwind.

So now, the tests of routine, complacency and contemptuous familiarity come to try me. Thanks be to God, it "smells" a bit different this time.

Trying Not To Resist The Irresistable Revolution

Some of you may have already read it, but I am working through Shane Claiborne's The Irresistable Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical, thanks to Beanerosity of the Beanius.

A pretty compelling story, especially from a fellow Tennessee boy....who's done quite well I might add (for a Tennessee boy).

Chew on this for a minute:

.....we have seen the beauty of diverse vocations and the multidimensionality of Christian discipleship. One of the best things communities like ours do is carve out a space for people to discern and redefine our vocations.
(p. 138)

In our context, with young adults struggling with what it means to marry authentic Kindgom living and issues of vocation, I find it evermore imperative to be such a community as well. It hasn't struck my heart with as much fervor as it has done so this weekend as a result of Thinspace. I don't know that we're doing this faithfully enough; we have some really struggling with losing themselves in their vocational ideations/pursuits that Kingdom vitality is being snuffed out right before my eyes. Sometimes I feel powerless to even speak into/against the current of that kind of worldview, especially when it is from those you love and who've previously desired greater things.

I long to know what I need to do to be able to carve out that approachable space for people to discern and redefine their vocations in light of the Kingdom of God. I do know you cannot prematurely impose your Kingdom-mindedness nor your vocational worldview. But there is risk when you spout out things that you think were inspired; you AND your words can ultimately be rejected.

Then again, there is also the risk that someone might be listening in the Spirit.

I did mention Thinspace in my last post. Shortly, I shall delve a bit deeper into some of the particulars of our experience this weekend as things shake out. I've discovered over a Chinese buffet dinner last night some interesting things God is doing in both mine and Cathy's lives...God nurturing, confirming, directing. I think we'll incubate it a short while (some part I've already shared with my Veritasian community) till we can speak of it with more clarity and grounding.

Bizziness abounds....posting suffers.

AHEAD:

• Prepping for my weekend retreat at the Convent this weekend. Got the support of my community and that is exceptional. Looking forward to it mostly. But I am really quite rusty at this.
• Probably traveling somewhere on the last leg of my lay church planting task force with NAMB, which will be in mid April. And by somewhere, I mean either Salt Lake City or.....somewhere else in the US. Our task force facilitator is going to be sending me perhaps to another location to facilitate a gathering along with some others in the group at additional locations.
• Camping with some buds at the end of April. Requisite time for sure.
• Veritas retreat. More later.

Thinspace was definitely a needed time for me, Veritas (yeah even those who didn't go will be affected) and our network of people we run with. Our breakout session went well and we were greatly impacted by the speakers, the worship and the people overall. I hate I missed the usual subsequent hang-out time with my friends at the B-house....many of whom I see only occasionally or once a year.

My shout-out to Cmarsh who composed us all into a workable whole. It wasn't an easy task and I am grateful he is my friend.

WHAT IT'S LIKE TO JUST GET BY...

By now, everyone must have heard about the devastation in Enterprise, Alabama, and other surrounding areas on the March 1, 2007 tornado outbreak. 8 people were killed inside the high school as the tornado-- rated EF 3 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale-- ripped through.

I scouted out this video of some roommates emerging from their home near Ft. Rucker...



What seemed to be the random and fickle nature of a tornado (why the videographer's house was spared and his neighbor's twenty feet away wasn't) is due to a complex set of conditions inside the tornado circulation. Some of the pictures and videos I've seen of the Enterprise tornado seem to show a multiple vortex funnel, where smaller, more intense suction vortices form, circulate around the main center and dissipate. These account for why a house will be destroyed and why the one next to it won't.

You know how long it's been since I took an intentional, spiritual retreat for myself? You know....the kind of one where I just focus and listen to God and see where I fit in?

You know how long I've been talking about doing this?

Come March 23rd-25th, I will head down to the Convent at Vineyard Central for such a time. The space down there has some deeply resonating Kingdom connections for me here on this earth. It has been there and around the relationships formed there that God physically came through on his promise that I/we are not alone in this journey. And to realize that was all coalescing almost five years ago is astounding. The Nixon's, the Rains's and others in a collective testimony to God's radical faithfulness and perseverence adds up to an altogether safe place to retreat back toward God. And that is what I need.

The deal is this.....I need a new-found brokenness of heart, mind, passion and spirit. I need to recapture a simple center again. I need to discover the heart of God in my context and others who'll step forward to see me to that end. I have baggage to drop by the wayside too...stuff that doesn't belong to me.

Whatever is off kilter is because of me. I'm to blame. I accept that. But now I have nowhere to hide...I've brought others in on it. I've committed myself to this weekend and to others. This deal is set. To be sure, I'm not really looking forward to it. On the one hand I am eager and I know it is the "right" thing for me to do. In truth, I will to go to this place. The intrepidation I have I think comes from what God might require of me, namely, the sectors and spaces I have taken away from God back for myself.

Also, I am as unnerved of the possibility of nothing happening as much as I am of something happening. But that is beyond me. Nothing can mean something too.

I apologize if any (who remain with this blog) have looked here for something of more pertinent worth in the last bit. It has been rather flat lately, here in the blog and in certain places in the heart too.

AND, if you're so inclined, prayerfully infuse me with any insights or observations as I near this time, because, ultimately, this HAS to become more than just being about me. What should I do to prepare? How should I spend my time? What books should I take? How should I journal? How should I pray? How should I listen?

Blessings to you.

I'm looking at my hands right now. There are wrinkly places where there didn't used to be. I gazed at the bends of my inner elbows and the skin is wrinkly there too. Certain hair folicles have lost their ability to retain pigment as they used to. Shucks...certain hair folicles have seen a cessation of existence. Productive ones that is.

I just tried growing out my hair for about the last two months. Let me tell you....that was a stinking exercise in futility. I had a receding hairline since it all started back in college. I thought I was set and was just going to have to deal with it as that. Now the receding areas not only are meeting from left to right and vice-versa, but the emerging hair island on front and center sports a newly balding streak in and of itself. So I thought I'd dye it, as in the olden days. It turned orange. Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Bald is beautiful again.

I am trying to rectify my own bodily changes with those around me, with my own sense of my place in the Kingdom work. I am trying to figure if I am just a wrinkle in the face of its ever-present, ever-breaking newness. I fear those with whom I have invested myself in deeply see my spiritual wrinkles, tire/bore of them and long for thicker, more vibrant colors. In such were vestiges of promise; times now bear a different, stranger fruit, promising neither certainty nor total abdication....I change; people change. Am I still wanted? Does God still want me? Do I still want myself?

And yet, I want to go for it all. I want to lay aside encumbrances and thrust into a faith unknown. But I won't go it alone. Things got scary a year ago when it became clear that this kind of life in the Kingdom ACTUALLY COSTS US OUR LIVES! I shared that vulnerability with people I love and I think I shooed some away. Maybe I layed too much on the line. Maybe I opened up too widely and prematurely projected expectations belonging only to myself and no one else. That's kind of why I feel like the chubby kid in dodgeball who gets pelted first and stands alone in the "out" line.

You can't manipulate people to journey with you. Neither can you settle for tag-a-longism to count for diligent Kingdom work, the kind you can share with a confidante and the kind who will enter into the deep and the mystery. And hanging on the wispy triumphs of yesterday will sink you as well.

It's amazing how the cares of the old world and spectres of the defunct easily trail us all off the path. How cruel it is that we can't ascend the lofty ideations we held in faith when the things of God were new while the devils sit victoriously reticent. And from those shadows bellow even greater temptations to further cement what we said we'd never become.

I possess a certain indigence of spirit at present that neither inspires nor witholds. It's not an achievement and there are no worthy holdings here. These words probably ring quite an advertisement for self-aggrandizement, but they help to shape the hollows and core out the marrow.

It's a threshold for sure...for life, for self, for church, for community and for all ideations about them. I just feel more alone sometimes now than ever before. And some who gave all before now float in a boat of whimsy where I may be concerned.

I am back from North Dakota and the trip was quite fruitful. I ate my first buffalo burger with some initial intrepidation, but was pleasantly surprised. It tasted like a really good lean cheeseburger. The Bismarckians were also intent upon setting the world's record for the largest snow angel on the day I arrived. We drove by the capitol building to see the fun.

The convention folk were quite hospitable and engaged with what I had to share, which was very encouraging. They are good, solid people with a heart to see God reach people there. The people and the possibilities for the Kingdom of God there more than warrant my prayer for them.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN...
I'll hop on a plane again Saturday at 7am, flit to Minny-Apple-Iss and jostle over to Bismarck, North Dakota to speak at a new church plant and make a presentation with some other planters at the Dakotas Baptist Convention. It's going to be really sweet.

Think of me, if you will, as I'll be in the air again.

SOME MORE SNOWSLEETFREEZINGRAINRAIN

ALL IN ALL...THIS STORM IS GOING TO CREATE SIGNIFICANT PROBLEMSACRS THE FCST AREA. ANY SHIFT IN TRACK EVEN OVER A SHORT DISTANCEWILL LIKELY IMPACT PCPN TYPE AND DURATION AND RESULTANT SNOW/ICEACCUMS IN ANY ONE LOCATION ACRS FCST AREA. AND AS MENTIONEDABV...DO EXPECT SIGNIFICANT SNOW AND ICE ACCUMS. THIS SURE LOOKSLIKE A STORM THAT WE MAY END UP COMPARING WITH PRE XMAS STORM IN2004 AND THE VALENTINES WEEKEND STORM IN 2003.

That's the 438 PM EST SUN FEB 11 2007 Forecast Discussion out of the the Wilmington National Weather Service office. Here's the graphical cut of the latest watches/warnings:

















Most people really don't appreciate the incredible difficulty in assessing and forecasting a winter storm. There are literally millions of parameters and myriads of scenarios that could happen that affect whether or not someone sees one kind of precipitation. Moisture fetch, air flow patterns, snow-to-liquid ratios, thermal profiles, isentropic lift and many other issues play into the prognostication.

Most people rely upon popular media outlets for their weather information at some point. Often, the information that comes from there is colored by the pressure to secure ratings. Add to that the anomaly of human perception and attention to the details of forecast products.....many of which are embellished by hearsay and pessimistic attitudes that detract from rapidly changing forecasts and conditions. By the time the event is underway, the expectations of some as to what should be occurring might be based on false perceptions and old forecasts. That's a big reason why weather forecasting gets such a bum rap. If you really want to know what's going on, log onto your local NWS forecasting office and read the forecast discussions. These offices are not competing for viewer ratings and are not prone to drama. And they do admit when they make mistakes.

All in all, the comparison to this upcoming storm is to the pre-Xmas 2004 storm and the Valentines Day weekend storm of 2003. That particular wording in a forecast discussion is significant, given the typical, laconic style of forecast discussion texts.

WITH KILN RADAR INDCG IMPRESSIVE RETURNS 30+ DBZ ACRS
SWOHIO AND EXTENDING NW BACK INTO CNTRL
INDIANA...EXPECT HVY SNOWWILL CONTINUE FOR NEXT SVRL HOURS.

QUICK LOOK AT CROSS SECTIONS ALSO INDCG THATBEST LIFT COINCIDES WITH MAX DENDRITIC GROWTH ZONE OVER NEXT 3-5HOURS. THIS SHOULD ENABLE A CONTINUATION OF HVY SNOW WITH 1-2 INCHPER HOUR SNOWFALL RATE WITH SNOW TO LIQUID RATIOS AT 15/20-1 INTHESE AREAS INTO THE EVNG.

And with that excerpt from the 4:16 p.m. forecast discussion out of the National Weather Service office in Wilmington, I believe a man could sleep rather well, if not conquer many of the world's problems.

Officially at Dana Drive in Oxford, we registered 6.5 inches. If'n ya don't believe me, this pic will get all up in yer bizness. Because my camera stinketh, I'll have to tell you that the ruler is 8 inches long.

Now that's what I'm talking about. As of 1:55 a.m., EST, we are under a Heavy Snow Warning with a potential of 3-5 inches through early Wednesday. Just about freekin' time.

Of course, since I am wanting it, it won't happen (I am currently working on a personal theodicy of weather). It is a balmy 0 degrees here in O-town, with a heat index of....well.....0. Just thought you'd want to know. You just didn't know you wanted to know.

Back from DFW from a fruitful summit. I am learning much from some people/churches about what it means to be missional. Whatever the term "missional" means to whoever, granted, it's an easier thing to talk about than to do. Folks like Mission Arlington are doing it. And they are doing phenomenal things while keeping it simple.

I guess we be getting ready for The Feast of Saint Patty-boy in March. Should be pretty swell.

Tomorrow, I'm off to Dallas for the second leg of NAMB's Lay Planting Summit. This experience with these leaders from around the country has been highly edifying for me in ways I've not imagined. Looking forward to being there, but that means I'll have to fly again. Sigh.

Great. The whole freakin' state of Ohio is under a flash flood watch.

I love winter.

Riding down the greasy slide toward the end of Christmas break. Haven't caved yet, but getting there; well into the yearly floor refinishing at the church; much recollecting about life and relationships and the richness I have within them all.

Family time at home was good, bad and just plain bonkers. Things change, but when you don't even know the how's, when's and why's of the changes that affect you and have no way to get to the bottom of them, then I surmise you're just plain out of luck. I don't know how to even be thankful at times for the impermanence of things in life I'd really like to be able to count on.

'Twas quite the birthday this year for this ol' codger- especially being able to share it with my people, since it fell on our gathering day.

They hit me up right too....pecan pies, roasts, biskits, korn, mooshed taters and various other sundries and delights. The Birchfield boys and girl utterly SURPRISED me with a wetsuit, enabling me now to push the river entrance to Wells Cave in Kaintuckee. I am modeling for you (and the Dana Community) in all my XXL glory below.

The best part was the kind and encouraging words and stories each of them shared with me....ways that I had impacted them, things I had said, done or even not done that built into their lives. It was a truly rich time and fed some starving places in my soul, especially in light of the history with some of these people for about seven years now. They spoke of Kingdom things, the sort of stuff over which I have really had no control, except in terms of making myself available, both to God and to these people I love and serve.

A big, fat mea culpa for the sedentary blog of late. There are bunches of things to do that are finding me not minding this discipline. My laziness, therein, is shameful, especially to those of you who had been checking in and out only to find the same collection of pixels. It would have been better if I had prefaced it with an "I'm-taking-a-break-from-blogging" caveat, but even in that, I'm not even sophisticated enough (which is still something maybe on the horizon). In fact, the more I think on it, the more I feel inclined to revamp this whole, whoa-whoah, sweet blog- o'mine, from the ground on up.

Trips a-plenty on the horizon too. After having been in Hotlanta (home of the Braves) and Orlando in October, I'll be in Dallas at the end of January; in the Dakotas to share with the Dakota Baptist Convention about our experiences in ministry amongst students here in Oxford in January or February and Salt Lake City in April to finish out our lay church planting task force gatherings.

So as things brew, and as I plod onward in search of a greater depth and discipline, I will continue on with things here.

Of House Guests and Lawn Moles...

Jen Leonard was with us at Dana Drive this weekend. In March, I was blown away by her story when she arose to speak at Palmer's memorial service. Hers is one that prods me to think about what it is that I have really sacrificed on this journey in our corner of the Kingdom here. I am moved to the conclusion that the only satisfactory answer to that was/is, not much. Or, at least, not enough.

Her story and the questions she is currently posing in regards to this way of life are resonating with me and Cathy, especially the "all or nothing" issue. For us, I think our path to this point has been inconsistently puctuated with only fleeting instances being completely "sold out," or, being "all in" (choose your analogous phrase here).

But I think there is worth in the tension of "not knowing." The core values of the Kingdom are at once tenously thin as spider webs in my white-knuckled grip as they are urging me deeper with a contingent fervor from beyond that Veil. The Father can be found in the not knowing of what's next, what I'll look like, how I'll be and what I'll do. He is just as much the God of my dim, dullness as he is of my (scarce) moments of X-ray clarity, is he not?

Im tired of complaining about what isn't right with my commitment level and others' for that matter. I'm tired of being disgusted with things and not doing something about it. I'm tired of pettiness in myself and others. I'm tired of a lifestyle of laxity and coziness with the way things "are." But it is me that's the problem- I'm the limitation. I can't be preoccupied with my observational discontent when I'm too sessile of a Kingdom co-laborer. I've got to lead by stepping out and risking something greater, something bolder.

I stand firm with the knowledge that I want to be with the people I am journeying with and the foundational, common denominator is living and loving in simple communities. From that, there is no retreat. But noticeably absent is the level of missional-mindedness that we find ourselves in. You know- the kind infused with passion, dreaming and Kingdom-originated envisioning. On the other hand, it might not be that there's such an absence of that mind. The challenge of connecting it to heart and behavior is more appropriate.

And I don't think that I'm brandishing a legalistic hot-iron here and I'm certainly not about imposing my perspective on others either. It's been months (years) in the making, but this is just a slice in my current stage of life and if I am game for it, there are widespread and wholesale implications for life and ministry. I am tilling this garden of transformation as feverishly as I've been hunting that dreaded, little lawn mole that's expertly converting my back yard to a tunneled spongework. Just today I was reminded of how both excursions are messy, dirty, lead in circles and sometimes involve getting a little doo on your shoe when you aren't watching where you walk.

I think I am on the verge of coughing up my gizzard.

I loathe colds.

I'm home now, having returned from the first leg of the North American Mission Board's Task Force on Lay Church Planting, which I was invited to serve on. We're a combination of a group of 18 planters, practitioners and denominational equippers from all over North America with a passion to see millions of ordinary people begin to realize they can do simple, Kingdom-minded community-building and church starting. John Bailey, our former Director of Missions here and now a church planting enlistment director with NAMB, convened us together to pick our brains so that several months/meetings from now, there might be a book on the findings. There were representatives of all types of styles of church...traditional, multi-housing, house church, student house church, cell church...you name it.

I was eager to be a part of this, because being invited meant that it might have been possible that my denominational brothers would be open to hearing our story. I felt like I had something worthwhile to contribute too. But even more so, to learn.

Some of you know that there have been instances of painful ostracization from within my own Southern Baptist fold over the last 6.5 years here. Not everyone was closed off to us, but those who were provided enough to last. It cut me because I have been Southern Baptist from the get-go....it was a Southern Baptist church in Rogersville, Tennessee and who took me in and befriended me as a wayward, vagabond 15 year-old and they simply loved me as I was. They invested in me all the way, even when I sensed God urging me vocationally to something beyond my dreams- even at 15. They became the family I longed to have.

That's why it hurt to have experienced the rejection I have had. I knew back before I came to Oxford that it would come. I just didn't know how it would impact me. Though Christ has touched these painful places with healing, I wasn't sure what to expect this week. I had hopes nonetheless.

I was blown away. I hadn't quite expected to encounter God quite the way I did this week. I thought we were just going to be a task force, a think tank. I wasn't quite prepared to be overcome with the sense that God is laying upon us something potentially momentous and that he was going to unite us together like he had. I wasn't expecting (but I was hoping) to find such friendship and kinship and warmth and genuine open-heartedness in these men like I did. They heard my heart, my/our story, saw pictures of us feasting, laughing, baptizing, crying, worshiping and just living and doing church.

On the first day we convened and halfway through our morning session, we were dialoguing about barriers before us that we had to identify. One of the men just became weighted with a heart-heaviness, stating that whatever was going to become of our efforts it needed to be in line with God's heart. That's really when we hit our knees and faces and literally fell prostrate for the next half hour. I was almost sure that if I lifted my nose from the floor that I'd glimpse His face. There was just a rush of brokenness, humility and recognition of the Presence of Holiness in that hotel meeting room coupled with the sense that God wants to give us something fragile, something close to his heart, something other-worldly, imbued with immaculate and immense worth. I don't really know why or what all happened or what becomes of this.

I do know that afterward, it was my turn to do my presentation, which was me telling the story through pictures of God bringing us to Oxford, about Veritas and about what God's been doing. As I saw my fellow Veritasians, it stirred my heart to such fascination and love for the people with whom I journey (and have journeyed).

I shared my struggles and John shared with them some of the war stories from clashes with those in our own association who were in opposition to us and that's when the man above acknowledged the difficulty I had personally experienced and asked what they could do to come alongside me/us. They didn't even know, at that point, (and I said so) that just hearing my heart and our story and receiving me was more than they knew. Being there and hearing me was enough for that moment. You see, right before me, God had those men impart to me the affirmation the enemy had stolen from me early on. They all came around me- all but two were strangers before the previous day- and they laid their hands upon me, affirmed and encouraged me. It's not a question of deserving, because I didn't deserve that grace. But God saw fit, and that, six years later. I just wanted you to know how huge that was for me.

I hope to unpack some more of this a bit later.

Heading out again.....to Orlando, Flarduh, for the first meeting of NAMB's Lay Church Planting Summit. This includes taking in the one day Simple Church Conference with Alex McManus. It's a freebie, too, so t'ain't no thang, and I am kinda interested.

The rest of the week will be story-telling among the practitioning summiteers and digesting some points from the conference no doubt. I'll keep ya posted.

Going down today to Looseyville to my alma tamater to visit our young seminarians- Christi and Eric Osterday- already in their first semester.

I would have never thought, when I was there, that I would be back someday visiting a couple from a church we planted whom we would support in their edumacation.

That's a right bit warming to the heart.

JUST SOME RANDOM SCARY STUFF I CAME ACROSS...

Me at 225 lbs of blubb, with my grandfather the last summer he was alive.....


....me, 4 months later and 45 lbs lighter, all circa 2001. Gadzooks!!!

Andrew Jones quotes Roland Allen, a missionary circa 1930's, whose response to his sponsors requesting big stories from him was:

"I do not trust spectacular things. Give me the seed growing secretly every time."

There you have it.

I'm just a wee bit frazzled. By the end of this month, I will have been gone every weekend and will have flown out of state twice. And that's not to mention a smattering of meetings/conferences in between almost weekly.

I am swelling in preparation of a heaving a great sigh of relief, but I may have to hold my breath for more of what's to come. Just kind of feels that way.

By the way, my one day conference in Atlanta with my good friend John Bailey (and Church Planting Enlistment director for the North American Mission Board) was a good one. He's in the process of writing a book on what it means to be a missional church and, last week, he collected together myself, another house church network planter from Texas, two church planting profs from two of our seminaries and another planter- an Atlantan- who's doing a large group/cell church model (and doing it really well). We sat through some presentations of some information on current trends in population and culture in America and compared that to the sobering fact of our failure to reach the unbelieving populace.

We were all from different backgrounds and contexts but were enveloped by the same passion....to grow into more of what it means to be biblically missional across the board. Each of these guys were profoundly sharp and plugged in. It was refreshing to hear some other stories on different fronts and I gleaned a lot from the discussion.

"...we-don't-chat-in-a-line-out"

"...big-ol'-Jap-in-a-lighthouse"

"...bit-of-cheddar-rind-on"

"...big-ol'-shed-of -lino"

"...railroad-track-outta-'lignment"

"...Big-ol'-Jed-had-a-rhino"

"...Big-ole-jet-had-a-light-on.....don't carry me too far awa-ay....Who-oah"

Whatever Steve Miller sang in Jet Airliner, I'm getting on one later today and heading to Hotlanta to take part in a discussion on missional churches with theNorth American Mission Board of the SBC.

Did I say this is the first time I've flown since April 2000?

Emerging church = deeper, more substantial, quality relationship?

I'm not so sure anymore right now. Despite a few holdouts, people are still people, no matter what tag you pin to thing....it's just the same ole donky sometimes.

We talk a great game relationally, but we inevitably get pulled elsewhere. By the time we are called to investigate how serious we were back when, are we finding we were really as serious as we thought we were? So much time is lost contemplating...wavering...we don't quite ascertain what we do to flounder our contingent faithful.

Are we being inwardly changed/transformed in all of this ourselves, or are we still flailing in our strength, pounding away on things, trying to issue a massive pump-knot on the noggin of our circumstances?

It starts off good and all....moving from one stage of loneliness and longing and finding others in comparable boats. And some of the vessels were welcome sights....appearing as mighty, tall-masted ships on the horizon bringing comrades-in-arms. So you tie off to one another and continue the voyage, floating to who really knows where, but it's okay, because you're all together, believing the Captain has formed the armada.

But the sea roils, boils and upends, testing our seaworthiness. Some are tragically inundated. Some of us have walked and are perched on planks of our own handiwork, daring the next swell to do its thing. Nicer ships entice to mutinous proportions as well. Some of have cut rope and drift along. Some have to have unbelieveably long tethers and can barely see the fleet.

All around me, my ministry peers that I treasure more than anything....the people I've journeyed with and for whom I'd die to bring up in this way of life....effort has tended to be less than half-and-half (myself included). But I KNOW....this is life. And I KNOW I can't see/know everything. And I KNOW I'm weak, wounded and need sharpened and this vainly skews my perspective. But maybe I just don't really know HOW yet.

The loss-to-gain ratio is puzzling because you can never get a grasp on how things currently "are" with ministry, with your leadership, your people, your friends. Most of the time the encumbrances are daunting and feel mightier than the advances, and the damnedest thing is that I might be the problem most of the time. If I were better than- more than- what I am now, how much more so would those around me be?

I am a relational mutt and I err in holding on too tightly because the pervasive feeling that I've lost so liberally. Early in my life, the security of relational boundaries were muddied profusely and often and when I came to the One Who'll never leave nor forsake, well, I tumbled headlong. So I thrive on the security apparent and possible (but not always manifested) within brothers and sisters in Christ when they say, "here am I." So I guess I just don't do well when these relationships are tenously unclear. It's risk, risk, risk...pure risk, and my weaknesses are not as safe as they once were.

Neither being the spokesman nor the paragon of healthy, consistent relational modeling, suffice it to say, this is why this is hard sometimes. For me at least.

What Do You Do With This?

After a refreshing conversation with CMarsh Thursday at our usual haunt, Barnes and Noble, I received a phone call from my mother. It was one I could have never even dreamed up myself in a million years.

She informed me that my Aunt Pam (her sister) had been diagnosed with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and has about 47% lung capacity at present. I just buried my Great Aunt Juanita back in July from this disease.

"The doctor said hopefully about 5-8 years left....."

My mother's voice trailed off in my head a bit. Then I heard the word, "Germany."

My cousin is a supply sergeant and had been in the Iraqi theater recently and isstationed in Germany. Mom said Aunt Pam was going to move there to be with her daughter. She didn't say so, but she's probably going there to live the rest of her life.

"Glenn.....I'm going too."

I'm still wondering what to feel about all of it. Frustration, futility in the face of age/demise/impending death, abandonment, bewildered.....calm and assurance. I sort of childishly and selfishly thought, ...for the first time in my life, I won't have physical access to my mother.... I just can't "up" and go see her. But even more, will I see my Aunt Pam again on this side? I just wasn't prepared for the dynamics of such an adjustment....and so quickly. My aunt is flying out next Thursday and my mother to follow not long after. I'm sure we'll try to unite before the move, and that I'm missing the finer points and all, but it sure is a gnarly situation to sift through.

I talked to my Aunt Pam last night. She's by no means on her deathbed and is full of much more life. We talked about now how she has the blessing of knowing that she can choose to really, REALLY live each day in its fulness. To me, that was somewhat of a blessing, in the truest sense of the word.

It seems to be the right thing to do, given the circumstances. In that way, I'm okay with it. They have each other now and they don't want to take anything for granted, to miss out on what they HAD taken for granted. None of their family remains in Knoxville anymore. Grandparents, parents, brothers, aunts, uncles...either passed away or moved. And that is a foreign thing to grasp because so much of my formative years were there.

So they should go. I bless it to be. I don't want it...with all of my heart I don't want any part of what this situation is all about. And I remember my own sense of abandonment I lugged around. But Jesus touched that a few years ago. He covered that part of me and that healing spreads over even now, so that I can say, "go...live....love" and know that it isn't about me. There's calm and peace there. Besides, I love my mother and Aunt Pam and my cousin too much.

I just long for the lost years sometimes.

In the earlier days of my faith (ca., 1985-ish), I used to be offended by this bumper sticker ("Jesus Caves") sold by Bob&Bob, a caving equipment supplier.

Now, there is something different about it that registers amusing....with the high-falootin' font and all.

But it's true now. Jesus, in effect, does go caving with me. He is present with my brothers and sisters in Christ when we are underground. He is present in the beauty of his unique, physical handiwork there too.

So, yeah, kinda having a hankerin' for the underground right now.

GOOFY, KIDDISH THING TO BE THANKFUL FOR TODAY: Jesus made the earth the way it was so that caves were possible. He's made is so I can go in them too.

CELLCHOSIS: The Oblivious Plight of the Typical Miami Student

I am a hero. Everyday, I rise to that status. Everyday.

Okay, in my heart, I'm a hero.

But everyday, I bring my bus to a stop somewhere just safely short of a completely oblivious student in the middle of the street, hanging onto some conversation being mediated through a cell phone on the other side of their head.

I watch them try and converse while just trying to get home or get to class or get across the street. Their attention retreats (you can see it in their eyes); their gait becomes slowed, if not cumbersome and zombie-like. They miss their stops on the bus because of the cell phone and they want to blame me for their having missed it.

-Sorry- I don't stop at every stop unless someone wants it.

-Well, you were on the phone when we passed it....

And so on....

Cell phone firmly placed to the ear, they forget the concept of right-of-way at a four way stop, yet I/we lurch to a stop to keep them from hitting us. They keep talking.

There is something a tidbit mind-altering when you are on the phone, engaged in conversation. There is a slight mesmerization and an affectation of the faculties necessary for survival in an urban environment. I call this induced state of mind, cellchosis. Cellchosis is the state of dulled perception and motor function enveloping the user while in the midst of a cell phone conversation. A person is said to be cellchotic when they are standing out in the middle of the street talking on the phone with a 40-foot long 36,000 lb bus only feet away from them- that after having screeched to a halt, preserving their lives and their conversations. Then they glare at you and complete their jaywalk. That is cellchotic.

It's a willful condition by virtue of the fact no one is being coerced to hold the device to their head. The prevalence of these devices are going to collude with some calamitous events one day, I'm afraid, resulting in something bad, like a pedestrian vs. a car, or a bus. We've had those, but I am flabbergasted that it hasn't happened more, or that more serious injury hasn't occurred.

We need to outfit collegiate cell phone consumers with GPS monitoring systems that communicate with a vehicle's speed, distance and approach rate so that it would trip a pre-recorded, deafening message to the phone holder to retreat in no uncertain terms. Perhaps, once cellular devices become seamlessly implanted into our tympanic membranes, I'll have my wish. I'll probably be out of a job by that point in our technological prowess though.

Till then, I'll just be a hero.

SEPARATED AT BIRTH?

Installment 2
Not a novel idea, but I have my own visual sensibilities about the poor souls, who for some reason or another, were split asunder at birth. Perhaps their progenitors, beholding their monstronsities, couldn't fathom a world without my filial matchmaking acumen, which I am always on ready to do.


How about a Derren Brown caricature of quintessentially astute actor-for-the-ages Sir Anthony Hopkins......and, Gollum, quintessentially destitute sad sack of Lord of the Rings fame?

A Rather Kairotic Weekend

Well, they be back. The stoodints, that is.

Upon our docile, little town they descended and took over like so many leaves upon an October lawn and I'm back to scooping them up on my forty-foot long, six-wheeled diesel-beastie. Nice thing is, we (my new transit employer, that is) secured 14 brand-new International buses, replete with AC, 200-watt Pioneer CD players, individual, bucket and clothed seats (to make it fun for them to puke on during drunk runs), and, best of all, new bus smell (which, incidentally, should be taken care of by the reference in the last parenthetical inclusion) .

After spending most every night this past week prepping for our biggest outreach project of the year, I attended yet another funeral of a pastor-friend of mine in our association this past Saturday. He was found dead in his backyard from a massive myocardial infarction. He was a basketball buddy and a supporter of Veritas in our association among a handful of pastors in a time when such were hard to come by.

This whole weekend was a set-up, and a divine one at that. Friday, we were on campus helping families move their freshman children into their dorms with our dollies and handing out water. I love to watch our people dig into some hot, rigorous manual labor for people they don't even know or won't see again and be filled with joy while doing it, knowing they aren't going to get anything out of it. That stokes me just right. And I love to see the confounding look when these families see that you're there to help them. Sjogren was right. God does show up in these times of simple hospitality.

And Saturday, we had obtained a booth Uptown for the Chamber of Commerce's Annual New Student Day, when all the merchants and organizations in the area get to set up booths and pimp their free stuff to the new students who are given meal vouchers for the Uptown restaurants as a starter. As usual, we had made some hemp necklaces, gave away more water and gum. But this year, Veritas' resident aromatherapist made some soap for us to give away, and that was a fantastic hit.

After that, Cathy and I headed down to LaRue County, Kaintukky for a 205th anniversary celebration at Rolling Fork Baptist Church, our very first pastorate in seminary and verifiably out in the middle of the sticks, so to speak. For three years there, we were loved by the most gracious and patient of people, especially to take on a newlywed pastor-wanna-be who thought he knew more than he actually did. They chucked us full of the most inconceiveably delectable meals and taught us the basics of godly hospitality, preparing us for the work we are currently in now here in Oxford. We just didn't know that at the time. But that was today- Sunday.

For Saturday night, we had planned on staying at the Jailer's Inn, a quaint little bed and breakfast in Bardstown. We found out that the Travel Channel had rated the place one of the 10 most haunted places in America. It used to be a jail and was built in 1819 and was in service until 1987. If you look closely, you can see Cathy haunting the lower right hand side of the picture.

At breakfast this morning, the Innkeeper pulls me aside, apparently knowing from a conversation with Cathy that I was a minister, and asks if I would say a blessing over the meal before 14 other people I didn't know. I knew I was back in Kentucky then. It wasn't that I didn't know them that made me a bit intrepid, but that I didn't know if these strangers wanted some dude in earrings praying to a God that some of them obviously didn't acknowledge. Part of the group were New-Agey ghost hunters, with electromagnetic wave sensors and stories of some kind of activity in their room last night. There were some other "normal" guests (sans meters and such) who had some experience last night, too, it seemed. I kept hearing foot steps upstairs go from one end of the ceiling to the other, but then a toilet would flush, so...

But when the Innkeeper pulled me aside to ask me to pray, she told me she had seated Cathy and I with a young couple. Sure enough, as we ambled to the courtyard, there were our seats with them. They seemed quite young (early twenties) and we immediately began some small talk and they briefly began talking about the fact they were newlyweds (one year) and that their log cabin they were building had just burned completely to the ground. After about a three minute intro into that, Cathy looked at the husband and interjected, "...so, what about your first born?"

This couple frowned and then looked at each other. The twenty year old lady said, "how did you know about that?". I looked at Cathy. I knew for a fact the guy said NOTHING about a first born. He didn't say anything that remotely rhymed with it in the conversation to this point.

Cathy said she thought she heard him say that.

The guy, looking into his bride's eyes with shared pain, said he didn't say anything resembling that. The young woman looked at Cathy and said, "We just lost our baby boy in January. He was born with a knot in his umbilical." Incredulous, I looked at Cathy thinking, how in the world did you hear that?? But I knew. God sat us there. He spoke that. I don't think they were Christ followers, but they immediately invited us onto their sacred ground.

From there on, this couple poured out their pain and their hearts to us, filling us with their stories of incredible loss. Their brand new house burned to the ground; the insurance company shorting them 100,000 bucks and the loss of a child. We were there to receive their hurt, for God's purposes I suppose, to side with them by divine proxy.

All through breakfast, I watched as my wife listened intently to the young lady, touching her occasionally on the arm in delicate, non-verbal reassurances that I'm sure carried the greater assurances of God's Spirit. It was an amazing thing to watch. I was just glad to be there. I am just ever more convinced that my wife has "it" infinitely more than I do.

Do you ever notice that when God lets people "unload" on you, you become a receptacle for their pain, bearing it in some way? What do you do with it? Well, we still had to drive thirty more minutes to get to the church for the anniversary celebration, which was full (well about 50 people full) of my former parishioners, county judges, state representatives and people I'd never seen before. And I learned that, even after a 10 year absence and after having moved on, you are still a pastor to people. One by one, I took in stories of death, sickness, new life, new hopes and new aspirations as if I had never left.

One couple we were particularly close to caught us on the way out and were distraught and broke down in tears on the front porch of the church sharing about their wayward son and other anxieties. For fifteen more minutes we were God's receivers of hurt. We slung it on our backs, ministered to and encouraged them and prayed with them while a long-winded southern gospel group carried on inside.

Yet, now I sit here staring at arranged pixels on a screen, and I am in touch with a pain that is not mine. God often calls us to take on pain in some supernatural way, I believe, as he imparts grace/healing/respite to those dishing it out. But it is not meant for us to keep. We've got to find a way to give it back to Jesus. The picture they showed us of their still-born infant boy is emblazoned in my mind. It was a picture that was simultaneously both a birth and death record of a life never lived on this earth. Those pictures are ones for which we'll have no need in the coming Kingdom.

I reckon that the pain I feel (though in no way equal to theirs) is sufficient enough to prod me into meaningful prayer for them. And after such a period of time as God sees fit, we'll submit a pain belonging to someone we'll probably never see again back to Jesus. I hope we were faithful today. I know I was blindsided.

Another interesting tidbit about my first pastorate...

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."

The above quote was from, arguably, one of the most quoted men in American history, Abraham Lincoln. His father, Thomas Lincoln, was a member at Rolling Fork. Makes you wonder if some of the godliness passed on to ole' Abe was instilled into his daddy there.

Good Country Folk

When this building was built in the 1850's, the men and women entered and sat in separate sides of the church, which is why there are two front doors.

My first mega-church, from afar.

Another way to tell you are in the sticks of good ol' Kentucke; the presence of gargantuan winged scavenger in the roadway.
















And, for the Creecher, Extraordinaire...I bet you know where this is.

I Mean, What Gives?

So I'm finishing up blowing leaves, grass clippings, etc., after I mowed the lawn today, as I usually do, and, as I have been for two years. I have a small pile blown together at the end of the driveway to be swept later. I am in the road blowing some more toward it when I notice the 75-80 year-old man from 3-4 houses down the street.

Next, I notice him standing straight as a pin, dressed up like old man, knickers on, Mr. Rogers sweater, old cabbie hat and staring me down. I look away.

But he keeps on. So I cut the blower, and asked if I could help him. I could tell it wasn't going to be good, but as to why, I could only wait.

All of a sudden, as I'm standing in the gutter on my side of the street in front of my house, this old guy comes over and lays into me about grass clippings and if I was going to clean them up. Befuddled as to why the sight of me CLEANING THEM UP wasn't good enough for him, I interject, "That's what I'm doing right now, sir."

His tirade continued.

"I SAID I'D CLEAN THEM UP!!!" That still wasn't good enough, so I raised my voice to him to ensure he got my drift. "IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE I CAN HELP YOU WITH SIR?" He snarled, swirled around in a tizzy and rolled his eyes while pointing and circling his finger to his temple doing a "cuckoo" to me.

I've never met the dude. I'll be the first to respect my elders, but sometimes you just can't win. Lord willing, if I make 80, I hope to be seeking other activities outside of the pasttime of Grass Nazi.

Everything that can be said has been said.

The question then, is, what shall we deny?

RIDDING THE TEMPLE OF THE NEW MONEY CHANGER

It's not the kind of move a mega-church pastor makes during a $7 million fund raising effort, especially when you're short $3 million.

Unless, of course, you are the founding pastor and you can preach a series called the "Cross and the Sword," urging the church to keep away from politics, avoid moralizing on sexual issues, stop claiming that the US is a "Christian nation" and stop glorifying US military campaigns.

Dr. Gregory A. Boyd, founding pastor of Woodland Hills Church (WHC) in Maplewood, Minnesota, began tiring of requests to rally around, endorse, condone and introduce various issues, politicians, pamphlets and guides from the pulpit. And why not hang an American flag from the platform, since the country was engaged in battle?

Essentially, Boyd has concluded that, among other things: "When the church wins the culture wars, it inevitably loses. When it conquers the world, it becomes the world. When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross."

In this day and age, such commentary stands in opposition to the current of present-day evangelicalism, at least as popularized by major media. Yes, you know the ones......those aligning themselves with and known primarily by the Republican party.

The interesting thing is that this is news now. Boyd delivered the sermons shortly before the last presidential election. In the time transpiring, it seems WHC has lost around 1000 of its 5000 members. Perhaps the knowledge of such may help to percolate sales for his newest book, The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Nation, which was released on May 1 of this year. The book is based on the aforementioned sermons he delivered at the time. It is one of a only a handfull on the subject from other authors.

From his Letters From A Skeptic to Satan and the Problem of Evil to God of the Possible, I have appeciated Boyd's writing style and ideas. Most of his material in what I've read is carefully and painstakenly presented.

Boyd balks at the premise that this makes him a "liberal," who was educated at Yale's divinity school and Princeton Theological Seminary. In fact, Boyd's book, God of the Possible roused an unsuccessful attempt to shoo him from the Baptist General Conference.

While not hinting at his political preference, he maintained that the sermons were not mounted attacks at the Religious Right or the Republican party. He was decrying the sad state of how both sides of the right and left had become steeped into a political idolatry.

And what of Boyd's first sense of dis-ease? While at another megachurch's Fourth of July service some years ago, the service concluded with a choral rendition of "God Bless America" and a video of fighter jets (for Jesus I presume) flying over a hill silhouetted with crosses: "I thought to myself, 'What just happened? Fighter jets mixed up with the cross?'"

Boyd's assertion is primarily this: the role of Christians was not to seek "power over" others with controlling governments, legislation and waging wars. On the contrary, Christians should seek to have "power under" others by winning people's hearts through self-sacrifice for those in need. His contention is that this was the model of Jesus.

Boyd also argues that America is not a "Christian nation" and was not founded as a theocracy.

It is true that a certain very vocal, powerful segment of Christian so-called, "evangelical" elitists are jockeying for position in ways and realms that don't belong to them. It remains to be seen how much of their authentic Christianity must be laid at the door once given access to the coffers of wealth, prestige and influence. The closer you get to the hot core of the machine, the more you are melded into the likeness of its cause and effect. It is never the other way around and by the time this is known, the tiny compromises add up.

It is no simple thing to ascertain just what role Christians should play in the political machinery of nation-states whose ruling elite are led by avowed occultists and pawns for multi-national, corporate conglomerations. While only God truly knows the hearts of men, I do know that our "Christian" president has never issued a letter of remit to the occult Skull and Bones, perhaps one of America's most powerful secret societies (to whom he still adheres). I don't guess it isn't enough either that Jesus never said anything in secret. Anyone honestly willing to sustain inquiry long enough into the matter will find in evidence that light and darkness cannot co-exist. It isn't a matter of siding with either of a two-party, hijacked political system either.

Can conscientious Christians vote or be involved in some level of the governmental process? I reservedly say we can at present, but we just better know who the gatekeepers are, and this is not an easy task in the flux of all that we have at stake. Anyone trying to act for decency and justice even on the local levels of our governing seats know this. Most people know too, that not all involved are demons from Hades bent on thwarting all things Christian. But the resolve to be willing to call some things for what they are is being lost in the fracas over three-dollar-a-gallon gasoline and the endless war on terror.

We know that we are children of God and that the whole world is under control of the evil one. 1 John 5:19.

see the full article on Boyd here.

VERITASIANS MAKING IT A BETTER PLACE IN THIS HERE WORLD

If I ain't a right-proud pastor-dude by now......this is some pretty hot stuff, coming from our young lady, Shirley Wang, a former Veritasian who graduated from Miami University this past spring. This young lady is going to do much good in this world.

Shirley is going to investigate sexual violence across the globe, gaining cross-cultural perspectives.

As a winner of a $26,000 scholarship, she's going to observe at the World Health Organization and the International Labor Organization in Switzerland, Victoria University in Australia, the International Center for Research on Women in Washington, D.C., the Taiwan Ministry of the Interior and Taiwan National Cheng Kung University Medical Center. She'll plan on incorporating narratives with statistics for a series of journal articles, a guidebook, a resource list, and other publications in conjunction with UN agencies (from the Summer 2006 Miamian).

Did I say I was proud?

Click here for the whole article.

I am a pastor. I have been for sixteen years. I can't help it. For the non-pastor-types out there, I am a junkie for the Kingdom of God, for people and I try to be instrumental in helping seekers find their way with the express, written consent of God (you have the same, incidentally). It's just that I've determined to center my life around what to me is a calling.

It's hard to be a pastor when you have no one around to pastor. God has seen fit through these years to surround me with people with whom I'm entrusted to love and serve. In some sense, that has been affirmation enough.

One of the most precious commodities for a pastor is time. This is better translated availability from the perspective of the parishioner. A pastor may want/need more time for one thing or another, but who doesn't want their pastor to be available to them? So that is the one thing, in my estimation, that any pastor must be known for.

There was a time (prior to Veritas) when I received remuneration for my availability as a pastor (among other things pertaining to the "traditional" ministry description). This meant that office hours had to be kept; appointments had to be made and observed. Visits were paramount from home to home and the pastor's house often was seen as an extension of the church because that was where the pastor and his wife lived. For right or wrong, it came with the territory and we accepted it, but we weren't wishy-washy with needed boundaries central to our own health and sanity.

There was a time in one stage of my journey while preparing to come to Oxford when I envisioned a church we would start that would, at some point in its development, financially support my family so I could do that ministry. It wasn't a hard-set goal, like I was wanting to get it big enough to do that- it was just the model and structure I was used to. I hadn't seen anything but that in my experience. I didn't come to Oxford wanting to start house churches, simple churches, organic communities and the like. Those things were not even on my radar. There was no relational frame of reference whereby to posit those values into any meaningful ministry picture of what could be.

There was a time when, as an appointed church planting missionary with the North American Mission Board of the SBC, I shared a funded 2 year position with another planter and his family to come start this church. That was the last time I was paid as a pastor. Even then, on the new field of church planting, I could afford to meet people, to hang out and to offer my availability.

Then came the mix of people into our lives who were instrumental in finally embodying for us what it was God was planting in our hearts insofar as what kind of church we were to be. The choices we were given to make at that juncture called me to fathom the right kind of choices that would be consistent with the values with which we were aligning. They had so much to say about personal financial position and possibility in ways that some people may never know.

The timing of gravitating toward the community we were becoming, compounded with the fact we weren't a self-supporting church at the time, compelled me to creatively weigh my income options in order to maintain this value of availability. My support was ending and I was scrambling to secure my main income outside of the church for the first time in my ministry. And I think God, in due time, opened up the unique opportunity whereby I could be around college students, have a relatively predictable job and have my summers free to devote to ministry. The job also afforded me time during the workweek too. I also have a group of co-workers who often look to me as their minister.

The pitfall has been the pay, of course, due to my schedule coinciding with the school year. Essentially, I'm laid off during the summer and holidays. We aren't where we want to be financially as a family and this hinders us in other ways. We aren't suffering by any means and we make do and we have joy in our place. Could I be a better pastor if I were paid to do so, or is that an illusion?

I truly think that I have the best kind of schedule that a pastor can have in doing this kind of ministry, even though I have to work two other jobs, which are flexible as well. In all of the jobs I looked for, not to mention what was available (and maybe those options that God closed), this set up allows me the most flexibility in terms of the availability I offer to my people. I don't know how else I can do it.

So, my time is what I have to offer you. This is what I can give to you. It is given in joy and service but it is borne from sacrifice and toil. It isn't a luxury I commandeered from laxity or slothfulness. It is my gift on the table. Please do not err in the assumption it is for anything else. This is my choice, and nothing but that. I have half a dozen things I could do outside of the will of God. But WOE is me and WOE unto me if I do not do this thing that I do (in other words, I think I'd be miserable if I weren't doing this).

I do not for any moment regret where I am and what I'm doing. I can't see myself anywhere else but with the people I have around me to pastor. EVERY single day, their faces and their well-being weigh in on my heart. Every day my thoughts and joys are trained on them. I don't do what I do to garner recognition; there's none to be had. I won't be a sought-after conference speaker, touting ideologies and methodologies. The work here may not be glamorous enough. I just want to be known that I loved my people...my family, my fellow Veritasians and my compatriots in ministry and to hopefully see God do such a magnificent work that no one but him could take the glory.

.....and boy, do I have a way to go yet.

Just got back from a whirlwind trip to Tennessee. My great Aunt Juanita passed away and had to do the funeral. As always, getting to see my sister, my mom, my Aunt Pam and Uncle Joe was the cream on this cup. You know age is creeping up when the majority of time of what's left of your family of origin's get togethers are for funerals.

Additionally, today we say goodbye to Eric and Christi Osterday. Tough as that will be to do, it helps to know we are sending them off to seminary.....my alma mater no less! So tonight, we'll celebrate their years with us sharing stories and commissioning them to their new journey in ministry. We love you guys! And get ready for us in Loosyville for Thunder too!

This is the most annoying game of all time.

SEPARATED AT BIRTH?

Not a novel idea, but I have my own visual sensibilities about the poor souls, who for some reason or another, were split asunder at birth. Perhaps their progenitors, beholding their monstronsities, couldn't fathom a world without my filial matchmaking acumen, which I am always on ready to do.


For starters...dashing, lust-puppy George "Syriana" Clooney...and lust-for-terror Hamas leader, Khamed Meshaal?

AXL ROSE + PLASTIC SURGERY=...

One More Sure Sign Of The Apocalypse

Yeah, we're back, and it was good. Seemed too quick and felt like we were gone forever.

That's somewhere in SW Virginia on our drive down.

Getting ready for the Land of the Noonday Sun. I am needing a good, healthy dose of this right now.

Just had da Beans (Billicious, Mollie and Lil Bean) with us for a night here this past weekend at Dana. I absolutely love this family and yearn for more Bean-time.

She still does.

Who cares?

I've just spent a few hours trying to answer that one.