My man, Jason,(a.k.a., Jaylord, Lord of All Jays, Jasunke), has formally jumped onto this church plantin' ship with us at Veritas. We will be working together this summer in an intensive church planting pastoral internship, which is going to be really cool.

Jaylawd will be setting up shop here in the Johnson household on May 18th. God is up to some neat stuff in this guy's life and we are grateful to be a part of that.

Did I say this was going to be really cool?

O Great Provider, nothing escapes your attention when the needs of your children come to the fore. Quell the intrepid thoughts pertaining to monetary resources and from whence they will come- only fill us with the knowledge of Your Presence as we journey and bask in the warmth of Your shadow and feast at the coming table of your bounty. Absolve us from the sin of flitting to and fro, oblivious to the simple intricacies of the inner workings of Your Spirit in each day. May You alone be our mainstay and may we rejoice as you supply our every need. Amen.

A prayer that the will of God may be fulfilled-

O merciful Jesus, grant to me Thy grace, that it may be with me, and labor with me, and persevere with me even to the end. Grant me always to desire and to will that which is to Thee most acceptable. Let Thy will be mine and let my will ever follow Thine and agree perfectly with it. Let my will be one with Thine and let me not be able to will or not to will anything else, but what Thou willest or willest not. Grant that I may die to all things that are in the world and for Thy sake love to be condemned and not known in this generation. Grant to me above all things that can be desired, to rest in Thee, and in Thee to have my heart at peace. Thou art the true peace of the heart; Thou its only rest; out of Thee all things are hard and restless. In this peace, in this selfsame thing, that is, in Thee, the chiefest eternal good, I will sleep and rest (Psalm 4:8). Amen

-Thomas a Kempis

I have come to the conclusion that Church is not just awe-inspiring........it is ODD-INSPIRING. Jesus draws to Him a veritably quirky and odd lot. The assortment in the church on Hester is quite a hand. Yay God! Sameness sux.

Just received another casualty report from the war at home.......or rather, the War On The Home. My mother called to inform me that my eighteen year-old brother has just gotten married at the courthouse yesterday to a girl he's dated only two months. Against all surrounding wisdom and godly influence on every corner of his life, this act was preceded by a decline toward experimentation with alcohol and smoking, surging mood swings and a generalized vacuous and unresponsive look in his eyes when those around him tried to reason with him. Inserted along the way into the drama was his retort to my mom that he did not believe in God anymore.

He also chose to ice the fiasco with dropping out of school just two months before graduation. His 17 year old wife has also been released from her home due to her rebellion as well. So last night they spent their first night as husband and wife God knows where, with no car, no job, no education and nowhere to stay. Just the intoxication of one another to sustain them.

His school is in no better shape as well. The sexual exploits of it's members are well known, possibly due to it's smallness. Kids caught in cars going at it. Lurid letters found in lockers connecting girls to 21 year-old men. Drugs. Rampant disrespect toward faculty with resulting resignations.

Did I mention this was a Christian school?

Seems that my brother's new wife/child's best friend is the ring leader. Around her- apparently- orbits the crowd of disrepute who have aided and abetted my bro. Her expellment from school just days ago seems to also have precipitated the chain of events that led to the hasty matrimony. I am sure that as far removed as I am from the situation, there is much more underneath the surface- more that I don't see.

But I do see division, strife, discord, disharmony, disunity and destruction. I do see families being ripped apart. I do see the fingerprints of the mastermind of rage, chaos and wanton rebellion. I see him hiding somewhere, in the shadowy hollows he's carved out under the power of invitation, drunk on the fuel of human pride. I see his barbed tendrils noosed around my brother's neck squeezing out not just sensibility, but life-blood from his veins. I see the accuser of the brethren laying siege on family histories and resurrecting the still rotting corpses of mistakes gone by. Blade-like fingernails prick open the puss-filled wounds of those yesterdays like a blade through butter. I see the history of the hurts/disillusionments of my family of origin laid bare before me again.

(And I know God, you are sovereign over even my hidden woundedness you still pine to heal. God, how you've touched, but how I haven't even noticed that your healing hand is still outstretched toward my emotional nakedness).

I see you, Old Scratch, you serpent of old, our enemy and opposer and diabolos at play. Your enemy, Jehovah, sees you too. His eyes sear with vengeful fire. Battle's over. I won't fight a loser. I relegate you to the Christus Victor. 'Nuff said.

"FEELING be damned"

-Faith

There seems to be something deftly sinister underlying the machinations of war (whether present or past)......something intangible, amorphous and hiding in the shadows.......something with a feeler web in the past and a finger on the pulse of the present......something neither pro-American nor pro-Iraqi........something that doesn't appropriate our un-critical, un-discerning and un-holy matrimony of God+Body Politic, but feeds off it......something that can be seen riding an apocalyptic horsey with the fringe-waves of Chaos and Hades cresting behind it.

Biblical history is replete with examples of God taking nation-states and sovereignly using them to exact his will, often with war as the vehicle. Should such nations on the winning side associate divine favor as well? Is 227 years of domination sufficient prerequisite to establish such a position? Is it a guaranteed status? Is God bound to those nations he incites to war as part of his divine activity in the world even as they tumble progressively down a slope of immorality? And what do we mean by nations/countries, etc.? Perhaps we should not confuse the general populace with the political entities that often don't ultimately serve the people they are supposed to represent, especially when they claim to be something they are not. With the growing social/spiritual/economic polarization and disparity, can we expect our best interests are going to be kept on the forefront by the establishment when the carrott of their own greater prosperity is dangled before them? I ask these questions of myself and my own motivations.

If we only knew what we didn't know. In the meantime, I am working on an ameliorating position somewhere between an unhealthy theo-nationalism and a "heavenly-mindedness" that waxes toward practical absent-mindedness. Methinks we may not be able to fathom what we would find if we dug deep enough.

Why is it that the only viable work God has for us to do is somewhere else? When we think about being on mission with God, why do we inevitably think of somewhere other than our "hereness?" Why are we drawn to fields of mission that invariably come across as more exotic than our present station? Is mission work always "out there", somewhere away from "here?"

How come campus ministries don't take the energetic funding and resourcing that often go into spring break-type mission trips and strategically and practically invest them into their own communities of which they live and breathe and have their being? If they do, how come we don't hear about that? Is it that there are no mission needs surrounding us that require the same amount of investment? Does Mexico only have the hungry? Does south central Appalachia only have the impoverished? Does New York City only have the spiritually hurting and wounded?

Why is it we are always on the move, ready to get out of the "joint" at the first sign of opportunity? Is there nothing here? Why are we not called to remain in one place for very long? Why is it that God "calls" us back to our cities/homes of origin? What about our inflated piety and false pride that has us sold on the illusion that we can fix our families of origin? Has functional familiarity replaced the fellowship of suffering in Christ? Shall we bow to the gods of convenience while leaving a trail of dust in the God-forsaken wastelands of the mission fields of which we are presently a part? What about the outrageous fallacy that we have lived a life of faith when we have never ventured far into the realms of the deep unknown that truly require faith?

Who will be the faithful remnant for our God-forsaken little place?

Gadzooks! My squeeze and compadre Jaylord be bloggin'. He's the phreek in the church in my house in whom God is doing some neat stuff.

Socrates said that the most important thing in life was to know thyself.

When I look at my dogged existence, I say the man was only half right. Such wisdom leaves me hanging.

I say thou canst only know thyself when thou art known. I think I know myself only too well. It's just that I sometimes deem what I know about myself to be too detrimental for the common knowledge of those closest to me. What if they knew what I'm really like? That I am notoriously unpredictable? That I can falsify my outward emotional/spiritual states of being to service my reclusivity? That my cycles of being "on" spiritually seem to be overshadowed by my waywardness?

What can I really know about myself that is not validated and affirmed by another......or the Other? How much of what I perceive about myself is folly? What is gradiosity and what is cold reality?

Oh, I don't know where all this cacophony is leading to. Maybe just bending my ear to the emerging discordant harmonies of my life I suppose.

As my man Burt continues to revolutionize and appropriate most of what I read about church planting, I am becoming closely acquainted with the God of Intinerant Schedule-Busting.

Although I am hastening to render our infant house church to the dividing line of pre-Burtendom and post-Burtendom, I do mark his entry into our lives.....or, at least mine...........as another installment into my experiential knowledge of the self-revelation of God.

You see, my Southern Baptist lineage has allowed me voluminous opportunities for programmitized training regarding planting a church. A tenet of admonishment that I came across more than once from established planters now looms behind me as a curious oddity. There was a tendency to avoid the overly "needy people," lest they steal your energy and focus away from establishing the plant. The "clear" implication was to center on building the church around "healthy" people- those who seemingly have "it" all together. In principle, I bought into this and in some ways still do.

But what if you have a church full of people who don't really have much of anything together? What if God is bringing in reject after reject from the collective human waste pile adorning the fringes of society? Am I to think that God would surround us and establish us with n'er-do-well's who either don't know the Christ or at least have no stable concept of Christian community? Even paltry or absentee tithers? Heaven forbid! This goes against all the correct models I read and hear about.

Most of those who come to us have not connected elsewhere and it's not always the other community of faith's problem either. Veritasians have some big baggage that they lug into our midst. But we, in our push to be open and inviting, welcome them in. And we have been hurt before in doing so. But I, by proxy, find myself in welcome concurrence with the Neil Cole's of the disciple-making world in that we have missed the whole point of the Church if we only attend to the "healthy" people. He says bad people make good soil. It's a good thing there are some vegetable species that subsist and bear fruit even on rocky surfaces (seasons of death and regeneration will eventually provide the soil, God willing). Should God establish this level of vulnerability as a birthmark upon our countenance, then so be it. I'll take a church full of lichens.

Our community of faith is presently ultra high-maintenance. This is just what I was being warned to avoid. Our spiritual/emotional/physical energy reserves are often on the edge of depletion. But that's not unexpected. Incorportating into my experiential reality the cycles of emptying-refilling, pouring-out and pouring-in has been a surprising divine intervention that I presently know too little of. We often get the Jesus sucked out of us. Psycho-spiritual vampires (sometime unwitting to their disposition) prowl the staked-out enclaves of the new church plant. And sometimes my cup won't runneth over until it's upended.

I got a little in my cup Sunday. Nothing major, just got to see Burt literally horse-laugh at one of my playful analogies. I likened my 85-pound GSDog (who lives indoors with us) to our "child." I shared, as I had before, that we didn't need one of those because we wouldn't be able to tell our five-year-old to go out in the backyard and poop and come back in when she was ready. Upon hearing that, I heard Burt laugh from his belly like I had scarcely heard from anyone in a long time (let alone from him). While everyone turned to watch him laugh it up in his own world, I wondered when the last time was he had laughed that well. And had he ever done so in church? And ain't it sweet to be able to say "poop" in church without consternation?

So be it. To hell with the detractors in my mind. This is God's Church and he can do with it what he wants.

I was relishing the near-70 degree respite from winter yesterday. My haven of rest was tirelessly cleaning and piddling with my car in an effort to rid it of the corrosive elements of a winter's worth of road salt treatments. And I had to take off a rear wheel and reprove the dandy job the Sears technicians did on their last rotation and balance.....they couldn't even put the little valve stem through the little hole in the little wheel cover. COME ON GUYS! PAY ATTENTION! And even before I could do that, I broke the retaining cap holding the trunk panel down in the access area to the jack and spare tire and lug wrench. *PFFFBPHBPHT!* It was going to be good to get the church cleaned tonight and finally get some dinner.

Then my wife emerged from the house.

"We're going to take Burt some dinner tonight. Will you be done in an hour?"

I was tense now. Burt has our number. Literally.

"He said he was feeling sad and was going to eat potato chips for dinner."

Last Thursday, during a good accountability meeting with two other guys in my house church, the phone rang. We all looked at each other when we heard my wife say Burt's name. We dropped what we were doing and prayed for Burt, which wasn't something we had intended on doing that night. Forty-five minutes later, the phone found it's way to Jason, Burt's bestest buddy. And when Burt calls, it ain't just for a minute either. Another thirty minutes later, the phone convo ended and Jason wondered aloud-

"You think we could go over and pray with Burt? He's started bawling on me." Over to the one room apartment we go, banging on the door several times, smelling the cigarette smoke seeping through the door cracks. I wonder if he's passed out. Or worse.

We remain until 1:30 in the a.m., and depart with a circle prayer with Burt weeping, seemingly and hopefully connecting the twinge of loneliness with the presence of newfound friends.

Now my wife is whupping up chicken and vegetables for Burt and I am adjusting to the itinerary changes of God.

Driving over to Burt's, I am conscientious of the sensory overload about to ensue. The dozens of empty Milwaukee Light beer cans......the 3-4 sodas and pizza boxes jammed into the refrigerator..........the smoky haze constricting my air passages.............the TV that probably hasn't been off in 4 days..............the outpouring of grief from Burt's hurting heart. I can tell this is a high maintenance situation. God enable us!

I just hope he did not forget his dinner on the counter because we sat for an hour listening to him circle his wagons around the same issue of hurt. We tell him he has to eat and that we must go. I pray for him. Then he surprises us.

"I got a prayer for you" Burt offers.

Burt thanks God for us and prayed in Jesus' name that we wouldn't worry about him.

I pray in Jesus' name that God uses us to bring Burt up from the pit.

The Burtitization of our church continued with flair Sunday night. He walks in, reeking even more of tobacco-ey likker-breath- and thrusts one of the tightest grips on my right hand that I can remember since I used to get in gripping contests with my high school buds. He seemed happy to be there.

He whips out his wallet, garbles something about the "envelopes".........(I knew what he was getting ready to do. He wanted to give an offering and I was feeling uncomfortable because I wanted him to know he wasn't obligated to give- he was our guest. I knew that he worked at a pizza place and that money is an issue for him, especially since he whipped out a twenty. I glanced into his wallet in that instant and saw no other bills in there........did he realize what he had just done? Okay..........way too much analysis, then and now. I chose not to impugn his dignity in his gift and received it with joy on behalf of Veritas.)

I tell him I am glad to see him (and I was). I wondered how he would react with twice as many people as last week? He still ate at the table with Jason. We started a verse-by-verse study of Revelation. I would soon find out his response to that as well.

Later, my wife calls me to inform me about her conversation with Burt of which I only heard a snippet to the effect of, "can I be honest with you?" His honesty concerned the book of Revelation, to which he opined, "I don't believe in that sh-t."

Cathy also said she smelled smoke in the bathroom and found an ash on the floor. That was pretty awesome. You know there's some trust built up when you can sneak a smoke in a near-total stranger's bathroom.

Who said church done this way wasn't messy?

And I wouldn't have it any other way.

There's a guy in the church that meets in our house who has a nifty knack to reach out to people who are down and out. He has a way of making friends with those who are kind of out there on the fringe. What's more, is that he brings them to our gathering.

"Jason is bringing his friend, Burt, tonight" my wife noted at some point on Sunday.

I wonder what he's studying in school?

"He's gone to go pick up Burt" my bride of 10 years remarked as I stared quizzically at Jason's guitar case now laying in the floor.

I bet he's a freshman or a sophomore, since he has no car.

"Glenn, this is Burt."

I was now beholding a 44 year-old man, staggering into our living room, brazenly attempting his slurred introduction through snaggled and missing teeth. His teetering reminded me that perhaps he was struck with palsy. Or maybe years of alcohol. He appearance betrayed his age by ten years easy.

We fellowshiped with this stranger sitting contentedly at our table. So Jason and I went into the kitchen with Burt. Our church never eats at the table. We are happy to circle up on the floor or couch and spill tea and watch my German Shepherd snatch up morsels from the carpet with lightning-fast precision. "Respectable people don't do that" Burt admonished us.

Over our pizza Burt pokes fun at Jason and we all laugh. I recognize a connection between a lonesome 44 year-old drunk and a disciple of Christ cleverly disguised as a college student. I watched with fascination and entertainment as Burt told of how Jason always came to pick him up and take him to work (when in actuality Jason's only done this once). But by now we've been told by Burt of how his family's all passed away and Jason is a good friend.

Burt quietly made his way into my recliner as we moved into our teaching time. We were looking at Matthew 5 where Jesus tells us we are the light of the world. Our discussion goes on for 20 minutes and finally Burt interjects with a voice louder than necessary for a room with people only feet away from each other.

"You know- you all don't know me from Adam. I hope you don't mind if I speak right now. I could be a robber and could come back and rob you all. But you let me into your home and let me eat with you. And Jason's been a friend." Burt cracks on Jason again and we all laugh- again.

Then Burt calls me a knothead. You see, thanks to my wife, even total strangers are told of how I pegged my nugget on the corner of the entertainment center when trying to get my TVator to work with my laptop. I guess the pump-knot was unmistakable. So I sit on the floor and take my medicine while more laughter erupts.

Then Burt asks me a question that I shall never forget as long as I live.

Through a face squinched with incredulity came: "Why did you let me come in with you and eat? Answer that for me teacher-man" (or something to that effect).

Was this a set up?

But I looked at his eyes and his mouth agape......he was wanting an answer. I knew what this was about now. I swallowed hard as I gathered an answer. The air was rife with fertile reality of the Kingdom of God.

This was no teachable moment for Burt. He had already gone through the Spirit's lesson that night. Ironically, what God wanted us to know came in the form of a question from a drunk. Sure, I gave an answer about this was what Jesus' people are really all about......accepting, inviting, regardless of who we are or where we've been......but I think mostly to see if I believed it or not.

Jesus taught from my recliner Sunday night. The rest of the night I just plucked blackberries.

SIGNS

a mini-theological review

"There are answers to almost every question."

Postmodern filmakers today, without hesitation, dabble freely with esoteric and peripheral issues of spirituality- often going into the annals of other cultures and their religious traditions to explain/validate/bless their experience of being human. In doing so, they seem to hope to speak to something common to us all while tapping into the mystery of the "Other".......that whisper, that perception of a reality/person beyond our existence that instills meaning into the rubric of life.

Consequently, what often results is an amalgam of mushy neo-paganism sometimes cleverly masquerading under faint echoes of authentic biblical Christianity. Should a film find its voice from within the Christian worldview (and it truly rarely does), then the foray therein leaves us wanting more, wiping our lips clean from the bitter taste of superficiality.

Every now and then, a motion picture emerges with something very godly to say, and strikingly on target theologically. M. Night Shyamalan's Signs is just one of those films (released August, 2001 and in current release on DVD).

Anyone familiar with Shyamalan's work thus far probably camps in either the "love him" or "hate him" settlements. Widely acclaimed as the next "great" storyteller of his generation, Shyamalan tackles the "alien movie" genre with a flamboyant respect for not insulting our intelligence with cheap thrills, often relying on the anticipation of the unknown to weave the story.

Since I'll reveal things about the movie that might spoil the plot for those who haven't seen it, I do so to make a case for a Theology of Signs, MunkeBites-style. (If you haven't seen it, read no further.........watch it and come back).

Can one "do" theology without intention? Can an undertaking with the sole purpose of storytelling/storyselling (film making) end up painting a picture that helps us understand the nature of human suffering and the character of God? More to the point, does God reveal himself even through decidedly non-Christian agents? If so, what does "Signs" have to say?

Even if the title itself is a double-entendre playing into the message of the movie, it makes a bold statement regarding the doctrine of providence. Notwithstanding the fascinating storyline and atmosphere of the movie, what ultimately emerges is somewhat of a theological gut-check- posing questions our piety had previously been loathe to express- but nonetheless "sensed" behind the veil of our perception of free-will, God's power and the reality of a depth of suffering almost foreign to most.

The word providence comes from the Latin, providere, which is a combination of two words- pro "before" and videre"sees." This double meaning.... fore-seeing, seeing before, making provision for what is foreseen- is the umbrella under which all theology or doctrine is done and can be, arguably, therefore understood. The doctrine of providence basically asks, "how does God care for his creation?" Everything else conceptually falls underneath that basic epistemological question. It is the story of the compassion of God that intersects the scorched and hallowed ground that is human tragedy. It is the core construct behind the words of the song that muses, "he's got the whole world in his hands" and begs the question, "and just HOW does God hold this world?" Providence is more than mere theological academic exercise and reflection.........we take out our hearts and examine it while it functions outside its normal place and explore it. This is intensely personal and painful.

This is what Mel Gibson's character, Graham, does- only his heart drops, shatters and he is left rummaging for replacement parts. We pick him up, having lost any semblance of faith in a benevolent "father" who seems blind, and somewhat impotent. Through his own intention, he has abandoned his place as a Catholic priest. The honest anger he has toward God is balanced begrudgingly on his shoulder and it takes an alien invasion to knock it off. But not before he has lost his wife in a freak accident.

The pain Graham experiences borders on the blasphemous. Thoughts and words emanate from his heart that we would dare not entertain. In one scene, as he is holding the limp body of his slowly dying son, he spews forth a vitriolic harangue toward God and caps it off with an "I hate you!" At that point in the movie, my piety lurched forward, defiantly wanting to remind him "God didn't do these things to you." At the same time, I just wanted to be beside him, speechless, motionless and answerless.....just "there."

As a chaplain at the University of Louisville Hospital (a Level I Trauma Unit), I found there are no answers for the father of 19 year-old college student who wonders where God is in the process of his son lying brain dead whereas- 3 hours prior- the boy had just left to celebrate a birthday on his first weekend home from school. There are no answers for the daughter gripping the jaundiced and emaciated 85-pound body of her father as to why he had to trade in his liver for a life of alcohol. It was the first time in my life where I faced that kind of suffering. It was the first time I confronted such forces of human chaos and became closely acquainted with the experience of God-forsakenness. It was the dividing line in my seminary career because God ripped out my heart and put it back together again. If he hadn't have done so, I felt I would have crumpled.

There is indeed a suffering so deep, so incomprehensible that warrants the experience of God-forsakenness, such as what Graham wades through. When the rage of hell impinges upon human frailty and existence, we sense the rampage of chaos that lurks on the fringes of creation. And despite all the attending demonic fury (as personified by the alien invaders), we sense something in the divine Personage that won't let us go. In all of the mundane rituals of life, we can't escape the faint whisper that promises ordo ab chaos. How is it that the God who is absent is still the God who is "there?" How can it be that God indeed mediates his presence in his perceived absence? What is the form of this providential activity of God? I contend that the denouement of Signs poignantly illustrates the providence of God in the face of incalculable human suffering in a strikingly accurate fashion.

History is replete with the rising and falling of evil regimes that incur monstrous tolls upon human suffering (Nazi Germany, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, September 11th). Consider Elie Wiesel, survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, who was forced to view a child being hung at the camp:

For more than half and hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was still red, his eyes were not yet glazed.

Behind me, I heard the same man asking, "Where is God now?"

I heard a voice within me answer him:

"Where is he? Here he is.....he is hanging here on this gallows......."

That night, the soup tasted of corpses (Night, p. 62).

Sometimes it is only in the midst of (or after) the fire that we can ascertain the ways in which God was providing. The glasses of water left behind, the failed baseball career memorialized in the bat hanging on the wall, the cryptic words of Graham's dying wife once relegated to the neural misfirings of a dying brain.........were all puzzle pieces- seemingly small and insignificant at the time- that divinely came together and became the deliverance of God. But none of it made sense until it had to. These all factored into their victory over the alien threat because God was standing on the frontside of their unfolding human stories and wove together with purpose and creativity a beautiful tapestry of ongoing human history. God works with all the factors that are available to him in any given moment.......no matter how miniscule. And the materials God uses? Human agents. In thus doing the work of providence, God interacts with free-willed human beings in the freedom of their decision making. The way God provided for their survival was defined within their own specific historically defined context. All the glasses of water left behind by the little girl was poison ammunition against the alien being. The non-sensical utterance, "swing away" was the command (and release) for Graham's brother to really knock one out of the park (and beat the alien marauder senseless so they could escape). Only through the contingencies of all these interconnected relationships did the pattern of God's providential activity come to light. Graham found faith, his brother found purpose, his son found life- all within the context of family.

We may never enter the garden of suffering of a Father Graham or an Elie Wiesel. But should we embark upon the suffering of God-forsakenness, we do so in light of the Christ event, Who hanging on a gallows of sorts also experienced God-forsakenness (Mark 15:34). There are no answers here, only a coming alongside of a Lord Who knows the fullest extent of what it means to be abandoned unto death. While we cry out for answers, we discover the presence of the Lord standing in our midst, already having been beaten and accused. Sometimes He comes in His power, crumpled with us in the corner. And He knows us.....He even knows our lot. Even while those closest to us can only muster the strength to snooze at the gate, no one but Jesus can fully enter that garden of suffering we may be called to enter.

Been feeling a bit lonely lately. Been looking at what my life has looked like since jumping off of the "traditional church" ship back in '99 and there has been a common theme.....this twinge of loneliness. I was told it would be like this. I was told to hold on while this roller coaster slammed me through the good/bad, the successes/failures and that the movement between the two extremes would be jarring. Sometimes it just seems that between the two, the turbulence seems the same and who knows what is success and what isn't? I know I'm not the only one daring to do something for God in times like these. Sometimes I'd just like to know that I've connected to others in the same ministerial boat, but for two and one-half years, I still don't feel like I have. I seem to get close the water's edge, but my arm floaties don't measure up to everyone's inflatable dinghies. I've trudged my way through thus far in search of a mentor/friend who could guide me on this journey. However, there are possibilities on the horizon and new friends.

Most of the people in my denomination who are available to me either don't know about us or are skeptical about the kind of animal we are grooming here, so the attention is patronizing or absent altogether. I was supposed to find my own mentor when I landed on field, according to my denominational superiors. How do you do that when: 1) you know next to no one; 2) 80% of the churches in your association either have no idea you are here or are diametrically opposed to your mere presence and are plateaued or declining. From within and around our association, I've tried and seen the formation of groups of somewhat like-minded church planters and seen them fall down. I've entertained the conversations that point to nothing more than lofty, yet empty aspirations to create relational accountability. Then, poof........

I intuitively sense what the problem is and it's no one's fault. Everyone is just relationally maxed out. Everyone already has their inner circle and can only maintain so many relationships at one time. How hard it is for a stranger to infiltrate an established accountability network of good buddies. That's just the reality of being an unknown, yet forging ahead in relative obscurity does get wearisome. Have I missed something/someone along the way? Why does it seem like the very ones I could learn from the most- those who have been down this road a lot longer than I- can't slow down to pick up a vagabond? I know it's not their intention but it still feels lonely. Why is it no one has taught me how to reach out?

Perhaps I am a bit presumptuous. Mentorships and mutually accountable friendships and discipling networks don't happen spontaneously. I know what I see and sometimes envy in others is the product of much relational time and investment. Am I even willing to scrutinize my own woundedness here? What is it about church planting that taps into the fountains of loneliness so easily? Why do I need to be needed? Sometimes all it seems to be about is giving. There are some things I need to receive too but there just isn't a whole lot out there right now. I just don't want to be like the Voyager Probe of Church Planters, drifting further away while still beaming out fainter and fainter signals.

For you, my 5 faithful MunkeBites readers...........a glimspe into the foolishness of church planting from my vantage point.

Now I can safely say that I have been "broken in" by a contingency of the Saturday night Metro bus riding regulars who frolic to and fro from party to party. Last Saturday was to be my first 8-3am shift on a route here in Oxford. I had heard stories about the shift, but they smelled more like the stuff of hyperbole and legend. Now I know better.

I should have taken the clue when the conversation over the radio amongst other drivers was about how we needed to turn off the rear heaters so the partiers wouldn't throw up. I wondered if someone was going to heave, how was I going to prevent it and keep my attention on driving at the same time?

One group of 15 decided to momentarily bring to my bus their party celebrating a girl's 21st birthday. I got patted on the head like a puppy dog and amidst chants of "new bus driver!!" some drunk chick decided to flash me not once, but twice. To top it off an hour later, another drunk girl up-chucked on my bus. This all made the foot races the drunk guys would have with the bus up the streets pale in comparison. And I was on the slow route.

I kept thinking, "....now, what about the state of drunken stupor is fun?" You get to swim in your own vomitus; you get to imperil your life and the lives of others by showing how you can outrun a 36,000 pound diesel behemoth; you get to reveal your privates before total strangers. What's sadder is that for some of these, the deepest experience of human community and friendship they will have is that someone held their head up so they could puke in the toilet. Now isn't that a true friend?

"Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging; and whoever is deceived thereby is not wise." Proverbs 20:1

Some of you reading this may already know that I had applied for the position of police officer at Miami University. I had to take the entry test from which they generate an eligible list of candidates. Out of close to 200 test takers, one had to score in the top 20 to be eligible to pass to the first round of oral interviews. I wound up ranking 9th highest and I just emerged from my first interview with the department.

Although I had never expected to even get to the interviews, this first interview with a sergeant and a couple of patrolmen was fascinating, yet subtly tricky. Obviously, I had to present myself in such a favorable and authentic light as one would in any other interview. There were various scenarios presented to me to ascertain my judgment and decision-making ability in a variety of situations in which an officer might find himself/herself . Your on the beat with your Field Training Officer in response to a burglary call at a closed supermarket and your FTO takes two sodas, gives one to you and starts drinking the other without paying. What do you do? (Report him to your supervisor). Say an old high school buddy runs a stop sign.......do you ticket him or warn? (Ticket). Then, your mother runs the stop sign.....what do you do? (Hey, she's my mom......she raised me). But your high school bud watches you and asks why you ticketed him (he's responsible for his own behavior and I do not have to justify my decision with regard to him). Your sergeant runs the stop sign.....etc. "So, you are willing to let your mother off with a warning and end the career of a fellow officer for a 55 cent soda?" Yikes. That's the gist of it.

But I feel like I did fairly well and I covered my bases where I felt cornered. We'll see. I've always had a respect for and fascination with police officers and their work. Whether or not I go any further is a matter of God opening up the doors further.

So I'm off to make a few basketball coaches mad and then get to pick up my new drum set. Protect the women and children and plug the canalways harboring your tympanic membranes.

What a sweet night it was on Hester Road. Our whole house teemed with twenty-four people gathered to celebrate a baptism, the first I had ever been a part of in a home, much less a house church. There in our garage- in the official Veritas baptistry that was originally destined for the watering duties of some livestock somewhere- we baptized a Miami freshman (who's a part of our house church) and she even brought her unchurched roomie. We ate, sang, reflected on the baptism/temptation narratives in Matthew, prayed for one another and saw God show up in some fantastic ways. And we get to call this church!

Back from vacation and got the yak. Came back and refereed a basketball game and as soon as we got back in the locker room after the game, my partner hurls. He said it was the first time he upchucked in 10 years. I offered him assistance, gave him some water, got dressed, offered more assistance and condolences as I was leaving. He refused and shook my hand.

I was torn between my sympathy and the dreaded portent of shaking a man's hand who had just emerged from a toilet hug with an intesitnal bug. Hanging out with friends over the holidays whose kiddos had the chicken pox loomed over my head as well, though them chickens got me when I was a tot.

Now as I hack up my lungs and toss and turn at night and stare at the ceiling through sinus-pressure-induced tears, I can't imagine any better way to kick off the new year. Now, all of a sudden, my dog has a bum leg and I don't know how she did it. And they just called today to tell us we can't use our usual monthly location for our corporate gathering this Sunday because they are installing carpet. And someone's already punched a hole in our brand new siding at our gallery.

Yet I rejoice. It could be worse. I won't flame my circumstances.......I'll just try to creatively roll with them.

But blessed is the man who for Thy sake, O Lord, grants leave to depart unto all creatures, who does violence to his nature, and through fervor of the Spirit, crucifies the lust of the flesh; that with a serene conscience he may offer a pure prayer unto Thee, and all earthly things both outwardly and inwardly being excluded, he may be admitted into the heavenly choirs.

-Thomas A Kempis

I'm having trouble just getting to the audition.