So I'm taking my own advice and going off the grid this week. I spend a whole lot of time on facebook, twitter, blogs, and email that it's consuming. I consume. So for the next week I'm going to go off the grid. No twitter, no facebook, no blogs, no email.....well maybe email like twice a day. Instead I'd like to use my time to create more. I'm certain that the leaders that I look up to the most do not spend their free time on twitter, or reading blogs, or endlessly researching seminaries. I do. So I'm trying an experiment here. Check back here this week and maybe some of my creations will make their way to my blog.
Reading these words from the author of Hebrews the other day brought tears to my eyes. I feel like this is where I am right now: going to Jesus, outside of the camp. For all the the critiques I have of the church I still love her and always will.
We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat. The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name.
“Living with some tension, in mystery, is part of the life of faith, and it’s what keeps us growing. The minute we become dogmatic, we close our minds. There’s a lot to be said for saying, “i don’t know.” Some parents don’t say that to their kids enough.”
- Eugene Peterson in Image Magazine
In the middle of trying to walk through a difficult situation I asked a wise friend how you give someone advice when you can clearly see the solution but they don't. He gave me the a great answer:
Often times the best thing to do is ask a slew of questions and allow the person to come to their own conclusion. People don't need your solution, but need to come to it on their own terms.I was struck by it's simplicity. I admit I'm not very good at asking those cutting questions. I have friends that are. In the midst of all the haze they can ask a question that cuts to the point. I hope I get there someday. Even today in the middle of another tough conversation I was asking myself what is the question that needs to be asked here? I don't know if I found it, but I tried.
Found this today from Henri Nouwen. There's so much truth and wisdom in this, not just for letters, but for how we interact with each other. I'll let Nouwen say it:
When you write a very angry letter to a friend who has hurt you deeply, don’t send it! Let the letter sit on your table for a few days and read it over a number of times. Then ask yourself: “Will this letter bring life to me and my friend? Will it bring healing, will it bring a blessing?” You don’t have to ignore the fact that you are deeply hurt.
You don’t have to hide from your friend that you feel offended. But you can respond in a way that makes healing and forgiveness possible and opens the door for new life. Rewrite the letter if you think it does not bring life, and send it with a prayer for your friend.
From Sept 4 2009 Henri Nouwen Society
If you haven't heard Seth's blogging!!! Be sure to check him out and offer him plenty of encouragement.
So you've been buying everything on your credit card just to earn rewards or points. What are you going to spend those points on? Something you don't need? Maybe. Something useless? Probably. Something you frivolous? Certainly. What if you could offer an affordable loan to a farmer in Afghanistan, or a merchant in Kenya? Wouldn't that be a better use of "free" money?
As Karyn and I look to give more one area that we've been intrigued with for a while is micro finance. (If you're interested in it check out this great book.) So yesterday we used the rewards from Karyn's credit card to fund a micro finance loan for Rahmat Gull. Here's his story:
Rahmat Gull is a young boy with great experience, though he is not literate. He works in the agricultural sector and has been involved in this business for nine years, working with his family during this time.If you're want to try micro finance check out Kiva. They're a non-profit and 100% of your loan goes to the entrepreneur that you're supporting. I literally set everything up in less than 15 minutes. Karyn and I are excited to cash in more of our points so that we can continue to support micro finance operations all over the world.
He has some land but he would like to buy animals for his land so that he can provide the grass for the animals from the land. To manage the economics he needs extra money. Therefore, he requested a loan of 50,000 Afghani to buy animals to start raising them.
Rahmat Gull is a professional man and, from when he started his business, he always wanted to improve his business. He is grateful for this loan process. He wants to say that it is his first loan and it is really great, especially for agriculture workers. He wants to continue his partnership and encourage other workers to use this loan service.
A what point does a ministry get in the way of your ministry? I'd love to hear what everyone thinks.
The Avett Brothers have grown on me for the past year and a half. Karyn and I got to see them in a small college in Kentuky and it was amazing. I also got to see them in Pittsburgh with JJ and it was good too (although not as nice as the first time). If we ever talk about music odds are my love of The Avett Brothers will come up. For anyone unfamiliar with them I wanna give you a little taste. This comes from a series of concerts from NPR rightly titled tiny desk concerts.
I had a meeting last night to plan some events for our youth ministry with some folks last night. With planning events on my mind I wanted to pen down a couple of questions to frame our events with. Here is what I would say to any youth leader, volunteer, or parent planning an event:
When we're looking at events I'd like us to ask ourselves two questions. The first one is, "Is this sustainable?" Here's what I mean by that. First of all I ask that of myself (I try to ask that with more than just these events). Will I be able sustain this pace over the long haul? A quick trap that youth ministers (and plenty of others) often fall into is saying yes to everything. In light of both of our schedules Karyn and I have discussed this and feel that one event a month is sustainable. To dig into that a little deeper a two night camping trip probably shouldn't be followed up with an overnight trip Canada (an exaggeration of course) to be considered sustainable. I also look at my volunteers. Am I asking them to be involved in so many activities that it easy to quickly become overwhelmed and burned out? Or an even a better questions is am I asking volunteers to be involved in so many activities that it becomes increasingly difficult for them to be present for those weekly programs where discipleship happens. I also want to ask is this sustainable for the families involved. The one thing I repeat more than anything else to students is that they have an obligation to honor their parents. So am I honoring families when I'm asking parents to have their kids out 3 or 4 times a week? That's not always a bad thing, however church can easily become another obligation in a busy families' life. We teach often that families need to be strong, do our events reflect that? Also is the event financially sustainable. When I was a student there were several events that I could not participate in because we did not have the money to pay for it. I will almost always default to the cheaper local option for that reason. One of the reason's families struggle financially is because we've lost the art of playing cards, board games, camping in the back yard, etc and instead instead entertain ourselves with expensive vacations or video games.
The second question I want us to ask is, "Is this Purposeful?" I'm not Purpose Driven by any means, but when I'm looking at the youth ministry one the easiest tools I can use to make sure that I'm balanced are the five biblical purposes of Discipleship, Worship, Evangelism, Serving, and Community. If all of our events centered on gathering around a guitar and singing a song then we would quickly become unbalanced. Likewise if all or our events are times where we "hang out" (which is easy to do since I believe relational ministry is the most effective way to minister to our students) then we're unbalanced. Most of our events will have some overlap, that's natural. However the question to ask is which purpose does this serve? If we go and work in a soup kitchen that's serving. We'll also get some community out of that, maybe even some evangelism. The main drive of the event though is serving, and that helps us to become focused. We should work to maintain a balance in our events.
I believe that asking these two questions are crucial. They go a long way in the longevity of the ministry. Churches generally have a tendency to get stuck in the rut that we don't know why we do what we do except to say that it's the way we've always done it. Let's try to avoid that as much as possible and be intentional in everything that we do. So let's plan these events, but let's also ask ourselves: "Is this sustainable" and "Is this purposeful"
Building the walls, my Dad had done the foundation and floor the week before.
Next step is putting the walls up.
Dinner, and yes my sister actually ate that.
Johnny "encouraging" the guys.
A view from the inside.
The man behind it all.
There's so much going on in my life right now. The most pressing being church camp quickly approaching next week. There is so much to do, lessons to plan, music to prepare, skits to put together, camp fires to get ready for, and plenty of other things on top of that. Most things are pretty well lined up, but there's always more stuff to work on. Then I'm taking classes right now full time so I have all of that work that I have to work on. I'm behind on my school work so that's some added stress. On top of all of that I leave in about three weeks. Whew, that's alot and I'm not even mentioning all the other things that just come with life.
You'd think with all of that I'd be here fully present here and now. Funny thing is that I'm not. I'm constantly dreaming about one year from now (when I come back from Iraq) and even two years from now (seminary). The problem is that I need to be here now. I have to earn a degree before I move onto seminary, I have to get through church camp in less than a week. It's getting tougher for me to stay focused on things. I'm easily distracted. I don't want to be this way, but I find it hard to change.
In other news I truly am enjoying my time before I leave. We built the cabin last week (pictures coming soon) and I've been spending time with Karyn. The next three weeks should be very fun, I'm looking forward to them.
So Justin made a comment on my last post about building that cabin that sparked a really funny memory.
The year was 2000 (?) and we had several of us were camping in Selbyville. If I remember correctly it was a church related trip (that didn't turn out at all like we had planned). One thing you have to know about Selbyville and my brother is that when he was in high school anytime he went back to camp he had to bring camo that covered him head to toe. I mean facepaint, leaves sticking out of him, the whole nine yards. Well he was standing inside the cabin (the one we're replacing) and he leans up against a cabinet. Now leaning up against a cabinet isn't unusual, but what happened next is. A mouse jumped from the top of the cabin and went right down the sleeve on Matt's long sleeve camo shirt. He started jumping around and yelling like a crazy person yelling something about a mouse in his shirt. To make it even better he had his shirt tucked in so before you know it he was taking off his pants and rolling around on the floor because the mouse had travelled from his shirt all the way to his pants.
That memory is hands down one of the funniest things that I've ever seen.
For years my brother and I have talked of building a new cabin in Selbyville, WV. It's where our great grandmother used to live but now we just use it as a retreat, or simply camp as everyone calls it. Well after years of dreaming my Dad is finally onboard so it's actually happening. This week the whole family will be in Selbyville to build the new cabin.
I leave tonight, and when I get back I'll be sure to post some pictures. I'm really excited about getting away for the week. It should be a great time.
So I have this knot in my stomach that just won't go away. Sometimes I can forget about it while I'm reading, or when I first wake up in the morning before I get oriented to where I am or what I'm doing. It's driving mecrazy to tell you the truth. I'm about one month away from my deployment. Last night I dreamed that instead of going to Iraq we actually ended up going to Virginia Beach like I did before. I'm only lucky enough for that to happen once so I'm sure that I've used up all of my good fortune. I'm not too afraid to go, just anxious. I don't want to leave my wife for a year. She's been gone this week and I feel like I've just been wallowing in self pity with out her around. It's tough to imagine what a year is going to be like. I think I've gotten a small taste of what it will be like for Karyn this week and it's not very fun. Sitting around waiting on her to call, not hearing from her for extended periods of time, and not having much time with her when we do get to talk.
So this knot of mine. I don't think it's going away for a while so I think I should get used to it. The problem is that it's almost incapacitating. I find it hard to do anything, and it's even harder to care. It's certainly that I don't care, it's just hard to feel like I care. There's so much going on and I just wish that I could fast forward to a year from now. Since that's not possible I guess I'll have to take it as it comes. In the days and weeks to come I hope I can get rid of this knot.
It all hit me one day while I was running on the treadmill at work. Usually the TV gets tuned into CMT, which is not the most conducive thing to watch to working out. It just seems that country music doesn't seem to get me to pumped up to work out. This day was no different than any other day. I wasn't paying much attention to the TV until a Kenny Chesney (I know, don't judge me) song caught my attention. He was in what looked like a small town in Mexico. As I was running on the treadmill I was thinking how great would it be to be able to live in Mexico for a year if I wanted too. I often have dreams like that. Dreams of traveling the country, living in a cabin, moving to Oregon, or becoming a whitewater rafting guide. The next thing that pops into my mind when I have these dreams is the reasons that I can't do those things. Car payments, a mortgage, and student loans all demand a payment from me every month. I don't thinking being a hermit or a mountain man pays much. This dream was a little different however because I started thinking, "What if I didn't have those bills?". Such a simple thought but it opened up a whole new possibility for me.
I began looking at all of the bills that Karyn and I had and crunching the numbers. I read a few personal finance blogs thesimpledollar.com and getrichslowly.com and found the debt snowball. You can read more about it here. I started my figures using February 2012 as the date that I wanted to have all of our bills paid off because that's the time frame that my enlistment ends with the West Virginia National Guard. The idea of not having to stay in the guard appealed to me. If 2012 came and I wanted to stay in it would be because I wanted to, not because I had to.
With the news of the deployment however the plan has been adjusted. Karyn and I's plan is to have the majority of our bills paid off by the time that I come back from Iraq. This opens up a world of opportunities to us, especially when we look at moving to attend seminary. The thought of being debt free is liberating. It certainly isn't the answer to all our obstacles, but it will go a long way into making the road so much smoother.
So the 2012 plan is for me is less about money than it is about freedom. Freedom to live my life more simply and be able to enjoy my wife, my family, my vocation, and all the things in between. So here's to the 2012 plan and the freedom it offers.
When I found out I was going to be deployed I made a list of things that I wanted to do before I left. My list included going on vacation with Karyn, building a cabin (more to come on that), watching the Mountaineers, you know real important stuff. Another thing on my list was to see The Avett Brothers in concert. If you've never heard of The Avett Brothers you're really missing out. They had been touring with Dave Matthews, but I wanted to see them as the main event. As I was looking around only one date worked in Karyn and mine's schedule. The only problem was that it was at a college in Kentucky and it was being advertised as for students only. I emailed a few people and after pulling the Iraq card got the thumbs up to go to the concert. It's about a five hour drive to the college so we were going to spend the night Friday and come home on Saturday. I didn't want to pay for a hotel room so Karyn and I tossed around the idea of camping, but I thought the weather might not work out for us. Then I remembered couchsurfing.org. If you're not familiar with couch surfing it's pretty simple. You register and offer to host someone in your home who will be in the area. Well we're adventurous so we decided to go for it. I logged on and found Laura who graciously agreed to host us. Laura lives in Wilmore KY and I knew that Asbury Seminary was there. I've wanted to attend seminary for a while and I've been looking into different online, and intensive programs so that I could take classes and continue to work. I thought that since we were in the area maybe we should try to get a tour of the seminary. When I asked Laura (who works at Asbury College, across the street) she said she could give us a tour.
Laura grabbed her neighbor Wes (who just happened to be coming home when we pulled into town) and asked if he could give us a tour and he agreed. Now you should know that I had a preconceived notion of what Asbury would be like and what the students would be like. I pictured a stuffy atmosphere with people walking around in shirts and ties wearing penny loafers talking about how great John Wesley was. Not my type of crowd. Wes totally blew any of those stereotypes out of the water. He had bushy beard (I'm jealous) and wore cut off shorts and sandals. He gave us a great tour of the facilities and answered all the questions that Karyn and I had. To top it all off the weather was amazing and spring was in full swing. We talked long about church and about the hope that can be found there. Wes, Laura, Karyn and I had many of the same critiques and dreams and thoughts. It was wonderful. I started wondering what I would miss out on if I didn't attend seminary full time. Too often I spread myself to thin.
On the trip home Karyn and I started talking about what attending seminary full time might look like. It's an exciting thing to be thinking about. One positive thing about the deployment is that the educational incentives that I'll received after the deployment will be enough to pay for seminary, however I choose to do it. This much I know for sure is that I want to attend seminary, and I want to be involved in ministry as a vocation. I have no passion for Military Pay. As Karyn and I wade through all of the options in front of us I pray that we can do it with an open mind and with a faithful heart.
Alot has happened in the last six months since I've posted anything here. I seem to go in waves, however I've had alot things that I wanted to blog about, but was just too involved in other endeavors to make it happen.
The biggest is that I'm going to Iraq for a year at the end of July. I found out the Friday before Valentine's Day and have been reacting to that news ever since. I've joked with people that it's difficult to care about much else; maybe that's why I haven't blogged much. I leave July 29th. I'll blog pretty regular here just for my own enjoyment and for anyone who wants to know what's new.
Karyn and I have been trying to make the most of the time that we have together before I leave. We've gone away for a week of vacation, we're headed to Selbyville next week with the family to build the new cabin and we're going to church camp in a couple of weeks.
I have tons of other stuff that share, Seminary plans, deployment plans, books I've read, great conversations I've had, but those will have to wait for another day. Check back because I'm sure you are on the edge of your seat.
