M&J – Easter day

What a great day! The morning started around 7 am when I got out of bed and prepared for the morning serivces. After getting everything together I was out the door by 750 am and motoring into Gaylord. This morning Mary and I were accompanied, by her two youngest kids Kaleb and Karlie. They are pretty great.

Kaleb, 14, is a really good skier so his Sundays until recently have been taken up with races. Although, he broke his collarbone a week or so ago, so his season is pretty much finished for this year. So he came over to his mom’s.

Karlie, 12, is a good actress and singer. Mary and I went to her play that the 7th and 8th graders did at Concord Academy (Boyne). She had the second lead part in “The Castaways.” She did a great job and once I get it all put together, will probably have some video up on Mary’s website.

The church services were pretty good with the kids sitting through both services well. (For those unfamiliar, Mary and I attend both of our churches. We have even taken the stand that we won’t refer to them as Her’s or mine, but by their names – Community and The Methodist church. We feel that they are both of ours.

We then went out to lunch at Appleby’s. It was good to finally sink my teeth into a steak. That’s a long story, and I had a Diet Pepsi with it.

On a whole, a great day. I wish that I didn’t have to go to work this afternoon.

General – Busyness part deux

This is becoming a broken record as I am seemingly swamped with stuff.
Most of it is pretty unimportant stuff, but I always find a way to make
it into a priority. That is the key, prioritzing and sticking with it.
My biggest problem is that since I conquered my anxiety problems, which
climaxed about 5 or 6 years ago, I have slowly slipped into being one
who gets side tracked easily. That has been my problem since I was a
kid. You can ask my mom and dad. They would send me off to clean my
room and sort magazines and throw out the old ones. I would go in and
then as I sorted the magazines, I would see an article to read, and then
get caught up in reading it. Mom or Dad would then find me in my room
reading and not cleaning. So now it is time to find that happy median of
doing the tasks that need to be done and still have recreation and fun
(i.e. Stopping to smell the roses).

So far for today, I have gone through a mound of e-work (like paperwork,
but it is electronic). Mainly just going through my inbox at work and
making sure that I got all of the things requested of me, done. I’m now
down to 12 emails on things that are either informational that I need to
read again or take action on in the future.

As you will see that there are a lot of things flowing through my brain.
I was telling Mary earlier today that I wish that I could just plug my
brain into the PDA and out pops my blog posts.

YM – Why do we cover up and cut ourselves off? Part 1

The last few months have been great! I have to get this out there.
This is almost like a prayer on this post and typically, the first thing
that I do when I pray, is talk about what I am thankful for. In the
last few months, I have seen speakers at the youth worker conference
that reminded me why I got involved with the youth and got me inspired
enough to find and learn more about their ministry, I acquired a
girlfriend that has been a blessing to me and just knocks my socks off
with the grace that she shows me, and I have a spiritual family that has
grown considerably as I have become more active Emmaus.

However, with all of the great things, I have found that God puts people
and events in our way to put our faith into practice as it says in James
2:26 “For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith
without works is dead.” (NASB) That’s where I’m heading with this mini
sermon.

Over the last four months I have been in contact with 3 people
that as I hear more from them, the more I realize that sometimes not
only is the church out of touch with what is going on, but that those
that are searching, are still missing the “forest for the trees.” I
should back up a bit though and tell you how I got started with this.

Recently Rob Bell, the teaching pastor of the Mars Hill Bible Church in
Grandville, MI, preached a series of sermons entitled Directions. He
talked about 6 directions which he descibes the directions the church is
going. Backward (looking at our roots), Forward(looking at our journey
through life), Inward(God wants to heal us), Withward(we journey
together), Outward(we need to help people outside the church), and
Upward (we need to learn to celebrate and praise God). The one that
this post is about is Withward.

This morning, after listening to Pastor Steve at GCC at 845 am and Rev. John at FUMC at 1030 AM, one thing jumped out at me from both services, we cover ourselves
up when we sin. Just like in Genesis after the fall (Specifically, Genesis 3), Adam and Eve, hid because they knew they were naked and they put on fig leaves. We do that, no matter what the degree of the sin. When we try to help some people, they have a tendancy to cover up and withdraw from a community that could help. Usually, they are ashamed of what they have become. Sometimes, there are those in the church that will condemn or some who give unhelpful “pat” advice (a whole other teaching as Rob Bell would say). However, there are those in the church, can be a great help, because, believe it or not they have gone through the same thing. It’s just a matter of getting plugged into the network of believers. Follow along to part 2.

YM – Why do we cover up and cut ourselves off? Part 2

So in my last post I stated that, as people, we cut ourselves off from a community
that could helps us if we get plugged into the right network at the church.

I guess that there are, currently, 3 people that have crossed my life
over the past couple of years where that is pretty evident.

1. A single mother, who is having trouble hearing from God, while her
child with ADHD begins to have fits of rage for no apparent reason and
is at the end of her rope. She commented that someone said that to
her that God won’t give you more than you can handle (a pat answer sure
to drive off someone going through which to them is something
insurmontable). However, she continues to withdraw from church and cut
herself off from God, by cutting herself off from the people who are
being used by God to help her and probably give her the support and
resources she needs.

2. A college student, who was at least in my estimation was strong in
the Lord as a high school student, and is now unsure of the path that he
is to take as he weathers the storms of life outside the home of his
youth. Again, when asked he usually covers up and says things are fine,
but when asked to help with a bible study, said that he felt that he was
bringing shame to Jesus. He withdraws from a community that could help
him with finding that direction, if not explicitly, then at the very
least implicitly.

3. A divorced friend who is still dealing with the wound of the
divorce. They had gone to a counselor to get help for things, and in
the course of the sessions said something that their spouse found
irreconcilible and due to their connections at church have withdrawn
from the community that could help and give support.

I know all three of these people. Do the situations seem familiar to
you? While I can only identify with one of these people(although I know
all three), my heart aches to help them be reconciled to the God that
loves them and give them the support that they need to heal and become
whole.

That’s the main thing, as Jesus said, the two greatest commandments are Love God and Love people. Showing that love to people in a way is showing your love to God. Helping them to become reconciled and whole is what God wants us to do. So if you have gone through something similar to what others have gone through, don’t cover up. Allow them to help you find for yourself what God did for them to make them whole.

General – Busyness

I’ll start off saying sorry to all of those who read my stuff. I have been so busy that I haven’t had a chance until now to sit down and write what it going on…

Fire weather is spinning up for the season and I was planning the annual spring meeting as well as putting together a talk for the MI – DNR. I still have work to do in this area, but the main thing is done.

I get a little side tracked (in a good way) with my current state of relationship bliss. Mary and I are doing well with the blooming relationship that God has given us. We just past the 4 month mark a few days ago (March 8th), which I keep telling people is like some kind of a record (Actually, I think 6 months is the all time record for me.). So You’ll probably hear me crowing about that in two more months.

I just go finished with mids yesterday (March 10). It is so good that they only come around every 7 weeks. I now have to get the rest of my leave requests in for the summer so that I can go on the Senior high’s mission trip and The Alive festival (we usually do Ichthus, but do to scheduling conflicts, we found a good substitute.).

I’m also beginning the preliminary work, for our church’s website (with the help of others).

I have also gotten the revelation/bug/inspiration to create more Sunday School/Youth group/Church instruction curriculum. The inspiration came in the form of the NOOMA videos. They are a series of short films that teach about the Bible. Mary and I have watched the 10 that are currently available and have written out notes. Paul Block (our youth pastor) and his wife, Lisa, currently have them and will be doing the same. I will compile and edit the notes into a study guide for us to use. Mary and I are quite excited about this.

I’m also listening to podcasts, this should make the radio networks and possibly the TV networks, if they are paying attention (there are v-blogs) nervous as this grows. There will always be room for radio and TV, but the way it is programmed, I think is about to be totally remade, as the internet and the growing ways to send information over the internet, show how amateurs and niche performers will find their way into the mainstream. (Can you tell I’m excited?)

Also, my new PDA is working wonderfully, and shortly, I’ll have a new keyboard for it as well. I won’t be slaved to the desktop to type up these blogs entries.

Hopefully, on Monday, I will work a little on my website and revamp some of it. Until we get the church website going, I’m going to start posting the mp3’s of our church services as well. Hopefully, I’ve got a good line on how to set up the RSS feed for it so that we can podcast it.

Mom, Dad, and Rosebud are on a long trip out west in their RV. Dad has been able to blog from time to time (some KOAs have wifi!) while on the road. They’re a good read.

So, I guess I should slow down…nah.

Science and politcal – A balanced enviromental piece

This came from Reuters. A piece on global warming that finally acknowledges that there is no smoking gun. But as I have said before, we need to take care of the planet and we do a poor job at it and stop making the excuse that it isn’t economically feasible.

Sports – Only sign of Life

I have to laugh (good naturedly) at Cleveland, OH. After they fired Bill Belachek, he went on to New England and has now won 3 Super Bowls. I guess that’s why the T-shirt that I would love to own shows a sign along an interstate highway in Cleveland and says:

PITTSBURGH, 143 MILES.

Underneath that sign, the words: THE ONLY SIGN OF LIFE IN CLEVELAND

Can you see where my sports loyalty lies? 🙂

General – Slowing down a bit to look around

I’ve been rushing around the last few weeks, that I sometimes forget to stop and “smell the roses” as it were. As I put into my last post, just yesterday, I was busy with the Emmaus Walk the last two weeks. Now I have been doing very little and enjoying the beautiful weather.

Okay, I would enjoy more snow so that I could go skiing, but today with blue sky and the bright sunshine, I was almost in my March mode of wishing the snow away. I would like to get the snow out of my driveway and off of the roof of my house, though. Otherwise, Yesterday and today were great to just sit back and relax.

We all need to sit back and relax a bit though. I’ve gotten out of the practice of some of my comtemplative practices that I used to do, because of busyness. That’s not good, because it’s those practices that helped me slow down and be aware of God’s presence and how He is moving in my life. So, during this week of evenings, when I can wake up late and relax before going into work, I’m going to get back to my practices and make sure that I look to see and listen to what God has in mind for me.

General – Emmaus and Things afterward

I haven’t been able to get to the computer to put any thoughts as of late due to lots of schedule problems. Not because I get diverted by a certain woman that I happen to be seeing, although the diversion are really quite nice, but because I just finished up an Emmaus cycle. For those of you who don’t know what a Walk to Emmaus retreat is all about go here. My description of it will be rather mundane, but the actual retreat is one that truly draws one closer to God. I have seen some lives changed, and with my own Walk, it helped me move onto a new level of understanding. During the closing ceremonies of the women’s weekend this last Sunday, one of the pilgrims described it as a masters of God program crammed into a three day event. I would have to agree.

There was a time, when people thought that they needed to keep the weekend a secret, so that we wouldn’t spoil the surprises and they wouldn’t have any expectations about the weekend. However, in the past couple of years, especially, there has been a move afoot to open it up so that people didn’t think it was some kind of cult. There are no secrets about an Emmaus weekend. For the most part it is a series of 15 talks, that range from priorities to grace and the different facets of it. There is a lot of discussion and a few special things that the Emmaus community does to show Christ’s love to the pilgrims taking their walk.

The Walk to Emmaus is actually administered by the Upper Room. It got started by people in the United Methodist Church who had taken a Catholic Cursillo retreat (really the same thing just a different church doing it). The UMC gave it to the Upper Room to maintain and have it become ecumenical. So now, as one who sits on the board of directors of the local community I represent one of many churches in northeast Lower Michigan and portions of east Upper Michigan. I encourage everyone to take a walk, when they feel lead by God to do so. Mine was quite a time.

After the weekends were done, I went on day shifts and just trying to relax a bit before my next round of evening shifts (3pm to midnight) which start tomorrow.

Today was a good day for as I like to call it, decompression. I took care of a few things, and tried my hand at recording an audio tape onto my hard drive in mp3 format. That worked well. So now I can put our church’s Sunday service on the new church website which I hope to start tomorrow or Saturday.

At work, we are entering the pre-spring season, which is the run up to all of the specialized forecasts that we do from spring to fall, like fire weather (I am the program leader on this) and the marine forecasts for our nearshore waters. So I have been busy getting our Annual Operating Plan (AOP) ready for the spring meeting coming up at the end of the month and getting the meeting planned as well. This will be a busy couple of weeks, but not too bad. Oh yeah have to remember to schedule my SAWRS visits too…

Science and YM – God, Man, and tsunamis