Innovate Church Conference

One thing I love about LU:


We woke up one morning in April and this picture was outside our door. Someone used chalk graffiti to inspire others to release tension and anxiety in the most stress-filled time in the year. Seriously? Brilliant! Creative justice at work in the hands of a college student. We could change the world.

Another I love, today I'm at Innovate Church Conference at TRBC and I'm getting to hear Francis Chan! If I could take more time off work today I'd hear Ed Stetzer too, but most likely he'll tweet most of what he's going to say anyway.

Both positive and negative, Lynchburg, VA is a spiritual incubator. For now, it's positive.

It's Been Awhile, This is Fitting

While trying to come up with a good reason why we haven't posted on our blog since March, I came across this video from Brian McLaren through another blogger:



This video reminds me of 3 things:
1. I remember when a girl at Greenfield told me that God sending Jesus to die for our sins sounded like child abuse. I had no answer.
2. I cannot wait to see my nephews next week in Kentucky for our family camping trip. Little boys like this are cute, no matter what.
3. Our God is greatly mysterious and in that mysteriousness He is good. Zapping or not.

Reasons We Love Virginia

We took a small hike on Sunday afternoon and stumbled on these sites. These pictures represent reasons that we love Virginia.

Good education:

Fun people to be with:

Beautiful scenery (isn't Rachel a great photographer?):

Sleeping beauties:

Obstacles to overcome:

Women that work out:

Crabtree Falls, Sunday. Good times. If you visit, we'll take you on a hike. A great hike.

if you could remember...

Rachel said to me on our snow day, "Hey, do you want to go Shara's to see Kaleb play in the snow?" I wasn't too excited about it, but I said, "Yeah, let's do it." I wish I had seen this coming...




Shara taught him how to eat it and he wasn't concerned with anything else. He just kept eating it, sitting in it and eating it. They tried to make create a snow angel... didn't work. He just kept doing this:

travel

World travelers we are not. But, we'd like to get out more often. People are our reasons for escape.

Last weekend: Chicago, IL
This weekend: Statesville, NC
Next weekend: Lynchburg, VA
28th weekend: Joshua's Men Retreat (???)

-then-

April! Wow, things are looking forward right now but a bit stressful. I think Rach and I will keep sane if we keep our friends and families close.

Future trips:
June '09: Kentucky
July '09: Anniversary (???)
October '09: Connecticut

So, let's try an experiment. After you read this post call Rachel or me and tell your favorite city to visit and why... Ready, go, call, now!

a tremendous outlook on the Evangelical

I am no theological scholar by trade, but a reader in general. My hope swells when I read things like this by Mark Galli:

"What I will do, to my dying day, is work with anyone who knows he was lost but now is found, whose Bible is worn because she repeatedly looks there for God to speak, who finds the Cross the most meaningful of symbols, for whom the Resurrection is not just a doctrine but a power, and who wants nothing more than to find new and creative ways to share the evangel of Jesus in word and deed. I'll work with these people no matter what scholars decide to call them."

Another great paragraph from this article:

"One of those dynamics is that evangelicals on the ground, in our better moments at least, care less about our "movement" and more about "the evangel," the Good News of Jesus Christ. If the constellations of individuals and groups that have constituted the cultural shape of evangelicalism were to disappear, most of us would quickly move on. Because we know that would hardly signal the end of evangelicalism."

Q: is this possible in a day of market branding and celebrity poster children defining themselves more by the brands they follow than the values they hold? (Example: "Oh, that's the guy that rides the bike, right? Isn't he the one with the yellow shoes that beat cancer in order to win some competition seven times?" Brands: LiveStrong, Cancer Survivor, and Tour de France. Values Ignored: divorce, integrity in sports, and right speaking.)

Your thoughts?

Chicago and Uncertainty

It appears that there has been a lot of uncertainty already in this trip to the Midwest. This appearance has ruminated from my gut and continues to cut at my confidence the closer we get to Monday.

We're currently planning on visiting the campus of a school here in Chicago to look at their Rhetoric and Public Culture program. Rachel and I have discussed taking our interest in university life to the next level and pursuing a PhD that would allow us to teach world-round, hopefully. My uncertainty is shooting so high that the sky might reject my ammunition and drop it back on my head. In a dizzy whirlwind of rejection I'd then only be left trying to pick up pieces and make sense of what does not. I guess that's faith.

Pray for us this weekend and in the coming weeks about how we're going to address our next steps. Our discussion in the airport yesterday concluded with a resolve something like this: We just want to put our full selves into the next adventure as if it is the adventure we are going to be defined by for the rest of our lives, and we don't want to start something in anticipation of starting the next thing shortly after that. We want to be all in and put all of our creative efforts into accomplishing that thing.

Onward into the unknown. This feeling now makes me think of Moses compared to the people of Israel in Exodus 20:18-21:
"Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and said to Moses, 'You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.' Moses said to the people, 'Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.' The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was."

Onward to thick darkness, albeit pretty dark.