soon....

New posts comming every Wednesday starting August 20th!

--Serving Him alongside all of you, just from further away
--Jesse Letourneau

more muppets and some Jesus

So its been a while since I have written.  There is so much swirling in my head these days, I don't know what I hold to, and I certainly don't know what to say/write.

I just came across this quote from Paul Williams (long time colaberator with the Muupets) about the Rainbow Connection:
"I think that was Jim (Henson)'s message.  I think Jim’s message was not that I’m special, but that you’re special."

This to me sums up what I am learning here at seminary.  Chrisitanity with all its doctrines and dogmas, all its creeds and creditentials, is basically about how we see the "other."

Do we see them as other, as alien, foreign to us until they speak rightly, act rightly, think rightly.  Is it only when criteria are met that we can fellowship with them?

Is the "other" the one without, the one in need, the marganilized, the one I have to help, because I have all the answers?  I must have all the answers, I seem to have all the resources... again do we have to make them like us before we can understand them?

Or is the other the one who is loved by God?

Is the other the one who is marked with sin and yet washed in His blood?  Is the other just like me?  Loved by God, yet feeling alone, confused and full of shame.  Does the other need the physical representation of God (you know the Church) to not just speak truth but show truth?  To accept their wounds, their dirt, their sin, their core.  To wash and heal, to bind and repair, but to do so without worrying how they got this way.

Is Christianity maybe not about me, but about you, and about how special you are?
For God so loved the Church the world that he gave his only son...

--Serving Him alongside all of you, just from further away
--Jesse Letourneau

full article

A Year (and a half) Ago

A year and a half a ago I knew one thing...
I had been accepted to NPU Seminary
Today I know one thing....
I have been called to give children voice in the Kingdom of God.

--Serving Him alongside all of you, just from further away
 --Jesse Letourneau

but that's okay

So, I am learning (slowly) to sit with things.  To know that the presence of something doesn't mean that it has dominance or power.  It doesn't mean that this thing will last forever or will never be defeated.  It doesn't mean that a contradictory thing, thought, or even action changes my reality.

          I have fear
          but that is okay


          I have doubt
          but that is okay


          I have no idea what September holds
          but that is okay


          I not know where my next step lies.
          should i look for a pastoral position?


          should i take a year off and simply live my life apart from titles and artificial authority?
          should i stay in school and gain more training?


          there is no sign
          there is no peace
          but that is okay

          stress
          pain
          uncertainty
          but that is okay

None of those things change that I am loved, called, and equipped by God.  They can cloud and distort, they bring confusion to the path-but they change not my reality. 



--Serving Him alongside all of you, just from further away
--Jesse Letourneau

the return

I began this journey of seminary just over a year and a half ago. I knew exactly what I wanted, exactly how long it would take, and what the "end" would look like. Now, not so much. Oh sure there are ideas of what I want, how long it will take, and even what the "end" will look like. The word exactly, however: it no longer is used to define my plans. As many of you may have noticed I haven't written a blog in well over three months. It's not that I didn't have anything to say, its just that I didn't know how to say it. And so, as it was in the past, I didn't write because I didn't know exactly what to say. And as in the past, I am going to simply write and see what happens. So here is train of thought entry number (whatever it is now, like 5 I think).

First the concrete: I can graduate in May with an MACF (Masters in Christian Formation). But I won't be doing that. Instead, I am going to spend the summer doing CPE (Clinical Pastoral Experience). The short version of CPE is that it is an internship as a Chaplin at a hospital. (It is much more than that, but we will talk more about CPE when I know what my particular assignment looks like.)

I am currently working at a church in Children's Ministry. In May that will end. CPE will begin around then, and I will move out of the apartment next door to the church in August. And then...

I don't know what happens next. The ideal would be for a bucket of money to fall from the sky and I continue my education as an MDiv student (Master of Divinity). I have felt a calling to stay in seminary and become better equipped to pastor when I leave. Of course doing school and life without a finical plan is possible. And God can provide. My current (incredibly blessed) situation attests to that.

When I came to North Park all I knew is that God had called me here, and that when God calls, God equips. So with two bags of clothes and text books bought by an old friend/colleague. I boarded a plane and flew to Chicago.

Now all I know is that God can provide, but I am not sure what it is I want, or even what I need. I don't know if I want an MDiv or a job next (neither are guaranteed, and neither are available as a simple matter of discerning and choosing a path-which in and of its self is a long story not really appropriate for the itnerwebs.

More importantly, I don't know what God has for me next (job or MDiv).

The future scares me. Relying on God scares me. Seeing myself as worthy of whatever incredible provision God will provide next, scares me. What I know is that I have a great job.

What I know is I have access to a semester more of graduate level education. What I know is that I have a summer experience that will stretch and grow me personally and professionally.

What I know is that God has a plan.
For now that's enough.
Pray with me that it will be exactly enough for now.

 --Serving Him alongside all of you, just from further away
 --Jesse Letourneau

My second sixth birthday.

Last week I turned 35.

Last week I saw an old friend that I hadn't seen in close to 20 years.

Last week I learned a little bit more about myslef, and this friend reminded me that I am who I am suppose to be just by being myself.

But before we get there, we have to go back to the day I first met him.

I entered Kindergarten at the age of five.  And I had just one friend.  His name was Justin.  Justin and I did everything together.  We played together, did art together, we ate lunch together.  Justin was my closest friend.  Justin was my only friend.  Then one fall day, Justin moved away.  I remember my teacher telling me this would happen.  I remember my partents warning me that school would be different with out my confidant there.  The next school day I would turn six.  (Actually, this probally happened closer to October or November, but I am trying to build some symetry here.)

I remember that day.  I rememberr standing at the back of the room looking out at all the toys, looking at all the art supplies, looking at all the other kids, and having absolutely no ideas what I was suppose to do.  I didn't know how to interact without Justin there.  So I simply stood and stared.

Then a kid named Adam Kline bounded into my life.  He came over and we played together.  We did art together, we ate lunch together.  We did everything together.  Adam and I grew up together.  We spent as much time together as we did with our own biological brothers.  Adam was my closest friend.  He taught me that the best way to have friends is to be a friend.  He was the one that introuduced me to comic books.  Adam was the one who first saw something unique and good in me.  (He said of all the Avengers (our template for how the world worked) that I was most like the moral and upright Captain America.  This was the first time someone saw something good in me before I saw it in myslef.)

Then junior high hit.  Adam moved across town and went to a new school.  Then highschool hit, followed by college.  I moved out of our hometown.  Adam stayed.  Somewhere in the middle of all this we lost touch with each other.  We knew more or less what the other one was doing, but with few exceptions we now lived seperate lives.

Last week Golden Shoulders of Nevada City, California played in Chicao, Illinois.  Adam Kline is the front man for said band.  They were playing on my 35th birthday (this time it was in fact the actual day).  There was no way I was not going to see this show and miss a chance to hang out with Adam Kline once a gain.

I grew up in a culture of Christianity that was conservative in every since of the word.  Good people, who love God, but they saw a closed world, with closed theology, which often lead to closed off missions and closed off lives.  I have found the typical reaction to this form of religiousity is to either accpet it lock, stock, and barrell, questioning nothing, and accepting closed theology and a closed off life; or to throw the cross out with the conservative bathwater (if I can mix and mangle my metaphors).

As I look around my predominatley liberal Christian culutre here in seminary, I wonder if I am the only one who grew up as I did, the only one who still sees the value in absolutes, but doesn't hold them absolutely.

Speaking with Adam after the show I found out that I wasn't alone.  I was assured that there was someone else who had taken the same journey that I had.  I was comfrted to talk with someone who had sifted and weighed what we were taught as children and held on the good, held on the truths, held onto the cross, but has left behind that which can led to a closed off life.

The title of this entry is "My second sixth birthday."  It is taken in part from the idea presented in this comic, that breaks life into seven year chunks.  At "35" I am just beginning my sixth life.  (I fudged the timeline of when I first met Adam, to be able to get away with saying):

So I spent my second sixth birthday as I spent my first: learning from a guy named Adam Kline that
I don't have to stand at the back of the room and stare at the new toys and wonder where I fit with the new kids.  I am who I am suppsoe to be.  And more importantly, I am who I am just by being myself.

--Serving alongside all of you, just from further away,
--Jesse Letourneau

I want my flying car...

...and a hover board!