Then, it was off to the rehearsal dinner.  It was stunning.  A semicircle room with an all glass outside wall with a picture-perfect view of the Mississippi River and Downtown Davenport.  The food was excellent, people were busy in conversations and greetings.  Amy and I got to distribute a bunch of gifts that we had tried to put some thought into for the people who are helping with the ceremony and such.  There was a time for some of our friends and family to toast us and I soaked it all in as though I were having an out of body experience.  Amy and I made small speeches and introduced a slideshow of our pictures from growing up and then together that a good friend who couldn’t be with us had put together.  As we finished, a major fireworks display began over the Mississippi for everyone to enjoy.  Stories were told and connections made throughout the evening.  We wound down and person after person commented on how beautiful and special the evening had been.  Amy and I commented to each other on just how lucky we are to share in so much love from all angles and all we could do was smile in in grace-washed humility.  I simply can’t wait for the fun to continue tomorrow.

Related posts:

1. 111630439740573714
2. 110480951839277117
3. Independence

No related posts.

Handicapped by a devastating view of what freedom is really all about, marriage is often portrayed as the end of freedom – think Seinfeld, Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, etc.  Here’s 3 reasons why, in opposition to that sort of notion, I am so excited to get married that all have to do with a new freedom I am about to embrace.

1) I don’t have any regrets from my season of singleness so I am free to embrace the adventure of marriage. I embraced, celebrated, and enjoyed my singleness.  Happily, I had good friends and mentors who taught me that singleness is a gift and should be treated as such as long as God grants it.  Shame on our culture (especially any Christian culture) for making people feel inferior for being single for as long they are able to embrace it as a gift.  Spend your single years pining away for a companion and you are all but destined to struggle with being married.

2) I don’t have to play the dating game anymore anymore so I am free to pursue God in the context of a covenanted relationship. I can’t count the number of couples that have spoken of marriage as a context which brought them face to face with their own selfishness and shortcomings like never before.  With all the guessing, ambiguity and semi-commitment of dating, this just doesn’t happen.  Again, fortunate enough to have come across people and books that dispelled lies about the purpose and aim of marriage, I am anxious to embrace marriage as a crucible toward Christlikeness.

3) Amy is not “The One” or “Mrs. Right” (since these only exist in fairy tale land), so I am free to never ask ridiculous questions like, “Did I marry the right person?” Don’t you love how freeing that is?!  The ability and opportunity trade in a cheap and shallow freedom along the lines of, “Well if this isn’t working I can always just bite the bullet and admit that I made the wrong decision,” for the true freedom of moving forward in the context of vows made and kept, is priceless to me.

And though it doesn’t pertain exactly to freedom, it’s nonetheless true that a big part of my excitement has much to do with the incredible woman who said, “Yes.”  To partner in life and ministry with Amy from here on out is the single most exciting thing that has ever happened to me.

Related posts:

1. The Pursuit OF and IN Marriage

OK, not quite yet really, but it’s coming quick.  For the last month and a half I have been staying in Amy’s apartment in Elgin while she stays with friends.

(mailman decided to add my name to the box since we only have 1 address)

So here I am in this apartment, surrounded by girl clothes, girl decorations, and all other manner of girl things and I think to myself, “Wow, girl stuff is not like boy stuff.”  And I am confronted with the startling (though welcome) reality that “mine” is becoming “ours,” “I” am becoming “us”, and “me” is becoming “we.”  You’d think that for who has lived independently as long as I have, this would cause me to break out into a cold sweat as I crawl around in the darkness of stress-induced blindness searching for a paperbag to calm my hyperventilating panic attack, but I am happy to report that this hasn’t been the case.  Why?  Mainly because Amy is just about the most amazing woman ever!

Seriously, Amy amazes me.  I have totally hijacked her apartment, separating her from all the comforts of a place you call your own while she stays in a simple bedroom with friends 20 minutes away.  She keeps most of her clothes and stuff that she needs on a daily basis largely in the trunk of her car since our lives are so sporadic and she never quite knows what she will need.  When we spend a day together, no matter how late we’re together, she’s the one that has to get in a car and make the drive home.  She works full-time while I look for work and do what I can to help plan for the wedding.  She does it all with a smile on her face and a bounce in her step.  She radiates grace and compassion and her presence is a constant reminder of God’s great love for the world and little ol’ me.  If you need any more evidence, here you go.

Case closed.  Amy is Wonderwoman… only cuter.

Related posts:

1. A Christmas Miracle
2. Chicago
3. Words Are Coming

Without equivocation or hesitation I fully and completely admit that I deny the resurrection of Christ. This is something that anyone who knows me could tell you, and I am not afraid to say it publicly, no matter what some people may think…

I deny the resurrection of Christ every time I do not serve at the feet of the oppressed, each day that I turn my back on the poor; I deny the resurrection of Christ when I close my ears to the cries of the downtrodden and lend my support to an unjust and corrupt system.

However there are moments when I affirm that resurrection, few and far between as they are. I affirm it when I stand up for those who are forced to live on their knees, when I speak for those who have had their tongues torn out, when I cry for those who have no more tears left to shed.

His perspective shows both the short comings of language and the shallowness of the things we typically consider most important.  This is indeed the sort of belief that I think the Bible calls us to.

Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete. (Lk. 6:46-49)

Some years ago, discussions and arguments regarding the inerrancy, infallability, inwhatever of Scripture ceased to be all that meaningful to me.  It’s difficult to see this as an incredibly meaningful debate to Jesus.  On the other hand, it’s easy for me to imagine God caring deeply about the extent to which we are seeking to bring our lives into harmony with the reality held out to us in the Bible.

I wonder who truly has the “higher” view of Scripture – the one who contends for its inerrancy or the one who demonstrates its truthfulness by the way they live?

If you’re really into this sort of discussion, feel free to have a glance at a paper I wrote on the topic of the opportunity afforded the Christian faith by the cultural turn toward Postmodernity here.

Related posts:

1. Friend of Emergent
2. Life on the Vine
3. Jesus – A Theological Deconstructionist

Inspiration: The Watsons
Music: ALO – Roses & Clover

No related posts.

Looking for work.

Looking for an apartment.

Integrating lives.

Getting rooted in a new community.

TAing a class.

Preparing to teach another.

Traveling to California.

Life has been busy – super great, but busy.  I am deeply regretting that I haven’t done a better job of captuiring, in words and pictures, more of Amy and I’s time of engagement.  So much is going on, so many plans being made, and so many stories are being created that I have simply gotten so caught up in trying to deeply experience and cherish it all that I haven’t taken the time to capture and reflect on it.  I hope to remedy this soon.  Stay tuned.

Related posts:

1. Chicago

Life on the Vine is a church community that I nearly moved just to be a part of about a year and a half ago before I accepted the invitation to pastor young adults at Living Hope in Memphis and Sunday was my first opportunity to attend a worship gathering with Amy.  It may have been one of the most meaningful worship gatherings I have ever been a part of.

Once a month the community gathers an hour before their regular meeting for a corporate time of celebrating the Lord’s Supper.  People gathered in the lobby area to meet and catch up.  An order of service was personally handed to each person as we were asked to prepare ourselves before entering the sanctuary.  Upon entering, each person recited, “He is risen” to one of the pastors who was handing out matches for each person to light a candle on their way in symbolizing the presence of Christ.  The service was a combination of prayer, silence, Scripture reading, and reflection.  Finally, we served communion to one another, offering the elements in a communal fashion as opposed to taking them individually.

There was a little bit of time inbetween the communion service and the regular worship gathering to meet some people.

What was most striking about the gathering of the LOV community was how intentional and theological all the elements of the gathering were.  Here were some of the most meaningful elements of the worship gathering.

To communicate our unity as a body and the communal nature of gathering, we sat in concentric circles, thus able to face one another rather staring at the back of peoples heads.  As opposed to people, the candles symbolizing the presence of Christ as well as the communion elements were intentionally placed at the center.  When people spoke, it was always from a side.

We were joined by all the children for the beginning of the service and when they were dismissed/blessed to their time together, not by a pastor, but by the entire community, they in turn blessed us in ours.

Scripture was read by both men and women, young and old from the four “corners” of the circle – surrounding us with the Word of God.

A weekly part of the gatherings at LOV is someone sharing a “story of wonder.”  A story of something God is doing in the life of a member or members of the community.

David Fitch offered the message for the morning.  Because the community gathers together at the same time, and because they understand the formational purpose of the gathered church, he was better able to bring the text for the morning into a direct intersection with the life of the community.

Prayers were offered at different times in the service and we were invited to personalize them out loud with our own thoughts and longings as the Spirit led.

The musicians stood in a corner of the room so as to help people devote their full attention to the words we were singing.  Songs were placed strategically within different elements of the service to serve either as preparation or response to something.

Perhaps the most meaningful part of the gathering came at the end.  As we sang a final song of joy and celebration, some children, a few with disabilities, spontaneously began to dance in a circle around the candles and communion elements at the center of the room.  They led as a few adults joined in with them. Truly beautiful.

I can’t even begin to tell you about all the various artistic elements that enhanced the space we met in or the service we participated in.  Really, the whole thing was like living art, not the sort that can only be enjoyed by overtly artistic people (hello?!), but the sort that connects with the creative part of God’s image in which we’re made.

The fact that Life on the Vine embraces a more participatory form of gathering as a community really contributes to their identification as a missional church community and after finishing up another year as a pastor on staff at a church, I am really looking forward to rediscovering my identity as a “normal” part of a church community.

Related posts:

1. Going Public
2. Childcare or Kingdom Community?
3. Chicago and Seeding Missional Communities