Today is the real Groundhog Day. Do you know why? Because today I saw a groundhog (two, in fact) for the first time this year! Yes that’s right, the groundhogs have come out of their snug little hibernating hidey-holes! I am so excited, because this means that spring has actually come at last to us winter beladen folks in the northeast! Woohoo! THREE CHEERS FOR GROUNDHOGS!!!!!!

Good news this week: we received our financial aid award letters from GCTS and we got the Team Ministry Grant. Meaning, my tuition is completely covered. (Well, not if I take classes above and beyond my program, of course, but covered for what I need.) Awesome!

We still have Calvin’s half to figure out how we’re going to manage, and since we qualified for the Team Ministry Grant, he can’t receive any other aid directly from the school (it is after all a sizable chunk they’re giving us!), but he can still receive all the third-party scholarships and grants. Which, right now, we have none of…but, hopefully we can dredge up a few as time goes on. Of course, seeing as he’s a white male, he’s at a disadvantage (sorry Calvin…you’re a majority!).

If the last stage of my life was characterized by the refining attribute of “patience,” then I have a feeling the next stage will be be dubbed “faith.” I don’t know if that makes me feel much better…!

I have been hurt by the church. I have seen and felt more than I wished. My once naive, trusting spirit is forevermore tainted. I am jaded. I am cynical.

But there is a line between cynicism and bitterness. There is a line between realism and almost an arrogance in one’s jadedness. At times I wonder if I am dangerously close to that line. Sometimes I wonder if I cross it. If I am wondering, it is time to take a step back and confess.

My heart must never grow hard and cold. I must never throw up cynicism and criticism as a wall for my own pain. That speaks of bitterness, which is my own heart problem, and no one else’s. I have been out of the fellowship of the body for far too long. I have begun to see myself as no longer a part of them, no longer one of them, and thus given myself the right to judge them, and in doing so have brought judgment upon myself.

I had dealt with my hurt long ago - only to find it manifest itself in this new way recently. I think this is a projection of my growing desperation for that missing community with the body of Christ in my life. Classic “lash out to cover your need” syndrome.

I will always be a little cynical, because of the wounds I’ve been dealt by the church thus far, and because of the vast distance I feel from Evangelicalism™. But instead of allowing myself to become calloused and harsh, I should allow my wounds to let me bleed for others, that I might not become that which I so despise. This is my confession.

My heart knows no words for this horrific tragedy, yet thousands will be spilled in the coming days as America tries to make sense of how, yet again, something like this could have happened.

And in the coming weeks, fear, excitement, vengeance, blamecasting, mixed no doubt with a varying levels of human compassion, will grip the hearts of millions as they turn their eyes toward 24 hour news to hear the story rehashed a hundred different ways from a hundred different people.

Hungry for an answer from Fox News, CNN, or NBC.

My heart aches for the people involved in tragedies such as these, as it does every time I hear a news story of a sad nature. My heart also aches for those not directly involved, so desperately needing a reason.

May God give his people the grace to reach past their own weaknesses and doubts to embrace the world with Christ’s love.

As some may know, especially those of us lucky enough to be in the northeast, we had a little bit of a storm come through here last night and today. It’s April and it’s snowing outside. Yes, we were in that big blob of white surrounded by the big circling mass of green up there in the northeast. Does winter ever end up here? Just when I thought the groundhogs might come out…

Anyways, we had an hour or two of excitement when we got home from work as the power was out. Well, I wouldn’t call it excitement, more like annoyance. The house was freezing cold, I was starving and was looking forward to watching Stargate: Atlantis! All that aside, after eating turkey sandwiches and curling up on the couch with a blanket, Calvin and I just read for a little while to the quiet ticking of the only battery operated clock in our house until the electricity came back on.

Whenever the power goes out, the silence that ensues thereafter always brings about a certain amazement as to how incredibly noisy houses are and we never even realize it. I was startled out of my reading revere by the distinct sound of the electricity coming on. You may say that makes no sense, or you may know just what I’m talking about! Though the events happened quite simultaneously, I could pick out the distinct noises popping on all around the house. The furnace kicked on, the fish tank bubbled to life, the printer announced its return upstairs with a whir, and the refrigerator hummed happily again. I heard little electronic clicks and barely perceivable whines around the living room, which faded to nothingness as suddenly as they registered in my ears, as various electronic devices surged with power again, accompanied by their little glowing red and orange eyes. The quiet tick, tick, tick of the battery operated clock suddenly seemed drowned out by the noise that was suddenly generated by electricity.

Then, before I even really had time to think all of what I just wrote (sort of like Jonah and his supposed fantastic poem on the way down) it all seemed normal again, not noisy, not loud, just normal. It occurs to me how much we must really take for granted true silence in our busy, noisy, modern lives. How often do we really hear silence - or even just the raw sounds of unadulterated, untouched life? Can we sit in a field and just listen to the call of a songbird in the distance, without the swoosh of a car on a nearby road, or music blaring from an iPod stuck in our ear? Can we hear the rustle of the wind in the trees on a starry night, with only an owl for company? Can we meditate in a dark cave, and hear only the drop of water echoing in the depths?

Or would we get bored? Would I get bored? Given my negative reaction to the loss of my electricity, I rather think I might. Yet there is something within me that yearns to be in such a place. Something that thinks I may find God there, in the quietness, in the silence, in the peace. But perhaps I don’t need to go sit in a field or forest or cave to find it.

Today I had the opportunity to attend the Northeast chapter meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, since it was being held at my alma mater. The keynote speaker was Eddie Gibbs from Fuller Theological Seminary on the topic of the Emerging Church.

It was a $25 well spent. Dr. Gibbs is of course an older gentleman and rambled a little at times, but he has a great British accent (which alone was worth the money!) and more importantly, he had a lot of great thoughts about the emerging church “phenomenon” as he called it. He’s of course quite adamant that what we are doing now in typical churches isn’t working. To set up his presentations he gave a lengthy introduction to our culture in the past and now, and how the church had dealt with it in the past and now. And while I don’t know if much of what he spoke about was necessarily “new” to me, it was needed for his topic, and it gave food for thought for the discussion Calvin and I had with some friends and Dr. Snyder in the cafe while we skipped the second paper reading session.

The second presentation by Dr. Gibbs moved beyond the setup and to what the emerging church looks like, not meaning what a specific local church looks like but what the mindset of the emerging church in general is. How it functions broadly in relation to culture and people, touching on evangelism, discipleship, etc (having defined our culture and its radical shift in the previous presentation). Calvin, who beat me to blogging about this, already discussed an interesting point he brought up at the very end about the relation of the emerging church and traditional churches, which I wish Gibbs would have had more time to elaborate on, but unfortunately he was squeezed for time and had to wrap up quickly.

Gibbs is very passionate about being missional and I can get on board with that. I look forward to reading some of his stuff.

All in all, a good day!

This year was the first year in my entire life that I actually seriously considered doing Lent. Then it sort of snuck up on me in the midst of other things and I missed it. Since we don’t go to a church that advocates it (in fact, since we’re not really connected to “our” church at all) it’s hard to feel motivated to celebrate much of anything Christian in the way of holidays. It only accentuates that which I know to be true so deeply: without the body of Christ, my faith (and by my faith, I mean my religion) is only halfway complete. My starvation began a while ago just for true connection with other believers, fellowship, per say, and has grown into more. The coming and going of the Easter season has forced me into a contemplative mood of wishing I had a church to celebrate with. Even more - wishing I had a church that treated it as more than a one day event in the life of a Christian. Let me start at the beginning.

When I think of Easter and my childhood it conjures up memories of Easter baskets with chocolate bunnies, coloring hardboiled eggs, going out to buy a new Easter dress for Easter Sunday with my mother, singing Easter hymns, visiting grandma and company with ham and sweet potatoes, and getting palm branches the Sunday before. I’m sure that many can relate. Though I grew up in a Christian home, never in all my existence did anyone ever suggest to me that I might want to participate in Lent. That was that “Catholic” thing. Never did anyone ever suggest to me that the time leading up to Easter could be used as a prolonged period of worship in the church body and a time to meditate and grow closer to God myself in a different way. Never did anyone ever suggest to me that Easter might be about Christians worshiping Jesus, not evangelism.

We were alone this Easter, for the first time in our lives. We have always been with family, but this year it just didn’t work out. So we went to church. Like we’re supposed to. Like we do (most) every Sunday. I didn’t buy an Easter dress. I didn’t color Easter eggs. No chocolate. We had tacos for lunch, and ordered pizza for dinner.

My church was packed. My church is normally big, but yesterday my church had overflow seating set up, where the service was broadcast. A nice old lady greeted me with an extra big kindly smile at the door and instructed me to take a plastic cross with “He is Risen 2007!” scrawled in silver writing on it. A nice old man shook my hand ferociously with a big extra happy smile, boomed, “Happy Easter!” Understand, “my” church is far too big for anyone to know if I’m a visitor or regular attender or not. Another nice, younger lady greeted me at the sanctuary door and handed me a bulliten. Same routine. I’ve never had anyone be quite this vivaciously cheerful towards me at “my” church before.

We found our seats, and loud, contemporary, rocky music was playing. When the time ticked down, the worship leader, extra perky I felt, bounded onto stage and welcomed all of us there. We then opened with a french horn and trumpet Eastern hymn medley. We then sang some Easter hymns. I looked around. Normally we don’t sing hymns. That’s okay. I don’t mind hymns. I noticed lots more grey hairs than normal. In nice pretty Easter dresses. Then suddenly, as if we were now done placating those grey hairs who showed up just for today, we decided to say, “Now, this is what we really are!” And the music started rocking. The music was particularly loud yesterday. Contemporary “Jesus lives” praise songs bounced off the walls. I eyed the young couple standing next to me. They didn’t seem impressed. I eyed the grey haired couple in front of us. They definitely didn’t seem impressed. Hmm. They brought out a choir to sing to one of the songs, and they stayed throughout. I got all excited for a second! I thought they were gonna start dancing! At least something exciting would happen. But then I was deflated. Got a little bounce going, but just couldn’t quite get the shoulder action……Then the message. Not much to say there.

Last week was Palm Sunday. I gotta give them credit. They really tried. They did two monologue dramas, one of which was part of communion. They changed things around. Did the sermon in two parts. Stuff like that. I even felt that they were really trying to lead people in an attitude of worship. Trying to get them to contemplate Christ’s sacrifice in new way. I was even moved. This week was Easter Sunday. It was obvious what they did this week. The crowds are coming, let’s show them how cool they are. It smacked of insincerity and ingenuiness. Call me cynical, but after that service, my memories of Easter Sunday came flooding back to me in a whole new way.

Easter Sunday. The day when the heathen come flooding into church for their one day a year church spot. Unless they hit Christmas too. We’ve got them eating out of the palm of our hands, they’ve come to us, let’s get them NOW! And it turns into an evangelistic outreach, instead of a day for Christians to worship Jesus Christ, our Savior, the culmination of a great reflective, yet celebratory period of time in the Christian faith. That’s ’cause for a lot of denominations, it’s not a culmination of anything, just like I remember growing up. Heaven forbid that we evangelize by living our lives out around those same people throughout the rest of the year. Let’s just wait till they come Easter Sunday. Heaven forbid that if they should come Easter Sunday, they should see the church being the church, worshiping in spirit and in truth, instead of putting on a fake show for them so they see how “cool” we are. Even if we don’t give an altar call, if they came to our church this Sunday, they’ll be sure to know that we’re not the boring old stodgy churches down the street, no we rock Christianity! (And we can throw some hymns in for you old people too…)

I may be judging “my” church too harshly. I don’t want to judge the hearts of the people who put together the Easter Sunday worship service. I don’t want to suggest that they tried to be insincere, or that everyone even perceived it that way. Part of it is my own cynicism and my generational longings coming out for something different. But I do know that I’ve never actually been to a church that didn’t try to somehow turn Easter Sunday into an evangelistic thing (even if there was no “altar call” per say) because they knew a ton of people would be coming. I don’t know if that’s what “my” church was trying to do, because I’m no where near the leadership team, but that’s what it felt like compared to their normal services, especially compared to what they did last week.

Don’t change what you do because people might be watching. Do we want people to watch? Of course. But we want them to watch and like what they see. If you’re changing, are you afraid they won’t? Is not the message of the cross more powerful than a few loud songs? What message does that send?