Exiled Community

The Weekend That Was: This past weekend was pretty nice. On Friday, Andrea and I stayed home and hung out with the little munchkin. On Saturday, a Nor’Easter came through, so it rained a lot. We were still able to go on a family bike ride. We also went out for dinner together, which was nice. I only get three hours sleep on Saturday night because I was stressing about some things coming up work wise. Sunday worship was good. We announced our leadership pledges for our capital campaign. While people clapped, there was a brief moment of hesitation before clapping…so i don’t know if that meant anything. It’s kinda strange doing a captial campaign when the government is planning a 700 billion dollar rescue of many banks. We certainly didn’t forsee that!

Church Review: As I mentioned above, church went pretty well. One of our members shared her testimony of how God has provided for her. It was really moving! It is so amazing to hear the stories of regular people and how God is working in their lives. Testimonies are such an excellent medium for shairng the realities of God’s hand at work in our lives.

Where I Am At the Moment: I’m in my office on a Tuesday (retro-actice MMUpdate.).

On My To-Do List This Week: Besides seminary work, I have two retreats that I am incharge of over the next two weeks. I am doing preparations for that. I am also beginning working on a sermon series called iWorship that will look at some different facets of worsip and take a look at what worship should be.

What Abbie is Up To This Week: This girl is too cute. On Wednesday, I was at seminary. Abbie brings out a picture of me, shows it to Andrea, and then gives it a kiss. Later, when I call them, I speak with Abbie on the phone and she says hi to me (first time saying hi to someone on the phone). When Andrea pulled the phone away, she reaches out and gives me a kiss over the phone. Too cute!

Book I am in the Midst Of: See last week’s list.

Music That Caught My Attention This Week: Too busy to listen to new music this week. I
listened to The Robbie Seay Band to get ready for worship. They are great!

How I Feel About this week: Can’t wait until the next two weeks are over!

The Weekend That Was: Talk about a busy week. I am mostly in the church office on Monday, Tuesday and part of Wednesday before heading to seminary. I had a District Clergy meeting on Tuesday of last week, which put an iron in my week. The week flew by. Our new youth pastor, Steven Wiseman, arrived on Tuesday and moved into his new place on Wednesday. We had Steven and his family over for dinner on Friday, which was a lot of fun. The weekend was a combination of busy and lazy. I didn’t have a lot of school work, so I took a little break from that. One annoying note, because I live in Sussex County in Delaware, my two CBS stations were carrying the Browns-Ravens game rather than the Steelers-Eagles game. Andrea and I have had that game marked on our calendar for some time now. It was frustrating not to watch…although Pittsburgh lost.

Church Review: Church went pretty well. We are in the middle of our capital campaign. Our lay leader shared a testimony of the importance that Avenue Church has played in her life and faith development. It was moving to hear her story.

Where I Am At the Moment: Counting down the minutes until 12:30 b/c that’s when I’m going to lunch. I’m hungry! Otherwise I’m in my office right now.

On My To-Do List This Week: This week is “get-ahead” week. I have no seminary projects, so I have been doing my reading and working on projects that are due 2-3 weeks out. I am going to have to work ahead as much as possible to stay up on this semester.

What Abbie is Up To This Week: To teeth or not to teeth, that is the questions. Abbie is giving us signs of working on her incisors/molars…but then again, we’ve seen some of those signs since the first of July. On Saturday, I get her up from her nap and told her we were going outside to the playground…to which her reply was, “Oh Wow!” To cute for words.

Book I am in the Midst Of: I thought I would share a few books that I have to read for seminary. Here are four out of around 17 books that I have to read this semester.

• Living God- Thomas Oden (Systematic Theology)
• Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology- Ruether (Systematic Theology)
• Grasping God’s Word- Duvall and Hayes (Biblical Interpretation)
• World Methodism- Cracknell and White (Methodist History)

Music That Caught My Attention This Week: Too busy to listen to new music this week. I listened to The Robbie Seay Band to get ready for worship. They are great!

How I Feel About this week: Relaxed.

The Weekend That Was: It was a mixed bag on the weekend. On Friday, I was off (which is good) and was trying to get a buch of work for seminary done and my brand new laptop crashed (which is not good). So I spent a good deal of time with the manufacturer to ensure that it did, in fact, crash. Now I am waiting for them to send shipping stuff to send it away. We all went to New Jersey on Friday. Andrea went to the Women of Faith conference with her mom, while I stayed at the Logan’s with Abbie. Saturday was alright. Hanging out with Abbie was good. Trying to read systematic theology was rough. Sunday was nice in that it was kinda lazy. Seeing the Steelers beat up on the Browns is always good.

Church Review: We had our first official 11:07 service yesterday. It went well. Since we have 2 services going on at the same time, and an important capital campaign, we recorded the 9:30 sermon to DVD and show it at 11:07 since Earle was in the sanctuary at the traditional service. That went pretty well. (There are tons of churches that do that every week) We began a new young married couples Bible Study last night as well and it is off to a good start. Out of the couples there, Andrea and I are the oldest..which is kinda scary.

Where I Am At the Moment: I should be at the gym, but it is so hard to make it to the gym and back and then get to work on time. I know, I’m pretty good at rationalizing.

On My To-Do List This Week: Nothing backbreaking…although I need to continue to be diligent in my seminary work. Our new youth pastor arrives this week, so I will be making myself available as much as possible.

What Abbie is Up To This Week: Abbie is continuing to increase her vocab. When we say “Amen” after prayers at meals or before bed, Abbie says “Amen” as well. Pretty cute.

Book I am in the Midst Of: I am dropping this one from the list, unless I run into a really good book on my seminary reading list. I won’t be doing much recreational reading for awhile. I did pick up “The Shack” the other day, but I can’t see myself reading it before Christmas.

Music That Caught My Attention This Week: Alright, I listened to some new music thanks to Relevent TV being back on the web. I have been listening to Lady Sovreign all week long. She is from the UK and is better than 99% of the rappers here in the states. Very catchy. It stays in my head all day long.

How I Feel About this week: Optimistic for a good week.

I have started this blog four times now and the words to express or convey the disappointment I experienced this week are not forming. It’s tough when you get the cold shoulder from a colleague you have known, respected, and impacted by for years. Talk about a rough day on Wednesday. But, life goes on and I have to figure out what to do with the matter.

I have chosen not to write too many politcal things here in my blog, but today I will be writing a little. This is such a unique election year where we have the opportunity to have either the first African-American President or the First Female Vice President. In a country that believes in the equality of all people- it is about time that we have the opportunity to elect someone other than a white male.

Dan Kimball, in his blog Vintage Faith writes about how Conservative Christians are excited about the nomination of Sarah Palin for Vice President because of her Christian Values, Pro-life stance, and other various reasons. You can his blog here. Dan’s point is an interesting one. If John McCain is elected president and Sarah Palin becomes Vice President, we recognize that Palin will become president and lead 300 million people if McCain is unable to do his duties as president. Kimball’s point is this, while Palin could logically become the leader of 300 million people, she could still not preach in many of our conservative denominations pulpits. These are churches who believe that only men can teach or preach.

This is an interesting question to consider. How will churches who refuse to open the pulpit to women who exhibit gifts and calling from God deal with a woman Vice President who could possibly become President? It could open up some interesting conversation!

It’s been sixteen years since the Pittsburgh Pirates last had a winning season. They now share the record in American Professional Sports with the Philadelphia Phillies from many years ago. Sixteen years. I was 14 years when the Pirates last had a winning season. It was teams of Bonds, Bonilla, Drabek, Smiley, etc. I have this lasting image of Sid Bream sliding into home ahead of a Barry Bonds throw to steal the Game 7 and a chance to go to the World Series away from the Pirates. Then all of a sudden- the Pirates are the laughing stock of the league.

I have had some good Pirate memories since 1992. I was present in Three Rivers Stadium when Francisco Cordove and Ricardo Rincon combined for a 10 inning no-hitter that Mark Smith won with a walk-off homerun. I also believe that the Pirates have won the 3 out of the last 4 games I have seen. It’s great to see the Pirates and Phillies play one another with my in-laws when the Pirates win!

Why do I cheer for the Pirates? It’s partially out of habit. It’s partially out of loyalty. I really don’t know. But I am not sure I want my daughter (or subsequent children) to be Pirate fans as they may never see winning baseball.

the weekend that was: I began back at seminary this past week. It was great to see some friends who I haven’t seen since May. Seminary is a combination of a lot of reading, decent discussions, and some good friends. The drive up to seminary was almost unbearable as my air conditioning does not work and it was over 90 degrees outside. It’s a 2 hour ride up to school!

Church Review: We had our fall kick-off services outside under a tent. This is our fourth year for doing it. We had a beautiful morning for the services even though Tropical Storm Hannah had just come through the day before. Earle started a four week series called “Journey of Faith” as we enter into our capital campaign. It all went pretty well.

where i am at the moment: I am at home when I should be working out at the gym. It is so hard to get to the gym and back on staff meeting days. I’ll be trying to get to the gym this afternoon.

On to-do list this week: I need to do some reading for school and finish a paper that is almost done. I also need to meet with some leaders who are taking over some new leadership positions in the church.

What Abbie is up to: Abbie is back to being silly. Her vocabulary is also growing. She is beginning to repeat more and more words. Some of them are hard to distinguish, but they are there. It’s pretty exciting.

book i’m in the midst of: I finished the John Marks book I’ve been working on and hope to put up a brief review about it later this week.

music that seemed to catch my attention this past week: I might drop this line. I hardly listen to new music anymore. My iPod rarely gets loaded with new music. (That’s because it’s full!)

How I feel about this week: I’m looking forward to the week. It should be a good one.

One word- School. Uggh.

This is the first week back for many students for school, and that includes me. I have just begun year number 3 out of 5 in working towards my Master’s of Divinity degree. Each week this means that I pack up my stuff and drive 1 hour and 45 minutes to Philadelphia for my classes. My classes are over two consecutive days, so I spend the night at Andrea’s parents house.

My normal semester in the past would be 2-3 classes. That’s a pretty managable work load (because I am still full-time Pastor and Husband/Dad) and it comes close to getting me done in 5 years. I registered for three classes for this semester…and then, for some reason, I let my friend talk me into added a fourth class. I don’t know what I was thinking. In reality, I don’t think that the fourth class will be too much more work…and it give me 8 units this semester instead of 4 or 6.

So here is the class breakdown:

Wednesday:
Counseling Skills for the Local Pastor- teaching effective tools for clergy counseling. I hope this class stays practical, because I could use some practical help in this area. People are always coming to the church looking for help, and at times, I feel a little helpless in what to offer them.

Bibical Interpretations: Our professor for this class, Craig Keener, is really good and really funny. He’s written several commentaries that I already have. This should be a great class.

Thursday:
Methodist History- Required by the UM Church for those seeking ordination. I’m trying to keep an open mind about this one. I know there is a lot one can learn from our history and heritage…but my concern is that in the UM Church we are more concerned about our history and heritage than we our about proclaiming the gospel.

Systematic Theology I- This is going to be my toughes class. We’re going to be discussing different theological views of God, Creation, Sin, etc. This leads into Systematics II next semester.

Those are the classes. On my Monday Morning Update, I’ll probably add a section on what is going on in seminary.

Apparently, Tropical Storm Hanna is going to hit us tomorrow (Saturday). We need the rain badly. Too bad it’s all going to come at once and run off back into the ocean.