Traditional church

With all of the talk of how bad the traditional church is (and a lot of it is justified) by a lot of my friends in the blog world I thought I needed to post something.
I went to my district office yesterday to drop some stuff off. When I pulled up the District Superintendents wife saw me and ran outside. She said you go in and take care of business while I sit in the car with Lucy. It was raining and cold and she didn't want me to have to take her out in that weather. She is so kind.
I go inside and my DS was there and he came out of his office to talk to me. He was so encouraging to me and our church. He kept telling me it is going to take all kinds of different churches doing all different kinds of things. He believes in me and our church.
Granted we aren't a radicaly different church than most, we probably look more traditional than I would like to admit at times, but he is encouraging us to be who we need to be, who God is calling us to be.
I like my DS a lot. Mandy and I call him P Dubya (that's short for Pastor Wilson). Sure he sees the church through different lenses than I do, but he allows me to keep using my lenses. On top of that Him and his wife love me and my family.

Some more thoughts

-I'm getting really good at praying out loud during church. I think today's was one of my best. I feel like Jesus words in the Sermon on the Mount about praying out loud were directed towards me. I don't know how to fix it. Maybe pray more in my closet at home would be a start.
-I just read "Blue Like Jazz." Great book!
-My wife and my mom both read "Wild at Heart" and told me to read it, so I read the first three chapters and they asked what I thought and I told them i wanted a beer. I have the same thoughts after reading Blue Like Jazz. I don't drink, never had a beer before, yet these so called Christian books are corupting me. Don't worry, I have no plans to put down a cold one.
-So we had a guest speaker in church today. He asked us to open our Bibles with him and I realized I left mine on stage. I felt like a bad pastor at that moment, but then I looked behind me and saw Joe Noonen didn't have his and I looked in front of me and saw Alex Varughese didn't have his. But this little girl who has only been to church like three times had hers. She gave me a bit of hope today and not just because she had a Bible.
-Our church is having a Halloween outreach that I'm pumped about. These girls moved into our neighborhood for their senior year to be more involved in the neighborhood (cool enough in itself) and they are turning their back yard into the coolest Halloween stop in the neighborhood: smores, dunking for apples, lots of candy, games and other stuff. They are going to be light on a dark night. Though Halloween is already one of my favorite holidays of the year. What other holiday gets the whole neighborhood out of their houses doing something together? I wish we had halloween every month.
-Our church got Mandy and I a gift certificate to the Buxton Inn in Grandville. I love our church. Our church is a little unorganized and weird at times (it takes after me), but I love it so much. I wouldn't trade that group of people for anything.
-Blue Like Jazz has this story about a confessional booth that is so wonderful, that one story is worth the price of the book in my opinion.
-I hope I'm not trying to be trendy.

weird emotions

Well i found out yesterday that the building we were looking at buying for our church sold to someone else. Then I read about a church building a coffee shop and how my friend wasn't very happy about it. Then I read about the earthquake in Pakistan.

It makes me glad we didn't buy the building. But are we doing anything about the people in Pakistan now that we have funds to spare? I'm a little sick to my stomach and at the same time I'm ready to go my warm bed and go to sleep and forget about everything. Guilt is stupid, it just makes you send in a check and then forget all about it. I want a different lifestyle where guilt isn't a factor cause I'm living different. I can't even describe it right now. Cause you know next week there will be a another disaster and another check to write to avoid the guilt, but I want to live differently, to love differently, to already be living with empty pockets. At least I think I do. Guide us Father.

Some sorta random thoughts...

-Screw you down syndrome. You will not steal our joy.
-I read a study yesterday that said 80% of parents who found out their child had downs during their pregnancy had an abortion during the 1990’s at a certain hospital in Boston. That makes me cry.
-I realized this past weekend I won’t be able to beat up everybody who causes Lucy problems in life. For starters I’m nearly a pacifist, but the real reason is that I live in another Kingdom and I have to show that Kingdom to Lucy.
-I’m not really worried that much about what people will do to Lucy, I’m more worried about what they won’t do (i.e. invite her to sleepovers, giver her a chance, be her friend).
-Who is Iron and Wine?
-Lucy’s eyes penetrate my soul.
-I cry the most when I read articles or books that tell the story of parents finding out their child has downs shortly after birth. It just brings back so many emotions.
-Lucy means “bearer of light,” we couldn’t have picked a more perfect name for her.
-Can you believe Mike Redcay got married? I’m so happy for him, I like him so much!
-We live in reality and we are well aware of reality. Yet we live in hope and are full of hope.
-God is good.
-Sometimes I forget that Lucy has downs.
-downs does not define Lucy, nor does it define our family. (yet that seems to be all that I talk about.)
-When I dreams about Lucy’s future I dream that she becomes a dancer.
-Screw you down syndrome. You will not steal our joy.

Emergent?

I’m not a big fan of labels anymore. I used to be a big fan of the word emergent, as in the emergent church. But this weekend I went to a conference and I asked this church planter who was leading a seminar what he thought about the emergent church and he responded by talking about Willow Creek and Saddleback. Then my professor in class tonight was talking about a church she visited that billed itself as emergent all over it’s website, but in all reality it was a contemporary church that just happened to use art in its services.

I used to want to take our church down the road of the emergent church, not any more. I think there is something much deeper and radical we are called to.