how strange, innocence

taking the day off

2010-01-12T10:26:00.003-05:00

I'm taking the day off of work today. Yesterday we submitted the drawings for the project I've been working on for the last 3+ months, the last 1+ months of which I've been working overtime on. The experience was pretty draining in a lot of ways. This was the first time in 5 years that I didn't just have a month off from mid December to mid January, and it was hard to not be able to hang out with friends or my sister home from school. Though it did make me value the time I did have with friends. Contrary to my personality, if I want to hang out with people, sometimes it has to be scheduled a week in advance.

anyways, I'm going to try and rest mentally and spiritually today. back to work tomorrow

what's next?

2010-01-01T14:29:00.002-05:00

2009 had a lot of things happen in it. I finished my thesis, graduated college, moved home, looked for a job, found a job, looked for a new church and found a new church.

so what's next? I know this is a failing of our society, that we're rarely content where we are. We are always looking towards what's to come. But the reality is that I'm not happy where I am.

I'm not doing something I'm passionate about. Part of the problem is that I don't know what I'm passionate about. I'm not passionate about architecture, at least not architecture in the real world. The design-centered architecture of school seems a long way off from the cost-centered architecture of the real world. The last thing I really remember being excited about was the incarnational ministry I was a part of during GUPY. The principles of reconciliation, redistribution and relocation were all things I could get excited about. I just wish I knew how to bring the two together. Architecture and incarnational ministry. I wish I could find some sort of urban redevelopment organization, I wish I could be excited about the work I'm doing.

Hopefully 2010 will bring that, finding a passion that I can pursue, whether it's part of my vocation or something outside of it.

2009-12-12T11:18:00.002-05:00

I was reading The Naked Gospel today by Andrew Farley and I came across an analogy that I thought was really good. He was talking about how Christ's death and resurrection forgave us once and for all, he then writes...

"Let's say you are a married man. Imagine if every night before you went to sleep, you leaned over to your wife and asked her to marry you. It's just something that would make you feel better - asking her over and over again. It's your way of confirming you're married. So every night you say, 'Honey, will you marry me?' The words you choose are no big deal. It's just semantics. You know you're really married, you just like to ask her over and over.....

...If i were to try this with my wife, she would ask me to reconsider my thought processes: 'Don't you remember the ceremony? the vows? the witnesses? we were married years ago. I have the photo albums right here. It's now a past event. We live in a constant state of being married, there's no need to ask me over and over again if I'll marry you.

It's the same way with our forgiven state. And it's not just semantics. It matters. Have you thought about how many times the epistles urge us to ask God's forgiveness? The answer is zero times. You won't find a single epistle that suggests that we ask God for forgiveness. Why not? Because the writers penned their words after the death of Jesus. They were fully aware of their forgiveness as an accomplished fact."

So i know that was kinda long, but it just continues to strike me how we as humans continue to try and earn our salvation through works or words or ritual. Our forgiveness has been accomplished already. Christ said "It is finished," so why don't we believe him?

fear of man

2009-11-12T13:26:00.002-05:00

So I'm currently sitting in my favorite coffee shop in Chesapeake, Bean There, watching it storm outside and reading. I'm also listening to Pandora, which I've recently rediscovered as being awesome.

Anyways, something I've been thinking about lately as it's come up in sermons at church and in small group discussion has been what my new pastor, Eric, referred to as 'fear of man.' The fear of man being when I let the fear of what others think of me dictate how I act.

This is something I've struggled with most of my life; worrying about how others view me. Never wanting people to dislike me, or think badly of me... I always have to be funny, or smart, or hardworking, or responsible, or any of a million other good things. While I don't think it's inherently bad to be any of these things, I've compromised my integrity on more than one occasion in order to maintain that image. I've laughed at things when I cringe inside, I've argued over a point just to prove myself right, I've used work as an excuse when really just didn't want to do something else.

Why do I put forth this false self? Why do I need people to like me? To think I'm better than I really am? And what's worse, my actions are telling lies about the gospel. In church we talked about Galatians 2 where Paul confronts Peter from withdrawing from the Gentile believers when the Jewish believers arrived. By worrying about what the Jewish believers would think of him, Peter's actions were saying that the Gentile believers were inferior, that they weren't as good as the Jewish believers.

What lies are told by the way I'm living my life?

I hope that being aware of it will help me to be less prone to worrying about what others think about me. I'm not sure that there's some magic steps that I can follow in order to break myself of it, but it's something I'll continue to deal with.

Too Much Tragedy

2009-11-06T20:15:00.005-05:00

I am so tired of my school coming up in the news for the wrong reasons.

My heart goes out for the families of all those affected in the shootings on the military base of Fort Hood in Texas. Every time I hear about something like that my mind immediately goes back to the shootings at Virginia Tech over two years ago. And the fact that the shooter at Ft. Hood was a graduate of VT made feel even worse about it. There have been a seemingly absurd number of deaths that have had ties to Virginia Tech over the past couple of years. To name a few...

This is how the 2006-2007 school year started, with an escaped convict killing two people and escaping into Blacksburg.

Then of course the shootings on April 16th 2007 where a gunman killed 32 students and professors before turning the gun on himself.

The following November, a freshman committed suicide by jumping out of a window in Pritchard hall (the dorm I lived in.)

In February of 2008, a student was killed and another badly injured when they were hit by a car while crossing the street

This past January, a graduate student was killed and decapitated by another graduate student in a cafe on campus.

In August, two Virginia Tech students were found shot dead at a local campground

In October, a Virginia Tech student went missing after a Metallica concert in Charlottesville and has still not been found.

and now a Virginia Tech graduate, Nidal Malik Hasan is suspected to be responsible for the death of 13 soldiers and civilians at Ft. Hood in Texas.

Does this list seem ridiculous to anyone else for a span of 2 1/2 years? It's probably not even everything that happened, there's probably some incident that I've forgotten about. It sometimes seem like a cloud hangs over the school, that death and tragedy are not far from the students of the school.

And more than once, I have felt weighed down by all of this death and tragedy at the place that was home to me for 5 years, the lives lost were people I walked by every day, had class with, watched football games with. You would think we'd be good at dealing with tragedy by now, but that's something that I don't think we can ever get 'good' at.

I pray God would comfort those affected by this latest tragedy, and those that continue to be affected by all the other tragedies. I don't know what else to say beyond that.

2009-10-31T18:32:00.002-04:00

Today I gave a guy a ride home from jail.

no, really.

I was volunteering and painting outside at a primary school across from my parent's church and this young guy comes walking up to me and asks if he can borrow my phone. He just got out of jail and needs someone to pick him up. So I let him use my phone as he tries unsuccessfully to call his dad and some other people. He said he needed a ride to portsmouth or he would have to walk. Now portsmouth is a 20 minute drive away, and this dude was gonna try and walk it?

So i did something that, looking back, I don't think i would have done 5 years ago, I offered him a ride. So we jumped in my car and started driving to portsmouth (p-town to the hip crowd) and we started talked about how he had just got out from a 60 day sentence in jail because he missed a court date, and that his girlfriend was supposed to be giving birth to his daughter today. All this for a guy who just turned 20.

Now i'm not the most conversational person in the world when I'm meeting someone for the first time, and so it was a little awkward at times, and there was a fair amount of small talk, we talked a little about church and God, but not much and before I knew it we were in p-town. I said God bless, and wished him well as I drove off from his house.

Driving back I was thinking about how even a few years ago I wouldn't have done something like that for a complete stranger. It was one of those things that helps me realize the work God is continually doing in our lives. I don't think I live my life incredibly different than I did a few years ago, but i think i respond to things differently now. I think in my good moments, I'm a lot less selfish than I used to be. (in my good moments) And that God has given me a heart for the marginalized people around me. (thanks Marshall)

I'm not usually one that does a lot of self reflection and self-analysis, so I think today was a good moment to just see that God's brought me a long way, and still has a long way yet to bring me.

Currently playing : Divine Romance - Phil Wickham

Signs

2009-10-23T19:37:00.002-04:00

This is not a post about a Mel Gibson movie
or about a great game to play in small groups
or about things that direct the flow of traffic

This post is about signs from God.

I think that just about everyone at some point in their life has asked for a sign that what they're doing is right or a sign that points us in a direction to choose one thing over another.

Whether they're asking for a sign from God, or from something else, it seems like most of us want affirmation from something or someone else that what we're doing is right.

We want this sign to reassure our own insecurities and doubts.

Sometimes I want a sign that God is real, that I'm not imagining this whole thing and that what i've experienced is a genuine experience and not something contrived.

Sometimes I try to trick God into letting me have what I want. "If i'm not supposed to date this person, give me a sign not to." (I think I used this a lot when I was younger)

But are signs really going to be the thing that sways us towards God? The Bible doesn't really have a good track record of them working out. How many times did God perform miracles and wonders for the Israelis coming out of Egypt? And still they turned away from Him almost as soon as the wonders were over. How many times did Jesus perform miracles for the disciples and yet Thomas still didn't believe until he touched and saw the resurrected Christ.

Jesus even says "Blessed are those who have not seen and still believe." Which says to me that we shouldn't need or rely on signs.

Because faith is precisely that, not seeing and yet still believing.

So then what good are signs at all? Should we want to see signs from God?

Psalm 86 says

Give me a sign of your goodness,
that my enemies may see it and be put to shame,
for you, O Lord, have helped me and comforted me (v17)

The psalmist isn't asking for a sign for his sake, for his reassurance, but for others, that his enemies might see the error of their ways and come to know the true God. Is that why Jesus did signs and wonders? So that those who did not know him would understand that he had power and authority from God?

I don't know, maybe that's all signs were supposed to be, just letting outsiders know that this person has authority and you should pay attention to what he says. What do you think?

the problem of pain

2009-10-10T19:38:00.002-04:00

I may or may not have stolen the title for this post from a c.s. lewis book.

I have not read this book, and this post is not about that book.

but I like the title anyways.

Pain sucks. for the past 2 months I've been dealing with chronic joint pain. It started out in my knees, but has progressed to just about every joint in my body, from my neck to my toes. Last week I was diagnosed with rheumatory arthritis. which is essentially the immune system going haywire to the point that it attacks the body's joints, causing inflammation and pain in the joints.

This is not fun.

But this post isn't about that.

This post is about responding to that.

When the realization that I will be taking pills for the rest of my life to deal with this, and that even then, nothing is guaranteed, I was angry. Angry at God for allowing this to happen to me. Haven't I been faithful? Haven't I done work for your kingdom? How am I supposed to get up early and have a quiet time if i can barely get out of bed and ready on time because of the pain. How can I stay in shape and take care of my body? Why God? Why do you hit me with this on top of everything else I have going on in my life?

And to be honest, I still go back to this massive self-pity party sometimes, I still have moments where I let myself get angry at God because of this. But I was quickly reminded of what my friend Derek would say.

"This is not how God intended it to be."

And he's right. When God created the world, everything he created was good. There was no pain, no suffering and no death... until the fall. But now we live in a world that is corrupted by the fall. Our relationship with God, with others, with our environments and with ourselves have been corrupted by the fall. This includes pain. God never intended for us to feel pain, but we were selfish, we chose to be selfish, and the resulting world is broken because of it.

And Christ has redeemed our spirits, but not yet our bodies. So while we've been given spiritual freedom in Christ, our bodies our still bound to this world. Following Christ doesn't mean you are less likely to get cancer, or AIDS, or arthritis. We have to deal with these things like the rest of the world. Though we should deal with it better than the rest, because we have eternity to look towards. We should have hope for freedom from this broken world.

We often don't.

We feel like we're entitled to more.

That we've earned the right to a good life.

That's nowhere in scripture. Somewhere along the line we got this idea that we should expect to live a life free of pain. That if things go like they should, we'll live a happy, pain-free life. In my opinion, that is the problem of pain. That we are surprised when we encounter it. That we are unprepared to deal with it because we've grown up in good neighborhoods and with bad theology. I hope I learn to deal with it better, and learn to trust God despite it.

the far side of the sea

2009-10-03T19:54:00.003-04:00

"If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there Your hand will guide me,

Your right hand will hold me fast."

-psalm 139:9-10

I really like the poetry in the Old Testament: Psalms, parts of Isaiah, etc. This is one of my favorite psalms. I can't give you a good reason why, it just struck me the first time i read it.

There's a lot of different things in there, from God knowing when you rise and when you lay down, to Him making us as creations ' fearfully and wonderfully made,' to the psalmist petitioning God that He would search his heart for any offensive way. It has a lot of good and comforting things in it.

The thing that i love about verses 9 and 10 is that the author is saying even if i go beyond the sea, away from everything I know, away from the temple in Jerusalem where God dwelt, still God will pursue us there. There is no where that is too foreign or too far that God will abandon us. It's not a revelation by any means, but I think the poetics of how it is put here really struck a chord with me. (growing up by the ocean, I find particular peace with scriptures that speak of water and of the sea.)

I think it resonates with me a lot right now. I've moved far away from where I experienced and grew in God the most in my life; Blacksburg, College, IV, Pritchard. And so part of me equates that place and those people with God. Like in the Old Testament where God did something for the patriarchs or the Israelites and they would erect monuments or altars, I feel like there are places back at Virginia Tech I could do that for. The tree to the right of War Memorial Chapel, litton reeves 1670, bollos, Allen and Dave's apartment/rooms over the years, pritchard crossover lounges and burchard plaza are all places where God did something in my life. I don't have a lot of those places here. I don't have that same history with God in Chesapeake.

And maybe I never will, maybe this is my wilderness and God will lead me out of it into somewhere else. I don't know.

Is anyone else like this? Do you have places where you would build altars of remembrance for what God has done or just places you've experienced God more often? Where are they? What kind of places are they?

Autographs and Apologetics

2009-09-29T19:30:00.002-04:00

So I was talking with my friend dave today, he mentioned some of the professors he had up in northern VA were some of the top minds and authorities on apologetics. They were authors and well known people in their field. Kind of a big deal. He said how they were just regular guys but despite that he had to avoid falling into hero worship when he interacted with them.
I think this is a common trend in our Christian society that seems harmful to me. We view well known christian authors, artists and speakers with this sort of worship that belongs with Christ, not with man.

I think it's a carry over from American culture at large. Whether it's actors, musicians, athletes or some other person that is either talented enough or lucky enough to make it into the spotlight that is today's media, we elevate people to the level of worship, or near worship, We want to model our lives after Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, John Mayer, Jay-Z, Lebron James, or Tom Brady. Even people who make it onto reality shows, American Idols, Top Chefs, Next Top Models, etc. Why? Why do we seek out fame? Is it because of our own dis-satisfaction with our identity?

Even within Christian circles; people want to be hip like Rob Bell, or counter-cultural like Shane Claiborne or adventurous like John Eldridge. Why do we stand in long lines to get our books autographed by these guys? Or push people out of the way to get a drumstick that the drummer from Mercy Me threw out into the crowd? I'm not saying anything is bad about any of these people. but I am saying at some level, all these people, from Brad Pitt to Shane Claiborne are not worthy of our devotion.

That belongs to God alone.

And I'm also not saying that doing certain things like these people are bad. Shane Claiborne has an incredible passion for the poor. And I love that about him and his ministry. But that stems from what God is doing through him. Not what Shane is doing himself. And as great as his books may be, they aren't scripture, and we shouldn't treat them like they are. Not everything in it is correct and true of what God desires for us. (Not to seem like I'm railing on Shane Claiborne, of the people I listed, he's probably the person that I struggle the most with hero worship of, so this is as much a reminder to me.)

We should look at one another with the same eyes that God does. That we would love one another and seek out how to sharpen one another into the men and women that God created us to be. But Christ should always be the model for our lives, and we should seek His face.

abiding vs. dropping by for a visit

2009-09-19T20:08:00.002-04:00

So one of my favorite passages is John 15 talking about the vine and the branches, and it's something that comes to mind a lot when i think about spiritual matters. Tonight I was thinking about verse 4 where it says

"remain in Me and I will remain in you" (NIV)

or another phrasing i like

"abide in Me and I in you" (KJV)

That got me thinking, what does it mean to abide in Christ?

When i think about abiding, i think about living in, dwelling, making my home there. but I feel like most times my relationship with God looks more like a corner store than a house. I when I come in, I get what I need, maybe make some small talk, and leave. Some days it's raining, or I'm on the other side of town, so I don't come in at all.

Seems like a funny metaphor, but I think it's pretty accurate. My days might consist of a quick prayer, a brief quiet time, and then the rest of the day God gets put on the back burner. Even Sundays when I go to church, it's just a bigger block of time before I go my own way and leave God behind. I've got to deal with work and traffic and bills and chores and in all of these things, there's little or no thought or need for God.

This doesn't seem like what Christ is asking of us in John 15. or the rest of the Bible for that matter.

So I don't know if it's just the patterns in my life, or the way I choose to live in those patterns that keeps me from abiding in Christ. I don't want stop by, i want to be there for the long haul.

Any thoughts on how this should work? or examples of how you can abide in Christ throughout the day?

church inc.

2009-09-18T14:28:00.003-04:00

I'm finding myself frustrated by the church lately.

not the capital c Church, the collective whole of those who believe in and follow Christ, but the little c church. The organizational, business-minded church.

disclaimer, this is not a blanket criticism of all churches, this is a specific incident and specific church, though I'm sure it's not exclusive.

What is the church supposed to be? a lot of times when I think of the church, I think of Acts 2: 42-47

"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."

Are there churches that exist like that? Forget on a church-wide level, are there even small groups like that? I don't know anyone that does that.

Recently, a couple I am friends with got burned by the church I grew up in. I won't go into the details, but basically there were some mistakes made along the lines of policy and protocol in asking their friends (who were also in the congregation) for financial help to adopt a child from the Congo. They were told they have to give back all the money they had gotten, and first go through official channels before they could ask their friends for money.

While I agree that things could have been done differently in asking for the money, nothing they did justified the response from the church, unless one of the people making these decisions legitimately thought they were trying to con their friends out of money.

Now, obviously I'm going to be biased in this; these are friends of mine whom I love and care about, but since when did the church become run like a business and not the organization which is supposed to bring about the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth? When did it become an organization which became concerned more with it's legal liability than understanding and grace?

Maybe this is just me ranting about this particular incident, but does the church in America seem this way to anyone else? Something that functions as a business first and a dispenser of teaching, grace and community second.

Which leads me to the larger question of what should the church look like as an organization?

Whatever it is, if it is without Love, it is nothing more than a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

dealing with death

2009-09-12T19:24:00.002-04:00

I don't think man deals with death well.

I guess that's because we were never intended to, God never intended for us to die, but sin entered the world and it's all downhill from there.

I attended a funeral today for a high school friend that died last week.

He was 23.

To be fair, we weren't real close anymore, we'd gone to high school together and lived in the same neighborhood, but I went off to college and he went off to college and our paths very rarely crossed since. But it's still the first person who I've known and have been friends with who has died.

All day my thoughts have been returning to the shootings at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007. But even then, I didn't know any of the victims personally, I mourned the collective loss of life, but i didn't know any of them. The only way I got any connection with some of the victims was that 4 of them had been involved with Campus Crusade for Christ, and I got the chance to go and listen to some of their stories from the people who knew them. So I only slightly began to understand the weight of the lives that were cut short. But I'd never talked in person to any of them, never shared a ride with them, never hung out after school with them...

And that what makes today harder for me. I grew up with this guy, played backyard football with him, shared jokes with him. And while I hadn't done any of these things in years, I knew the kind of person he was, the genuine kindness he had towards people. He was a good guy who loved God. On top of that, his father was killed in a plane crash over Afghanistan 4 years ago. For his mother, younger sister and brother to have to deal with all of this in a 4 year span seems ridiculously unfair.

And there's no other way I can explain that. I sat here for a few minutes re-reading that last line and trying to come up with something else to say about it, but it simply seems unfair. I'm sure God can redeem it, but i can't see it. I guess that's why I'm not God...

How is man supposed to deal with death?

It's easier when it's someone older who's fought illness for years, or when we have no personal connection to it. Which is why we can sit here and hear about 70 people being killed by a suicide bomber in some far off country and hardly bat an eye at it.

I think it's also easier when we can blame someone for it. When it's some horrible crime committed, we can blame the person committing the crime. If it's cancer or some other disease, we can blame the disease. I guess in this case, where my friend collapsed for no reason that's been figured out yet, you could blame God. But blaming God doesn't seem very helpful to me. I think that's why we blame people, we want our anger at their death to feel justified. But what is our anger to God? What is our sense of justification to Him?

I think this post has been fairly long and rambling so far, so I'll tie it up and maybe return to some of the stuff later. Is there a 'right' way to deal with death? Are there ways that our society deals with death that are 'wrong?' I don't know. the only thing I do know, and the thing I've been returning to is the same thing I returned to during the April 16th shootings, and it comes from psalm 34:18

"the LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit."

and I pray that would be true for my friend's family now.

Re-reading books

2009-09-01T20:55:00.002-04:00

So i've been reading during my lunch break at work, which has given me some time to get through a lot of books so far this summer. But i think the book i've enjoyed reading the most has been "to kill a mockingbird." I read it years ago in high school but reading it now i better appreciate the issues of it. I think you still can see issues today between the races have improved, but there's still a lot going on under the surface. The book convicts me on a few prejudices i still haven't let go and reminds me that while there are people with prejudices that are wrong, they aren't necessarily bad people. It's a great book, read it if you have the chance.

craving community

2009-07-15T21:23:00.002-04:00

So, being back home in chesapeake has been hard. I've struggled with the fact that almost all the people I know here, I know from my church. and yet, I don't feel like I'm engaging with anyone there. Everyone that goes there is either older, or younger and married with kids and so I feel like there are very few people that I could call peers.
So lately I've entertained the thought of going and looking at a new church. I want to find a church like the ones I read about in all these books where everyone is living in community and accountability and all that stuff. I have a hard time believing those churches really exist. I've never been to one. So how do I go about finding something like that? Is there any hope for finding one in Tidewater, Va? I don't know, I hope so.

welcome to the real world

2009-07-02T18:26:00.002-04:00

so these past weeks i've gotten a taste of what living in the real world will be like... waking up at 7, driving through traffic, 8+ hour work days, driving back through traffic. i start to understand why people out of college seem so burned out, it's exhausting.
and i'm finding it harder and harder to take time with God each day.
in college it was so easy because you made your own hours, i could set aside time for God so easily. now someone else makes the hours... and God wasn't in consideration when they were made.
maybe it's just personal discipline that i need to get up earlier, or devote time in the evenings.
it's just been a difficult adjustment.
and something else i'm struggling to find here in tidewater has been community. the community i had in blacksburg is something that i treasure a lot, and i know i'm not going to be able to replace it, but i've struggled to find any community here of people my own age.
i pray that i can start learning how to put God first in my schedule and that He would provide me with community here in chesapeake

Exile?

2009-04-30T09:03:00.002-04:00

Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.

-Jeremiah 29:7

so the 29th chapter of Jeremiah is a letter to the exiles in Babylon, and somehow i resonate greatly with this part of it.
it sounds silly, but i feel like as i'm going out from blacksburg and virginia tech, a place of comfort and blessing for the past 5 years, and going back to chesapeake, the place i swore i would never go back to after growing up there, i feel like it's almost an exile.
i don't know why i have a particular dislike of chesapeake, maybe all the things i've learned about architecture and urban planning have showed me all the things wrong with chesapeake, maybe it's the fact that most of my friends have moved on from there, or maybe it's just simply because it's not an exciting place to live.
however, Jeremiah 29:7 really convicted me about how i was feeling. yea, it may not be the place i wanted to go, but it is the place that God seems to be leading me to at this time. what good is it for me to sit and grumble and be miserable the whole time i'm there?
God is putting me into a position where i can actively participate in fixing the things that i don't like about that place, to "seek the peace and prosperity" of chesapeake. there are places that i can minister there, places that i can seek to restore the Lord's justice.
just because i've spent my life in the upper-middle class of chesapeake, doesn't mean that there aren't places of injustice. Deep Creek and Indian River are both places that are very different sides of chesapeake than the ones that i grew up in. just because i'm coming back to an old place, doesn't mean that i have to live in the same way that i did before. i'm a much different person than i was the last time i lived full time in chesapeake. let me be content in all situations and seek God's peace and prosperity for any place that i might be in.

encouragement

2009-03-27T10:55:00.002-04:00

"I write to you, dear children,
because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name.
I write to you, fathers,
because you have known him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men,
because you have overcome the evil one.
I write to you, dear children,
because you have known the Father.
I write to you, fathers,
because you have known him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men,
because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one."
- 1 John 2:12-14

i read this today and was really encouraged. i think for the first time in my life i feel like that last part is true about me.

I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

i think at various points of my life that has been partially true of me, but right now i feel like the whole thing is true of me. praise be to God!

calling [again]

2009-01-29T10:11:00.002-05:00

so calling seems to be a recurring theme in my blogs lately. big surprise, i'm graduating this semester and don't know what i'm doing with my life... but last night was particularly helpful so i thought i'd share.
last night in small group we talked about the call of abrahm. and i brought up the question of calling. are we called to one specific thing in life? or are we called simply to follow God and within that there are multiple things that we can do. and in discussing that [thanks to guest appearances by bryan carey and isaac barber] we got onto the calls of various biblical characters. so here are some examples of call:

abrahm [genesis 12:1-9] "leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to land I will show you." v.1

so here abrahm was called to just go and God would tell him when to stop. it wasn't a call to go to canaan and then be done, that was all God had for him to do. no, he goes to canaan, there's a famine, he goes to egypt, almost gets killed, goes back to canaan, saves his nephew, has a son, almost sacrifices his son, etc. so it's not just one thing. if you look at the big picture, yes, he just ends up back in canaan in the end. but is that the important fact when you look at his life as an individual? is it the final destination or is it the journey that is important when you look at the scale of the individual?

isaiah [isaiah 6:1-13] "whom shall I send? and who will go for Us?" v.8

with isaiah there is a recognizable need. God needs someone to go for Him to proclaim the word to israel. isaiah, in his vision sees this need and rather than waiting for one of the angels to speak up or worrying that he wouldn't have the words to say, he steps up and says "here i am, send me!" he doesn't know what he's supposed to say, doesn't know the logistics, God fills in those details later. isaiah recognizes a need and steps in to fill that need as best as he can. and God provides him guidance as he goes.

jeremiah [jeremiah 1:4-12] "before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." v.5

jeremiah seems very unsure of himself. God comes down and says i set you up for this before you were even born! you were made for this, don't doubt yourself. but jeremiah replies that he is only a child and doesn't know how to speak. God tells him not to say that, if I made you to be a prophet don't you think i'll take care of you being able? so God is validating jeremiah's call and his identity here when he worries that he isn't good enough for the calling he's recieved.

so in all of these calls God says to just start going, He'll fill in the details as you go. there's no plan laid out before the start of the journey, it's like walking with a candle in the dark, you can only see far enough ahead for a few steps. so when God gives me a direction i need to just start going and let him fill in the details. now if only i could get that direction...

help yourself

2009-01-12T21:16:00.002-05:00

so on saturday, i went with my church to bring sack lunches to Union Mission, the homeless shelter in norfolk. I got to sit down and talk with a guy briefly with a guy who i overheard talking about how he has just gotten an apartment and was going to be getting out of the homeless shelter this weekend.

the first thing he said to me was "you know something, God helps those who help themselves." and we went on to talk about how he's worked to get himself off the streets and get back on his feet.

i think that was exactly the thing i needed to hear.

i've been sitting around, feeling sorry for myself for not knowing what i want to do when i graduate, when i should be working to give myself options. not just waiting for the perfect opportunity to drop into my lap.

this guy had been into drugs, in jail, and on the street, but he's working to get out from that.
i need to work toward my future, not expect it to be provided for me.

i need to help myself

calling?

2009-01-08T23:21:00.002-05:00

So it's been a while since i've posted one of these, so i dont know if anybody even looks at this anymore, but here we go anyways....

Calling is a word that's thrown around pretty commonly in the 'christian vocabulary.'
"God calls us to do ______"
"I feel called to ______ ministry"
But what does calling mean? What does calling look like?
Does God call us into specific things, like into a particular job or a particular ministry? Or is God's calling simply that we should follow him in whatever we do and let us fill in the details?

In the first instance, I've known a lot of people who have 'felt called into ministry' or 'called into the workforce.' I'm not trying to dispute what those people have felt, but i've never felt God telling me in some sort of prophetic manner what i'm supposed to do with my life. It would be a lot easier for me if He would just tell me what to do once i graduate, cause i'm lost. I dont feel 'called' to anything or anywhere in particular when i graduate, and that's how i've been feeling for the better part of a year now.

So that brings me to the second idea of calling, the idea that we are simply called to follow God in whatever profession we chose for ourselves, be it in the workforce, in the ministry, whatever. This idea resonates with me a little better, just because we are to be children of God first and foremost in whatever we do. However, that still doesn't help me figure out what i want to do when i graduate, but there is a difference in where each idea of calling puts me. Am i trying to figure out what i am supposed to do when i graduate, or do i have to figure out what i want to do when i graduate.

But i'm still not sure if there's something that i'm supposed to be doing, that i'm called to do. So as i continue to wrestle with this, any input would of course be helpful. Grace and peace.

feeling old

2008-09-05T08:09:00.004-04:00

so, this is my 5th year at virginia tech.
so with an exception of graduate students and faculty, there is nobody older than me here.
that's a pretty strange realization, that i no longer have those older guys in IV to look up to like Nate Cook, BJ Walbert, Matt Sidell, etc. Now i am those guys for a lot of people.
That feels like a lot of pressure. I kinda gave some of those guys a heroic myth to them. They were older and wiser and and done so much stuff, how am i supposed to live up to that?
But i think i'm coming to the realization that those guys were great because they invested in the lives of the underclassmen. Sure, they had a lot of stuff to deal with as far as their own classes and graduation, but they still chose to be important and influential in the lives of younger students, and that more than anything left a lasting impression on me. I hope that is something i can do for underclassmen now, and something they can do when they're seniors.
So as busy as i get this year, i need to continue to remember to be relevant in the underclassmen's lives. Not just some old dude who is never around cause he's so busy.
So thanks to God for those influential guys that came before me, and hopefully, those influential guys who come after me.

Pride [in the name of Love]

2008-07-23T11:31:00.002-04:00

"Let us, therefore, make every effort to do what leads to peace and mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food."
-Romans 14:19,20-

I think the church would look a lot differently if this is how we truly lived as Christians. If we really tried to build up and sharpen one another. If we rebuked our brothers and sisters when they were wrong, but also, if we allowed ourselves to be rebuked.
I think that's a major hold up in seeing this kind of life exist.

Pride.

I think we are so quick to point out the mistakes in other people's lives, but like Jesus said in Matthew 7:3,
"Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"

Our pride gets in the way.

Our pride that says, we did right in that situation, even if deep down we know we didn't.

Our pride that always needs to be right.

So we argue until we feel like we've validated ourselves. But when do we ever convince someone through arguing? Their pride is just as defensive as our own, so what starts as a minor argument turns into a major one. People start taking sides in the major argument and since no one likes to be on the losing side, one side decides it's better to split apart than to reconcile. Is this how Christ wanted us to operate?

Will we ever be able to move past our own pride?

Can we learn to submit to one another for the sake of love, and for the sake of unity?

"Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food"

Usually the things we argue about in the church are such minor details in the grand scheme of things. What if we plugged some different words in for food?

Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of contemporary worship

Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of infant baptism

Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of communion with wine

Let us continue to seek out the will of God in all things, but let us also understand that everyone won't always be on the same page about things. But that's ok. Let us continue to encourage one another and have peace. Let us not live in our pride, but in the name of Love.

Unity?

2008-07-08T23:46:00.002-04:00

So i'd like to take some time to rant.

but i'd like to give some context to the rant, so here we go....

the church i've grown up in, [and am currently employed by] is part of the PC-USA. That is, the presbyterian church of the united states of america.

two years ago, the PC-USA's governing body, the general assembly started a process in which it was investigating the inclusion of clauses into the book of order allowing churches to allow people who are practicing homosexuals to be ordained as elders or deacons.

now this caused a big hullabaloo [isn't that a fun word?] in my church. and this was timed nicely with a close friend of mine who had also grown up in my church to confide in me that he was gay. so i sat through the process of our church discussing what these resolutions meant for the church, and had to see my friend sit through the same discussions where people were openly hostile toward homosexuals, to a pretty harsh degree.

now everything pretty much cooled off since then, but at the end of june, the PC-USA general assembly again met and proposed another resolution that would take out the terminology saying that an ordained minister needed to be celibate or in a monogamous male-female relationship, and replace it with language saying that they were simply living out and following Christ's direction in their life. So again, this is probably going to cause a big hullabaloo. A lot of people are saying that this could cause a split in the presbyterian church similar to the one that the episcopal church is currently undergoing.

and so with that large amount of background information, i begin my rant....

WHY IS THIS SUCH A DIVISIVE ISSUE?????
There are so many issues in the scripture that people take different opinions on: baptism, communion, speaking in tongues, divorce, abortion, women in ministry, homosexuality, etc. And i understand that people are going to have differing or changing opinions on these things. I mean, I don't have solid understanding or belief in most of these issues, and probably won't for some time, if ever. But should our differences in opinion over these issues jeopardize the ministry we can do as a united Body of Christ? [i'll use allen here as an example, because i know he reads this] If allen and I have different opinions on the roles of women in the church [which i don't know if we do or not] why does it seem to be the prevalent view in today's culture that I can't still minister with allen or work with allen because we disagree on that issue.
It seems to me that we would be so much more successful as a church if we had a wide breadth of people and opinions in that church that would speak to different people groups. Or is it better to have a church that caters solely to a specific group? The First Presbyterian Church of People who Believe in Baptism by Immersion and Speaking in Tounges But Not in Divorce or Ordination of Homosexuals [FPCPBBISTBNDOH for short] can be right down the road from the First Presbyterian Church of People who Believe in Baptism by Immersion, Speaking in Tounges and Ordination of Homosexuals But Not in Divorce.

i mean i know that's a bit silly, but doesn't that seem like the direction we're headed? Shouldn't we as Christians, more than anyone, be able to live with differences that we have with each other because we know we are unified in Christ?

"As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace."
-ephesians 4:1-3-

If we really follow that, to bear with one another in love, i think it would be a whole heck of a lot easier to keep that unity. And i think we have these opinions because we make it about issues rather than relationships. For me, i never gave a hoot about homosexuals in the church because i didn't know anyone that was gay, and so when my close friend confided in me, suddenly it became personal. personal relationships make an issue so much more relevant. i didn't care about inner city ministry till i met people that lived in the inner city, till i met people that were poor or homeless. i may be oversimplifying it a bit, but Christ's ministry was about relationships, not doctrinal theology.

and with that Allen-esque blog, i think i'm done for the night.

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
-matthew 22:36-40-

you are what you eat... something like that

2008-06-11T11:24:00.002-04:00

so i read a quote today by writer/theologian N.T. Wright. It wasn't exactly an earth shattering revelation, but it was something i needed to hear and be reminded of. It was on the topic of worship, and what that means, and why we worship to begin with.

"You become like what you worship. When you gaze in awe, admiration, and wonder at something or someone, you begin to take on something of the character of the object of your worship."

i think that's especially true when we aren't worshiping God. because God is love, if we aren't loving our neighbors and caring more about ourselves than others, maybe we're worshiping something other than God. God is love, He calls us to love Him, and love others. I think i haven't been doing that. I can go through all the motions of 'christian living' but if it's not rooted in love, i'm worshiping a system or a religion rather than worshiping God.

N.T. Wright says later about what worship does for you

"Because you were made in God's image, worship makes you more truly human. When you gaze in love and gratitude at the God in whose image you were made, you do indeed grow. You discover more of what it means to be fully alive."

i think that's something i need to do more, is really look to God in love and gratitude, not to just know God is there, but to really acknowledge all that He has done in me and is doing in me.

righteousness for all

2008-06-07T15:12:00.003-04:00

so i've been reading a bit of romans lately, and today i came across romans 3:21-31, and it got me thinking.

we've all been given righteousness through faith in Christ... and sometimes i think that's the problem for me.

we've all been given righteousness.

i don't want to be on a level playing field with liars, cheats, gluttons, etc. i like to think of myself as better than they are, that God thinks better of me than He does of them.

my pride gets between me and God.

i hate it, but it's true, so often, i judge other people and think of myself as better than other people.

but grace calls us to be humble. to accept that we need help, that we aren't as good as we'd like to think we are. that we need help just as much as the people we look down on, the drug dealers, the sleazy executives, everyone.

"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."

-romans 3:23-24

good ol greensboro + kathryn's wedding

2008-06-01T23:36:00.004-04:00

so this weekend i got to go back [ever so briefly] to greensboro, nc, on the way to see my good friend kathryn get married.
and it's funny how even in doing that, God was still trying to teach me something in g-boro.
i spent some time friday night talking with allen and dan and we came to the issue of guarding your heart. I feel like that's something i don't do well, i tend to dive headlong into things and not think about the consequences that it has on me. It's pretty easy for me to get attached to people too quickly and make things more serious than they are. so that's something i'm going to try to work on. being more conscious of where my heart really is.

and speaking of matters of the heart...
i gotta say, kathryn and chris' wedding on saturday was the best wedding i've ever been to. it was truly a celebration of marriage. and that was something so refreshing. it wasn't all the typical pomp and circumstance of weddings, it was a celebration between the bride and groom before God and before all their friends and family. i mean, how many weddings have you been to where the bridesmaids dance down the aisle to 'this is the day?' it was just something i really was blown away by. but really, i think that's how weddings should be. and i was glad to see it.

but i'm tired. and i'm supposed to go into for a pseudo job interview tomorrow, so i'm going to bed.

grace and peace

Psalm 25

2008-05-02T11:30:00.002-04:00

Psalm 25

1 To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul;

2 in You I trust, O my God.
Do not let me be put to shame,
nor let my enemies triumph over me.

3 No one whose hope is in You
will ever be put to shame,
but they will be put to shame
who are treacherous without excuse.

4 Show me Your ways, O LORD,
teach me Your paths;

5 guide me in Your truth and teach me,
for You are God my Savior,
and my hope is in You all day long.

6 Remember, O LORD, your great mercy and love,
for they are from of old.

7 Remember not the sins of my youth
and my rebellious ways;
according to your love remember me,
for you are good, O LORD.

8 Good and upright is the LORD;
therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.

9 He guides the humble in what is right
and teaches them his way.

10 All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful
for those who keep the demands of his covenant.

11 For the sake of your name, O LORD,
forgive my iniquity, though it is great.

12 Who, then, is the man that fears the LORD ?
He will instruct him in the way chosen for him.

13 He will spend his days in prosperity,
and his descendants will inherit the land.

14 The LORD confides in those who fear him;
he makes his covenant known to them.

15 My eyes are ever on the LORD,
for only he will release my feet from the snare.

16 Turn to me and be gracious to me,
for I am lonely and afflicted.

17 The troubles of my heart have multiplied;
free me from my anguish.

18 Look upon my affliction and my distress
and take away all my sins.

19 See how my enemies have increased
and how fiercely they hate me!

20 Guard my life and rescue me;
let me not be put to shame,
for I take refuge in you.

21 May integrity and uprightness protect me,
because my hope is in you.

22 Redeem Israel, O God,
from all their troubles!

i stumbled upon that this morning after going out to a park in alexandria. i feel like that was exactly what i needed to read. i've been in a spiritual funk lately which is the result of a lot of different things, mostly being away from community and getting into what i call ' studio mode.' which basically means the end of the semester becomes 'eat, sleep, work in studio' and that's pretty much it. kinda shows me where my priorities in life are because God isn't on that list, and it's pretty typical that this time each year He drops off my priority list.

but i don't want to dwell in what i've been doing, but rather on what i'm doing now.

so that was my prayer this morning....

Show me Your ways, O LORD,
teach me Your paths;

guide me in Your truth and teach me,
for You are God my Savior,
and my hope is in You all day long.

that i might get back to abiding in Christ, putting him as a priority over all else in my life.

for your musical pleasue

2008-05-02T00:47:00.003-04:00

Sufjan Stevens - For The Widows In Paradise, For The Fatherless In Ypsilanti

sufjan stevens is amazing.

enjoy

365 day ago...

2008-04-15T23:17:00.002-04:00

the worst school shooting in U.S. history
32 people killed by a troubled student who then turned his gun on himself
a campus suddenly rocked by tragedy, grief and mourning.

but is that the end of the story?

i don't think so.

the story didn't end when joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers and then thrown into jail for a crime he didn't commit?

or when the israelite people are taken off to babylon?

or when saul oversees the stoning of stephen?

or when Christ is nailed to the cross?

no, our God is a God of redemption.

joseph rises to prominence in egypt.

ezra and nehemiah lead the israelites back to jerusalem

saul takes the road to damascus

the empty tomb on sunday

and so i think there's a redemptive story for virginia tech. i've seen parts of that story with the people that have come to Christ because of last april. and i think there's still more to tell. I think God is continuing to do something on our campus. and that the students who went through last april will go out and do great things.
i hope that i'll be able to see how God redeems our story. but if it's something i dont get to see this side of heaven, i still have to trust in God's goodness.

"the Lord is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit"
-psalm 34:18-

technological isolation and learning to be still

2008-04-06T20:04:00.002-04:00

i've come to the realization that i've become dependent on technology.

the world we live in, and us in turn, have become so accustomed to instant gratification.
need directions somewhere? google maps
need information about something? wikipedia
need a book or movie? amazon.com
music? itunes
we can even order pizza online now.

we never have to leave our houses, use a map, take time to learn and remember things. The internet takes care of all this for us.

and because of this technology, we've also become increasingly independent from each other. if we want to talk to someone we've got cell phones, facebook, instant messaging, etc. face to face interaction is being replaced by talking across technology.

what's happened to our relationships because of this? what will happen if we keep going in this direction?

i think this is why the ministry of presence is so necessary in the world today; because it doesn't exist in our day to day lives anymore. we've made our lives so busy that we don't sit down anymore. we don't remember how to be still. Jesus sat down shared meals with his disciples, taught them, had community with them. we have drive through coffee shops, even restaurants like olive garden and applebees have to-go services.

i think this has been one of my biggest problems this semester. i never am still. i try to read the bible over coffee and then run off afterwards to do my next thing. i wonder why it seems like God isn't answering me sometimes. it's because i'm not listening! while it's all well and good to spend time reading scripture or studying theology i need to stop and reflect on these things. spend time being still in God's presence. in prayer or just in sitting.

so rather than being immersed in technology i need to simplify my life, be more content to sit and be still rather than running here and there, spending time online or watching tv. immerse myself in Christ, in His Word and in community.

and yes, i realize it's rather ironic to rant about too much technology via blog. oh well

spring traditions

2008-03-24T17:03:00.002-04:00

today i'm watching the sandlot. a classic baseball movie to celebrate the coming season.

that is all

Velvet Elvis [pt 1]

2008-03-19T10:44:00.002-04:00

So i just finished reading Rob Bell's book Velvet Elvis. And besides being a silly title, i think he makes a lot of good points in it. So i'm gonna write about some them. Oprah's book club, eat your heart out.

The book starts out by talking about doctrine and how they relate to God. We often look at our doctrine as absolutes. But isn't God alone absolute? Our doctrines are creations of man, putting words to some of the inexplainable things of the bible. The trinity for example, isn't mentioned at all in the bible, it's a doctrine created to explain the triune nature of God in scripture. But it isn't scripture itself. my view of trinity isn't necessarily the same as yours.

He uses the analogy of a trampoline to describe what he thinks doctrine should be. Doctrines are like the springs of a trampoline. They help to hold up the mat, but they aren't the mat itself. They aren't the part that people enjoy. Nobody gets on a trampoline to play with the springs. [my engineering friends excluded]

The counter to that is looking at doctrine as a wall of bricks. Firm, rigid, unchanging. So what happens if your brick of the trinity doesn't look like my brick of the trinity? We cant share the same wall. We have to have totally separate walls because a wall of two different sizes of bricks won't be able to stand. [my architecture education at it's finest right there] But should we look at our doctrine as a firm wall? Do we build our faith on doctrine? or do we build it on Christ who is our Rock?

Now there certainly is bad theology out there that wouldn't pass as a brick or a spring, but should bad theology be something that is irreconcilable? Something that we as Christians or we as a Church can't see past? I'm sure i still have bad theology about a lot of things, b/c i don't know God's positions on a lot of things. But rigid doctrine seems to have done a lot to divide the Church. We have a long history of splitting this way and that because we think communion should only be done this way, or worship can only be done that way.

Does God really want us to break apart the Church over things like that? Why can't we focus on the things that unify us?

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.

ephesians 2:14-16

Why can't we stop viewing ourselves by the differences we have and start viewing each other as Christ does? As His creations, His workmanship, His children?

idol thoughts

2008-03-10T23:30:00.002-04:00

so tonight at frontline the talk was about idols in our lives. they're going through a series called no other gods. it was really something i needed to hear. it made me recognize some of the idols in my life. here's some of the questions that they asked that can help you to recognize the things that are idols in your life.

what is your greatest fear?

where do you run to for comfort?

what do you complain about the most?

how do you explain yourself to others?

what causes you to be angry with God?

what do you want to have more than anything else?

what do you treasure most?

with these questions a couple different things came up, but the one thing i found that kept coming up was my fear of being single / desire to be in a relationship.

i've let that become something that i focus way too much on in my life. i have a hard time being content in being single, in knowing that where i am right now is where God wants me. i'm always dwelling on the future, on what's to come, never on what's before me now.

now, something that they brought up was that most things that become idols for us aren't inherently bad. they're usually good things that we end up putting ahead of God. be it work, relationships, achievements, etc. so these things aren't bad to have in your life, but it just becomes sin when we put these things ahead of our relationship with Christ. when our status is determined by our relationship status, our monetary status or our achievements rather than the fact that we are children of God.

i hope that i can begin to learn to continuously put Christ first in my life, rather then letting other things get in the way. other things can be in my life, but Christ is first, all other things should fall into place after Him.

hope for the suburbs?

2008-03-04T09:00:00.002-05:00

so coming home to chesapeake, the last thing i expected to be dealing with is homelessness.

for those of you who've never been here, chesapeake is suburban sprawl. pure and simple. suburbs from norfolk, suburbs from va beach, suburbs from suburbs. lots of middle-upper class white people and starbucks.

so i was a little surprised to come home and find my church being used as a homeless shelter.

it was part of NEST [norfolk emergency shelter team] which basically in the winter half of the year, takes 50-60 homeless out of norfolk and brings them to various churches in the area for a week at a time.

i generally think of life in chesapeake very cynically. i'm critical of the upper-middle class white folks that drive around in their hummer 2's and their mercedez. I feel like life here is very self centered. and maybe it's that way everywhere and i just haven't lived there long enough to see that side of it. but it was so refreshing to see the body of Christ doing something different.

it gives me hope that living in chesapeake doesn't have to mean living in that suburban daze. God's opening my eyes to the people that He wants me to care for and opening my eyes to the work he's already doing in this area and in His church. it gives me hope for the suburbs

"For God, who was at work in the ministry of Peter as an apostle to the Jews, was also at work in my ministry as an apostle to the Gentiles. James, Peter and John, those reputed to be pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the Jews. All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do."

galatians 2:8-10

semester so far

2008-02-29T15:41:00.009-05:00

so a few things i've been working on this semester in alexandria. we had a weekend competition in mid january for the virginia society of architects. the competition was to design a memorial/museum to the freed slaves that sought refuge in ft. monroe during the civil war. part of the entrance had to be from the water that surrounded ft. monroe.
my competition board got selected to the top 8 from the alexandria center that will go down to richmond to be judged against the top 8 from virginia tech, uva and hampton university.

i've also been taking a photography class which has been absolutely amazing. i've been taking pictures recreationally for a few years now, but having assignments and reviews of them has really made me improve my technique and vision of what i'm trying to capture in my pictures.

national cathedral

alleyway

alexandria cemetery

so yea, more work to come eventually. especially my studio project i've been working on for DC

de-railed plans

2008-02-23T19:28:00.003-05:00

so my plan for today was to go take pictures of the national cathedral in DC, stop by utrects [art supply store] and head back here for dinner.

that was my plan anyways.

after a lengthy delay filled metro ride and a long walk to get to the cathedral, i find out that it has just closed 20 minutes previous.

ouch.

so i walked around the outside a bit and took some decent pictures, nothing fantastic, but i hiked back to the metro and planned to at least get some stuff from utrects so i could work on some studio stuff this evening.

so after another delay filled metro trip, i arrive at utrects at 6:05.

of course, they close at 6.

double ouch.

so, frustrated and tired, i walked next door to McDonalds.
comfort food i suppose.

so i'm sitting there eating my double cheeseburger when a guy comes and sits down across from me [there aren't any tables open, and i'm sitting at a 4 person table] and asks me if i have a dollar.

so i proceeded to sit down and talk with william as he ate his french fries. he was staying at the shelter down the road, had lived in DC all his life, went to St. Patrick's to 'meditate,' liked listening to talk radio.

when he had finished his fries he headed out and i followed suit, only to be stopped right out the door by a man named jeffrey who wanted some food as well. so i went back in and got him a meal.

not in my plan for the evening, buying food for two homeless men.

not in my plan to get to the national cathedral after it had closed

not in my plan to get to utrects after it closed

not in my plan to go to McDonalds for dinner

not in my plan to spend an extra 9 dollars at McDonalds.

but it was in God's plan.

Word

2008-02-18T21:39:00.001-05:00

So tonight i went to frontline in arlington. it was a lot smaller scale than frontline at McLean, so it was much more like the size of large group back at Va Tech.
i'm not really sure what a typical service there looks like though, because this was a special service. the whole theme of the evening was the book of Philippians. through some different ways we read the entire book. it was good to read scripture in its entirety, rather than just selected verses at a time.
also there was worship woven into the readings that was applicable to the verses being read. i really felt like it was what i needed. i've gotten some scripture, but i haven't gotten the corporate worship aspect lately.
so all in all, i really liked the service and i'll have to go back next week and see what the regular services are like.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
-philippians 4:8-9

mega-church here i come

2008-02-17T21:25:00.002-05:00

so tomorrow i'm going to Frontline Arlington, a satellite location of McLean Bible church [local Northern VA mega-church]

now i'm not typically a fan of mega-churches. i wasn't a big fan of the NewBirth church in Atlanta that we visited this summer during GUPY and the first time i visited McLean i was turned off by the massiveness of it's size.

so then why am i going tomorrow? frustration at the churches i've been checking out around alexandria, the need to get some authentic worship that i don't get in most traditional services, and i just feel like i haven't found any sort of ministry here that i can be a part of.

so we'll see how it goes tomorrow. my next post could be a rant against mega-churches or the opposite.

Take me out to the ballgame

2008-02-16T23:06:00.003-05:00

So spring training started a few days ago, so i'd like to take a moment to talk about my favorite sport.

baseball

there's something about the game, it has the tradition that no other sport does. a history of magical moments. babe ruth calling his shot, kirk gibson's pinch hit homerun , willy mayes over the shoulder catch, the red sox comeback against the yankees in 2004.

people complain that it's slow, it's boring, but i think there's so much strategy. In no other sport is it about the precision and strategy of two players at once. the pitcher choosing his pitch and location, the batter anticipating the pitch and trying to hit a 90 mph ball.

it's the sounds of the announcers, the national anthem, the smell of the grass at the ball park, the quirky things they do between innings to get the crowd pumped up. the 7th inning stretch
all of the things that get you into the spirit of the game

and it's the love of the game even among the players. the guys who play single and double-A ball [minor leagues] getting paid hardly anything, but they continue to go out there and work their butts off for a chance. just a chance to play in the major leagues.

and because there's no better moment in sports than the bottom of the 9th with two outs and a chance to win the game.

and that is why i love baseball

.....i need to go watch the sandlot now

(w)holy discontent

2008-02-02T11:27:00.000-05:00

when i think about where i was last summer, and i think about where i am right now. i feel like a hypocrite.

last summer, i was living in the city and ministering to those that were economically worse off than i was.

right now, i'm living in a city, spending the majority of my free time in coffee shops and watching TV.

what happened?

last night i was walking downtown to pick up some dinner and i passed by a beggar on the street, when he asked me for spare change i mumbled no and kept walking.

on my way to dinner.

probably what he needed money for.

couldn't i have invited him to come eat with me? or at least offered to get him something?

i passed him by and knew i had just let myself fall into the status quo again. being apathetic to the plight of the poor. i felt the guilt of it all the way down to get food and all the way back to where he had been. i thought of what i could do to make it right, give him my sandwich i had gotten, offer to go buy him something.

but the man was gone when i got back to where he'd been. i'd already missed my opportunity.

For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.

forgive me Lord, a greedy sinner.

is that the life i've slipped back into? a life of middle class apathy? a life that's so self absorbed that i don't think of others? I'm not happy or fulfilled by the life i'm living up here in alexandria. and i always made the excuse in blacksburg or back home in chesapeake that there weren't homeless around. but if there was, of course i would take care of them.

i guess not.

i continue to pass them by on the streets as if they aren't there.

i need God to change my heart, because it's just that, a matter of heart. my mind knows that these are your children and that we've been called to care for them, but my heart hasn't embraced that.

break my heart for these people O Lord.

Give me a sign!

2008-01-16T10:44:00.000-05:00

A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign!

how often do we ask for signs? "give me a sign if i'm supposed to do this, not not supposed to do this...etc."

do we even know what a sign looks like if we see it?

we ask for divine intervention and then once we've received it we credit something else. coincidence, chance, the weather, etc.

why are we so reluctant to credit God?

why do we even ask for a sign from God? is it that we're so caught up in our own gods? money, power, sports, fashion, that we can no longer know God's will without signs and wonders?

God didn't speak to Moses in the earthquake, nor the violent wind. He spoke in a whisper. So in this day do we know how to hear God's whispers?

over our TV's

over the noise of traffic

over our iPods?

how do we begin to hear the whispers that come from our Loving Father?

as individuals?

as a church?

as a society?

what is love?

2008-01-10T00:20:00.000-05:00

....baby don't hurt me

so, first off. rob bell is sick nasty.

i'm currently reading his book on spirituality + sexuality, entitled Sex God

i also just watched a lecture of his called everything is spiritual

the guy is deep.

but currently the thing i was reading about was love.

now, don't think i'm getting all mushy on you guys. this is the kind of love a man can have with his wife.

but this is also the love that God has with us.

Agape in the greek

unconditional love

"agape doesn't love somebody because they're worthy
agape makes them worthy by the strength and power of its love
agape doesn't love somebody because they're beautiful
agape loves in such a way that it makes them beautiful
there is love because, love in order to, love for the purpose of, and then there is love, period. agape doesn't need a reason."

so the only time i really can think of that i've actually had love like that for someone was this summer. there was this little girl, ranisha, who wanted so desperately to be loved by someone. after those few days i hung out with her at the boys and girls club i would have taken a bullet for her. she was the sweetest little girl that got picked on and teased and was basically an outcast. she had her flaws, she lashed out at the other kids cause they teased her. was very possessive of any attention other people got from people giving her attention. but i still would have done anything for her.

but that was only for a couple of days

so is that it?

in my 21 years of life i've had one time when i've been able to unconditionally love someone?

how do you live that out when it's more than just a few days?

how do you live that out when it's for life?

how do you love someone unconditionally even if they don't love you unconditionally back?

i guess God would know

2007-12-21T22:45:00.000-05:00

so something i've been faced with lately has been trying to figure out what i want to do with the rest of my life. yea, i know. easy right? but i've gotten a microcosm of that decision for this summer.

i'm trying to decide between [option 1] to go to pittsburg, work at an architecture firm, and partner with some inner city ministries, or [option 2] stay in chesapeake and work as the youth intern at my church.

both have upsides,
[1] i'm passionate about city ministry, i would have some good friends up in pittsburgh from VT, i would make a decent amount of money and get good experience. [2] i'm passionate about college ministry, i would have friends from home, not have to spend anything on rent [thanks mom and dad] and be near the beach

and both have downsides,
[1] i'll be away from my family all summer, working at an architecture job could be boring. [2] i'd make less money, i'd be stuck in suburbia all summer

and in both places i can serve God.

so how do i decide on that?

i'm not looking necessarily for a specific answer to what i should do, but more on the broad subject. how do you make a decision, where you can see yourself serving God in both places. i've never been one to deal with indecision well. usually God gives me a pretty black and white decision to make, and it's just a matter of me making it or not. and i tend to try and rationalize it all out in my head, and rationally, they are very even.

i suppose one thing might just be to be patient and let things happen. doors could close, or something totally new could come along. in which case, this blog has been totally pointless.

semester's end

2007-12-11T22:46:00.000-05:00

well, it's been a heck of a semester. seems like it was just yesterday when i moved into pritchard hall, planning stuff for NSO and starting out my 4th year of architecture.

4 months later, it's been a wild ride. i've been incredibly blessed by the guys in my dorm. from freshman guys like budwin, kyle and zach to all the sophomores and juniors that have been an awesome part of my life this year.

i came into the semester kinda freaking out about the future. after this summer, i didn't know what i wanted to do after i graduated anymore. but i came to realize that it's ok to not know. i was putting to much focus on what i wanted my future to look like, and not what God wanted for my life.

I also joined St. Paul's AME church, a predominantly african-american church here in blacksburg. it has been really good, it was definitely uncomfortable at first, but it's grown into a place that's really home for me. it's been challenging for me to be a minority, after living most of my life in the white majority.

I'm looking forward to next semester, living in alexandria and working at a firm. i think it will be challenging to have to seek out community somewhere else, i've become very comfortable in our IV community here. not to say that it isn't great, but it's become a comfort zone to the point that i don't really live outside that community much.

i'm looking forward to seeing what God has in store for me next semester and i'm hopeful that He will be doing great things here at VT

blessed are those who mourn....

2007-11-26T22:29:00.000-05:00

...for they will be comforted.

so tonight at VT, a student jumped out of the 7th floor of my dorm. from what i know, he didn't live in pritchard hall [my dorm now] but did live in barringer hall [my dorm freshman year.] it's been confirmed that he died.

man, how much does one campus have to take? it's barely been 7 months since the shootings here, and it was starting to feel back to normal here.

not anymore.

i was definitely shook up by it. it took me back to last april, a lot of disbelief and shock i guess. but it's just really hard to deal with. pray for the guy's family, his friends and hallmates, and just our campus in general.

the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. psalm 34:18

reproducing leadership

2007-11-12T09:17:00.000-05:00

hooo boy, this last week was a long one. on top of all the typical school work, we had leadership selection for IV last week. That basically involved a lot of interviews and some long meetings to try and discern who was being called into the leadership of our IV chapter here at virginia tech.

the whole process really got me thinking about the question of leadership. some people are blessed with that gift, the gift of leadership, but that gift is also something that's developed over time. i feel like i have been given that gift, but it's also something that was allowed to developed over years of boy scouts, youth group leadership and stuff like that. the question i really was asking myself though, was how do you reproduce leadership? especially as a college student, how do you reproduce it in those younger students who are following behind you? if it's in your discipleship relationships, what does that look like?

the bible has a lot to say about leaders, that they must be above reproach, self-controlled, and that they must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience. So how can i encourage that in the younger students that i meet with, with my peers, or even keep up with it myself?

now, of course, i don't want to presume who God is calling to be leaders, but i also think we can discern some of these gifts in people. I think as a leader in IV, i'm also called to help to raise up leaders from the younger students. But the question is, what is the best way to do that?

Moore than i expected

2007-11-06T23:34:00.000-05:00

so in my class tonight we watched the michael moore film Roger & Me which is a documentary about Flint, Michigan. The story centers around General Motors closing most of their plants in Flint, which is where the company began. the economy of Flint had been built around GM for so long that when the plants closed, the entire city spiraled downward.

now, this is a michael moore film, and he does tend to be a bit biased with his opinions, but regardless of his opinions, the truth is still pretty apparent on the screen.

more or less, the entire working class is devastated by the closings of the plant. the factories employed so many people, and then smaller industries that were dependent on the GM factories struggled. the town essentially becomes a ghost town very quickly.

moore juxtaposes scenes of a family getting evicted on christmas ever with a scene of the GM president giving a speech on how great christmas time is. There's also several other scenes where the wealthy people of Flint dismiss the jobless and unemployed as people who are being lazy or just not trying hard enough to get jobs. it was pretty convicting, because i know i've made that judgment in my head before. thinking that people who are unemployed must not be trying hard enough.

and in addition to having some ridiculous stuff in the movie; a woman who raises and sells rabbits [for pets or for meat], a sheriff's deputy that reminds me of Stanley from The Office, and a plant employee who literally goes crazy because of the stress of his job at the plant, the movie really makes me think about the way corporate america exists. does it care at all about the working class, or does it care only about making money? It also really makes me sad about the state of those who are well off, we've so isolated ourselves from the poor, put layers of insulation between us and those who are on the streets, that we can just dismiss them and say that they just need to work harder. when will we start recognizing the brokenness in our societies? when will we stop insulating ourselves from the poor and actually get to know those people rather than just feeling good about ourselves because we give to the salvation army?

blessed are the poor in spirit...

2007-11-05T09:39:00.000-05:00

...for theirs is the kingdom of heaven

so i started looking at the beatitudes today and i'm coming to the conclusion that the people who he talks about here are the people who make up the kingdom of heaven. the poor, the mourning, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and the persecuted are all people who make up the kingdom.

so to start with the poor in spirit, these are people who have left everything to follow after Jesus right? they are the people who have given up good paying jobs, secure neighborhoods, families, educations and more. and why have they left all these things? the call of Jesus.

Christ calls us to leave our nets, leave what we know and what is comfortable, to follow after Him.

so i have that knowledge, but i have very little idea of what that practically looks like in my life.

i've given thought to not doing architecture when i graduate, leaving behind prospects of a good paying job, moving to the inner city and giving up living in a secure suburban neighborhood.

but all this stuff is things that i would do after i graduate. i still have a year and a half till then, so am i supposed to just sit on my hands till then? what does it look like to live a sacrificial life in college? Where am i being called to give up things for the sake of following Christ?

costly grace

2007-10-30T23:35:00.000-04:00

so, i started reading the cost of discipleship by dietrich bonhoeffer. first off, the guy's story is pretty amazing, so if you've never heard of him, look him up. but anyways, the first chapter of the book is talking about cheap grace vs. costly grace and this got me thinking a lot. ever since i read it, i've been thinking of how often i just brush off sin as forgiven, without really taking time to appreciate the fact that Jesus Christ, God's own son suffered and died so that i could have that forgiveness. i think bonhoeffer says it best when he says 'what has cost God much, cannot be cheap for us.'

so how then are we to respond to this 'costly grace?' bonhoeffer suggests true discipleship, or the leaving of all to follow Christ. seems pretty radical huh? but that's why grace is costly, and why cheap grace [or grace without discipleship attached] has let so many people become Christians, who don't change anything about themselves other than coming to church sunday morning.

now i don't want to suggest that this costly grace is something that we earn. it is in the gospel of the grace of God that we are always and in every circumstance sinners. but that grace justifies us, even though we are sinners. so i think that such grace deserves a response by us. God allowed his own son to die so we could have this grace, shouldn't that change the way we live our very lives?