Why I love volunteers

Exhibit A:



I guess I should clarify...I love MY volunteers at my campus. They are totally rad, as can be seen in the above example. But in all seriousness, our services would be totally lame without my awesome team of volunteers who give up their weekends after working all week in order to have artistic moments in church. I love working with my team of artists. I really do. And there is no way I could make all the artistic elements we plan happen on my own. Contrary to popular belief, I am not a one-woman show. So thanks to all the volunteers at Montgomery...I really appreciate you all. I love that you roll with the punches, and that no matter how weird our ideas may seem, you help me make them happen. Even when I want to sing Madonna. With a side ponytail. You wear afro wigs, and play crazy songs, and give up your Saturdays for rehearsal....and just plain rock.

I think I have the best volunteers at CCC. I know that it's not really a competition, but my artists are the best. We're not supposed to say that, but you know what, I'm gonna put it out there. Sometimes I feel like Montgomery is the little campus that could, the underdog campus, and I'm out to prove that we rock as hard as anyone else. Especially to 80s music...

the church....stayin' alive

If you were alive in the 70s, it probably looked nothing like this:






...but we sure had fun this weekend!

a swift kick in the butt....

Don't you hate when you think you are doing a good job at something...and then you find out that you're not? It's pretty much the worst feeling ever. Probably not ever...I guess I can think of worse things, like having someone be disappointed in you (which is THE worst feeling ever and infurates me!), but it's not too pleasant.

Take today for instance. Every time we talk about tithing at church, I don't really pay attention, because I tithe. Or at least I thought I tithed. But apparently I don't really. I got to see just how my record of tithing and the church's record of my tithing (since they also know my salary!) actually line up, and I was actually really surprised. So I guess when they talk about having leaders tithe, I should be paying attention. Huh.

It turns out that I am terrible at keeping track of my finances. Half the time I don't even know when I get paid...I know it's generally around the 15th and the 30th, but if it's an off-week, I don't pay attention. I don't balance my checkbook. I check my bank statements online. I use my debit card like there is no tomorrow. I never carry cash. (Although I'm trying to get better at that one to keep track of my small expenditures more competently...like Starbucks and Borders and WalMart...yes, I shop at WalMart.) And I found out that I don't keep track of my tithing either. I'm kind of hit or miss, I knew that, what with being at church so much that I forget to do things like write a check, but I had no idea it was THIS bad!

Nothing like a swift kick in the butt to make you see what you need to do better. This is the real me, I suppose. Slightly irresponsible and a little flighty...please don't hold it against me. I'm working on it, I promise...

nothing to fear....

One of my greatest fears is that I will go through life living half-heartedly. I wonder, do we really live at our whole-hearted potential, or do we simply go through life waiting for those shining moments that allow us to really BE....be awake to the world as a marvelous and magnificent place, be in the presence of God, be in love with the people who make our lives worth living, be quiet and revel in the wonder of the stars....

Sometimes I want to just BE. In each and every moment, full of wonder, whole-hearted and involved in all the moments of my life. But it seems easier to live on the outskirts of passion. It seems less risky, less confusing, less hurtful, less intense....just LESS. But living on the edges is different than living on the edge. I've always found that phrase bold and inacurate. Aren't we all really living on the edge of something? Somehow living on the edge means taking risks, being brave, strong, courageous and innovative. We all live on the edge of something greater than ourselves, I think, even when we feel we may be in the midst of it. I always get the sensation that something is looming on the horizon, no matter what is happening in my life. We are on the brink...of something. But we also live on the edges....of relationships, commitment, happiness, contentment. Can we live IN the midst of those things for more than mere moments of our lives?

I like to think that I'm an optimist. I like to think that we can dive into the world as it presents itself to us, in ways unfathomably large and beyond our control. On my honest days, though, I have to admit that I am more like my dad the pessimist than I like to think, because sometimes the thing looming on the horizon is dark and scary, not shining and bright. It is more like The Nothing, coming closer all the time, threatening to envelop my whole world.

Fortunately,

Jesus calls us to Life. Life abundant. That is the Life I crave, for which my soul cries out and I find the energy to throw myself whole-heartedly into the fray. And in those moments, I can BE.

I think we're on the brink of something large.

blog neglect

Yes, my blog has been suffering from severe posting neglect recently...I didn't realize how extremely time-consuming moving can actually be, and all the accompanying drama. Five people's crap + really big house x 2 years' worth of accumulation of junk, dust, and dirt = one really gross house, and one rather peevish landlord...or should I say ex-landlord...who is reluctant to return a rather large security deposit. Thankfully, this saga is drawing to a close, although we are not home-free yet...we are having waste removal problems at the moment, which makes no one happy, least of all those of us waiting for our security deposits. Moving is the bane of my existence right now.

But I have found an author who might be my kindred spirit in disguise. I picked up Shauna Niequist's book Cold Tangerines based mainly on the title and the bright orange cover...but started reading last night and only stopped when I was about halfway through and it was after midnight. I think if we ever met we would have a high probability of being friends. She writes the way I would if I wrote about myself, which I guess is what happens here on this blog suffering neglect and abuse, collecting figurative dust on the shelf. It's rare to feel like you know an author or that they are anything like yourself...but it's nice to sense that someone else is expressing your heart of hearts, and expressing it eloquently and poetically and humorously and beautifully.

faith like a child

This was one of the best weekends we've had in a long time at church. Not because everything was executed perfectly or because we planned the best service ever, but because God changes people's lives.

Not only was this the first weekend in the Soul Cravings series, it also happened to be a weekend designed for baptisms in service. Even though this is programmed every month, we don't usually have that element in the service every month at Montgomery. But we sure did this weekend, and I couldn't help feeling overwhelmed.

On Saturday night two families in our church baptized their daughters, who are both around eight or nine years old. I was the one who got to read their testimonies--I love reading testimonies of kids...mainly because they're short (their stories, that is, not them, although that is also true)...but also because they're so simple. Sometimes things just click with kids in a way that takes grown-ups a lifetime to comprehend. But as I read MacKenzie's story (it was hand-written, and only about 4 or 5 sentences long, mind you), it was all I could do to keep the tears from coming. I can't even remember what she said now, but I know that I got choked up by the simplicity of her writing about her relationship with Jesus.

The coolest moment was having the kids from Kids City, who were all friends of Kate and MacKenzie (the 2 girls getting baptized), come and sit in the front row in support of their friends. Each time one of the girls came up out of the water, their friends were so excited for them. I think they cheered louder than the adults. Even if they didn't fully comprehend the immensity of that moment, I think they all knew something big was happening. Our StuCo director, Tim Raad, baptized his daughter about a year ago (I think she's ten now), and she was my favorite part of the whole moment. When her friends came up out of the water, she jumped out of her chair with both fists lifted in the air, cheering for her new sisters in Christ.

Her enthusiasm was uncontainable.

Later I heard her talking to Kate, the two of them having a conversation about what it felt like to come up out of the water, and Destiny said to Kate, "I know how you felt when you came out of the water. You just felt so....so GOOD."

And a little child shall lead them in.

Sunday morning we had two more baptisms--a mother and daughter of one of my favorite families in our church. What a cool moment to see a whole family in the baptistry together, encouraging and supporting each other in their spiritual journeys.

These are the moments that make church worthwhile. These are the moments that infuse a hollow room with life, and energy, and the presence of God--so close that you can feel Him. I felt His smile this morning, and last night, as He watched His children celebrating life. Not empty life, but Life. These are more than rituals, they are proof of an ever-present, real, personal, loving, relentless God, who calls His children home.

Salvation is here. Don't contain yourself.

life...in context

Do you think objectivity really exists?

I mean, really exists. Is it possible to be truly objective in any given situation? Especially when asked to be objective, it seems nearly impossible to be so.

Here's why I think this is true. My Shakespeare class got me thinking about this. We did response writings last week and I was writing about how Shakespeare is almost never read and/or viewed objectively--there is always a context surrounding our experience of Shakespeare which then affects every experience we have with Shakespeare from that point on. Maybe you saw Leonardo DiCaprio in Romeo & Juliet, and you loved him, so therefore you loved the film. Or maybe you didn't love him, so you didn't love the film. The point is that you didn't really experience Romeo & Juliet. You carried a lot into the viewing of that particular motion picture having to do with things other than the actual script. (And I'm not singling you out--this is the collective you to which I refer...)

The point is this: I doubt whether at this stage in my life I will ever be able to experience anything from an objective viewpoint. In the last 25 years I've had enough experiences that lie in deep recesses of my brain that can be triggered by any number of outside influences. Take Shakespeare again--I can't read Romeo & Juliet without thinking of my freshman English teacher since that's whose class in which I read the play for the first time. All of it--everything--has associations that may not be in our consciousness at any given moment, but can be triggered, which is why I am playing with this idea that we truly live life in context. I don't know if in our own personal lives we can ever take something "out of context", for we don't forget circumstances or experiences that easily.

Maybe the amnesiac can be objective. Or Jason Bourne. But the rest of us? Are we capable of making objective decisions? I don't know for sure.

I, personally, seem incapable of objectivity. Subjectivity, on the other hand, makes every experience interconnected with another...so that my life's context becomes as intricate as a spider web.