Our Car

Lately, it's felt like trouble is actually spelled "V-O-L-V-O!" We'll be taking the car into the shop for third time in two weeks tomorrow. We're trying to prayerfully discern if and how we should get rid of it and what and how we can afford to get a new (used) car. Nothing has been decided for final yet, but each day I become more convinced it needs to go.

But it's been a great car. It was Karisa's first car and we've spent many, many long hours in it together. I tried to find some photos to honor the good ol' S40, but I realized we don't really have many with in in there. So here's what I found:

The Volvo put up with somefun winters in Chicago. This picture is WAY old from Karisa's freshman or sophomore year. Let's just say, I'm sure the car loves having a garage now. Sadly, it's too little to late.

The fact that this is the only other picture I found should tell you something. We took pictures of our dog in the car. To be fair, Karisa has some pictures on the Mac that I don't have access to and SOMEwhere there's got to be some pictures of the car from the wedding, but I don't have them available at the moment.

Perhaps a miracle will happen and our car won't need to be replaced and we'll have many more years of joys with the Volvo S40. But either way, here's to you, !

Birthday Fallout

So, Karisa went the extra mile in planning my birthday and making it a great day. She baked a cake and cookies from scratch, planned the day, made waffles, made me an AMAZING birthday present and also crammed in a full day of studying. She's the best. I did laugh out loud, though, when I was helping clean up at the end of the night and saw this:

My birthday

For my birthday, we decided to go play laser tag. Unfortunately, so did 25 tweenage girls! I felt the worst for Keane and Josh who got followed around by one girl, codenamed "Voldemort," and shot repeatedly. I don't know if that should make them feel better or worse about the fact that Voldemort won the game. It was a lot of fun, but next time I'm definitely going to suggest that we rent the whole place for ourselves. :)

We had fun though. One of the best things that we did was get mustaches out of the candy like machine dispenser. Put 50 cents in and get one crazy mustache back out. We all had them on while we played. Also, that picture makes me look like I have a man boob! (Is that normal?! If so, I can't decide if I want to know or not...)

Amazing Wife

There are many things in life that are amazing, but none more than my wife, Karisa. She spent her whole night tonight making a cake, cookies and icing for my birthday. She's super busy with school and could have easily spent the whole night working on a research project. If not that, she desperately needs more relaxation time. Did she do those things? Nope! She spent the whole night doing things for me while I walked the dog and goofed off. It may be my birthday tomorrow but she deserves all the props!

Didn't get any pictures of her baking but I love it when she and Zeus take funny pictures together. I'm not sure when this one took place.

Courage to Teach

I've been reading this book for class. I don't have a lot to say about it at the moment except to say that it is a book that I highly recommend that anyone interested in teaching, preaching, or ministry read. For me, it really draws out the important of healing ministry for those going into teaching ministry. "We teach who we are," is the foundational concept. Palmer talks about being driven by fear and the negative impact that has on teaching. Ultimately, teachers and ministers need to take their brokenness to Jesus at the cross so that He can heal them. Then, and only then, will they be able to teach fully and effectively.

Karisa's Life These Days - A Picture is Worth a 1000 Words

2 Month Old Watermelon

So, I cleaned today and discovered that we have had a watermelon sitting on our counter for almost two months. It didn't seem like it had gone bad/soft yet, but neither Karisa or I wanted to find out for sure. So, what to do with it?

It was quite hilarious to watch him try to get his mouth on it!

But he eventually did manage to grate away at it until he got to the good stuff:

He wasn't glad to have us take it away!

David Crowder!

We got to go see the David Crowder Band last night. It was totally awesome. They played a lot of their older stuff, which I was surprised by. It was really fun to be there. What I love about David Crowder is that his shows remind me of how heaven will be. No offense to my church or any other church I've been to, but I've never experienced worship that is quite as FUN as it is at a David Crowder concert.

The only down side was that Zeus was alone most of the day. So when we got back, even though we were totally exhausted, we tried our best to play with him a while. Karisa discovered a new and hilarious thing to do with him:

He was hanging on to his toy and off her back for almost a full minute. He just won't let go! ;)

Prayer: Getting into the Throne Room

I thought I'd share an image of my experience praying that I had tonight. One of the things I love about how Jesus taught is that He used imagery. He connected to images and experiences that people would be able to understand. Sometimes the images might seem opposite because they convey a different aspect of the truth.

One image that has meant a lot to me in the past is:

God the Father, running to His prodigal son who had wandered away from Him. This is indeed a powerful image for God's love for us. One that, to be honest, I still haven't fully appropriated in my own life. However, the image I had tonight was actually the "opposite" image.

My prayer life is kinda like this:

God the Father, the true Dad, is sitting in his majestic throne room. It's glorious and amazing. He's there and, astoundingly, has invited me to come and be with him. I, though, am not going into the throne room. Instead, I'm peering around the corner of the entrance. I want to meet with Him badly, but I can't believe that He hasn't come and met with me. In frustration I call out, "So, you gonna meet with me or not?!" The Father is in the room--the room that is so full of joy and life--waiting for me to come in and accept His invitation. Instead, though, I am getting angry at the entrance because we're not together.

This, to me, is the opposite of what God wants. He tells us to "approach the throne of grace with confidence." I'm not confident. Instead, I'm letting fear of not meeting with God prevent me from accepting the chance to spend time together. The image is corrected when the little child (because I'm always a child in my images interacting with God) finally stops throwing a hissy fit in the hallway and goes into the throne room. Once I step in, of course, joy is sweet and I realize how foolish I was for not stepping in before.

As I thought about this image, I wanted to find the way it connects with the image from the Father running to His son. I know God seeks me out and that I need to come to Him. I believe that the Holy Spirit is the one with me in the hallway whispering, "Go ahead! Go in!" I just need to calm down enough to hear His encouragement.

Sunday Night

It's a slow Sunday night in Wheaton. Karisa has been spending the night writing a paper and reading for class. I've been cleaning the apartment. Finally got the laundry room in a little bit better order. Did some laundry. It's been an exciting day. I've been staying awake, though, just to be able to hear the Phillies game which is on the radio right now. C'mon Phils!

Karisa told me she likes to read blogs with photos. Since she's always right, I thought I'd throw a few pics up. Here's Karisa and me from last week when we were hanging out together. We played Scrabble and I got demolished. I started off in the lead and then it was straight downhill after my second turn. It was fun to be together though.

Lord, Save Us From Your Followers

On Wednesday night I went with Cheryl, my mother-in-law, to see a screening of Lord, Save Us From Your Followers. A film in which Dan Merchant goes on a mic-and-camera journey to answer the question, "Why is the Gospel of Love dividing America?"

There are a number of things about the movie that are intriguing. I talked with Cheryl briefly after we finished the movie. Now that I have had a few days to ruminate on it, I feel better prepared to respond thoughtfully. Things that I appreciated about the film:

- Dan's journey seems to be an authentic one. This especially came through in the "talk back" with him following the film. he was very honest about his own struggles and doubts before, during and after the film. I, for one, didn't feel preached at but shared with.

- The film highlights the power of relationships that are truly based on love and not just a desire to "evangelize" people. Traditional track evangelism has always been something I've been wary of, especially after doing it with Campus Crusade. It's great to get someone to say a prayer, but, on the other hand, so what? They aren't growing in Christ, living in Him or His church, and aren't producing fruit. It seems like that method is based way too much on the view of salvation as an "intellectual assent to a propositional truth claim."

- The film points out how we are spending way too much time on the wrong things instead of the right things: namely loving people.

- The message of the film is hopeful. Dan points out that there are many Christians in America who are loving people well and sharing Christ effectively. It seems to be that the problem is the way Christians are represented and represent themselves through media. One of the most interesting questions in the talk back was about how Christians could use media and if media was inherently a problem (I don't remember the exact wording). I wish that had been explored more in the talk back. Dan's answer was very tangential. I don't think he understood the question.

- I was personally convicted to engage in more loving relationships with people who aren't like me. The segment about going to hang out at a gay festival was particularly challenging. One person in the audience asked afterwords, "But why would a Christian go to such an event?" I think that question really highlights how disconnected we are from Jesus' method of reaching out. He hung out with sinners and tax collectors. I don't imagine he met them just because they randomly walked into synagogue for prayer. He had to go to them. The people ARE the reason we would to go the gay festival. What other reason could be better?

Things I didn't appreciate about the film:

- In one segment, Dan is engaging in hyperbole about removing religion from the public arena. He points out that many towns, such as St. Paul, Minneapolis, are named after key religious figures. So he suggests renaming them. I think this was a brilliant point to make about some of the inherent ridiculousness of taking religion out of everything. What bothered me was that he proceeded to suggest the name "New Leningrad." He also proceeded to rename all the cities in America named after religious figures after other controversial political figures. The point her was, as I mentioned, hyperbole. Implicitly, though, he was engaging in ad hominem argument by implicitly comparing the other side to mass murders and dictators.

- The movie is not put together in such a way that it would convince people in the extreme fundamentalist/far right positions to change their mind. Maybe that's not his point. He did say he would rather have the audience that was drawn to the film title than the one that was put off by it. I would be really interested to see the response to the film from a non-Christian and, especially, from the people he interviewed.

Anyways, those are my initial thoughts. If you've seen the movie, tell me what you think. If you haven't, it's definitely worth checking out.

Fall Busyness

It's fall time! It's getting chilly, the leaves are turning colors, and we're going apple picking this Saturday with some good friends. This will be the second year in a row we've done it, so I'm thinking that it's the birth of a new tradition.

Karisa's mom, Cheryl, is coming in for a visit today. In fact, she's probably already flying here as I write this. It'll be fun to have her stay with us. We really enjoy having a guest room so we can host people easily. Last month we got to host a wonderful guy named Eliot who was in town for a conference. It was fun, though humbling. He went running every morning he was here!

Tonight we're gonna go watch the film, "Lord, Save Us From Your Followers." You can check it out here. It's gonna be pretty sweet. I was very excited when I looked at my course syllabus for the grad course I'm taking a realized I don't have a paper due on Thursday like I thought. So I'll be able to enjoy the film without stressing about the paper I'm not writing.

Zeus, our wonderful dog, is growing so big. We really love him, though he still hasn't learned his good manners around new people and dogs. I'm secretly a little worried because he goes SO crazy that it's impossible to teach him anything when he's around another dog. I'm hoping that he grows out of that. I also learned yesterday that we can get his nails trimmed for free at Petland! Yay! We don't have to be the bad guys anymore!

Karisa and I started the Redeemed Lives program through our church last week. I missed the first week because of a college fair. It's a year long discipleship program. I've wanted to do it for about 5 years now but it never has worked out. It will definitely be a growing experience for us both.

Zeus, Eater of Rocks (and fluffy toys that squeek)

Best Movie in Months!

Karisa and I went to see "Gran Torino" on Friday night at the local $3 theater. I don't know where to start except: YOU HAVE TO GO SEE THIS MOVIE! I honestly believe that it was one of the very best movies I have seen in a long time.

The story is about an old Korean war veteran whose wife has just died. His neighborhood has changed to contain a large Hmong population and he's... a bit racist and very bitter. The movie follows his journey as he gets to know the new family that moves in next door, especially the son, Thao. 

Gran Torino is funny. I laughed more than I have in many other movies actually labelled "comedy." The cultural interchanges are hilarious. Karisa and I have experience living overseas but it wasn't just me. The whole theater was laughing.

Gran Torino is poignant. It depicts brokenness, pain, sorrow, and death. It does it all well. Clint Eastwood's character has not been a good father, the dysfunction in his family is clear. The influence of gangs is heartbreaking. Generational gaps are clear.

Gran Torino is hopeful. I can't say too much about this because I don't want to spoil anything for you. But the movie doesn't just take you into a broken place. It gives hope about what can happen in the brokenness. 

Gran Torino is about faith. One of the main themes is the recurring interchanges between Eastwood and the young Catholic priest. Again, the movie does a superb job depicting a priest and wrestling with faith. The priest isn't perfect (he's young and inexperienced) but he's genuine and admirable.

It's a GREAT movie. SEE IT! Then tell me what you think.

Wow, is there anything more embarrassing than having to post after a post about not posting when it's been even longer since that post than since the one before it?! Ah well...

Lately, I've been playing this online game that is basically like Settlers of Catan but has soldier, called Travian. It's kinda fun. I had gotten a little too into it, though, so I recently had to cut back and put it in it's proper place. That said, it's lots of fun so go to www.travian.us and have fun.

The biggest excitement in life right now is that summer softball starts on Monday. I'm pretty stoked as I have been waiting for softball since last season ended. I was known to go up to people at church in January and say things like, "It's 2009! Softball is coming soon!"

Besides that, not much is happening. Karisa got accepted to Wheaton (wasn't much doubt with her amazing skills and experience). My car was totaled (nothing serious don't freak out. Hit a curb that messed up a tire and when they went in to fix it, they found old damage) which means we will learn to survive on 1 car while putting the money the insurance company gives us into savings!

Well, that's it for real. More later.

Time Flies

Wow, I can't believe it's February 19th. First of all because today is my brother's birthday! 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESSE!

(That's Jesse on the left. The one on the right is my younger  brother, Joel)

I'm also glad that today is February 19th because it is a sign that soon we will have moved on past the month that is February (no offense, bro) towards a month that has the possibility of being spring like. Of course, I know that here in Chicago the whole phenomenon known as "spring" is most an illusion or a cruel trick of Winter to get your hopes up. However, I choose to be an optimist. This year, we're going to get warmth early to make up for how freaking cold it was this winter.

In other news, Karisa and I are on the hunt for a two bedroom apartment. I am in negotiations with our current landlord to try to get a two bedroom apartment. In the past he's been really generous with people. The problem is that I talked to him today and he said he hasn't been having any problem lately keeping the apartments full at full price. So, we'll see if there might be any fruit that comes from our negotiations. He's a softie but since we already have a one bedroom apartment it's not like we can claim no place to live if he says no.

Also, like has been incredibly busy for me at work as we are striving, like every college, to try to anticipate the affects (or is it effects? I don't know how I graduated college or why they let me work here...) of the economic downturn on enrollment. It's an adventure for sure.

Lots is going on at church as well as Karisa and I try to develop the Hospitality Ministries at Resurrection. I really want to work on how to change the ethos. It's one thing to have good systems in place and things running smoothly. (We do need that). But it's another thing to try to make people friendly and willing to talk to strangers. I'm trying to figure out how to tell people, "They're more afraid of you than you are of them." It seems odd, but people are afraid to talk to newcomers, almost as if they are worried about offending them or not being liked. My experience is that when someone is visiting, they love being said hello to. Even if you don't have a great conversation, they really appreciate your effort. 

Well, I'm not sure how many people even read this blog so I won't keep rambling. It would probably be more people if I update more often! :) No one to blame but myself.