Amy Poehler

Yes, I'm a nerd, I listen to NPR.  As msnbc refers to them NPR is the "hippie station." Sometimes you get crazy things like and interview with a native american punk rock band, and that's just weird. But, The Fresh Air guest on May 7th was Amy Poehler, which was pretty cool.  In my quest to engage my culture this semester I've started to be more observant and aware of all the ways people are talking about "spirituality" and "religion."  Amy's  statement about participating in improv shows really struck me... 

"Its kind of the closest thing I have to a communal religious experience.  You just meet up with people that you love, and you do something together, and there's someone there witnessing it, and hopefully you kind of feel different after.  And I think that my experience has provided a spirituality I guess in a way that I wouldn't have otherwise."  

Three things really stuck out to me about this.  1) The life of the Church has been simmered down to meeting with people you love, doing something, and feeling different after.  That's how non-church attenders see it, and sadly, although they may say its more, most church attenders live out that mentality. 2) When all the Church is is a "communal religious experience" to make you feel better there is a plethora of substitutes, including improv shows.  As a Christian it is my duty to step up and share the relevance of Jesus, and daily show by my actions that there is more to being a Christian than having the trendy "spiritual" button pinned on with a community and weekly religious experience to go with it.  3) People are searching, there is a void to be filled, without someone to show them that who they are looking for is Jesus we will see a rise in comedy shows, athletics, and hobbies becoming the gods of this nation. 

Random Thoughts

I went to Minneapolis to see my 10 year old cousin perform in the circus this weekend.  It was amazing. It was all kids 2-21 and they had super hardcore muscles.  I totally wish I could do the silks (pictured to the left).  You climb up to the top like climbing a rope then twist all up and just fall down and hang upside down and stuff its awesome.

 My 3 year old cousin likes to pretend he's a dog and it just so happened that this weekend was the dog's birthday. So, I made him a doggy birthday cake (pictured below).

  I talk to God when I'm going to sleep.  Sometimes when I'm in that half awake/half asleep mode I have really deep thoughts about forgiveness or such things.  Other times I catch myself praying ridiculousness.  For instance, I started praying for Jack Bauer and Tony Almeida one night :)

Empty Handed but Alive in Your Hands

If I had $30 to spend on gas every weekend I would drive 3 hours to go to church. I don't know what it is, but there's just something about Desperation Church that seems so real, and connected to with God. A huge part of it has to be the people that make up the church body, its not just the leaders for sure. Watching multiple families take communion together and pretty much everyone getting lost in worship helps bring me one step closer to the union with God that I'm so hungry for.

This weeks message was entitled "Living Trust" and it was deffinitely what I needed to hear as I'm getting ready to jump into a new ministry setting for the summer. I wish I could understand more clearly how God works, maybe its just one of those mysteries we're not supposed to get until we're in heaven, or maybe its just something that comes with time, but for some reason God just totally "restored my soul" this weekend. I wasn't even asking for it or close to understanding what I needed, but God came and gave me Life again! I hate Christian cliches, I guess what I'm really trying to say is God came to confront me this weekend, as I did my best to abandon everything else that was going through my mind at the time, God was ripping fear, doubt, shyness, and stress out of my core and refilling me with the abundant life John 10:10 talks about. He was giving me freedom, confidence, peace, joy and excitement for every area of my life.

As the sermon about Living Trust progressed I started to have flash backs of the year I got baptized and I realized how confident I was, and how passionate I was about knowing God, and being obedient to him no matter what it took. It was all about trust, when I first came to God and accepted the forgiveness he gave me for the crap life I'd been living I was overwhelmed by his love and he was so real to me. God made things happen that I could never explain (like getting me into a college with scholarships that I never applied to), and I knew he had my back. Then life happened, 5 years of rough relationships, starving children in 3rd world countries, dealing with junk from my past, and doing ministry with real people who have real doubts, struggles and issues everyday got the best of me. Somewhere along the way all of life just started to pile up and it gained more of my focus than God. Without a steady, solid, passionate church family to stand beside me I was slowly slipping away from my trust and love for God.

But, then there was saturday night. As twelve pictures of kids being tossed up into the air (see above) flashed across the screens I started remembering freedom and life and trust again. God broke away all the gunk that had been clowding my view and brought me back to the place I came to know 5 years ago. As I'm getting ready to start a new internship the summer I am totaly excited and at peace! Just like those kids I want to be thrown into wild things, with my arms wide open ready for whatever comes my way and my feet ready to go wherever God leads I can live joyfully, confidently and at peace because I know I can trust the God who throws me up to come catch me.

"Our trust in a person has to start somewhere other than the person's size and strength. It starts in their proven character over time." God has proven to me so many times by his character that he is worth trusting. But, just believing in him isn't going to be enough, I've got to live out a life that is revealing my trust in him.