cream cheese on my toast

Still here, kids, not to worry.

It is funny how I have felt pretty stinkin' busy even though I have been working fewer hours. It has been a bittersweet thing, as the hours were cut down for budgetary purposes, but also in that, I am now working solo.
Good: I watch out for myself without having to "babysit" other people. I don't have to find work for other worker while I do computer updates, information bidding, and liaison duties.
Bad: I do it all by myself.
It has been okay, just busy. This past week was especially busy for some reason. It didn't help that there were three surprise tools to set and that one of them involved a completely different environment while another involved a missing control point. Trouble. I was slightly irritated. I am glad it is Saturday.

Today we had the Prayer Pal luncheon. I know it was a ton of work for Janine, but it was done really well and I believe that everyone involved had a lot of fun. My guy didn't show so I filled in with some other kids who were missing their prayer pal. All the groups had a good time playing games, enjoying food, and spending time getting to know one another. I know that Janine is glad that it is done, and I don't blame her, but it was a good time.
Kids Club itself has been great. We have had such a strong showing of leaders, which alleviates some of the duties. The kids have been great, too, with probably an average showing of 40-45 kids. They all love the new format of small groups, as do I. It has been fun to stay with the same kids throughout, and although I had some reservations about the first and second grade boys at first, I truly have enjoyed having them. They are fun every week.
Janine has also been planning a retreat for the leaders, which will take place during the second week of November. There is a ton of excitement in the air as the time draws near. All the leaders are excited, as are Janine and me. It should be a great time to get away and spend time hanging out with those people with whom we serve.

The kids have been doing well, too. They are growing up so quickly. It is funny to write that, as we have only had them for only 8 1/2 months now, but they all amaze me with their ability to learn and how quickly they have become acclimated to life here. The boys constantly are saying funny things and picking up new things to say. They charm everyone they meet, as does Shirley. They have all made such good friends here and are great at making everyone smile. I marvel at how wonderful a match we are for each other as we continue to learn and continue to grow together.

School seems to be good for Shirley. She is clearly settled in as we hear about her getting into trouble (not major trouble, just normal 9 year old mischief) from time to time. She has made several friends and is pretty diligent in doing her school work. Today she is out with Christie (her prayer pal) watching a football game. We bundled her up and got her ready for a cold day outside, but it has turned out pretty nice. I hope that she has fun with Christie, and we are happy that she has a prayer pal who likes to be involved like this with her.

My brother in law and his wife, Brad and Traci, are in the middle of pursuing an adoption. Things have moved amazingly quickly for them, and right now they are planning on adopting a set of boy/girl twins. They were contacted about 11 days ago regarding the twins and have been waiting for a green light to go get them. It seems that that time is coming close, so we are trying to help them prepare for this major event in their lives. It has all happened so quickly that it seems that we really have not had a whole lot of time to even think about the whole thing, and I am sure that their heads are just spinning taking it all in. There is still much to do, but we celebrate with them and hope to help them in big and small ways as they move in this direction.

Ugh. I am a part of the facebook.com phenomenon now. I guess that is where some of my time has been spent, as opposed to blogging, but hopefully I won't push this off fully. This is a much easier place to let my mind free.

Speaking of, I have really been wrestling with the functionality of the church lately. In particular, the vocation of pastor has been something that has been going under some scrutiny in my mind. I am beginning to wonder if the role of pastor as vocation as we know it is actually conducive to building a strong, outwardly focused church. I ask myself this thinking that because pastorship as vocation lends itself to a quick and easy "out" for those who might be tempted to say that they don't participate in certain activities because it is the "pastor's job." I don't believe that the pressures that pastors face are necessarily fair, either, as the burdens of a church body is something that should be taken on by all the members of the church. In such a manner, the church then begins to think of the "other" instead of the "self," which I believe to be more in line with what Christ teaches anyway. The vocation of pastor allows responsibility to be shunned, whether one agrees with that or not, it is very much the practiced folk-religion that underlies most churches. It propagates a level of comfort among the church in which they can relax, not bearing the burdens of the other, not considering the other, not carrying out the statement that "greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for another." So the greatest part of the churches problems are taken on by the pastor, or maybe the elders and deacons, but for the most part not by the church itself. It is anti-communal in my mind, it is the opposite of what we learned as children, to love God with all our heart, soul and mind and to love others as ourselves. Instead we practice an opposite version of the gospel in which we love our own pursuits with all our heart, soul and mind and we love ourselves above others. We relegate our own responsibilities to an "other" who can either fix it for us or who can at least make me feel vindicated in my self-pity/self-love paradox in which we find ourselves. So how does the vocation of pastor fit into this? It fits in that we compartmentalize the sacred to those who are sacred (those who are "trained, called, gifted") and fail to challenge the profane (I choose to say as opposed to secular). So the compartmentalization adds to the dichotomy of Sunday morning vis'-a-vis' rest of the week. The conflict of worship as an act vs. worship as being. It compartmentalizes and draws up easy boundaries of "right" and "wrong" while ignoring the command to love one another. It compartmentalizes and belittles the work of the followers of Christ as not important enough for the actual church to do, but only for those who are trained/called/gifted. And when it all goes wrong...well, I didn't do it...it wasn't my responsibility. So turning away from such conventions we begin to actually allow others to be challenged to do the work of the church, the things that are so plainly laid out in the Bible, and holding each other accountable to do so. The accountability also means that we are responsible, not just to chastise, but to disciple and be discipled, and also demands humility and love...something that we could all use more in an outward focus. It does not, in my mind, take away from those who feel called in such a direction, but allows them to be a part of a church whose focus is more clearly based upon loving God and loving the "other" and in such a way that necessitates a move toward the model of a reproducing church. In a sense, the church of the non-vocational or bi-vocational pastor must look at itself as temporal, not just in a broad spectrum, but in smaller bits of time as well. An outwardly focused church must realize that it will not stay in one place with the same people, necessarily, but will prone to reproduction, re-evaluation, re-structuring as it is moved by the Spirit. The non-vocational/bi-vocational aspect allows for this to happen in that a church is not itself tied to a building or bound by as many monetary needs and is therefore able to be a little more transient in nature. Now I know of warnings that may come, the questions of how a church becomes part of a people or a community in light of this, but I believe that it is altogether possible and probable that any church that focuses on the "other" will find itself in the heart of a community regardless of physical building or a pastor by vocation. Of course it calls for logistics to be worked out, and it calls for some amount of living within a closer proximity, but these questions and issues need to be worked out by individual churches.
So the non/bi-vocational pastorship opens up a world of opportunities, for the church to be challenged, for the the church to deepen its spirituality, its dependence upon God, its ability to be a reproductive church, and to function as a true light in a community, not just a Sunday stop off for do-gooders. Certainly there are things that I have not thought of, but these are just some of the things that have crossed my mind as I work by myself these days.

Iron & Wine will be here in December. I should go.

The Flyers are 2-1. Much better than last year. They can actually put the puck in the net, which is amazing.

The more I think about it, the more I believe that no one should ever buy a product marketed to them using a bee.

I once mistakenly put Philadelphia Cream Cheese on my toast thinking it was butter (I was eight). It was so disgusting that I have yet to ever eat cream cheese again.

I have a guitar for sale; anyone passing through UT who wants to get rid of $325 for a good guitar, a hard shell locking case, and a tuner should let me know.

I love autumn.

And cheese steaks.