This summer has been billed the summer of 3's. Spider-Man 3. Shrek 3. Pirates of the Caribbean 3. Rush Hour 3. Ocean's 11 3. Wait, I mean Ocean's 13. I've seen the first three movies on the list and have discovered what many other movie goers have this summer: pulling off the third of the series is often the hardest. So far, I've been disappointed with all three movies with the exception of Pirates and that might have just been because I had low expectations in the first place.
This week I also find myself facing a different type of three, the third person of the trinity, the Holy Spirit. Today is Pentecost, the day we celebrate the arrival of the Holy Spirit on the disciples and the beginning of the Christian church. It also happens to be Memorial Day weekend which means significantly less people in church and thus, the perfect day for the intern to preach. I took it all in stride and figured preaching on Pentecost was a good thing. Nobody really talks about the Holy Spirit and that should give me plenty to talk about. But, as I started writing the sermon this week, I realized that the reason people didn't preach on it often, was because it wasn't exactly easy to preach on.
Those of us in the church will often talk about the Holy Spirit in an offhand way. We pray for it to show up in worship on Sunday. If we're trying to make a decision we tell people to listen to the Spirit or do whatever the Spirit moves you to do. We talk about it as a feeling. But, when it actually comes to making the Holy Spirit into more of a concrete being, well, it's a challenge to say the least.
I did my best with the sermon. I struggled a bit and ironically, prayed for the Holy Spirit to work through my writing of it and give me the words I needed. And the funny thing with how writing sermons works is sometimes we just end up writing them to ourselves. In my case, my last part of the sermon was about how we needed to trust that the Holy Spirit is always there, working through our lives just like it worked through the apostles on that day on Pentecost. Whether we could feel it or not, we needed to trust that the Holy Spirit was working through our lives. For me, it was trusting that even though I wasn't feeling the best about this sermon, that the Holy Spirit could and would use it anyway.
So this morning I tackled the big three. The third person the the trinity. Three Sunday services. And it definitely wasn't as bad as the three "3" movies I saw this summer. :) The Holy Spirit did its job and it did it well.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Thursday, May 17, 2007
In the Meantime
Some fun pictures from the past month (and because blogs are always more fun with pictures)...
The ladies and I got to play ditzy angels complete with wings for the song "Heaven Hop."
Belting out the piece "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from Jesus Christ Superstar. Of course they give the intern pastor the controversial piece.
My other staring role in the show. My friend Drew sang the song "Why God Why?" from Miss Saigon. I was the "prop" for the song and got to pretend to be sleeping through his song.
One of the highlights of the show. This is "Sit Down You're Rockin' the Boat," one of my favorite pieces from the show. This also happens to be the perfect action shot of Bobby doing his best Nicely Johnson impression.
The entire cast of the show. I must say, the kids always stole the show!
The other week I went the Relient K show. It was basically me and a bunch of high schoolers and their parents and a few other older than college age people. It was a great show though and I fell in love with one of the opening bands, Mae.
The crowd getting into the Relient K show. The one nice thing about being at a show with high schoolers was that when I did find myself in the middle of a mosh pit, I was able to do my fair share of shoving too.
Anderea, Ashley, the Knights mascot, and myself at a Charlotte Knights game on Sunday. It was the perfect day for a baseball game and we all had a blast!
The ladies and I got to play ditzy angels complete with wings for the song "Heaven Hop."
Belting out the piece "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from Jesus Christ Superstar. Of course they give the intern pastor the controversial piece. 
My other staring role in the show. My friend Drew sang the song "Why God Why?" from Miss Saigon. I was the "prop" for the song and got to pretend to be sleeping through his song.
One of the highlights of the show. This is "Sit Down You're Rockin' the Boat," one of my favorite pieces from the show. This also happens to be the perfect action shot of Bobby doing his best Nicely Johnson impression.
The entire cast of the show. I must say, the kids always stole the show!
The other week I went the Relient K show. It was basically me and a bunch of high schoolers and their parents and a few other older than college age people. It was a great show though and I fell in love with one of the opening bands, Mae.
The crowd getting into the Relient K show. The one nice thing about being at a show with high schoolers was that when I did find myself in the middle of a mosh pit, I was able to do my fair share of shoving too. 
Anderea, Ashley, the Knights mascot, and myself at a Charlotte Knights game on Sunday. It was the perfect day for a baseball game and we all had a blast!Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Get 'Er Done!
Sorry for the hiatus in blog postings. It's been quite a couple of weeks and I know this is going to continue for at least one and half more. Whew!
A couple of notes. The show turned out fantastic! I had a wonderful time and didn't realize how much it meant to me until our closing worship after the final show. As we dug into the most powerful number of the show, "You'll Never Walk Alone" from Carousel I found myself in tears and I wasn't alone. The community that we found from this show did a lot to carry us through it, when we hit notes wrong, when we were worrying about singing the wrong lyrics for our solos, when we were trying to change costume in a rush, when one of us got sick, etc. I'll promise pictures later.
The class list has been posted for next year and our approval essay requirements have been posted. We're all on the verge of being done. All that stands between us is 8-10 credits and a 17-20 page paper that will later be dissected by a candidacy committee and professor. But, the end is in sight. In a year I will be preparing to graduate from seminary. Wow!
This weekend I'm taking our senior high youth group on a retreat to North Myrtle Beach. It's one of those things where the pastor that supervises me for youth and family stuff and I agreed that there need to be a lot of changes next year. We haven't even left yet and there's been crisis after crisis after crisis. Let's hope and pray since all of this has happened before the trip that this means the trip will go fairly well without any tragedies.
In the midst of all of the chaos that comes from putting together the trip and getting ready to preach on memorial day weekend I find myself on the cusp of something. I'm not quite sure what that something will be yet but I have this feeling that my future will be defined by what goes on in these last fews weeks in May. I will finally have to give an answer about a CPE site. I will have to make decisions about classes I'm going to take at seminary. And our church will know what will happen with the open youth director position which could impact the last few months of my internship. We're meeting with parents and youth about an idea we've been wanting to implement for months now and it's finally looking like it will get off the ground. We'll see how this all shakes out. Either way, I'm excited for what the last few weeks of this month hold.
A couple of notes. The show turned out fantastic! I had a wonderful time and didn't realize how much it meant to me until our closing worship after the final show. As we dug into the most powerful number of the show, "You'll Never Walk Alone" from Carousel I found myself in tears and I wasn't alone. The community that we found from this show did a lot to carry us through it, when we hit notes wrong, when we were worrying about singing the wrong lyrics for our solos, when we were trying to change costume in a rush, when one of us got sick, etc. I'll promise pictures later.
The class list has been posted for next year and our approval essay requirements have been posted. We're all on the verge of being done. All that stands between us is 8-10 credits and a 17-20 page paper that will later be dissected by a candidacy committee and professor. But, the end is in sight. In a year I will be preparing to graduate from seminary. Wow!
This weekend I'm taking our senior high youth group on a retreat to North Myrtle Beach. It's one of those things where the pastor that supervises me for youth and family stuff and I agreed that there need to be a lot of changes next year. We haven't even left yet and there's been crisis after crisis after crisis. Let's hope and pray since all of this has happened before the trip that this means the trip will go fairly well without any tragedies.
In the midst of all of the chaos that comes from putting together the trip and getting ready to preach on memorial day weekend I find myself on the cusp of something. I'm not quite sure what that something will be yet but I have this feeling that my future will be defined by what goes on in these last fews weeks in May. I will finally have to give an answer about a CPE site. I will have to make decisions about classes I'm going to take at seminary. And our church will know what will happen with the open youth director position which could impact the last few months of my internship. We're meeting with parents and youth about an idea we've been wanting to implement for months now and it's finally looking like it will get off the ground. We'll see how this all shakes out. Either way, I'm excited for what the last few weeks of this month hold.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Adventures in Bunnysitting
While I've been in Charlotte I've been called on pet-sit quite a few times. The former intern turned associate pastor and his wife live about half a mile away from me and take more vacation time than me. They also happen to have two rabbits and a cat. Since I happen to like animals and I'm usually in town when they're out of town, I've become their default pet-sitter.
They happened to be out of town this past weekend. I said I'd do it even though I knew it was going to be a crazy weekend. This was the only weekend we were showing our church musical and on top of that was church business as usual. Needless to say, I was a bit busy and all I really could concentrate on was the musical and church.
The first couple of days went well enough. This is pretty low maintenance pet-sitting. They confine the animals to one room, the rabbits are in cages, and the cat isn't one of those that tries really hard to escape, she just meows with annoyance about being cooped up in the room. All I basically do is feed them and make sure they have enough water, and the automatic litter box is functioning properly.
However, after I wandered over on Sunday after an incredibly long day at church (we had our usual three services, previews for the show at the services, our final matinée, and striking the set) I was treated to a surprise when I arrived at their place. Somehow, one of the rabbits had gotten out of his hutch! Oh no...
I have no idea how it had gotten out (probably negligence on my part forgetting to close the hutch). But now I was staring at a pile of bunny bedding and bunny droppings on the floor, not to mention a loose bunny running around the room. Now, other than feeding these rabbits and commenting how cute the rabbits are that live around my apartment complex, I haven't handled rabbits. Which means I have no idea how to catch them and pick them up. So, I have a loose bunny on my hands and no idea how to catch it and redeposit it in its hutch. The bunny stops hopping, I reach in with my two hands for the side, I hesitate wondering if the bunny can bite me if I pick it up on the sides, and it scampers off to a different place in the room. I realize how ridiculous my initial thought is and try again only to hesitate again at the same position and the bunny scampers off to another part of the room near the cat.
The cat is definitely not happy about the situation. She's a prissy persian who acts like she owns the room and having this bunny now hopping around in her space does not please her. However, the bunny is quite clueless and stops with his face inches away from the face of the cat. The cat starts hissing at the bunny and the bunny sits there, oblivious that this cat is not pleased with the bunny's freedom. However, I think the cat also realized that this bunny could probably kick its butt because, again, prissy cat vs. fairly fast, fat bunny. Therefore the most that the cat could muster was a hiss or two in the bunny's face. The bunny didn't even react. He just stared innocently at the cat as if to say, "what?" I take a quick pause from my attempted bunny catching to laugh at the whole cat vs. bunny situation.
Then, again with the chasing. Bunny stops. Can I grab a bunny by the scruff of its neck? Reach. Pause. Dammit, there goes the bunny again. Lather, rinse, repeat. Finally, I have the bunny cornered by the cage. I hesitate yet again. It hops away... into the cage! I slam the door shut and that's that! Whew! Needless to say, the past few days I've double and triple checked that it's cage is properly shut.
They happened to be out of town this past weekend. I said I'd do it even though I knew it was going to be a crazy weekend. This was the only weekend we were showing our church musical and on top of that was church business as usual. Needless to say, I was a bit busy and all I really could concentrate on was the musical and church.
The first couple of days went well enough. This is pretty low maintenance pet-sitting. They confine the animals to one room, the rabbits are in cages, and the cat isn't one of those that tries really hard to escape, she just meows with annoyance about being cooped up in the room. All I basically do is feed them and make sure they have enough water, and the automatic litter box is functioning properly.
However, after I wandered over on Sunday after an incredibly long day at church (we had our usual three services, previews for the show at the services, our final matinée, and striking the set) I was treated to a surprise when I arrived at their place. Somehow, one of the rabbits had gotten out of his hutch! Oh no...
I have no idea how it had gotten out (probably negligence on my part forgetting to close the hutch). But now I was staring at a pile of bunny bedding and bunny droppings on the floor, not to mention a loose bunny running around the room. Now, other than feeding these rabbits and commenting how cute the rabbits are that live around my apartment complex, I haven't handled rabbits. Which means I have no idea how to catch them and pick them up. So, I have a loose bunny on my hands and no idea how to catch it and redeposit it in its hutch. The bunny stops hopping, I reach in with my two hands for the side, I hesitate wondering if the bunny can bite me if I pick it up on the sides, and it scampers off to a different place in the room. I realize how ridiculous my initial thought is and try again only to hesitate again at the same position and the bunny scampers off to another part of the room near the cat.
The cat is definitely not happy about the situation. She's a prissy persian who acts like she owns the room and having this bunny now hopping around in her space does not please her. However, the bunny is quite clueless and stops with his face inches away from the face of the cat. The cat starts hissing at the bunny and the bunny sits there, oblivious that this cat is not pleased with the bunny's freedom. However, I think the cat also realized that this bunny could probably kick its butt because, again, prissy cat vs. fairly fast, fat bunny. Therefore the most that the cat could muster was a hiss or two in the bunny's face. The bunny didn't even react. He just stared innocently at the cat as if to say, "what?" I take a quick pause from my attempted bunny catching to laugh at the whole cat vs. bunny situation.
Then, again with the chasing. Bunny stops. Can I grab a bunny by the scruff of its neck? Reach. Pause. Dammit, there goes the bunny again. Lather, rinse, repeat. Finally, I have the bunny cornered by the cage. I hesitate yet again. It hops away... into the cage! I slam the door shut and that's that! Whew! Needless to say, the past few days I've double and triple checked that it's cage is properly shut.
Friday, May 04, 2007
Opening Night x2
Last night was finally opening night for our church's musical, Faith on Broadway. It seemed hard to believe. Auditions had been held in late January, I found out in April that I got a solo and now it was finally time to get up on stage and rock it out. It had been a long week of dress rehearsals, last minute instructions, and nerves. The musicals is cabaret style meaning that we took numbers from all sorts of shows on Broadway including the obvious Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Godspell, and Jesus Christ Superstar. We also took pieces from Carousel, Big River, Miss Saigon, Anything Goes, and Fiddler on the Roof.
Last night came and it was hard to believe. There was a decent amount of chaos and scrambling considering it was our first show. But the pieces all came together last night. It was such a rush! We all had a blast on stage and there was a feeling that we were doing this all for God. And my solo, I Don't Know How to Love Him from JC Superstar went just fine. Whew! Afterwards the final bow and we all got offstage there was a collective cheer from the cast backstage. We had done it! And we did it well! So, onto three more performances and hopefully less nerves the second, third, and fourth time around...
Then, a few of us headed to Steak n Shake for some after show celebrating and good, unhealthy, artery clogging food and the opening of Spider-Man 3. I went to the show with some of the youth and college students from the church. And pretty much the entire crowd was high school aged kids. Yeah, I wasn't expecting that. But I managed to have a good time in spite of the fact that people were quite obnoxious during key parts of the movie and I got mistaken for a high schooler (which has happened more than I'd like to admit) and then I had to tell this poor girl that I was actually 25 and in turn embarrassed her. Oh well, I'm pretty sure this is going to happen for the next 5 plus years of my life.
It was a great night though and I'm very happy to put opening night jitters behind me. Now, onto the next shows...
Last night came and it was hard to believe. There was a decent amount of chaos and scrambling considering it was our first show. But the pieces all came together last night. It was such a rush! We all had a blast on stage and there was a feeling that we were doing this all for God. And my solo, I Don't Know How to Love Him from JC Superstar went just fine. Whew! Afterwards the final bow and we all got offstage there was a collective cheer from the cast backstage. We had done it! And we did it well! So, onto three more performances and hopefully less nerves the second, third, and fourth time around...
Then, a few of us headed to Steak n Shake for some after show celebrating and good, unhealthy, artery clogging food and the opening of Spider-Man 3. I went to the show with some of the youth and college students from the church. And pretty much the entire crowd was high school aged kids. Yeah, I wasn't expecting that. But I managed to have a good time in spite of the fact that people were quite obnoxious during key parts of the movie and I got mistaken for a high schooler (which has happened more than I'd like to admit) and then I had to tell this poor girl that I was actually 25 and in turn embarrassed her. Oh well, I'm pretty sure this is going to happen for the next 5 plus years of my life.
It was a great night though and I'm very happy to put opening night jitters behind me. Now, onto the next shows...
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