Some Random Humor

These are some random quotes that I ran across awhile back and found them funny so I thought I'd put them here in lieu of a more serious blog post. I promise I'll actually write something more substantial sometime soon! :)

''Once I am officially regional manager, my first order of business will be to demote Jim Halpert. So I will need a new number two. My ideal choice? Jack Bauer. But he is unavailable. Fictional. And overqualified.''
DWIGHT (RAINN WILSON), ON THE OFFICE

''A sport without black people ain't a sport. That's just a game!... That's like me saying, 'Ooh, I got the highest SAT score in the whole world, but no Asians took the test.' What kind of crap is that? 'I just won the marathon. No Kenyans could run, though!'''
CHRIS ROCK EXPRESSES SKEPTICISM ABOUT BABE RUTH'S ACHIEVEMENTS IN PRE-INTEGRATED BASEBALL, ON THE LATE SHOW

(I think I find the last one particularly funny because I always joke with my friends that I fit most of the Asian stereotypes out there)

Meeting Needs

I’ve spent most of my seminary career telling anyone and everyone that once I graduate I want to specialize in high school youth ministry. It’s something I’ve loved doing since I was in high school. I have a decent track record in the field between being a mentor when I was in high school, multiple summers as a camp counselor, volunteer work in various churches, and then actually doing it in Charlotte on internship. However, since near the midpoint in my second year in seminary I’ve been toying with another kind of ministry: young adult ministry.

Now, I didn’t know much about young adult ministry going into seminary. Sure, I had been involved with campus ministries in college and I know that I am a young adult (young adults are generally categorized as those of us who are twenty-something) but didn’t know anything about young adult ministry. The main reason for this was because there aren’t really a lot of Lutheran churches out there doing young adult ministry. And yet, there’s no denying that there are not very many young adults involved with church. Those two realizations combined point to a great need for young adult ministries in the church.

On internship my project for the year was to start a young adult ministry. I did my best considering there were really no resources out there and I only had a year to pull this off. And you know, I loved the experience. I loved it as much as I loved working with the high schoolers. And I had just started. I didn’t even get to do as much I would have liked to with the ministry (small groups, an alternative worship service aimed at young adults).

As I start looking at my first call and thinking about articulating my passions to the synod I wonder what type of ministry that I am truly called to. Is it going high school youth ministry? Is it young adult ministry? Is it both? The more and more I learn about young adult ministry through helping start an alternative worship service in Stillwater and contemplate the lack of action in many churches and note the reality that there isn’t that much out there as far as resources go for young adult ministry, there is no denying that there is a great need for young adult ministry. The need is so palpable I can’t get away from it. And it keeps on coming back to me this year. It seems like as I work on the practical projects for my classes I’m drawn more and more to young adult ministry simply because there is a need.

This is the big question for me now: Is the call to the need or is recognizing the need a call in itself? Confusing? Alright, so, I’m the type of person who sees a need and likes to meet it. It’s just my nature. While I worked at the hospital as a chaplain I saw a great need for caring, compassionate and competent nursing staff and I couldn’t help but wonder how I would do in the medical field. But, that isn’t my call. However, at the same time, I can’t help but wonder if sometimes our ability to recognize a great need is a call in itself. Isn’t recognizing that a friend is in need of someone to listen to them a call to actually go and listen? I wonder if the fact that I see that there is such a great need for this type of ministry is God gently nudging me in that direction. I’m not quite sure yet. But I think this is all something we have to discern in our lives. You may love working with the church and see the need for good pastors but not be called to be a pastor. You may see the need for wonderful teachers in urban settings but not be called to be a teacher. Or maybe you are? I guess when it all comes down to it, all we can do in these situations is continue to discern the call and pray… A LOT.

Trying to Keep it Real, Radical, Relevant, and Reverent

That was my task for preaching at the Luther Seminary Chapel this past Friday.

Keep it Real - Preach the Gospel, proclaim the forgiveness of sins, and do this through a style that stays true to who I am as a pastor-to-be and to my own passions when it comes to preaching and worship. In other words, incorporating all the things I love into a 20 minute worship service that I could be proud of. This meant choosing the proper text (John 11, the raising of Lazarus), the music that I felt would be a good fit, and calling in some favors from friends inside and outside the seminary.

Keep it Radical - This is in terms of the Luther Seminary Chapel. Now, worship here tends to be very traditional. Let me say straight up that I am not knocking traditional worship. I think traditional worship done well can be wonderful! It can be uplifting and can convey the Gospel in a very compelling way. But, I think there is also a place in the church for "contemporary" worship as well (and of course, well done contemporary worship, there is definitely some bad contemporary out there). And truth be told, I often prefer "contemporary" praise and worship services. It's just who I am and it's my style and I think worship done in the contemporary/alternative style can go a long way for outreach. Anyway, I digress. There hadn't been much contemporary worship done in chapel this year so I decided that in order to stay true to myself and my passions as a worship leader I would do something "radical" and use contemporary music and a band for worship.

Keep it Relevant - In this sense, I mean keep it relevant to the community. I wrote my sermon with the Luther Seminary community in mind. Now, you will generally never have to preach before a more difficult crowd. I knew I would have some wonderful theologians and preachers not necessarily critiquing me because they want to cut me down but that's just what naturally happens. This is not a message I will necessarily ever give anywhere else but it felt like the right message for this place.

Keep it Reverent - And, of course, this is not about me. This whole thing has never been about me. Instead, it is all about God, what God is doing in our lives, and what God has to say to us through the music, the worship, the preaching and the prayers. It's all about what God has done for us through is Son Jesus Christ. So, that is the center of it all.

All in all, preaching in Chapel was a wonderful and affirming experience. It gave me a chance to proclaim the Gospel to some of the closest friends. It also showed me that yeah, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. There was something that was so energizing. It felt right on every level. Granted, it does feel good to be over this hurdle and have one less thing to plan. But when it came down to it, stuff like this is what I really do want to be putting my energy into. And that means that I'm on the right track which is a nice feeling.

Check out the video for the service if you want. Thanks again for everyone's support through this process! I couldn't have done it without you!

Area Code

Thursday was the big day. It was the day when all the Bishops of all the Synods (areas within a larger region) were meeting to decide where all of us assigned to Region 3 would be serving our first years of ministry. Being assigned to Region 3 I knew there were lots of options. It includes MN, ND, and SD. The synods are Western ND, Eastern ND, SD (as a whole), NW MN, NE MN, SW MN, SE MN, the Minneapolis area, and the St. Paul area. I had put down Eastern ND, Minneapolis, and St. Paul on my forms but had no idea how it was all going to play out. Minneapolis and St. Paul are notoriously hard synods to get into because they are so big and so popular. There are people from all over jockeying to get into these synods because there are a lot of great churches in the area and it is kind of the Mecca of the ELCA. Plus, there are all sorts of people with families, houses, spouses with jobs, etc. in the area that really have legitimate reasons to stick around. However, since I am interested in large church ministry (churches that worship 500+ per week) and specializing in youth and young adult ministry and there happens to be an abnormally large amount of these types of congregations in these areas, I put both Minneapolis and St. Paul down because I figured I didn't have anything to lose.

Thursday was the day that Bishops gathered to figure out where all ~45 of us would be heading within Region 3. To say that us Region 3 seniors were a bit anxious that day would be a major understatement. We spent a good part of the day checking and rechecking our cell phones to make sure they didn't go off and nervously asking each other if the other had heard any news yet.

I was happy to retreat to my apartment near 6:30 to have some privacy as I waited for the call. My roommate and her cat were my company and I decided watching a rerun of last week's episode of LOST (which also happened to be brilliant) would be a good way to alleviate my anxiety.

As I looked at my cell phone and attempted to will it to ring, I knew that area code would most likely tell me everything I needed to know. 701 is for ND and would mean Eastern ND for me. The dark horses, Minneapolis or St. Paul would show one of the many Twin Cities Metro area codes such as 612, 651, 952, or 763.

And all of a sudden it happened. My phone started ringing and I looked down to see a 612 area code. I gave a loud whoop and yelled at my roommate, "IT'S FOR MN! IT'S FOR MN!" And taking a deep breath I answered the phone and was told "Welcome to the Minneapolis Area Synod!"

I got off the phone and could not believe what had just happened. I remembered being told over 4 years ago when I started this process that sticking around the Twin Cities was not an option. I remembered that I had spent a large part of my seminary career proclaiming that I wanted to get far away from the Midwest. I remembered shocking myself when I put down Region 3 as my first choice on my paperwork. And now, here I am. Apparently God isn't done with me and the Twin Cities yet. And I trust that this is where I'm called to be. It's going to be hard, there's no getting around it. I'm competing with some very competent and exceptional friends that also got assigned here. I won't just be going up against first call people for a call to a parish, I'll also be going up against people with experience in the field. It could be awhile before I find that call that seems to fit just right. But apparently God decided that it wasn't time for me to move out of this area just yet. And I'm excited to see what God has planned for me these next coming months as I start looking at churches, interviewing, and preparing to finish up 20 years of school. All I have to say is bring it on!

Preaching in Chapel + Synodical Assignments =

A good thing actually! I was surprised by this revelation the other day. All things considered, it's a very stressful week for my and my fellow seniors. Most of us are expecting to get the call from our future bishop sometime tonight/tomorrow and people are really anxious to say the least. Add to that the fact that I'm preaching in Chapel tomorrow (see previous post) puts a lot of stress on me. But the great thing is I've spent most of my week stressing out about Chapel and preaching as opposed to about assignment. And this is a good thing because if I stress out about Chapel I can actually do something about it. I can run through my sermon another time. I can tweak the powerpoint yet again. I can spend some time praying. I can go through the reading again. I can actually do something about the stress and turn it into something productive as opposed to worrying about assignment where I can do nothing except stare at the phone trying to will it to ring. So, we'll see what the next 24+ hours bring. Either way, Friday is going to be a huge day!

Big Shoes to Fill

I have to admit, right now I'm equal parts super excited and scared out of my mind. This coming Friday I preach for Chapel at Luther. As a senior, we get the chance to preach in front of our friends, peers, professors, and anyone else who chooses to show up or tune in online. This year the system worked a bit differently and instead of a nominating and vote process, we simply volunteered ourselves. I figured, why not?! It was something I had been looking forward to doing for a long time and figured it was a great chance to do something different too since I get to design the entire service. So, considering my own passions when it came to worship I knew I was going to do something pretty contemporary as far as worship went while trying to keep true to the Lutheran liturgy.

However, I totally took forward granted a) how much planning this was going to involve and b) that this will probably be the toughest audience I preach for and thus the scariest. Last week I found out that signing myself to preach was a mild form of self-torture. As I tried to plan the service, get the proper pieces in place, pick a scripture, etc. I kept on running into random road blocks and hassles. Plus, I found out that one of our Old Testament professors who teaches Wisdom Literature (Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, Song of Solomon, etc.) was preaching the day before me and basing the entire service around the same Psalm I was scheduled to preach on the next day! Eek! That is not an act I wanted to follow at all, especially since she had divided up the Psalm in the same way I was going to and was giving a reflection on each part.

Therefore, after some conversation with friends on the topic I decide to scrap all the work I had done on the Psalm (it was Psalm 130 btw which is absolutely beautiful) and went instead with the Gospel text for this coming week, John 11:1-45 which is the raising of Lazarus. And I spent the entire weekend working on my sermon because I knew that if I didn't finish it before the weekend was up, I would spend the entire week worrying and trying to finish it up.

But I will admit, it's a bit crazy to see my name on the Chapel homepage as an upcoming preacher. Like I said before, it's terrifying. All my friends are super supportive but at the same time, there are tons of high expectations and the pressure is totally on high! And it's quite intimidating to think of all the great preachers that have stood up in that very same pulpit and delivered some amazing messages that have truly moved me these past four years. As I face my fears and prepare to stand up there and deliver my message all I can do is trust that God has been with me during this entire process and will be with me when I finally stand up in the pulpit and trust that God's Spirit will be moving in a big way, in spite of my doubts and fears. Because when it comes down to it, it's not about me. It's all about God and what God is doing in my life and what God is doing in the life of this community at Luther and beyond. God is mighty to save and mighty enough to carry me through this whole nerve-wracking-intimidating-exhilarating thing that is senior preaching.

Almost to the Point of Being Funny

So, let's run down what's happened to my car in the past 2.5 months.

-Broken into on Christmas Day
-Failed to start 5 times in the past month
-Towed from my apartment parking lot
-Had more work done on it than I want to admit on a blog

The icing on the cake? I finally broke down and got a garage and it solved the starting problem. However, this past weekend someone broke into the garage and broke into my car, again! The other two cars sitting in the garage stall next to mine also got broken into. Not much was taken, again. Just some change (this time they actually found my stash and made off with somewhere around $15 I'm guessing) and CD's that I all have backed up on my computer and ipod. On the "sunny side" I knew exactly what to do this time, made all the appropriate calls, and got it all taken care of within 2 days as opposed to it taking over two weeks last time. Plus, my glass is covered under my insurance so I know I at least don't have pay anything.

So, people have been well aware of my car woes over the past few months so when I got back to school today and got questioned about how I was doing I realized that all this car stuff had gotten so ridiculous that it was to the point of almost being funny. Nay, actually to the point of being kind of funny. I mean, seriously? Who would have thought all of this could happen? So, needless to say, life goes on and I have a car and it works which is about all I can ask for at this time. It's better than trying to make it through seminary without one. Plus, one thing I've learned is that I have some great friends who will always be willing to help me out in a pinch. So, thanks to all those who have driven me, listened to me gripe, and offered a sympathetic ear.