disciple, husband, father, college minister
This from the head of Chi Alpha: According to the 2003 ACMR Report AG churches report there are 245,912 adherents that are 18–24 years old that attend our church. This represents 9% of all AG adherents.
By way of comparison, 18–24 year olds comprise 14% of the California state population (I was unable to quickly find the equivalent national statistic).
I’ve been meaning to post this for a while, but I kept getting distracted…
Having found my wedding ring I hopped a plane to Baltimore to serve in Jerry’s wedding.
I met Jerry back in college, when he had really long hair. He’s gone on to get his Ph.D. in statistics and now works for the Census Bureau. He now has much shorter hair.
Anyway, I flew in to Baltimore (arriving at some ungodly hour), tried to check into the wrong hotel, and finally got settled in sometime around 2 or 3 AM, if I remember correctly. It’s all a bit of a blur.
The next morning I visited the Edgar Allen Poe house, which was in the hood (this was somewhat fitting, as Poe wrote disturbing fiction and I was greatly disturbed after having had several people ask me if I was sure I wanted to be walking down the street). Interestingly enough, even I had to duck to get up the stairs. Poe must have been one short (or limber) dude.
After that I had the best crab cake I’ve ever had in my life at Faidley Seafood.
Then I headed down to DC. I looked at tons of historical and inspirational buildings/monuments/memorials. By far the coolest was the Library of Congress. No, really. If you’ve never gone on the guided tour you have to go and check out the reading room. It’s astounding!
Added to my before-I-die list: do research in the Library of Congress (anyone can do it, you just need to make time in your schedule).
By fortunate happenstance, Siew Ying (one of our Chi Alpha students) was in D.C. at the same time I was, so we got to hang out together for a bit.
I also had a chance to meet with Mark Batterson, pastor of National Community Church. He’s one of the most interesting and well-read pastors I’ve ever met (which is saying something). Props to Scott Aughtmon for hooking me up with the meeting!
Anyway, I headed down to Waldorf, MD to connect with Jerry and Elvira (his bride-to-be). I helped Jerry, Elvira, their familes, and Tina (the maid of honor) do some decorating for the reception. I also relearned how to tie a slipknot, which was an unexpected bonus.
The highlight for me was meeting Jerry’s friends (especially my fellow servers Daniel, Tina, and Bethany). Bethany put some photos online, so if you’d like to see me in a tux this is your big chance!
Incidentally, I have to take full responsibility for this shot of Bethany planting her face in the cake. Drunk people are so much fun to be around–they’ll do anything!
Side note: the reception was pretty fun, but I was reminded of how silly the Assemblies of God can look to some people. People were fine with me not drinking, but the whole not dancing thing was hard for them to wrap their brains around. For the record, I think our policy is a bit quirky (and not in an endearing way).
On a related note, I enjoyed meeting the ECLA pastor who was conducting the ceremony. Nice guy. He and I are light-years apart theologically, but I really enjoyed chatting with him.
Anyway, the wedding went off without a hitch (except the hitch that’s the point of the whole thing), and good times were had by all. I did make one faux pas, I didn’t realize that Elvira wasn’t changing her last name to Maples and said something like “How does it feel to be Mrs. Elvira Maples?” Oh well, worse mistakes have been made.
Before flying out I got to swing by D.C. again, visit the Daedalus Books Warehouse, and eat some more crab cakes in Baltimore.
Special thanks to Jerry for inviting me to share in his wedding, to Elvira for marrying Jerry, to Daniel for letting me stay with him, to Tina for doing such a great job with the decorations, and to Bethany for being such an entertaining person (even moreso when she’s sober). And a big thanks to Paula for letting me gallavant around the East coast like that.
Oh, while traveling I saw both Dodgeball and Harry Potter 3. They were both much better than I thought they would be.
I got one of those forwards from a friend (Brandt Noel) this morning. He never forwards me stuff, so I decided to take a look at it. I liked it!
In abridged version, here’s a Louisiana primer:
And you know you’re from LA (Louisiana, that is) if:
Check out the great biblical charts at threetwoone.org (scroll down a bit until you see the “religious” section).
Consider, for example, the Old Testament overview.
One disclaimer: the author seems to come from a moderate (rather than conservative or liberal) perspective on Biblical scholarship. Adjust the charts accordingly based on your convictions.
Scanning the news that backed up for me while I was away, I notice that Stanford was the best sports program in America for the 10th year in a row.
Woohoo!
I honestly didn’t think we’d get it this year. Shows what I know.
Along athletic lines, I found Supreme Court Justic Sandra Day O’Connor’s comment at graduation pretty funny:
“I am expecting to see any day at the Court a ne exeat petition from Stanford for an order to prevent these departures. As I count it, we have at least four Stanford votes on the Supreme Court at present.” (referring to coaching changes–basketball coach Mike Montgomery and tennis coach Dick Gould are leaving)
I got back from Washington/Baltimore yesterday, and Paula gets back in from Louisiana today. I’ll have to post an account of my travels later–they were fun!
Sorry about the bouncing emails–that should all be straightened out now.
Aargh! In just a few hours I’m flying out to Baltimore for a week (I’ll be serving in a friend’s wedding, connecting with some ministry peers, and sightseeing).
Just one little problem… I lost my wedding ring. I sat down to check my email this morning and noticed that my hand felt odd. I glanced down and saw a ring of tanless flesh where the glint of gold ought to be.
All I can imagine is that it came off in the shower or something.
What a time to misplace my wedding ring. The phrase that keeps running through my head is minister travels without wedding ring. Nothing sketchy about that at all…
Rest assured that a frantic search is about to ensue!
Update: found. I was in my bed–I must have been playing with it right before I fell asleep or something. Whew!
One of the bittersweet things about college ministry is watching the people in your ministry graduate and move on.
That’s fresh on my mind because I bumped into two students who recently walked the line.
This weekend Julia Heng (who just got her master’s degree in Management, Science, and Engineering) dropped by for a few minutes to return some stuff she had borrowed from us. I hadn’t seen her since our graduating students celebration–she’d been gallavanting around the country with her parents (it was her mom’s first time in America). Then she headed back to Singapore.
And then this morning I had breakfast with Nate Flake. Nate just graduated from Stanford with a degree in linguistics. He speaks more languages than anyone else I know.
He wasn’t able to join us for the celebration that we hold right before graduation, and he’s been on the road since receiving his diploma. This was the first time since then that we’ve been able to connect.
And tomorrow he flies to China for a year. He’s not sure what he’ll do there, he just knows that he doesn’t want to teach English. He’s angling for a job as a translator or something.
Good luck and Godspeed, Julia & Nate! We’ll miss you.
I downloaded Groove Workspace today to see if it would be useful in our minstry training program.
Will it ever!
I persuaded Anthony to download it and give it a whirl. This software is absolutely amazing. We were able to talk over the net quite effectively and could collaboratively edit documents and do all sorts of other cool stuff. We could easily work as a team on sermon preparation or conduct web seminars or do just about anything involving ideas.
Free for personal use (with restrictions) and affordable for professional use. What a combo!
Now I just can’t wait until Groove 3.0 comes out…
Yesterday I spent 10 hours in a meeting discussing training strategies for college ministers (most of whom come from secular colleges). While driving back I began thinking about the challenge a new minister without formal training faces in building a professional library. Books are expensive–the New International Commentary series on the Old and New Testaments retails for nearly $1,500 (OT, NT)! For some new ministers, building a quality library can seem so overwhelming that it’s hard to know where to start.
Inspired by a similar example, I decided to compile a solid (although basic) ministry library for under $200 (I failed by eleven cents). I priced the books (used) on Amazon.com on 6/18/2004. Books are listed in rough order of importance within each category.
The Reference Collection — $102.85
The Personal & Professional Growth Collection — $97.26
Total Cost: $200.11 (excluding shipping & handling)
I tried to end each list with a book that would lead to more books, so that this would only be the genesis of a professional library…
I welcome suggestions for replacement volumes. What do you think important for a novice minister with little theological education to read?
