Ramblings of the last month

It has been a while since I have posted. I have been busy to say the least. This last month has been an interesting time in life. For the last two weeks of July I was house sitting for Katie’s (my girlfriend) parents house while Katie, her family and some members of her church were in Israel. During those two weeks I was also in an intensive class at Fuller called Modern Church Theology, where we studied Western Church Theology since the 16th century. The class was good but way to much information to try to remember in two weeks. During these two weeks I was also helping prepare for our youth groups Mexico missions trip so I was busy.
I was though very happy to have my girlfriend back at the end of her trip and I know she was also glad to be back.
With the end of July my sister and her husband also traveled back to their home in Korea. My sister had been in the States since mid-June and her husband since the beginning of July. Much of the time they were in town Katie and I spent time driving back to my parent’s house or trying to meet them half way somewhere in Riverside County. It was hard to say goodbye to them but I know I will see them again in December. I have to admit though it has been nice to not have to spend so much of my weekend driving back and forth to Riverside County.
Two weeks ago I was Mexico with my youth group. There were a total of 21 of us and the trip was good but hard at the same time. During the week we built a 22 x 22 foot house for a family of 10, a single mom and her nine children. The family was previously living in a shack no bigger than 10 x 15. The new structure we built them will provide housing with doors and locks for many of the children to live in. It seemed as if many of the students were moved by the poverty of Mexico and by the family themselves. Many of our students connected with the family through playing with the children. One of my favorite memories of the trip actuality happened after the trip when a mom of one of our students came up to Janelle and myself and told us that her son was in tears telling her about how Jesus, one of the children, was running in and out of the house on the last day screaming “Mi Casa Nuevo!” The mom told us that he was moved by the fact that a child would be so excited about a new house that was barely the size of his living room.
Since I have been back from Mexico I have been working on work from my modern Church theology class. The work is coming slowly, needless to say I am a little burnt out on school. Since I have been back I have also gotten to have some conversations with a friend of mine named Christiana. She works for CRM and her and her husband are moving to San Diego in January to start an intentional missional community through CRM. Both Christiana and her husband Derek, my churches worship leader, have a calling to work with and in intentional communities. Last week Christiana and I had a great conversation about intentional communities because she is aware that I am interested in the topic. After our hour long conversation over the phone she has asked me to compel a group of people to meet with her boss Sam and talk about doing intentional communities. The hope is that Sam will be a resource for us as well as helping some of us think through what an intentional community might look like. Christiana warned me that many times she has seen people that have good ideas but who are not willing to make the sacrifice to make things happen. She really urged me to start praying and thinking about how God has gifted me and my calling in life. I know that God has called me to life in intentional communities but now it is just flushing out the who, where, when and sorts. I hope that the conversation with Sam will help. I have to say I am sad though that more people who have affected a lot my thinking, such as Garrett, will not be able to be at the meeting. As of now it will only be Katie, Tim and I. We hope to ask more people to join in to the conversation but have not yet. I am sure as this gets flushed out more I will be updating.
Sorry if this blog seems a little forced, because it was, I just felt I needed to post something but am sick of writing, but hey here it is so…love…

"With a Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly"

With the coming of July it is crazy to think that 2008 is already half way over. July has so far been a great month! The 4th was one of the best 4ths I have had in my life, just because how chill it was. There is nothing like a day off with 15 plus friends, BBQ, some drinks, football, a good walk to 7-11 and fireworks in the streets of Azusa. I think my favorite part of the night was lighting off fireworks behind Alosta place in Azusa. Since in G-town it is illegal to set off fireworks we had to mozy on down to Azusa. When walked onto the street the smell of sulfur quickly let us know we were in the right place. I think everyone who lived there on the street was out hanging out with each other and having fun. There were kids, adults, random creepy men lighting off fireworks from the back of their cars, and us. It was so cool just to see people from the community outside of their houses and enjoying one another. For far to long have we let our homes become our personal hideaways from the outside world. A night light this gives me hope for a community of loved ones.
The day after the 4th Tim, Geoff, Jackson, Ryan, Roy, Elliot and I got together and invited a few of our friends to participate in sports day 2008. The idea behind the day was to play sports all day long and then end the day with a sports movie. We all (about 10 us) meet up about 9:30 am at Azusa square and started off the day with 2 and half hours of football; this was a bad choice! After just 3 long games of football we all were already beat, yet the day had to go on and so it did. After football with played an hour of ultimate frisbee. I am happy to say that both of my teams dominated both football and ultimate, in fact the final ultimate source was something like 15 touch downs to 4.
After ultimate we went to the closest area of shade, since it was over 100 degrees outside and BBQed some hotdogs. After the BBQ about nine more people showed up and we played nine innings of softball. My team lost...sad day. During the game Jackson ended up almost breaking his thumb after a throw from Ryan to get a man out on first was way to low for Jackson to get to. The highlight of the softball game was when Tim slid into 3rd, with shorts on, only to get tagged out by the 3rd baseperson who had the ball for about 15 seconds before Tim even got to the base.
I don't know if it was the heat or what but after the softball game all nine newbes took off and left the O.G. ten of us, minus Tim because he went home to because of his bloody leg due to his slide, to finish up the day with two basketball games in the freaking hot as hell courage dome. By the second basketball game, to 15 by 1's and 2's, I was drifting somewhere between thinking I might pass out and feeling like I was going to throw-up. On top of that I had a mad headache from dehydration despite the fact that I had already finished off 5 Nalgenes of water and middle sized gatorade.
To end the day five of the original nine ran a four by four relay, each of us running a 1/4 mile. I was surprised that our team of four (Jackson, myself, Geoff, and Ryan) completed the relay under 7.30 min. That night we meet back up after showers to eat some subway and watched "We Are Marshal." Overall it was a great day! I hurt like hell for the next three days but it was totally worth it!

With half of the year over I also have come up with my top 5 CD's so far in the year 2008. Many of these CD's I have not digested in their fullness but here they are with a couple of honorable mentions:

Top Five of 2008 (as of July 2008)
1. Sigur Rós - Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust ("With a Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly")
2. Vampire Weekend - Self-titled
3. Fleet Foxes - Self-titled
4. Foals - Antidotes
5. Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs

Honorable Mentions (in no order)
Thrice - The Alchemy Index: Vol. 3 & 4: Wind and Earth
Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
Hayden - In Field & Town
The Acorn - Glory Hope Mountain
Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer

Reflections on my two weeks in Systematic Theology

Today I finish my last day class for Systematic Theology 2: Christology, Pneumatology and Soteriology. As I sit in class totally distracted as the T.A. talks to us I thought I would put together a top 10 list of things learned over the last two weeks of class.

10. Getting up around 6am makes me really tired.
9. Risk online is a great way to kill time.
8. Four hours strait of Systematic Theology is never a good idea.
7. I still don't understand why we have to approach theology either "from above" or "from below."
6. The early church fathers taught crazy stuff and for the most part would be put out on the street by many evangelicals today.
5. Penal Substitution is a Western/ post enlightenment construction
4. Jurgen Moltmann, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Karl Barth, Karl Rahner and Stanely Grenz are freaking awesome.
3. Eastern Orthodox theologians have their stuff together, and are for the most part right on.
2. White people have held the reigns of theology for way to long and this needs to change.
1. "Our God is an awesome God!"...J/K...no really, he must be to deal with the fact that we try way to hard to try to explain him

Killing time while in class...

This Monday I started my summer quarter at Fuller. I am expecting a busy summer full of school, youth ministry, trying to make money any other way I can, spending time with my sister who is back from Korea until the end of July, Geoff and Kyle's wedding, a trip to CO, and hanging out with my girlfriend and friends. At the moment I am taking a class in Systematic Theology: Christology, Pneumatology and Soteriology. While at times theology can be very interesting, at least to me, I need a break sometimes in which I search the internet for things to distract my mind. Today I came across the most amazing and somewhat distrubing product. I have to admit I want this product, I have taken my ipod into the restroom with me to help pass the time during #2 session but there are times when my ipod are dead or I can't find my headphones so in times like these this little device could help. You could also use it to rock out when you are in the shower and while getting ready in the morning! Love it!

Why Fox News Sucks!

And people wonder why Fox news sucks and aren't respected by anyone with a brain. They should be banned from the air. WTF!

This is what happens when Tim and Casey get bored

These videos are rated R for strong language and a brief sex scene.

Let the children come to me

Over the last couple of days I have been working on a paper for class that I am quite proud of. The paper deals with Mark 9:33-37 and 10:13-16, but its focus is on the latter. In both of these passages Jesus uses children as an illustration to teach his disciples about the Kingdom of God. Yet in Mark 10:13-16 Jesus makes an interesting statement, "Do not impede the children from coming to me."
In March of 2007, Chap Clark stood up at his inaugural professorial lecture at Fuller seminary and called for or a new model of ministering to youth by assimilating them into the life of the congregation based on Matthew's version of Mark 10:13-16. Clark as well as many other scholars have noticed that our current structures of youth ministry are hurting our students more than helping them. Our programs are based on the goal of making individual disciples of Jesus within the context of the youth program. As students move through the youth programs and graduate from high school students find themselves lost and disconnected from the body of the church and soon drift away from any faith in Jesus they once held. Researchers are finding that this occurs because while students are deeply connected to adults and other students in the youth group they are not connected to any other adults in the rest of the church. This means that when they leave youth group they leave their community.
Over the last nine months this research as become a reality for many of the students that I have had a relationship with over the last two years at Baseline. Two of our youth group students that graduated in June of 2007 have both left our church and one now is not sure if he even believes in God any more. As I have continued to meet with these two students, as much as our busy schedules allow, they have both told me that the reason they do not come to church anymore is because they feel that they do not belong in our church's normal serve. One has even gone as far as to say that he has even felt personally judged by many adults within the church as well as our head pastor himself.
Jesus' words in Mark 10 are more important for us to hear today, in relation to adolescents than at any other time in the history of the Church. The western fascination with children though cannot be read back into the Mark passage. Those who were under the authority and care of others, such as children, had not yet achieved the right of self-determination. This means that in the Greco-Roman world a children’s stratum and status where first directly related to the stratum and status of their own parents. If a child’s parents were from a low stratum and status their children were also believed to be of the same stratum and status. Children not only had the fact that their parents determined their status to overcome but children in the Greco-Roman world children were viewed as the members of the lowest status scale Today it is no different for adolescent in the church. Our youth have been sparated from the body of the Church and given the lowest status in the life of the church. Our churches have impeded our youth from coming to Jesus and this needs to change. We need and change, we need to ask questions, if not, our youth and the future of the church in the U.S. is in trouble.