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Wednesday, September 26, 2007

For the boy...

Monday, September 24, 2007

No Explanation Necessary

People always ask me how I came to be a Director of Christian Education, why I would choose a career that makes no money, deals with people and has absolutely no time off?

I have no summer break.
I have no weekends.
I make pennies an hour (if that).
My life is an open book.
I'm constantly "on-call".

Yes, there are days when I hate my job. Every excruciating moment of it. And, honestly, I think those days out number the good. But...

The days that are good... are GREAT.
The days they "get it"... are AMAZING.
The days they relate with one another... are FANTASTIC.
The days when you feel God working... are STUPENDOUS.

Maybe someday those days will be like this:



It sounds ridiculous that I'd want kids to call my home and leave messages all the time. It sounds insane. I know. But I want it. Like the boy wants a dog team, I want to be there for these kids. I want them to feel like my home and I are a safe place for them to be...

I may not be going to Canada in November, but I love this promo. It explains a lot... not everything I want for my life (that's another post) but one thing at least.

Things Learned

For some reason yesterday worship really struck me. Obviously it always strikes me since I get the priveledge of worshipping my God but yesterday was special-- and particulary interesting since Pastor Allen was preaching...

One particular verse from the Epistle Lesson from Paul's first letter to Timothy really stood out because it describes my opinion of this crazy profession I've chosen:

I thanks Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to his service. (1:12)


Then we sang a hymn that I love. (Yes, I used the words "hymn" and "love" in the same sentence. Get your jaw off the floor.) There are many reasons why I like this song. For one it continually reminds me how horrible I am but how wonderful God and His love for me. It's strangely comforting to know that, as in the final verse, we can ask God for His grace and His direction in our lives. This also in my opinion is a great eye-opening song of witness...

Chief of sinners though I be,
Jesus shed his blood for me,
Died that I might live on high,
Lives that I might never die.
As the branch is to the vine,
I am his, and he is mine.

Oh, the height of Jesus' love,
Higher than the heav'ns above,
Deeper than the depths of sea,
Lasting as eternity!
Love that found me-- wondrous thought--
Found me when I sought him not.

Only Jesus can impart
Balm to heal the wounded heart,
Peace that flows from sin forgiv'n,
Joy that lifts the soul to heav'n
Faith and hope to walk with God
In the wasy that Enoch trod.

Chief of sinners though I be,
Christ is all in all to me.
All my wants to him are known,
All my sorrows are his own.
He sustains the hidden life
Safe with him from earthly strife.

O my Savior, help afford
By your Spirit and your Word!
When my wayward heart would stray,
Keep me in the narrow way;
Grace in time of need supply
While I live and when I die.
LW285

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

For your knowledge...

Ah, the clamoring has returned once more. Hard to believe some people expect others to post so often when they know how busy life gets...

Life, as I said, is busy. We're slowly but surely getting into the full swing of things at church. Starting that first week of October, we'll officially be into the full swing of things since Confirmation starts that week. (Which reminds me of something to add to my to-do list...) Sunday was the first Sunday School class (19 were there!) and the first FISH event of the fall, where my ordinary group of 4 youth multiplied to 13!! Hallelujah! I'm looking forward to see how many show up tonight at Youth Night... my typical 3-5 is getting kinda old especially for those regulars. Thirteen-twenty certainly would widen my ideas base.

I'm terribly excited about my sunday School staff-- mainly because I no longer have to teach every week. I love my high schoolers, don't get me wrong, but it's nice for them to have other adults to lean on as well. (After all, isn't a DCEs job to work oneself out of it?) So we'll take turns each week teaching a different lesson from the Student Life Bible Study-- Christ Series. VERY excited for the kiddos to get a bit more in depth even on a Sunday morning.

I've also been toying with the idea of adding a Tuesday morning coffeehouse thing to our schedule. Haven't quite worked it all out yet but I thought we could maybe do a "book club" type thing reading something of interest to them (i.e. Case for Christ or Next Door Savior or even some fiction like Eli or Narnia) OR we can just do a simple morning devotioning thing. Of course this would mean Jamie'd have to get up MUCH earlier and be ready to lead. We'll see if that happens.

Enough of the shop talk.

Life outside the office is good too. My folks bad it back safely from their 2 weeks in Greece. Hopefully they'll share pictures so I can have a taste of what to expect when I go there in November as part of the Holy Land tour I'm taking (YAY!). I haven't really seen my roommate all that much but we have started our Sunday afternoon Bible study crew again. We're starting a Bible study looking at what the future holds so I'm excited. If you're in the area, feel free to join us. Otherwise, be jealous. The boy is great too. It seems he is quite patient with me and my episodes of being a high-maintenence girlfriend, which hopefully end rather soon because frankly I'm getting tired of it. We've officially reinstated our Tuesday date nights which makes me happy. For some reason I actually like spending time with this guy. Go figure.

In other news, it's doctor appointment time for Jamie. This is typically the time of year where I found out something bad and have to start new medications. Ugh. Let's just pray all goes well with the blood work being done today, the appointment tomorrow and the one next Wednesday. Of course I'm kinda expecting Dr Barnes to yell at me for my blood sugar levels and possible beginning of the Potts Family Blessing (aka diabetes) but that'll have to wait until Wednesday.

Until then I'm going to sit back and enjoy the snow covered mountains. Yes. That does say snow. It's exciting and depressing at the same time. I love winter but I'm not nearly prepared enough for it right now.

Whew. The clamoring has stopped. Which means I can stop typing... for now. Blessings!

Everything

Way back in 2002 I spent eight weeks of my life surrounded by 15 other young adults in a place that still, to this day, holds my heart. During our ministry there we shared many different Drimes to music by Michael W Smith and Jars of Clay among others. Man, I wish we had known this one...



Not only is it one of Lifehouse's best songs, it's also a powerful drime to share with everyone-- even those who don't speak english. I'm not sure how I'd ever incorporate these into my ministry in this place but it wure would be wonderful to see, wouldn't it?

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Not your usual post...

Every week I get an email from a company called Youth Specialties-- they send some great stuff but the thing I enjoy most about their emails is the "Links" section. Usually it includes a couple fun-for-procrastinating game links (many of which I have 'favorited') and a couple interesting articles. This is one of the latter.

Mark Penn makes a living by focusing on the smaller things in life-- the 1% of Californian youngsters who want to be military snipers, the purchase of fashion yarn has increased 56% in one year, the lack of math majors at Yale and Harvard... etc. (My personal favorite is the 22% of the high-earning population have either a rose or a tiger tattooed on their touckis.) What's interesting about Penn's book is how he connects all of this to the change in politics, and more specifically, voters.

He says that the views of our voting society are moving from a character-driven to a stance-driven viewpoint. Honestly, I have to agree. The things I usually follow in any political race are the issues, not the people and I think many of y'all do that as well. I'm not tempted to vote for a person simply because he/she is Republican or Democratic or whatever. But if they support legalizing gay marriage or abortion you better believe they won't be punched on my voting card.

What do you think about Penn's findings?