Thoughts from a Book Study

Occasionally things will pop out of my mouth that later I think 'oh, that was actually pretty good.'  Now I'll admit, it doesn't happen often, and I'm far more likely to have things pop out of my mouth that I later regret, but sometimes I'll actually surprise myself.

Today some of us on staff started a once a week lunch study on Prodigal God by Tim Keller.  It'll be a great book for our group, and even after one day I can tell we'll have some good discussion from it, assuming that we can keep the cell phones turned off (you know who you are...).  Somehow our conversation today ranged from Free Will and Calvinism to Grace and Justice to why younger siblings are always the jacked up ones.  It was a good time.

At one point during the grace and justice point I said that, "We can't truly appreciate grace until we understand justice."  It is that idea that we can't truly appreciate driving a nice car until we understand what it is like to drive a P.o.S. every day.  We were talking about why church usually turns so many people off, why there are so many older brothers from the story at churches, and the problem with 'turn or burn' mentality that a lot of people grew up in.  I'm sure someone much smarter than I am has said my statement before (and probably more eloquently), but it is a truth none-the-less.  It is hard for us to understand how much we've been (for)given if we don't understand how bad off we were in the first place.

The monkey wrench flew in when we started to talk about who Jesus was telling the parable of the Prodigal Son.  There were both the sinners and the religious.  The parable, along with most of the things Jesus said, had a great way of hitting home with both audiences.  The sinners can identify with the younger son, the religious with the older.  My questions were: which did Jesus preach most often, grace or justice, and did his audience changed which one he emphasized?

I'll allow for people to draw their own conclusions on this one, but from what I've read Jesus spends a lot more time preaching about justice to the religious and grace to the sinners.  Somehow we've managed to get that backwards most of the time.

We all know of people who have grown up hearing about hellfire and brimstone and the judgment that comes from sin.  And while that is all true, many times the message falls on deaf ears.  In the same way, we all know of churches that preach a health and wealth type of gospel and the grace that comes along with our belief in Christ.  And while that is all true, many times the message leads to complacency and a country club mentality at church.  What would happen if we started reversing those messages to each audience more often?

Maybe what the sinners need is to hear about more is grace and the religious could use a little more judgment in their sermons.

Ressurection

So I've decided to resurrect the old blog.  I've taken a year off and now I think it is time to start again.  I'm sure this will be different than it used to be because I'm in a different place than I was the last time I wrote; both literally and figuratively.  A lot has changed in the last year, so I'll try and catch everyone up to speed.

I finished up my two years of living in the Himalayas almost one year ago.  By the end of it I was very ready to get back to America (and now that I'm back in America, I am very ready to go back).  Somehow being away romanticizes places.  America just seemed so much better than where I was until I got back here.  I think it is like that girl that you date in another town.  She seems really great until you are actually around her.  Don't get me wrong, I love it here and know I'm supposed to be here; it just wasn't exactly the way I remembered it.

After I finished up my time in Asia, I decided to take a month long trip backpacking in Nepal.  For one, I worked out for the trip to be on my way home so it didn't cost me any money, and two, backpacking through Nepal just seems like something an unemployed world-traveling type person would do.  I loved it.  It was fun.  I spend every day as a vegetarian (not by choice) and with a Nepali guy named Dil (also not by choice).  It was a great buffer between being overseas and returning home.  I was able to process through a lot of things on my own before coming back.  And I saw some of the most amazing mountains in the world.  I've got to tell ya though, after being away for two years, having to spend those extra couple of weeks on the side of that mountain just about drove me crazy.

After I returned back to America, I did what anyone would do and planted a garden and got a girlfriend.  She was my senior English teacher back in high school.  I like to tell that story, and she swears she's not embarrassed by it.  Luckily, the relationship worked out better than the garden did.  We've recently become engaged and plan to get married in May.

I also got a job at a church.  I had a little bit of an adjustment period coming back where church seemed really strange.  I guess going from meeting in an underground house church for two years to a place that has several hundred people, lights, speakers, singers, and a band can be a shock to the system.  I've ended up in a fairly large church (which I swore I would never do) in a fairly affluent part of town (which I also swore I would never do).  It is funny how God ends up making that 'I swear I never will...' list get shorter as time goes on.  It truly is a great church.  It has taken some getting used to the aesthetics of the place, but I love a church that is dedicated to reaching the broken and lost.  And they aren't big on buildings and like to plant new campuses, which makes me feel like I haven't totally sold out.  I also work alongside a great staff, which makes it fun to go to work every day.

I also turned thirty this year.  That's all I really have to say about that.

And finally I started up a non-profit.  Since so much of my time in Asia was dedicated to maintaining a platform and giving a reason to be able to do what we did, I figured it was only natural to start a coffee company.  Non-profit and coffee don't normally go together, but I think they can.  Basically we (Underground Coffee International) buys coffee and then sells it under its own label, using the profits to support missionaries and fund humanitarian projects. Most of the people interested in partnering up are churches, so in effect we are partnering churches with missionaries.  The missionaries we fund are back in Asia, working in closed countries, and using coffee training as their platform to be there and build relationships with locals.  Eventually the locals will grow their own coffee, make more income than they otherwise would have with their old crops, and then we buy it from them because we've already established a market for their coffee here with churches.  Assuming we can raise enough support, it shouldn't be too complicated, and hopefully I'll be able to go back overseas a few years down the line.

So yeah, that's pretty much the year in a nutshell.  I am sure this blog will transform into something new.  I don't exactly have random stories of eating pig brain or hitch hiking to mountains villages.  This blog used to serve as a way to keep everyone updated on the work, but now that I'm here, there probably won't be a schedule to it, and it'll probably serve more as a place for me to ramble.  So buckle up!