College Minister In View of a Call

Our church personnel committee has extended a call to Michael Criner to come in view of a call this Sunday. Michael along with his wife, Abby, are both are graduates of Howard Payne University. Michael will graduate from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary this December. Currently, Michael serves as the interim College Minister at Indiana Avenue Baptist Church in Lubbock, Texas. Michael comes highly recommended to us as one who is passionate about student ministry, a wonderful communicator, and gifted administrator.

Michael and Abby will be introduced in both morning services, will speak in the College Sunday School, and will preach in the evening service. Please make plans to meet them personally in the foyer from 6:00 to 6:30 p.m. Sunday evening. A vote will follow the evening service.

They Crossed!

I can't believe they crossed! Goodness. The world is watching.

English stinks.

I think English needs better words. I wish you could tag emotions and facial expressions and a host of adjectives and metaphors and additional meanings onto a word. Take "I'm sorry" for instance:

"I'm sorry" when your parents make you say it to someone else (and you're not really)... shouldn't be the same "I'm sorry" you say when you really are.

"I'm sorry" doesn't cover not being good at something.

"I'm sorry" doesn't cover feeling sad for someone, or with someone, or anger towards another.

"I'm sorry" isn't the same when you accidently kick someone under the table and when you say I'm sorry to a girl who has just been hurt by a guy. Or the "I'm sorry" you say on behalf of all guys to all girls for the disgraceful behavior bestowed to them.

"I'm sorry" isn't enough when you are talking to someone who has just lost a father, a mother, a brother... a child.

"I'm sorry" doesn't cover the true repentance felt by the sinking feeling that just eats away at you when you've really wronged someone and you pray and beg for restoration.

"I'm sorry" doesn't cover - I love you.

So anyway... to all you who are frustrated with the English language... I don't really know what to tell you other than, "I'm sorry," and the English language says "I'm sorry" too.

All-State Choir Camp

Choir camp was a tiring but very entertaining experience. This was my third year to work the camp as a counselor, so I pretty much knew what to expect. We had a staff meeting at 10am on Tuesday and the kids began checking in at 2pm that afternoon. Then it was off to the races!

As part of the registration process, we pretest the campers on sightreading if they choose, with the opportunity for them to test out of the sightreading session later on in the week if they do well. This is always interesting, because sightreading is one of the biggest fears and challenges in the all-state process. Well, we test them and record them on minidisc players, and then go back and grade them later on. Some of the kids are amazing... some of them... eh... not so much.

We counselors get together and listen to eachother's recordings and they can range from the amazing to absurd, hilarious and heart-breaking. It's sad to listen to a high schooler almost bust into tears over a silly eight measures of music.

We had one girl who at the end of her recording said,
"*sigh*... I'm done... I lose..." in one of the saddest voices I have ever heard!!

And of course there are those who simply wander and weave on any note and rhythm and syllable until somehow they decide they have reached the end of the line.

That was the beginning of camp, and things only got more hilarious. All the campers are given nametags that are to be worn at all times outside of their immediate halls in the dorms. This is done for identification obviously, not just their name, but as one of our campers amidst the other church, debate, and athletic camps taking place on campus at the same time. So the first day is always a lot of reminding the campers to remember their nametag and wear it like they're supposed to. The guy counselors were sitting on the couches in the dorms watching the campers head out to one of their rehearsals and one of them took it upon himself to yell at the kids without nametags, not because he is a nametag nazi, but because he likes to scare the campers on the first day.

Anyway, so this stream of campers were heading out of the dorm and you just hear... "Nametag!... Nametag!... Hey, nametag! NAMETAG!... uh... Is that even our kid!?!?"
It was hilarious to be sure.

The first day was crazy, I had to take care of a camper who almost broke his nose - that was an ordeal - and we were supposed to have an ice cream social after the last rehearsal that night. However, lovely Aramark decided to deliver the ice cream over an hour early and just leave it sitting outside - so we had to flip flop the ice cream and the last rehearsal, or risk drinking our ice cream social. Have you ever tried to give just over 300 high schoolers ice cream and free time and then pack them all shoulder to shoulder on a stage and try to get them to sing? Yeah... I'm sure you can imagine how that went over.

Every year it is always interesting to see what kinds of personalities we get in the dorms. There are always little incoming freshmen tenors whose voices haven't changed, and who haven't seen a day of high school yet. You always do a double take when walking down the hall of a dorm at 2am listening for voices - because you always think there's a girl in one of the rooms, and then you realize it's just one of those tiny tenors! Well, these young'uns are as equally aloof. I had one camper, Logan, who managed to always forget his nametag, locked himself out of his room 7-8 times, and freaked out about a cockroach in his room because his grandmother had once told him that if you touch a cockroach, "...the germs will get inside of you and you will die!" And he was serious!! We had campers forget their nametag, lose their cell phones, forget their music, lose their meal card, forget their purses, drop their meal card underneath the strings of a grand piano and, my favorite, drop a room key down through the grate on an airconditioning vent on the floor of a rehearsal room.

You know, I really like to see guys who have a healthy respect for females, Lord knows I do. I think girls should be given all the courtesies and respect, and be defended and fought for. But... I have to tell you... I get a little worried when I walk down the hall and overhear a high schooler through a door saying, "Allison.... Allison is God!!... She's soooo nice!"

The guy counselors - especially one - make a point each year to see how much we can get the campers to do for us. You know, it starts out in Penland with - "hey, while you're up, would you get me a refill of Dr. Pepper" - but quickly progresses to - "Hey, would you get me some cobbler?" or "Would you get me some ice cream?" Later it moves on to - "Hey would you go to the coke machine and buy me a Dr. Pepper?" and I mean, not, "Here's 60 cents, would you buy me a Dr. Pepper?" I seriously mean - would you go dig in your pocket and buy me a Dr. Pepper!! After the first day and a half or so, they just ask if we want anything when they go to the convenience store! They buy us chips, drinks, candy... it's pretty much amazing - but it get really funny when it gets to - "Hey! Ya'll are ordering us pizza tonight." and "Hey - here's my keys, would you take my stuff out to my car" at the end of camp. I guess it kind of is a quid pro quo deal though - we are a lot more relaxed on the guys around the dorms and concerning light out and such, since they willingly serve us during the week!

Well, anyway - there's a ton more to be said about camp but I think I'll leave my writing on that note. I was lucky to be in bed by 3:45 and had to be up by 6:50 so it made for a week of yawns, sugary snacks and Starbucks in the mornings. I managed to sleep through church on Sunday (I set my alarm for 9am and woke up at 12:10!) but I suppose I probably needed the sleep.

Randomness!

Tomorrow I start living in the dorms as a camp counselor for the Baylor All-State camp. It'll be a crazy busy but fun week and I'm excited to have a schedule and full days again! However, please pr for the students and staff and the craziness as we all come together from all over Texas for this week.

Students are coming back from trips overseas, and I have had brief chances to catch up on their experiences. I had some friends come back from a short stint in Central Asia and a neighboring country, and it has been amazing to hear the ways that HE is working daily in the lives of people around the world, often in ways that even they do not realize, and continuing to open doors and opportunities. I've also been catching up on people through their postings and writings on various blogs and it has truly been a blessing. Technology has made communication so easy, and yet we often find ourselves painfully lax in taking advantage of it. I had one such experience earlier today. I checked my messages on myspace the other day (which I probably check about once a month) to find out that a classmate and friend of mine from HS had recently married and moved to Waco. She asked me to drop by and see her at her work sometime. She had sent me the message a month ago, and I had only found it now. I dropped by her work today, only to find that she no longer worked there, and her coworkers had thought she had moved out of town. An opportunity lost, not just to reconnect with a friend, but to connect with two people struggling to find themselves in a new life, in a new city.

I think I have been sleeping too much. The reason I know this is that I'm no where near tired when it is time to get to bed, and I wake up very very early and can't go back to sleep for a really long time. At least I hope that's the deal. There are obviously other possibilities. The thing is I've also been pretty emotional lately. Now don't get any crazy ideas or funny images in your head - no, I haven't opened up the door to find it raining outside and suddenly burst into tears, but seriously, I've been pulled and shaken and moved by thoughts and images like I haven't been in a while. HE is up to something, I don't know what, but I have a feeling it's amazing.

Did anyone watch the World Cup Final? It was an amazing match. I have to say that the sequence of events around and through the Zidane headbutt incident was the wildest thing I've seen on TV in a while. I mentioned before that this World Cup has made an international soccer match fan out of me. These past few weeks have been the first time I have watched a soccer match all the way through. One thing kind of puzzled me however. Did anyone see the trophy presentation? This was the first time I had seen the World Cup trophy. A year of hype, one month and 64 matches later - a lot of commercials, one match changes everything, joga bonito - anyway, all for this little trophy! Haha, I know, I know, it's not about the trophy... but seriously! I don't know what that says about Americanism or American sports and championships, but I think it probably helps that it is 11 lbs. of solid 18 karat gold. The man-law commercials state that if two people's saliva touches it is technically a kiss. So I'm watching all the Italians surrounding the trophy and the whole team is kissing the globe at the top of the trophy. And all I could think about was that is a lot of sweaty guys combined with a lot of saliva touching!

I finished the D.A. Carson book, and am moving on to Dan Kimball's book on the Emerging church and another run at David Crowder's Praise Habit. Hopefully that will offer me enough respite from highschool boys the rest of this week.

We have a college minister coming in view of a call on the 23rd so if you think about it, offer some pr up for that as well. In the meantime, the leadership that is here is getting busy stringing together info, lists, calendars, leaders and such for the Fall.

Hospitality.

We had a candidate come in for the college minister position today. It was very exciting to hear his views on ministry and what the goals and vision for this unique time in students lives should be. However, it was not just us asking questions of him - it was him asking questions of us. Probably one of the most compelling questions was over the culture of Baylor, what it is to be a student at Baylor.

I would describe Baylor culture as involved. Students are very involved in many different organizations and activities, many times over-involved. I would describe Baylor as a place where the lines of Christian culture are clearly seen - popular music, hot reads, involvement in service causes and organizations. You mean you haven't read Blue Like Jazz? or Redeeming Love? Or Desiring God? Or Wild at Heart? You haven't seen the Invisible Children video? You don't know who Shane and Shane are? Don't get me wrong here, I think all of those can be, and in and of themselves, are amazing things and, with the exception of Redeeming Love I have delved into all of them.

I would also describe Baylor as being two separate worlds. There is the Christian culture world - these students may or may not actively attend church, but have a church background and consider themselves to adhere to most of it. Then there is the other side - students who have no church background, or have rejected their experience with church.

These two sides make up the challenges of ministry to a campus like Baylor - gleaning through what is good about Christian culture, tradition, denominational doctrines, theologies, philosophies, practices, while keeping the focus where it should be - and - crossing over and beyond barriers between "churched" and "unchurched", or even maybe evangelical traditions and other Christian traditions.

These challenges are at best a stern test to face effectively, and at worst a goliath. The candidate however, agreed with the direction our ministry has taken for years - that it is in community that these barriers are best met. He told a story about gathering all the students involved in all the small groups from his college ministry together for an event. He said he met people he had never seen before - and as the college minister he was supposed to have met everyone! One student was a Catholic who attended a small group because that is where he found community, but went to Catholic mass on Sunday mornings. These experiences are not unlike much of our small groups, where students gather who aren't necessarily part of our church, or any church, because it is a place where they experience community and engage in life together.

In the book I've been reading by D.A. Carson, he poses the question, "How then, shall we tie together the biblical mandated responsibility of Christians to interact warmly with those who are not believers, and the biblically mandated responsibility of Christians to distinguish, on doctrinal, experiential, and ethical grounds, betweent hose who are Christians and those who are not?". His response:

"What must not be done is to overthrow either priority. There are churches that are mightily concerned to preserve their own comfort zones, to preserve all their prized traditions... Christians in these churches are likely to evangelize only those people who are already churched or who in some sense belong to a churchy culture. Of course, in the sheer grace of God, some biblical illiterate may come in off the street and be converted - but this will owe very little to the church's commitment to spread the gospel among those who have never heard. They will insist that people become Christians before they can actually belong to them. Sadly, however, these believers may find it almost impossible to explain the gospel to people whose subculture is far removed from their own...

What we should strive for, surely, is a church that is full of teaching (doctrinal, ethical, historical, spiritual), rigorous in its discipleship, and patently faithful in its exercise of godly discipline - and at the same time a church in which believers know how to communicate with nonbelievers, a church whose public meetings, however full of teachign and discipline they may be, are authentic in all they do, welcoming and warm to strangers, and careful to apply the Scriptures to all of life, with contemporary probings that are simultaneously faithful to Scripture and culturally penetrating. At one level, that church will be saying that you have to become a Christian to belong; at another level, that church will be so authentic in its communication, so warm in its acceptance of people as people, so genuine in its belief and conduct, that outsiders will be attracted.... Christians in such a church will gradually learn, out of sheer love for people, to try to get across with winsome gentleness, what the Bible says, while refusing to soft-pedal the Bible in any way." - D.A. Carson, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church

What a challenge.

"...how inexhaustible are the riches that open up for those who by God's will are privileged to live in a daily fellowship of life with other Christians!

It is true, of course, that what is an unspeakable gift of God for the lonely individual is easily disregarded and trodden under foot by those who have the gift every day. It is easily forgotten that hte fellowship of Christian brethren is a gift of grace, a gift of the Kingdom of God that any day may be taken from us, that the time that still separates us from utter loneliness may be brief indeed. Therefore, let him who until now has had the privilege of living a common Christian life with other Christians praise God's grace from the bottom of his heart. Let him thank God on his knees and declare: It is grace, nothing but grace, that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brethren." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

Battle Hymn.

I wonder whether it was American arrogance that heralded the Battle Hymn a patriotic song. You would think with a song that is a battle cry for God in his radiant glory would be a song of hope apart from flag or country. The truth is that it wasn't arrogance - that it was a patriotic song John Brown's Body far before it became the hymn in 1861 after Julia Ward Howe rewrote the lyrics to be more uplifting. This is a version of the original lyrics:

Old John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
While weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save;
But though he lost his life in struggling for the slave,
His truth is marching on.

Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on!

John Brown was a hero, undaunted, true and brave;
Kansas knew his valor when he fought her rights to save;
And now though the grass grows green above his grave,
His truth is marching on.
Chorus

He captured Harpers Ferry with his nineteen men so few,
And he frightened "Old Virginny" till she trembled through and through,
They hung him for a traitor, themselves a traitor crew,
But his truth is marching on.
Chorus

John Brown was John the Baptist for the Christ we are to see,
Christ who of the bondsman shall the Liberator be;
And soon throughout the sunny South the slaves shall all be free.
For his truth is marching on.
Chorus

The conflict that he heralded, he looks from heaven to view,
On the army of the Union with its flag, red, white, and blue,
And heaven shall ring with anthems o'er the deeds they mean to do,
For his truth is marching on.
Chorus

Oh, soldiers of freedom, then strike while strike you may
The deathblow of oppression in a better time and way;
For the dawn of old John Brown was brightened into day,
And his truth is marching on.
Chorus

However, I just hope that we would never lose the meaning of the words reset to this great tune and miss an tremendous opportunity to savor the meaning by thinking about fireworks, and flag, and country, and grilling out in the backyard:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword;
His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps;
His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery Gospel writ in burnished rows of steel;
“As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal”;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel,
Since God is marching on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet;
Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free; [Originally: let us die to make men free]
While God is marching on.

He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is wisdom to the mighty, He is honor to the brave;
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of wrong His slave,
Our God is marching on.

A Dream.

So I had this really wierd dream the other night. There were many people in it, family, friends, famous actors. Anyway, in this dream all the people of the world woke up in an alternate world. Everyone's personality was slightly different, and the world - although normal in every way - just felt different. The personality differences reflected the person's "true" nature. Everyone was in a scramble to find their way out of this place - but there was this sense that we knew how to get out, we just didn't want to take it. This world was almost like purgatory. The only escape was to take a hard look at yourself and confess your secrets and bad habits, and mend broken relationships. I distinctly remember scrambling to find other ways out, trying everything - and not just me, everyone was. Finally we had to face ourselves, and face others, and work toward making things right. I sat down and confessed my bad habits and the things I didn't like about myself, and I remember sitting down and working to mend relationships and make up for lost time. Some of you might think this is a very wierd dream (which is probably was). Some of you might think it was a nightmare. I think there was a very pure beauty to it. It was what most of us need - a hard look at ourselves to see the good and the bad, to take time to invest in the relationships that matter, make ammends for our many faults and to learn what it means to owe nothing to anyone and live at peace with everyone - including ourselves.


Liz quote of the day (actually yesterday):

Liz (over AIM): ok. so i just went to war against a spider. i have to say. it was pretty impressive. i killed him with skintimate shaving creme.