watch your mouths, children

I read this passage this morning, 2 Kings 2:23-25. Enjoy.

From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. 'Go on up, you baldhead!' they said. 'Go on up, you baldhead!' He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths. And he went on to Mount Carmel and from there returned to Samaria.

Seriously - bears! Who knew Elisha was so sensitive about his head? Makes me a little more wary about teasing my buddy Michael, who shares Elisha's condition. Hopefully he doesn't also share his bear-summoning powers.

craig's list has weird stuff too

Trying to be productive today, getting various things done. Sometimes I'm a little too proud of myself for not sitting on my butt on a given day. For example, this morning I proudly listed my accomplishments before 9:30am to Janelle like a little boy who was happy he'd used the toilet all by himself. I realized it after I told her I'd even shaved, and she started to laugh at me. I guess I sorta deserved it.

No big post here, just wanted to share a little thing from Dan Kimball, as he was talking about emerging churches, a movement oneeighty is ostensibly a part of. I think Kimball may be right, concerning me even here. It's a little challenging to read.

...what the definition of "church" is. That needs to shift. I already explained this, but the shift of thinking the church is the meeting, and the building to the church is the people on a mission. Some emerging church leaders sadly say these words but are focusing all their time on the "meeting" still. What will this communicate to the people in their churches if we say "the church is the people on a mission" but the leaders spend all their time getting ready for the "meeting"?

You can read the rest of his interview here.

fly by the seat of your pants

Well I had a spare moment here so I figured I'd let you all know what's going on. Man I have been a bad blogger and website-maintaining-guy as of late.

Jesse, Nate, and I have moved into our new place. This place has many good qualities, but internet access is not one of them. This situation should be rectified come Tuesday morning, but until then my access is limited to the coffee shop and the unreliable bubble of wi-fi on church campus. I will be busy this upcoming week too, since oneeighty is kicking off on the 19th. When did it become October? When did it become 2003?

What's funny to me is how quickly time can seem to flow for one area of your life but how slowly it flows for another. For example, in all things ministry related I can't seem to blink without a week going by. Those same weeks, however, crawl by at a snail's pace in relation to when I get to see Janelle again. The 16th seems like forever to my heart, but to my day planner it's right around the corner. Funny how that works.

As a final note, I went to that A's game mentioned in that entry down there, and it was truly a great game. One of the best I've been to. Sadly the A's managed to find a way to lose that series to Boston, and have therefore earned my scorn for a period of time yet to be determined. Netters and I were going to do guest-authoring accounts of the game for one another's sites, but I'm not sure about that anymore. So many hilarious things happened at the game, I may have to recount them at some point. But I just don't have the heart to think about it that much since the A's blew it in the end.

I will just say this...have you met emotion eric? I have. So n'yah. Although I must admit the experience was somewhat sullied by the fact that he seemed to be rooting for the Sox. He got his in the end though. He should do a new emotion called "realizing your team sucks." Yeah. So there.

Oh wait, the Sox won in the end.

I'm off to the A's - Bo Sox game in a few. Never been to a playoff game before...and really I can't imagine it gets much better than this. Hudson and Martinez - two of the greatest pitchers in the game - battling it out on a clear October night? Yeah, baseball is teh rule. Now if only the A's can pull out a victory.

I am excited about seeing this game...but about twenty times as excited that tomorrow night I'm heading down to So Cal to meet up with Janelle; then we're heading down to Carlsbad for her best friend's birthday and to surprise the Bridge peeps. I love San Diego.

Life is busy, life is good.