Worship in a church that God made

For the past month, I've been living, working and worshipping in Sequoia National Park through a program called A Christian Ministry in the National Parks (www.acmnp.org). This picture shows me with some members of our ministry team after our first worship service together.

Basically, all of us work secular day jobs in the park (mine is sort of high altitude fast food), and we do some ministry stuff in our off hours, primarily in the form of leading worship on Sundays for campers/co-workers.

Should anyone who reads this blog want to visit a service, they're at 10 a.m. in the ampitheaters in both Grant Grove and Lodgepole (I'll be at one or the other depending on the week...you can e-mail me to find out on any given week).

More updates to come.

Year One: Complete

Whew! When people said seminary would go fast, they weren't kidding around.

My spring semester ended Thursday when I turned in my Greek II take-home translation exam. On Saturday, Trinity had its graduation at the cathedral in Pittsburgh, and a classmate of my was ordained to the priesthood afterward. I got to serve as a marshall during graduation -- it's kind of like being a liturgical usher (in a purple cassock and white cotta). The photo above is of all of the marshalls (we added the badges and six-shooters).

There's a crazy amount of stuff happening in the next few weeks -- visit with family, cross-country trip to California with my mom, my best friend's graduation and ordination, preaching at my parish in Fresno and beginning a three-month summer job in bivocational ministry in Sequoia National Park. Life is good -- hectic, but good. It's times like this when I wonder how I ever believed so sincerely that the Christian life was dull.

3 Thanksgivings and Prayers:

My head is kind of swimming right now after the last week, but I think I can offer a few tentative reflections on the first year:

* After one year, I can say that Trinity's instructors have tremendous skill in what they teach, and I've observed the great heart they have for every student at the school. I have learned a great deal here, and I pray that I may pass on these teachings faithfully.

* I can say that the classmates I came in with -- and the older students we met when we arrived -- have taught me a great deal about love and humility. I pray that we will continue to sharpen and uphold one another in the coming years.

* And, I can say that God has been faithful in disciplining and loving me. I pray that he'll continue to transform me into the image of Christ, all to his glory.

Cool Prayer by Charles de Foucauld

Father,
I abandon myself into your hands.
Do with me whatever you will.
Whatever you may do I thank you.
I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me and all your creatures.
I wish no more than this, O Lord.
Into your hands I commend my soul.
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart.
For I love you Lord and so need to give myself,
surrender myself into your hands without reserve
and with boundless confidence
for you are my Father.
Amen

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

-- Romans 6:10-11

Song of the Hour

Not this hour, my love?
It is here too soon.
Please don't let me go.

How do the stars smile?
Fists clench even now
to strike the cheek of my master.

The carpenter's hands that will
dry my tears forever
clench too, in unanswered prayer.

Eyes that won't look away
from my lost soul
will soon see no more.

Lips that told me
everything I've ever done
must be stilled.

Even tonight, those lips sing
a lullaby so sweet that
I cannot believe it is for me.

Those eyes
both unveil and burn away
all my pain.

Only one God
could kneel and wash away
the dust on my feet.

And only you, my love,
would trade a throne of light
for a mantle of blood.

Not so soon, my Lord?
This dark and worthy hour.
Please never let me go.
Never let me go.

The Semester so far....

This is a picture of the desk in my bedroom. It pretty much sums up my life for the past week. Lots of writing. Lots of reading. Lots of quality (and quantity) time with Greek.

This semester is different than the last one. The academics are tougher, both because they're more rigorous and because they are challenging some of my preconceived notions about things. The best part about this is that I'm trying to carve out time to reflect on all of this -- what it's teaching me about God and living for him (and others) day by day. The awe and gratitude I feel for receiving this training far outweighs the stress and weariness that come with seminary. A few times, I've had to slip away after a lecture to be alone with God for a few minutes just to praise him.

Daily life apart from studying has also been good. My fellow students often take breaks by playing board games or watching DVDs. My housemate taught me how to make homemade bread last week, which gave me a great way to work out all of my angst on a big ball of dough! I'm still messing around with my uke -- trying to improve my types of strums right now.

Then, there are the jokes. We got a few inches of snow yesterday, so a group of us walked to a classmate's house last night and began bellowing Christmas carols outside her door. That's just a recent example.

Anyway, that's a snapshot of everyday life. More updates to come.

3 Thanksgivings:

* For the provision that allows me to be here
* For my family
* For homemade bread

3 Prayers:

* For discernment for the prospective students coming here for visitor's weekend this week
* For peace and strength for our seniors as they look for jobs
* For the men and women who come to the homeless drop-in center on Friday mornings

Yes, this is my ukulele. Eat your heart out, Andy Warhol.

This week, the uke band at Trinity (also known as MT 500, or Music Therapy 500) received a revised play list that added something like 60 new songs. I was very excited to discover "Clementine" made the new list, along with additional lyrics to "You Are My Sunshine."

Despite this development, I still managed to get my first systematic theology paper written (describing the Christian theology of Justin Martyr), among other things. Whoo-hoo!

3 Thanksgivings:

* For my dad's 75th birthday last week
* For some sunshine today
* For the love of Christian community

3 Prayers:

* That all of us may enter into "the observance of a holy Lent" on Wednesday
* For Trinity's board members as they meet this week
* For financial provision for the school

Spring Semester starts tomorrow

Well, a lot has happened since my last post. Obviously.

Fall semester ended well, although the exegesis paper for Biblical Interpretation was quite a challenge. A lot of older seminarians told the people in my class that the exegesis paper is sort of the traditional hurdle for first-year students, difficulty-wise. If you don't know what exegesis is (because it wasn't long ago when I didn't), it's basically a study of a passage of Scripture that tries to get at its meaning. Some of the ways we do exegesis is by studying important words in the Scripture passage, its grammar, the historical background of it, and how it fits into the rest of the chapter, the book, and the Bible. Whew! Talk about humbling. And rewarding.

I had a few weeks off, took a one-week intensive class on the Pentateuch (a.k.a. the first five books of the Bible), and am currently enjoying my final day off before spring classes begin. Got another full plate this semester:

1. Systematic Theology
2. Greek II
3. Introduction to New Testament
4. Introduction to Missions
5. History class on models of Christian community

One change this semester is that my housemate Sarah (above middle) has to move back to New England this week. The photo depicts me along with our other housemate, Hannah, engaging in a bizarre inside joke that would take way too long to explain in this post. Suffice to say, we had a lot of fun with Sarah and will miss her.

3 Thanksgivings:

* For the start of new classes
* For a pain-free trip to the dentist last week
* For a renewed awareness of God's presence

3 Prayers:

* For Sarah as she departs Ambridge this week
* For peace, strength, and humor for this new semester
* For the poor living in Ambridge and Pittsburgh