Chris's Musings

I am 15 days away from hopping on a plane to serve in Kenya.  I am both excited, nervous, and expectant all at the same time. Excited:  I have never been to Africa before.  It's an entirely new culture, an entirely new environment, and as my shot record will show an entirely new set of germs.  I love newness. Nervous:  One of my biggest prayer requests I shared during my support/dinner party a few weeks ago was that God would "prepare me to be unprepared" for what I would experience.  It's been a long time since I will have "tasted" poverty like I'm expecting to see in Ngaamba.  And honestly, I don't even think the trips I've had to Piedras Negras with the Aggie BSM in college (Piedras is on the Texas border) will even prepare me emotionally for the conditions I'll see there.  I pray that God will break my heart, that He will stir me, and that I'll never be the same after this trip. Expectant:  Maybe this has something to do with ...

There are two aspects of this mission trip that I don't look forward to.  I mentioned the first one in my last post :).  However, since I'm going to a country that has strange (to us Americans) diseases, I went out for the second less desirable "trip prep" deal last week... the immunizations :) You're probably either thinking: He's crazy.... or, He really loves God. Because I really hate needles. It's mostly the second, but voluntarily taking needles would probably require a little bit of insanity too :) this would be me before shots (happy) This would be during shots (freaked out)

Today, for the most part, has been all about Kenya.  My team met for the third time today and I'm excited that we are really gelling as a group as we start to enter the "home stretch" in our trip preparation.  We are having our team retreat two weekends from now and I'm looking forward to hearing everyones' stories. It was also a day where I filled a number of envelopes and mailed out letters.   Today was a 410 Bridge support deadline... which I hadn't met at the time I'm writing this blog (no fun).  Ah, yes.  All of us that have gone on mission trips know the feeling of the support raising exercise.  I am one of those that don't like fundraising, I'll admit.  However, during every trip the group that sponsors us both strongly encourages us and requires us to do this, so here I go again :-).  Honestly, I do get why I do this... meaning the painstaking work of raising funds and prayer support for being sent out on these missions.  And I want...

I'm about to turn 29 again in a week.  I can't tell you how many times I've turned 29, but I can tell you that I'm turning 29 again in a week ;-) It seems to me that birthdays and New Years are good times to reflect on your life over the past year and assess where I am, where I want to be, and what I would like to change.  It also marks another year of growing into maturity and wisdom, which I hope that I can look back at the last 29 and say that I grew wiser and closer to Christ in the process. But I never want to "grow old."  I think that there's a difference there.  Growing up is maturing, learning how to make wiser choices, reflecting more of who God designed me to be.  Growing old is settling, thinking that I've learned it all, experienced it all, and have no more need to grow.  This is pretty undesirable for me... and honestly I can't imagine that it'd be very desirable for anyone. For starters, we are living in a world created by a...

Last Thursday, I was out at Taco Mac with a buddy of mine watching a little hoops action  It's the opening weekend of "the dance" as you know, and Thursday was a great day to see a slew of upsets.  Because it was a "school night," we didn't watch any of the late games, but made sure to see the end of Washington vs. Marquette. At the end of the game, the entire place erupted when the Huskies put in the game winning basket with less than 3 seconds left to play.  We were pumped.... and for most of us it wasn't likely even OUR team (I'm watching MY team play in a few hours). After getting my juices going from some great basketball action, this thought popped in my head... You know, this is what worship looks like. A few weeks ago, the kids in UpStreet learned about the story where David danced before the LORD when they brought the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem.  King David made a fool of himself, not a kingly thing, because in his heart h...

This week preparing for small group, I read something that Francis Chan said in his book "Crazy Love" which really got me thinking, in addition to some thoughts from my Theopraxis class a few weeks ago. The thought is this:  If I was trapped on a desert island, and all I had to feed my thinking and my knowledge of God and life was the Bible.  No commentaries, no other books, no teachers, no systems of theology.  All I had was what was written in that book... and I read it without anything anchoring my thoughts... what conclusions would I come up with? Add another thought:  If I read Paul's letters as if I was a citizen of Ephesus, Rome, Galatia, Phillipi, etc., and did not have a systematic theology to break apart what Paul was saying (it may not be too hard to get that idea... watching Spartacus or Gladiator may be enough to at least put your mind into that of the late 1st Century Roman world) and I didn't have the letter broken up into chapters & verses (be...

I just got my CDs from the Passion 2010 talks this last week - I have started to listen to a few of them and I am completely stuck on this one story that Francis Chan tells during his session talk... He tells this story about a time when his oldest daughter comes home having just gotten an "F" on a test in school.  Like in my growing up, bad grades were unacceptable for her and the news of failing a test would bring unfun consequences.  So after Francis gets home, she shows him the test and asks what is going to happen to her.  And during what was probably an ultimate in teachable moments in her life, her dad (who is recounting this story to us) says.... I'm going to take you out to dinner... Then we'll go out to a movie. Then I'll take you out for ice cream. Because I want you to experience... grace. Quite unexpected, huh?  Francis told us that when she got to school the next day that she told the story and her friends responded like any normal kid who ...