So one or two things have happened since my last blog entry. I guess that happens when you wait nearly a year to post a new one. :-) I was reading through my old posts today and was blown away by the last thing I'd written. God has brought me so far since then it was like reading someone else's story. I love looking back at hard times through the glasses of the present.

Since my last post I've gotten a job, bought a house, had a baby (well, obviously my wife had the baby), quit my job and dived head first back into ministry--all in less than a year. Wow.

My first job was with a youth services company that cares for young people who are unable to live with their parents. I mentored foster kids, worked in one-on-one residential care with mildly to extremely troubled kids and supervised access visits between parents and the kids who have been taken from them by the state (usually for very good reasons). Needless to say, it was a very stressful job. I coped well enough with the stress for the first 6 months or so, but around February of this year it just became too much. I got phone calls at all the wrong times asking me to work. I came home from work so stressed out that I had to just veg in front of the television for a couple of hours before I could carry on a meaningful conversation. I rarely knew when I would have a day off, and when I thought I knew it would change. The pay was good when I had enough work, but because I was a "casual" employee, work was never guaranteed. I noticed physical symptoms of stress: my personality was changing--I was less lighthearted and easygoing, I started getting gray hair (of course, that could just be because I'm almost 30), I developed nervous ticks (no joke). I never wanted to go to work. That grocery bagging job I wrote about was looking pretty good.

In May of this year, I was offered a job at Christians Against Poverty's head office in Newcastle. I jumped on it. I prayed about it a bit along the way, but the signs of God's hand were so obviously all over this, I was able to just move forward with confidence. I went to the interview in peace. Interviews scare the living poopy out of me, so I knew it was God. :-) My resume fit the job perfectly--my WHOLE resume. I never thought I'd find a job that covered all of the apparently random things I've done with my life so far, but here I am.

I've been working with CAP for almost a month now and so far I love every part of it. I'm working in funding and communications and IT services: researching grants, keeping the website up-to-date and troubleshooting IT problems as they arise. I'm quickly becoming the in-house worship leader, as well. It's challenging stuff, but I enjoy a good challenge.

One of the challenges is that we're back to "living by faith", financially speaking. CAP is non-profit and though I'm paid a salary, that salary is paid when enough money comes in from grants and supporters to pay it. Believe it or not, this was actually one of the things that excited me most about the job. I love that I get to look forward to miracles on a regular basis. I really missed that part of being in missions.

So apparently I can't stay away from ministry. Apparently my life experience has been worth more than I thought. Apparently I should trust God a little more.

Leaving Missions (Am I Crazy?)

It's an odd transition. At times I feel like the arguments for and against what I'm about to do are going to at worst dismember me or at best stretch me beyond recognition.

I've been immersed in missions since I was twelve years old. Every job I've ever had has been for the purpose of making money to get back into missions (no hyperbole-for-effect here). And I'm about to go "get a real job."

For most, leaving everything to enter the mission field and live on the support of friends and family would be a terrifying step into the unknown. For me, leaving the mission field and the financial support of friends and family feels like stepping off of a cliff blindfolded. I'm terrified. I've never had to get a job based on my own skill. My family's financial situation has never rested on my education or experience. As far as I can see, my life experience applies largely only to cross-cultural missions environments. My education is suited to work in underdeveloped nations.

So why am I leaving? I'm going in part for practical reasons, and in part for the very reasons I just mentioned.

Practical reasons:
Reason one: it costs $0 to have a baby in Australia. (Did I mention I'm moving to Australia?) Not only does it cost $0--the government pays parents $5000 per child born to them. Australia wants more babies. Reason two: to be close to Bec's family for this whole process.

The other reasons:
I've been living in my comfort zone. For me it's going to take as much faith to step into a "real" job as it does for many to enter the mission field. Lately, questions and doubts have raced constantly through my mind: Am I doing the right thing? Will I be qualified to do anything more complicated than bagging groceries? Will I be able to provide for my family? Will I be stuck in a job I hate? Will I find out that I'm less intelligent than I thought? Will I find out that I'm more intelligent than I thought? Will I get addicted to paychecks and the ability to buy what I want when I want it? Will I ever return to missions?

I'm sure it's at least in part due to my ego. I want to know if I can handle the unknown. I want to know if I have what it takes. Will I discover previously unseen personal strengths? Will I figure out what my true skills are?

This leads me to one of my biggest fears. I touched on it above. I'm not passionate about, or truly good at, anything. Those I'm close to would say, "Don't be silly, you're a great worship leader." But leading worship won't go very far toward a house payment/rent or groceries or the myriad of other expenses one incurs when living in the "real world." Part of me thinks of all of this as just another adventure. I get to figure this stuff out. Maybe. Unless I'm stuck bagging groceries...

As of right now, the plan is to be in Australia for 3-5 years. I'm as unsure of what is to come after that as I am of what I'll be doing for a living for the next 3-5 years. God knows, which should comfort me. God cares, which should comfort me even more. Deep down I know that this is just another part of growing up (yes, to my surprise, still growing up at nearly 30), another part of learning to trust God, another part of learning who I am. I get to learn to trust God for what many see as routine, but for what I see as a blindfolded freefall. I wonder where I'll land?

Wal-Mart Won't Quit "Brokeback"

"Such a decision has prompted the Tupelo, Mississippi-based AFA to launch a campaign accusing Wal-Mart of backing a pro-gay agenda."

I may have just missed it (quite possible), but is the AFA protesting the fact that Wal Mart carries movies that portray pre-marital sex, adultery and graphic violence?

I haven't seen Brokeback Mountain and I don't plan to. Not my kind of movie. Do I agree with the premise of the movie? I suspect not, but there are plenty of movies out there whose premises I don't agree with.

Do I agree with the AFA's agenda? Here's their mission statement, taken from their website:
"The American Family Association exists to motivate and equip citizens to change the culture to reflect Biblical truth."
Shouldn't our goal as Christians be to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves? How did Jesus live this out? I recently wrote the following on my other blog about a show we played at a bar on our last tour:
"My favorite part of this show, however, was a conversation I overheard while running sound for our band. A bunch of people at the bar were talking about how the church can't expect them to show up on Sunday, so they're sending people into the bars.

Did Jesus just hang out in the synagogue hoping that everyone would come to Him? No, he didn't. He was called a drunkard and friend of sinners because he hung out with drunkards and sinners: see Matthew 11:19 and Luke 7:34. This challenged me. Am I a friend of sinners? Do I care enough for sinners to meet them on their own turf? At one point during the show I caught myself wishing I was somewhere more comfortable and then I remembered: I'm a sinner. A filthy sinner. There's no difference between me and the people in that bar, except that I've found Jesus, or rather, He found me. Grace is all that stands between me and that drunk English guy. I have no right to be uncomfortable. I have no right to feel self-righteous, because in my self there IS NO righteousness, but for that righteousness given to me by Christ."

So, no, I don't really agree with their agenda. I think that we as Christians often go about these things the wrong way - backwards, in fact. We are not going to effectively change our society by protesting and boycotting. We too often expect non-Christians to act like Christians. How ridiculous! We have a hard enough time acting like Christians ourselves! Because Christ lives in us, we should be letting His love pour out through us to those around us. What did Jesus protest in his day? The closest thing I can think of to a protest staged by Jesus was against the established church of the day: when He drove out the moneychangers in the temple. Jesus' harshest words were generally reserved for the pharisees (den of vipers, whitewashed tombs, etc.).

I understand the fear that drives the AFA - that our society will go to hell around us, but I don't believe that the solution is lobbying, protest and boycotting. The solution is the greatest of the commandments: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" and "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Spreading the love of Christ is the answer.

"The problem with America is stupidity. I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?"

Funny.

I forgot where I got that from. Too bad. Sorry whoever said that. At least I put quotes around your clever statement.

What is art?

Had a good conversation about this today (though if it had a fault, it may have been a little one-sided).

As I mentioned in my other blog, we've been watching Francis Schaeffer's "How Should We Then Live" video series. Today we went over the ages of Non-Reason (post-Renaissance) and Fragmentation (post-Non-Reason). Included in this were artists like John Cage, whose art was more anti-art, more philosophical statement than art, really (imo).

What is art? Can it be anything we say it is? Are there standards? Is it solely based on subjective opinion?

A friend of mine said this: "I kinda figure that if I could do it, then it's not art."

I know another guy who believes that art is really anything we claim it is.

Dictionary.com says this:
"The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium."

"The product of these activities; human works of beauty considered as a group."

"High quality of conception or execution, as found in works of beauty; aesthetic value"

Merriamwebster.com says this:
"the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects; also : works so produced b (1) : FINE ARTS (2) : one of the fine arts (3) : a graphic art"

It seems, based on these definitions, that art should contain the following:

• a conscious effort
• skill
  
• creativity
• beauty
• aesthetic value

So, it seems, there are standards (if the dictionary definition means anything) and it probably shouldn't be just anything we say it is. If it could be whatever we said it was, then art would really HAVE no definition, right?

I've been in some modern art museums where every few exhibits I thought, hmmmmmmm...what the HECK is that? And how the HECK did it make its way into a museum? Maybe I was just missing something...

I understand the need to push limits--it sometimes leads (eventually) to great new ideas, but wow it can result in some crap along the way.

I really think, however, that the next great thing in art will still follow the definitions above. Don't we have to WANT to look at it for it to truly last?

So I live in Montana. You'd think January would = cold in Montana. It's been raining since mid-December, but there's been a little snow mixed in here and there. Just enough to pack down nice and hard on our driveway.

Some people think snow is slippery. Actually, it's really not bad. Know what's slippery? Snow that's been thawed and driven on so much that it forms a hard sheet of ice. Know what's even more slippery? The before-mentioned ice with rainwater on top.

That's our driveway. Yesterday, as I was ascending our steep driveway in our awesome 4wd Toyota pickup that I used to think could go anywhere, I got to the steepest part of the road, which happens to also be a sharp left turn. The wheels started spinning. Uh-oh, but I'm sure I'll get traction in a second...nope. The truck slid SIDEWAYS and BACKWARDS down the hill...and it kept picking up speed...and picking up speed (remember, backwards and sideways), and I thought, I'm gonna roll my truck! Crap. Well, unfortunately I wasn't so mature as to say merely "crap." I wish it were so.

I like to think that I'm a good driver, that I know how to drive on ice and snow in pretty much any kind of weather. But, I had no category in my ice driving experience for sliding backwards and then sideways downhill. What do you do? I instinctively hit the brake and the clutch as soon as I realized that I'd lost traction (thereby breaking ice rule no. 1), but that only made things worse (of course). So, I thought, maybe I should release the clutch and let off the brake...nope, that only killed the engine and made me slide faster.

I came to rest perpendicular to our driveway with the front wheels on a grassy patch and with a low row of rocks and a dropoff to my right. Thankfully I hadn't gained enough speed to roll sideways over the rocks and down the hill - I would have ended up on Wulff Lane (our street) or possibly wrapped around a tree on the way to Wulff Lane. Praise God for grassy patches!

After I'd collected myself, apologized to God for the colorful language and thanked Him that our truck (and my body) was in one piece, I restarted the engine, stuck the truck in 4 low (super 4wd) :-), and crept up the lawn instead of the driveway, a route I'm sure to take until that darn ice melts.

The moral of the story? Wet ice is slippery. Don't even look at it too long or you'll land on your bum wondering what the heck happened.
kev