Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, And Pennsylvania

The morning after arriving home from a 32 hour non-stop ride in a van. Now about to get in my car and drive all day again. It's not that I'm not excited or anything, just exhausted. But, Arizona Was super fly and we learned a lot and climbed many mesa's. Now, why is it still cold in PA?

Snow. And Some More.

Oh dear, I awoke this morning to even more snow on the ground. It seems as if winter will never end around here. When I first went to college in Grand Rapids, they had just had a fairly light winter. The year I was there, snow was on the ground from January until three weeks before the year ended. That happened again the next year. I moved to Providence, who had received a very minimal snowfall the year before I got there. We had a blizzard with two feet of snow the year I was there, and other lesser snowfalls as well. Last year Morris PA received, I believe, one snowfall of about three inches. This year has been the worst winter in thirty years. *sigh*

Awake My Soul

Dear friends,

Last week was an up and down roller coaster for me. One day would be great, the next would leave in some kind of funk that just put me in a bad mood. I could blame it on the six inches of snow we got last week, but I think it runs deeper than that.

This morning I was spending some time in Philippians, and I was drawn to the popular passage 4:8, where it talks about your thoughts. I challenges the reader think think on things that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, anything worthy of praise. As I think back to my week, I can most likely guess what was running through my head continually during those bad days. It was mostly negative thoughts, generally directed at people in my life.

I was challenged today to really watch what I'm thinking about, and to ask God for thoughts of things that align with Philippians 4:8. "Where you invest your love, there you invest your life" In my experience, the things we think about, are also the things we love. Therefore, I'm investing my life in my thoughts.

From Winter, Back to Winter.

A few days ago I was walking around quite comfortably in a t-shirt. Yesterday I was outside playing basketball. Today I'm going snowboarding because the temperature dropped bringing a foot of snow with it. Come on! We were just beginning to see large areas of grass again. I went for a sunny bike ride not that long ago. I took my alligator outside to play! *sigh* oh well, I guess spring will just have to wait.

The big news for us interns is the Philly trip we returned from a week ago. The whole trip was pretty great; We saw urban ministry in action, experienced some visionary urban churches, got exposed to city problems such as homelessness and immigration, and spent time with ethnic communities in their respective neighborhoods.

After spending a week back in rural PA processing the trip, two things have really stuck with me. The first spawned from our experience at a small church called Circle of Hope. This was a really cool church running on the house church idea. They meet throughout the week in "cells" of which there are over 100 all through the city. On Sundays they they come together to worship in four large congregational meetings, but the real magic happens during the week. What stuck with me about this church is they missional way they are living. They immerse themselves into their communities and they engage deeply with each other. I spent some time reading about their vision and they have a entrepreneurial business side to them. The missional church is something we've been talking a lot about over this year, and it was awesome to see it in action.

The second thing that stuck with me I experienced when we were walking through the ethnic neighborhoods. We went through Cambodian, Hispanic, and Italian neighborhoods. I was taken back to when I was in Thailand and I saw the need to engage a culture before being able to effectively communicate with them. I had the same experience in these neighborhoods. It was truly like being in a foreign culture, where many of the people didn't speak my language, and we had little in common. I realized that in order to be effective gospel witnesses in america, we really need to engage and invest in multiple cultures even here in our own country. One of the problems with the church today, is that we are very good at connecting with the people in our churches, but have no idea how to interact with our Asian neighbors. Our spectrum of witness effectiveness is incredibly narrow because we don't take the time to go beyond (in my case) our white, middle class, suburban people group. This demographic was once the dominating majority, but our numbers are rapidly being overtaken. If the current leaders of today want to continue to be valuable for the gospel, they need to get away from their comfort zones, and bring their churches with them.

All in all, an amazing trip. I hope to continue exploring what God showed me through this, and hopefully can one day be the kind of difference I saw in Philly.

Headin East!!!!

Here I am, Saturday, waiting to leave for the city of brotherly love. Today we embark on on our second cross cultural engagement trip of the internship. Excitement is running high, sleep is running low, and the smell of breakfast is wafting my way. I ask as we set out that anyone reading this would keep us in prayer as we our going to be there for five days. Pray that God would reveal his self in new ways, and that I would grow closer to him because of it.

Cheers

Why isn't God on Facebook?

I just got done watching the movie, "Social Network." My immediate human response to such a movie, is to spend the next 36 hours coming up with the "next big thing" and making millions. That's why I'm online right; I'm plotting to take over the world with trendiness. However, I've also been reading Dave Harvey's, "Rescuing Ambition." So my thought process has evolved into wondering why a "Mark Zuckerburg" can't revolutionize the worlds trends AND be ambitious for that which ambition was originally created (the fame of Christ)? Thoughts?

And Soon to Philly

Even while Thailand is still fresh in my thoughts, and while processing is still happening, I turn my attention to a not so distant east. Here at the farm, we preparing to venture out towards the Philadelphia area February 5th.

On this trip, we will spent some time visiting an intentional living community that seeks to reach out to the neighborhood in which they live. I love the idea of community houses, so I'm really excited to see what this one does. I believe that there are also a couple other ministries we will be visiting.

The past week we have been reading and studying in class Richard Fosters: Celebration in Spiritual Disciplines. A great book for sure, but one that makes you feel like a lousy Christian. For the next couple weeks I will be really thinking about and trying to practice what I've learned from that book, in preparation for this trip. I'm excited to see what will happen in the next couple weeks, and I'm very excited about this, our second trip.

Cheers