Amanda's Christmas Party with the Nazarenes

Last night I went with Amanda to her work Christmas party. It was a nice time meeting new people and the food was pretty good.

One of the people that works at the Nazarene headquarters with her gave a devotional thought during the little program they had. He recounted a Sunday School class he attended one year while he was home from college on Christmas break. He said how he walked into the class thinking, “I am a college sophomore who has taken, and passed, Old Testament and New Testament from people with PhDs. What does this old woman think she is going to teach me about Christmas that I don’t already know?” He said the woman came in and said, “We all know about Christmas; where Jesus was born, what it meant, and so one. We all know how Jesus lived; what he taught and how he treated people. We all know that Jesus gave himself as a sacrifice for us.” She said, “We all know these things,” to which he replied in his mind, “Of course I know all these things! I have taken, and passed, Old Testament and New Testament from people with PhDs.” But then she said, “So I only have one question for you this morning… How much do you think God must love you to have done so much for you?” The speaker said that the question knifed right through all of his pride and arrogance. He told that as the tears began to roll down his cheeks that morning, he realized that if God really loved him that much then it was time to start doing everything he could to reciprocate that love. He said, “It was that Sunday morning sitting in Sunday School that I was sanctified because I had finally realized how much God loved me… even me!”

I wanted to stand up and shout! I have been in church before when people have talked about when they decided to be a Christian… but this is the first time I ever recall someone “bearing witness” to sanctification in a church meeting. I have heard a handful of people talk about the “work of sanctification” and the “process of sanctification” where they have gone on and on about theology of it all using this illustration and that illustration, but this guy told us about the when, why and how. I loved it!

We ended the little program by singing “Joy to the World” by Issac Watts. I was still being washed over by the speaker’s story when we got to the second verse of the old hymn:
No more let sins and sorrows grow,Nor thorns infest the ground;He comes to make His blessings flowFar as the curse is found,Far as the curse is found,Far as, far as, the curse is found.

And there it is. The same message, that we’ve sung every year… but at least for me, never really ever took notice of. We have freedom from sins and sorrow… they are conquered. The thorns are conquered because of the redemption that Christ’s Kingdom brings. We can now be filled with His blessings that are freely flowing. Sanctification is here!

It was in the company of so many Nazarene’s last night, that I became quite burdened from my church, the church God has called me to served… but also for the rest of God’s kingdom (Nazarenes and all). If we stop offering people the real life changing power of the message of sanctification… are really offering them anything at all? First the thought came to me: Aren’t we just wasting their time and taking their money? But then I realized: Aren’t we wasting God’s time? God’s birth? God’s life? God’s death and resurrection? And the Joy that He is offering the world to be free from sin and sorrow, and the opportunity to live fully redeemed?

Light in Dark Places

It is interesting to me how bad things always seems to be worse than good things seem to be good. Everyone would agree that we like good things better than bad things, but when we are faced with both in our life… we choose to set our focus on the bad, and at times even flat out ignore the good.

I am teaching a Bible study on the book of Jonah right now, and in my readings this morning I came across a quote from G. Campbell Morgan which said, “Men have been looking so hard at the great fish that they have failed to see the great God.” This wise point seems to apply, at least to me, to so much more than just the book of Jonah. As I have been reading the little book over and over again, I have been amazed by only one thing about the story’s anti-hero. Jonah does everything wrong and is portrayed as the worst prophet there could have ever been, but he shines in one area that I cannot. There he is lying in the belly of the big fish… and he isn’t even focusing on it. He doesn’t sing a song to the “grossness of the fish” but a song to the “greatness of God.” The story of Jonah brings light to the dark place of the fish’s belly.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Jonah enjoyed being in the fish… I know I don’t. But I think Jonah remembered that he did enjoy being in the presence of the Lord which he was fleeing from. I am not fleeing from him, but maybe I forget how much I enjoy being where He wants me… because I’m not sure this is it.

But there is light and good here. I couldn’t begin to tell you how much I am learning about me and people and God and the church (and coffee). There are these 5 or 6 teenagers that come every Tuesday night to listen to me talk about the Kingdom of God and I think they are getting it, this one girl who is going to be a great pastor one day just soaks it all in which tears in her eyes the whole time I’m talking. I was her once and it was great! I have coffee with this guy once a week and we talk about his marriage and his relationship with God and his life is changing. I don’t know if this was where I was supposed to be or not, but even if it is just by God’s consequential will… I’m still doing a little good I guess. He keeps giving me little encouragements here and there with job offers I know aren’t right for me but it is nice to get them anyway… and the one place I really want to go hasn’t told me no yet so I’m holding tight to that little bit of hope.

Maybe the fish really isn’t as big as I think it is… or maybe it is and God is just that much bigger than I thought He was. Either way, I really hope I can see Him more than I have… and these next couple months pass as fast as they can.

My Views on Social Drinking

I just read the blog of an old professor of mine (I mean old as in "use to be my professor" of course.) The subject turned into the debate over social drinking in the Wesleyan Church. It was just all the same stuff over again, like how the bible only talks about getting drunk and how its' no different than over-eatting. A couple people defended the Wesleyan view of abstaining... but not too well. So I decided to chime in with my response.

*** If you are not a Wesleyan and reading this please understand that I don't personal view drinking as a moral issue but as a Wesleyan I vowed in my membership to the church and in my ordianation to uphold the views and beliefs of the Wesleyan church, one of which is not to drink alcohol. I do believe it is a moral issue to not live up to your word and I have given my word that I would uphold and defend this beliefs. If you are not a Wesleyan... I am not "preaching" to you about drinking... I promise ***

Here's my response:

"Apart from all the other arguments here, I personally choose to remember that I am Wesleyan. Which for me, reminds me that I am following in the legacy, not so much of the "Holiness Movement," but of one of the most effective and productive agents for the furtherment of the Kingdom, the salvation of lost souls and redemption of culture in all of the history. As a Wesleyan I choose to hold membership in this society and I have been ordained by this church... fully accepting their values and beliefs and promising to uphold them. I don't do this blind to the reasons why I believe what I believe though. I know what the bible says and doesn't say and how it doesn't present the issues around social drinking... they just aren't there. But they weren't in Bible in the 1730's and 1740's either when we (the collective past, present and future "we") saw the social and culture ramification of social alcohol and decided that it just isn't worth it so our organization decided not to participate in it. We chose to hold a high bar and high standards... hopefully not to be prideful and look down on others, even though that has happened. We do this because we are joyfully willing to fully commit to the cause of furthering the movement that once changed the world (and might do so again if we would choose to fight for things that really matter). For me, this is a good enough reason not only to not desire to drink, but also to defend this wise tradition. It has served us well in the past, and if we would choose to embrace it and move on to more important things, it will do so again in the future."

(sorry I haven't felt like writing much lately... pray for us if you would)

Thoughts on Ordination

Last Sunday evening I received what I consider to be the greatest honor I will ever receive, and also the greatest responsibility I will ever receive. I was ordained by the Wesleyan Church for a life-time of ministry and service to the church. I am now officially a Reverend (I would love to see the look on faces of people I grew up with if they were to ever find out about this).

It was a great service and the leaders laid their hands on me and prayed over me. My family, my friends, people from our church in Sheridan, and best of all some of my old students were there to see it.

So many thoughts were going through my head during the whole thing… here are some of them.

1. The General Superintendent who oversaw the service delivered the sermon. He began by quoting John Wesley (if you read this and you aren’t a Wesleyan, let me just fill you in… he is kind of an important figure in our tradition). Wesleyan wrote a list of instructions to ministers (if you read this and you are a Wesleyan, this list is still in our Discipline and you should read it and live it) and the last thing on the list is, “You have nothing to do but save souls, you should spend and be spent in this.”

This is the call of a minister… a ministers life is singular in purpose; other peoples souls, other peoples lives, other people period. But Wesley didn’t just stop at that. He said we must “spend and be spent in this.” To spend means whatever is mine is to be used for this end and be spent means everything else that I am for this end. This once again feeds fuel to my idea that our fear of burn out is one that great men and women did not and would not share with us. Instead it seems that Wesley is saying keep going until nothing is left and than go a little bit more because there is no greater use of your life.

2. It worked out in the seating at the ceremony that those people closest to me, by chance, were able to sit right behind me. Two people in particular stood out in my mine while I was sitting there, not that everyone there isn’t important… they just weren’t as significant in my mind at the time.

First sitting behind me was the pastor I worked for in Indiana. I met him when I was fourteen years old, eleven years ago. I wasn’t a Christian then and I really didn’t care much for Christians at the time, even though I had learned to fake it pretty well, but I liked this guy. If you know him you are probably like me and you aren’t really sure what it is about him that you like, but you like him anyway. (I know his wife reads my blog and I am sure she just said “amen” out loud). He took an interest in me as soon as he met me. Even though I didn’t trust many people from the church, I trusted him and I really believed that he genuinely cared about me. Four years after we met I became a Christian and he was one of the first people I told. He said with a smile on his face, “Well it’s about time.” A couple months later when I decide to answer a call into ministry he was one of the first people I told. He said with a smile on his face, “Well it’s about time.” Two years after that when I accepted a job at his church to serve as the youth pastor he said, “Well it’s about time.” While I sat there I knew I wouldn’t have been in that chair if it hadn’t been for his investment in my life.

The other person that was sitting behind me was a student of mine. I met him a couple months after I moved to Indiana. The first time we met I knew that he had the fingerprints of God on his life. After much work and a couple threats I finally got him to come to youth group. A couple months later he asked me to mentor him so he could learn more. He was so teachable then. Within that first year he told me that he wanted to be pastor… I told him, “Well, it’s about time.” The rest of his high school years could be described as troubled or hectic. There were times that other adults would come to me and point out all the flaws this young man has wondering why I was such a big fan of his. I knew they were right, they are still right most of the time… but they don’t see how much potential he has. He is in college now working on the same ministry degree I earned. I am so proud of him… so disappointed that he hasn’t figured out some personal stuff yet. I am so excited about his future… so worried about the things he is doing now. I sat there thinking about him… begging God that he would just get it, wanting him to follow in my footsteps, hoping he would pass me one day.

I sat there with my family sitting behind me. The generation before me and the generation after me both witnessing this step forward.

3. When I knelt and the leaders put their hands on me, the General Superintendent prayer over me that I was, “Committing myself to a lifetime of ministry.” I prayed to God while they prayed for me. I told God that He knows that a lifetime to ministry is what I want more than anything else… but my circumstances don’t seem to be allowing it right now. I knelt there thinking about how much I love ministering for the church, how much I love being part of the church, how much I want to make a difference for the Kingdom, and how I am not doing anything right now. I though about how I have a job at a church, I have a title, I get a pay check every month… but how I don’t have a ministry. I knelt there thinking about how it feels like I was tricked into taking a indefinite sabbatical at 25 years old. I knelt there thinking how I am more than willing to live up to my side of the commitment but I needed God to allow my circumstances to do the same. I thought about how every day I am sitting in this same coffee shop waiting to minister to the next person that God sends for me to talk to, how every day I wait for the phone to ring with some need from our church that I can take care of, and how everyday I wake up and before I get out of bed I beg God that some church would call me back and offer me a job… but there are so few people to talk to and my phone doesn’t ring. I am totally committed… and just waiting.

It was a good night; I still have a lot to think about. It was a huge step forward… but now I am waiting for the next one so I can live out that last one.

I'm not settling for Lattes anymore

The best part of most of my days is hanging out at Espresso dell’Anatra (which by the way just got sold to a new owner. Aaron Duckworth, a seemingly pretty well known barista in the Midwest opened the shop in 2003 but has gone to work for a bigger regional chain as a vice president. I like the new owner though; he is an assistant pastor of a larger church downtown and is looking to get involved in this area to get some ministries going.) I spend most of the time working on office stuff or just sitting around and talking to people. It use to be talking to strangers but I have gotten to know all the regulars now and there is only the occasion new person to talk with.

I would come in and order my large hazelnut and vanilla latte in a large ceramic mug every day… until one day a couple of weeks ago. Mike, one of the baristas, was making a macchiato for some one else and offered one to me. I was intrigued by the drink because it was a real macchiato… not what you get when you order a macchiato at Starbucks. It comes in tiny cup, just a couple of ounces. A real macchiato is two shots of espresso with just a dollop of milk. The word macchiato means “marked,” because you mark the espresso with a little milk. I took Mike up on the offer and he brought me the tiny cup. I took the first little sip and was amazed at the amount of flavor I could taste just in the espresso. I had heard the guys that work at the shop describe all the little details of how the coffee had this kind of taste or that kind of taste but had honestly just thought they were making all the stuff up. Then I taste the flavors in the macchiato… a deep smoking woody flavor. I loved it. I finish the macchiato and then went to take a drink of my latte and almost gagged. All the sudden it tasted like I was drinking a cup full of flavored syrups. After that I drank macchiatos for a week, then I ask what others things were good. They made me a true Italian Cappuccino. This is a drink of thirds; two shots of espresso, the same amount of steamed milk, and the same amount of frothed milk. This is now my drink of choice. Since then I have also began to participate in the new coffee tasting when new stuff comes in. It is amazing how my palette is growing and I now enjoy coffee in ways I never did before. I also don’t drink near as much as I use to because I have notice that a couple of ounces of really great coffee is way better than pots and pots of just good coffee.

I think the same is true of the things I see in so many people’s lives. I am so burdened by realizing that there are so many people that settle for the mundane. Some of them do so because they don’t know that there is anything better out there and others know there is but just don’t want to try it. I feel like I am surrounded by this feeling that “good enough is good enough,” and I am fighting with everything inside me not to buy into it myself. I think ministry should be excellent, and life should be abundant… but I don’t understand why everyone else doesn’t. I would have never known how good a macchiato or an Italian cappuccino could have tasted if they hadn’t given me a free sample at the coffee shop. I didn’t have to take it but at least they offered and that made the difference for me. I think maybe we should be offering more and more free samples of life and excellence and see if we can get the people around us hooked. I pray that the people that know me would learn that a couple ounces of what God has for them is always going to be more satisfying than pots and pots of the mundane “good” life.

A month without a post.

Well, like most every other person who has tried to maintain a person blog for any extended period of time, I must apologize for the dropping the ball for the past month. I have been quite stressed/distracted and have either not been able to write or just couldn’t bring myself to commit to all the work that goes into opening my computer, turning it on and the typing out a couple of thoughts… yes I know how lazy that makes me sound, but it’s true.

While I was away:
We went to youth camp in Oklahoma for a week and had a great time hanging out with the kids. My highlight there was watching our kids during the worship time… actually just watching on of our kids, a girl named Haylee. Coming from a sub-culture in the church where worship is taken as an overly-dramatic, solemn experience that sometimes resembles the same level of seriousness as a teen-age emo girl on a rant it was so refreshing to watch Haylee worship. She was dancing around, jumping up and down and making up motions to go with all of the songs… all the while absolutely cracking herself up. She was having the greatest time, looking ridiculous and putting everything she had into it. When other people may have seen her as being disrespectful or distracting, I saw as being genuine and worshipful in a way I never considered worshipful before. I say this because it would have been impossible for a loving holy father to have not smiled down with great joy watching Haylee have so much fun. It was very cool.

The next week… my computer crashed. Microsoft in all their wisdom and skill gave windows the unique ability to just randomly drop half of its operating system. This made it impossible for me to back-up my file through burning DVD’s or using an external hard drive so I had to pay the Geek Squad $160 to take my hard drive out and do it for me. It was not cool, but everything has been reinstalled and is working fine now.

Then… Amanda’s office took everyone to a Royals game. It was so much fun, the Royal won and I got to see Sammy Sosa hit a homerun in person… that will be something to tell the grandkids about… to which they will respond, “Wasn’t he a juicer?” Her office paid for all the tickets, they were awesome. He had “All you can eat Box Seats!” This meant that there was a special concession right behind our box that we could get all the free food we wanted for the first two hours of the game. The greatest feeling in the world (the way I can most rationalize what heaven must be like) is sitting at a baseball game eating a hotdog. It doesn’t have to be a good game or a good hotdog but when you put them together there is nothing that even comes close. I had 5 hotdogs, 4 Dr. Peppers and a bag of peanuts… I could have died happy that night. It was very cool.

And finally… yesterday I got to preach my first full sermon on Sunday morning at Church. It felt so good to communicate and connect with people again. It brought me so much joy to offer hope into people’s life. I spoke from 1 John and got to explain my understanding of what it means to be a child of God. It was a great morning. It was very cool.

That’s what’s been happening. I try to continue to stay on top of it.

Playing the Game

It has been a popular concept in contemporary circles to encourage young professionals, maybe even young people in general; that what they do isn’t an important factor to their personal identity. I think I understand what’s caused this new paradigm shift. It has been a response to a generation saturated with workaholics, whom because of their preoccupation with their occupation missed out on much of the rest of their life. Their families, marriage, health and therefore quality of their work suffered because of this highly imbalanced lifestyle. With this in mind I can see some merit in this popular concept, but I think like most response-driven stances, the pendulum may have swung to far in the opposite direction.

If you would allow me to stack my gapping ignorance due to lack of life experiences on top of my ridiculously inflated sense of idealism and my strong internal drive for perfection for a moment, I would like to explain why I think what we do is the key factor to our personal identity. Being faced with a situation in which I am not able to do what I do seems at this moment to be one of the most incredibly uncomfortable places I have ever found myself. At first I believed it was because I am slightly hyper-active and feel as if I am lost without something to occupy my self in. But as I have tried to fill this abundance of free time with anything I can, I have realized that nothing takes the place of a calling. It is not that I chose to identify myself by what I do, but rather what I do makes me who I am… and I like who I am because I love what I do. I know that my marriage and my health are important but I also think I am a better husband and healthier person when the higher levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs), esteem and self-actualization, are satisfied in my life. If I were to choose to limit my identity to merely getting by I believe that I would be missing out on all the best parts of what it means to be alive. Life without immersing one’s self in gainful and meaningful purpose and service is like driving to Disney World and riding the tram around the parking lot all day and then going home… or at least for me it is like that.

I am afraid for my contemporaries in this generation who have been so encouraged to not be what they have been called to be, but rather just do what they have been called to be. I am afraid that they will never know the full joy of life… that they will never walk through the gates of the Magical Kingdom that is being a minister, but they will settle for the parking lot tram of doing ministry, because we have been told that if we over commit we will burn-out, suffer moral failure, lose touch with the people around us and the people closest to us, and then get kicked out of the game. But that is a totally illogical reason not to play in the first place. For me, knowing how great it was to have it and now feeling like it has been taken away from me for no reason is motivation enough for me to never disqualify, never burn out, and most of all to never taken any of this great privilege for granted again.

Bentley Class, Farrari Flair

For the last week there has been a new face at Espresso dell'Anatra. Graham was hired last Wednesday and has been training since then. Before I explain what training means here I need to explain that Espresso dell'Anatra is not a normal coffee house. Kansas City has a ton of little privately and locally owned coffee shops, not to mention plenty of Starbucks and even a few Caribou (which if you have never heard of is actually the second largest retail coffee shop in the world, but is still totally dwarfed by Starbucks.)

Espresso isn't the Cadillac of coffee houses... they are a collaboration between Bentley and Ferrari. I come to Espresso dell'Anatra because they are the best of the best. They only get the best coffee beans, they only use milk from a local farm that is all natural and it is delivered everyday in glass bottles, and they are not making your espresso with a super-automatic monster like Starbucks... they have a 4 head semi-automatic machine that is constantly cared for like any high performance machine should be. There are three other baristas than Graham, all of whom know their stuff. We're not talking just knowing the menu and how to make the drinks... they know the history of the processes they are using to make the coffee, where, how, and when the beans they sell were grown, and everything else you could imagine wanting to know about the growing, drying, roasting, processing, selling, serving, and drinking coffee. Aaron, who owns Espresso dell’Anatra, is an award winning barista for both the quality of the drinks and the flair of 'latte art' (which is drawing pictures and patterns in the top of a latte by the way you pour the milk into it.) They are Bentley class with Ferrari flair.

Graham is being introduced into all of this... and I wouldn't want to be him right now. He has been working full shifts every day that are just training. Once again, it isn't just how to make the drinks; they are training his senses of smell and taste. One of the training sessions that I sat in on with Graham was a smell test. They have a wooden box with 36 little glass vials in it, each filled with a different scent. Graham had to be able to smell and identify each of the scents... WITHIN A COUPLE SECONDS OF HIS FIRST SMELL! The scents were things like black pepper, onion, vinegar, potato, and all kinds of random other stuff. They have him do this because if any of these things are growing in the ground near a coffee plant, the coffee bean will absorb some of the scent and it will change the taste. In another test, they ground 3 different kinds of coffee beans and put them in three different cups with hot water. Then Graham had to tell them what kind of coffee it was just based on the smell... he wasn't allowed to guess, he had to know. He also has to be able to get exactly 22.5 grams into the portafilter 50 times in a row, and he has to tamp the coffee grounds down with 50 to 60 lbs of pressure so many times in a row. These are just a few of the many things Graham will have to be able to do to be one of the best of the best.

I like the people that work here a lot. I like the people that hang out here. The drinks are the best I have ever had... but I think the reason I come here is because I like to celebrate perfection... and that is what I see here. I believe perfection breeds perfection... just stop by and talk to Graham in a couple months, and see how great of a barista he will be then. I come here everyday and order my half Hazelnut, half Vanilla Latte in a white ceramic mug, and picture drinking in that perfection and attention to detail and letting it invigorate me to have the same qualities.

I think doing your best, and being the best at everything, is important. Whether you are making a cup of coffee, telling someone about Jesus and life and redemption, or sweeping the floor and cleaning the bathroom. We are supposed to do all things as if we are doing them for God himself. I want to be the kind of person that lives that out and I want to be around people that do that too... regardless of what they are doing or why they are doing it.

http://www.espressodellanatra.com/

...on the Sparrow,...

There is a sparrow’s nest on the top of the door frame of the front door of our house. We don't come in and out of that door; we just use it to put Blink, our 65 pound Siberian husky, on his chain.

These birds built this nest the week we moved in. I tried to scare them away while they were doing it but they weren't having any of it. They pressed ahead, got it done and are now our roommates.

This morning, like every morning when I take Blink to put him on his chain, one of the sparrows buzzed me two or three times. I am standing there, six feet tall, holding a huge dog and this 3 ounce feathered nothing comes flying right at us. You would think that we would find behavior like this totally ridiculous or even comical, but it isn't... both the dog and I flinch every time. Blink will just up and snap at the birds sometimes, but I can see in his eyes when I go to let him back into the house that he is thinking, "Get me away from these crazy little things!"

The circumstances surrounding ministry here at Cornerstone really aren't the best... Like most things I've done in life, I didn't totally understand what I was getting into coming here. I believe we are in the right place but our attendance is very low and there have even been some people leave the church since we have been here, our financial situation would have to improve dramatically for me to even say, "it doesn't look good," and there seems to be no idea or motivation to do anything to fix these life threatening issues. I have stopped praying for help and begun to beg for it.

I do strategy very well... but this situation has me worried in ways I have never worried before. I am terrified of failure; I hate it. All I know is that we need a breakthrough. And in the middle of dealing with all this stuff those stupid sparrows just keep flying straight at us every morning.

I know I am bigger and stronger and smarter than those sparrows, and I am sure that they know that too. But they know that our front door is there place... they have claimed it and they are not willing to give it, come hell or Siberian husky. They know they will fight to protect the nest regardless of there opponent; yesterday I watched one of the sparrows chase a hawk around for 20 minutes. They are 3 ounces of purpose-driven fighter and I don't think they deal with failure well either. But instead of being afraid of it, or in spite of being afraid of it, they still fly straight at their opponents every time.

God knows every time one of those brave little birds falls...and probably every time one of them doesn't. I wish I was more like the sparrows... regardless of my circumstances, anything but helpless.


“Let not your heart be troubled,” His tender word I hear,
And resting on His goodness, I lose my doubts and fears;
Though by the path He leadeth, but one step I may see;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me." --Civilla D. Martin

Drinking Coffee out of a Tea Cup

(I know this is way longer than a blog entry should be but it was just so good I wanted to share it all with you.)
This Saturday Amanda and I found the greatest restaurant we have ever been to. If anyone reading this ever comes to KC (and we hope every one of you does soon) you have to check out this place. We went down to the city market just to walk around, we didn’t need anything and just felt like getting out of the house. We decided to get something to eat and this Actor/Comedian that I met, and had a great conversation with about Bob Dylan, at Espresso dell’Anatra told me about this place called Succotash that was on the market so we decided to try it.

We walked up and the place was packed. It is half inside and half outside divided down the middle by one of the main walkways at the city market so it was hard to tell who was waiting to eat and who was just walking by. In fact it was hard to tell where the restaurant actually was and where it wasn’t. Nothing at Succotash matches. There are some high tables and some low ones and some booths and some big wooden spools that serve as tables. The chairs are all totally random and the paintings and posters on the walls and columns don’t make any sense at all. And the entire bizarre mismatch is painted in bright colors or covered with very cool, very original, 50’s or 60’s vinyl.

It’s like looking at a mix between a yard-sale at a junkyard owned by an old woman who never gets rid of anything and the kind of crazy dreams you have after you’ve been awake for a couple of days but insist on eating half a large supreme pizza before you go to bed.

We saw a sign that said please wait to be seated but there was no one standing by it to take our name. Then we realized we couldn’t really tell if there was anyone working there at all. There were some people standing there and we asked them how to get a table; they pointed out a guy wearing jeans, a buttoned up shirt that was only buttoned half way, and a apron that hand been made out of an old green dish-towel with flowers embroidered on it. He was smoking a cigarette and holding a little stack of papers on a little tray. We gave him our names and he told us it would be about a 20 minute wait. We sat down on a bench that had the words “Waiting Area” stencil spray-painted on it.

The guy which we gave our name to called out a name, and the people stood up and came over to him. He pointed over to the other side of the restaurant and said they could have the open table that was over there. He never made eye contact with them, just told them where they could sit and walked away. He kept walking around and watching for tables and taking people’s names and smoking cigarettes. He would call out names and point where people should go but never took them to their table. One time he told them that there weren’t enough chairs at their table so they would have to get some extra’s from some of the people sitting around them.

We also noticed the other people that were working there after we sat down. They were all younger and wearing jeans or cut-off jean shorts and T-shirts and old dish-towel aprons. This one guy had a rat-tail and another guy had a fu-manchu mustache. They were running around like crazy but they looked like they were having so much fun doing it.

There was a lady sitting at a table across from where we were waiting who asked one of the girls that worked there if she could have a plastic zip-tie. And since it was a restaurant, of course they had bags of them and she went in the back and got her some. She used them on her backpack that we hadn’t noticed. There was a ferret in there that kept unzipping it from the inside trying to get out. We watched it for while until he clawed through the zipper and got out again. So the lady just held him in her shirt until she was done eating. The people that worked there would pet him when they walked by.

Our twenty minute wait turned into an hour but we really didn’t mind because it was so cool just watching the people there. It was like being in the picture on the back of a Hi-lights magazine and trying to figure out everything that was wrong with it. When the guy with the cigarettes called our name he pointed us to the table where the lady with the ferret had sat.

We sat down and a guy brought us two cups of water. Then our waiter, a guy named David that called me “hon”, came and asked if we wanted coffee. Yes. He brought two cups, one was a normal coffee mug and the other was a little tea cup. Amanda took the mug and I got the tea cup. A couple minutes later he brought the coffee pot by. We told him that we were ready to order so he sat down at our table and said, “Okay let’s talk about what you want to eat today.” We told him and he said we made great choices, and then Amanda asked if she could have a spoon to stir her coffee. I assumed he would bring us both silverware since we didn’t have any and she asked for a spoon bringing his attention to it. But he just brought us one spoon… that’s all we ask for. So we shared our spoon and drank coffee. I drank very slowly since my tea cup didn’t hold very much. The host with the cigarettes came over and talked to us some about some dogs that people were walking and we waited for about 20 minutes for our food to come out.

Amanda got a meal called “the kitchen sink” because it had everything in it; eggs, potatoes, ham, cheese and God-only-knows what else. I ordered the Monte Cristo because it had the word “gooey” in the description and I was in the mood for something gooey. It could have been that we just waited an hour and 20 minutes for our food and we were hungry or it could have been that we were in such a cool place or it could have been that the food was just that good, but it was the best meal I have had in as long as I could remember. We ate and drank some more coffee, talked to David some more, paid him then we left and talked about how great it was the rest of the day.

After thinking about it, I think the coolest thing about Succotash was the fact that it works so well. Not works as in sense of efficiently (which I totally believe they are but there were probably 80 people there, because Saturday morning is their busiest time… the best time to be there). It works in the deeper sense… that it is honest and genuine for what it is. None of the dishes match and the people are a little strange and at a glance you might think it is dirty or weird. They aren’t trying to be like that, they are just being themselves. There would be plenty of things to complain about if you wanted to, but you don’t really want to there. Succotash was cool because it made me think about my life. Let me be honest for a moment; inside my head my dishes don’t all match and I think there are some strange people in my head that smoke cigarettes while they work and have fu-manchu mustaches and call me “hon”. Sometimes life is like drinking coffee out of a tea cup. Sometimes things are dirty and weird. And we try to ignore the fact that the ferret just won’t stay in the backpack while I am trying to enjoy my meal. This is all the stuff they try to hide at all the other places we’ve gone to eat… but it is almost like they celebrate it at Succotash. Maybe that’s how life is. We try to hide all that stuff inside, but if we would just celebrate it and embrace it because it is life, it would be a memorial experience. The kind of thing that we want to tell people about. The kind of thing that we would want to share with everyone we know. The kind of thing that we think people from all over the world should come and experience because we know they would love it.

Why I don't want to invite my new Polish friends to my church

I was talking with on of the polish guys I've been playing soccer with on Sunday nights named Ted. I ask him how he knew all the other polish guys... I thought they might be related or something but he said that they've all met here in KC. He said that whenever they are somewhere and hear someone speaking polish it kind of stands out, which I imagine it would, so they start talking. He said then they will invite the new Polish person to hang out with them sometime and "as long as they aren't jerks we become friends." He said then they become really close and begin to take care of each. He said, "if someone goes of vacation it is nice because then we will watch their house and take care of their dog or whatever they need." He told me how one of the guys got sick and couldn't work so the others went and did his job for him and brought them food and took care of everything he needed "just because he needed some help." He went on to tell me how that is what friendship is, "it takes time... it cost you something... but it is worth it... too many people don't realize that it is worth it."

I don't know what the church has to offer someone like Ted. Sure there is Jesus and salvation and spiritual peace and knowing that you have a purpose and that life has a meaning and all that stuff. I have all that stuff, but it just seems to me that if church was more like a pick-up game of Polish soccer, then it would really be good. Sure it would cost us something... we wouldn't be able to take a day off and we would have to spend our free time, our money on other people's problems... but I think it would be worth it. I think people would just keep showing up and want to play in our game too like they do on Sunday night at the park where we've been playing soccer.

new guitar strings

I have been playing with the worship team here at Cornerstone since we got here. I haven't played my electric guitar for years and it has been even longer since I have played with other people like this. I was enjoying playing with them but I didn't feel like I was doing very well. It always sounded like I was playing alittle off and I didn't sound very good. I want to be on the worship team, but I was thinking about steping down because of how poorly I was doing. Then yesterday when I left the coffee shop I decided to stop by a music store just to look around and play with stuff. Everything I saw that I wanted was way to expensive, but I was in the store for an hour and had ask the sales people some questions about things so I kind of felt like I really should buy something. So I went over to the guitar strings and found a cheap pack and bought them. I went back to the church and put them on my guitar and tuned it up. Right away I thought it sounded better than it had. Then last night we had worship practice, it sounded so good with the other instruments. It wasn't like I was playing out or anything... it was just like it fit in.

I was ready to quit because it didn't feel right but all I needed was a $2 pack of strings. I wonder how many other times I have walked away from something that didn't feel right when if I had just tweaked some things and made a little investment I could have seen it turn into something beautiful.

Those old strings had been on that guitar for over a year. They were stiff and stretched out and they just wouldn't ring out. The new ones are bright and vibrate and sound great. I pray that I am constantly aware of the strings inside of me. That when they start to get stiff and dead that I will take the time to change them out. I know they will eventually... I just pray that I would be aware when they do and that I would take the time to sit down with God and fix them together.

meeting lots of people, playing lots of soccer, drinking lots of coffee

We've been here two full weeks now and things seem to be going well. We've been staying busy and getting a lot done.

Saturday was our Church Soccer Game Day on our church's property. We played soccer from 1pm to 4:30 and then had a cook out. It was great; a lot of people showed up (there were 20 in the first game we played) and everyone played very well. There was plenty of sportsmanship and fun. Then Saturday night a group of us went and watched the KC Wizards lose to FC Dallas downtown. Even though our team didn't win, it was still a great game of soccer and we had fun.

Sunday morning went great. Amanda and I are slowly getting use to the different worship setting. Sunday Night was the greatest time we have had here though. Mike took me to a park where he met some Polish guys a while back that have a pick up soccer game every Sunday Evening. I got to meet them all and they laughed at me as I tried to pronounce their names and then we played soccer for over 2 hours solid. It was the most fun I have ever had! They are all so warm and friendly... and very good at soccer. By the time we were done playing it felt like I had been hanging out with those guys for years... half because I was so tired and half because it just felt like I was very accepted right away.

Monday morning I woke up and couldn't move my legs after the long weekend of kicking and running. When I finally got moving I came to this awesome little coffee shop near our house called Espresso dell`Anatro. I have been coming here every morning to get online, read and meet people. I have had some great conversations with a lot of people here. I figured I would build relationships and make friends and maybe in a couple months be able to start talking about the church and believing in things with them. But the door swung wide open yesterday. There is a Barista here that is really cool. We started talking and it just felt right so we ended up talking about ministry and church and everything. It turns out he has a degree in ministry and did it for a while but now isn't going to church anywhere so I told him about Cornerstone and invited him to check it out. It seemed really into it. Pray with me that he checks us out and maybe we could be some healing for him.

Anyway, things are going well. I'm still figuring out what I am suppose to be doing, but all this stuff seems to be working for now... so I guess I'll just keep doing this some more.

-- Eric

congrats Amanda

Amanda's second interview at the Nazarene Headquarters went great. It lasted 30 minutes and they called and offered her the job within 2 hours. She is so excited and she is going to do a great job.

I prayed for 3 things when we decided to come to KC. The first was that Sheridan would hire a good youth pastor to take over the ministry and they did. I know that Ryan and Kelly Van Matre are doing a great job. The second was that Amanda would get a good job still doing ministry and now that one has happened. The third is that the church would grow and God would move and ministry in North Kansas City through Cornerstone Wesleyan Church... I can't wait!

Thanks for your prayers.

--Eric

we made it.

We've been in KC for our first full week now and we're already busy with plenty of church business.

Our move was crazy. I didn't get a big enough truck so we ended up overloading it to the point that the back wheels were bulging... but we made everything fit. Mike and I took turns driving the truck; we couldn't do more than two hours at a time because of the terror of immanent death as the truck swayed back and forth with every little gust of wind or passing vehicle.

Our first Tuesday night with the youth went great. I got to teach and tried to learn all the new names. They seem to be a great group of kids and I'm really excited about getting to know them better and watch them learn.

Sunday was awesome. It is a totally different worship setting than we came from so we will have to get use to it, but we loved it.

On Saturday, we went to the Kansas City Wizards game versus Columbus Crew. Jose Burciaga Jr. scored the lone goal to win the game in the 90th min. It was so great!!!

Amanda had her first job interview at the Nazarene Church Headquarters last Wednesday and it went very well. She has her second interview with the department director tomorrow.

Please be praying God continues to let this transition go well.

Pray that Amanda gets this job at the Nazarene Church

Pray for Cornerstone, that God would have favor on us and He would send people to the church.

--Eric