Garden

I signed up for a new project from my local university to help people start backyard gardens. They provided a raised bed, soil, and plants plus a class to teach us all about growing stuff. It was delivered to my next parsonage today. Thank goodness that I live pretty close by and the outgoing pastor is a close friend of mine, so I am able to tend the garden until moving day. I am excited about the garden and the prospect of the project itself. It is to help fight obesity in the University District. We will see but I hope to share the veggies with some of my new neighbors.

Praying for Joplin

Missouri just broke the record for people killed in a tornado and it is heartbreaking. Just like the same record broken in Alabama. I get offended though when people blame God for these things happening. It is a natural occurrence when hot, moist air hits dry, cold air. The difference is that the population of many of these places are growing so it IS affecting more and more people.

God isn't punishing people but He is giving us (humans) a chance to show that we love our neighbors as ourselves. So get off your butt and find a way to help, write a check to UMCOR or put together a mission team to help with the clean-up. Send supplies, send prayers, do SOMETHING, we have a chance to be the Good Samaritans of this story.

Something New

This will be a short blog. I am trying to blog from my phone. I don't see this being a daily occurrence but it is nice to have options. I have done some good today though. Worked at the dental Mission of Mercy providing free dental care to those who can't afford it. We helped over one thousand people today and doing it again tomorrow.

Secrets, Secrets and More Secrets

I find the way that the church handles appointments extremely interesting. It is like the cabinet doesn't want anything to come out until it all happens at one time. This sets up an interesting dynamic between the hierarchy and the clergy (and laity). The cabinet is making all the appointments and the clergy are all calling each other and trying to figure out who is going and who is staying. It becomes the only time of the year (or so it seems) when clergy become like stalkers from TMZ

Very Thought It Would Happen

Well Dear Friends,

I never thought this day would come but I am now a Doctor of Ministry. This has been a long, hard road and I really thought about giving up (several times). Still not sure what I think about the entire process but I never like to entertain the idea of quitting at anything, so I am glad that this part of my journey is finished. I don't know if I would have made any of this without the love and support of people that follow me on this blog. This has been my "safe" outlet, a place to vent my fears and frustrations and for that I thank you all.

Now I'm still in the process of waiting on my new appointment and I am not the only one. The process is moving at a snail's pace this year. It is frustrating several of the 'elder' elder's..... who are also still waiting to hear about their appointments, so I am not alone. I am sure there are several very reasonable explanations for the delay, but it is of no comfort to those of us who are sitting in the dark.

Still excited about my upcoming Ordination though. I really would never recommend working on a doctorate while working towards ordination at the same time to ANYONE. It worked out for me but it has not been the easiest course that I could have travelled on.

Now, as I sit watching the potential for yet another tornado hit my state, I ask that you pray for everyone in the path of these storms. And thank you for following my blog over these years. It has made a difference in the life of this pastor.

Time Off, Not

Well, I have spent my two days off hard at work on my dissertation. I really am getting sick of this piece of work and I'm the one that wrote it. Comma's will never be one of my best friends. It is the nit picky portions of this that are driving me crazy. I really will have everything fresh in my head by next week when I have to defend it. So this is a good thing, I suppose. I plan on having a good time next week-end :)

On to other news: Still waiting on the news about my new appointment. It is lucky that I have other distractions or I would be a basket case. I actually think that I am less stressed than a lot of my other friends. I am worried that Ryss will have to move during the middle of High School and she is worried about that too. I don't know enough about the Conference to really care about where I am geographically.

Approved!!

My doctoral project has been approved. Now I just have to go to Houston and have my oral defense. Hurray!!!!

This and That

Research Chapter was accepted......hurray!! So now I am waiting for them to read the entire thing (again) and tell me when I have to go to Houston to defend. Hopefully, that will go well. It has been a good distraction during this season of UM Appointments.

The cabinet is taking a long, lonnnggggg time telling all of us where we will be appointed. Now I have plenty of free time to obsess over this new church that I will be going to serve. Ryss was gone for the week-end and if I hadn't had three novels to read (Nelson DeMille, who writes really long novels) and a fun evening with friends, I would have had even more time to get into full obsession mode. Luckily, I had a sermon to preach this morning and my District Superintendent was there so that gave me a totally different distraction.

The week-end has felt like it came in segments. Times of complete silence (home alone reading) followed by incredibly busy social interactions. Ryssa being gone really reinforced this perception. So I did something kind of weird. I made a coffee-date with a single pastor a few towns over. I haven't really went on a date in close to fourteen years. I have been busy and really not interested. It might be a disaster but hopefully not.

Research Chapter

I totally scrapped my research chapter and started over. I finally think that it is ready for submission. I have worked every spare minute of the day for two weeks. My middle name is exhaustion. I guess I could post it online but I'm not sure that you guys really want to read thirty pages of a doctoral research chapter.

Now I get to go through the rest of the dissertation and make it just as "pristine" as this chapter. Frankly, I am so tired of making sure that my punctuation is perfect that I'm ready to give this up. I know that I will be glad when this is over but right now I just want it to be over.

When this is over, I will get to start obsessing over where I will be appointed next. Yippee!!

How Good is Good Enough?

“Since Nobody’s Perfect……How Good is Good Enough?” by Andy Stanley




This is a story about how can we get to heaven. Andy Stanley argues against the belief that “Good people go to heaven” (10). This is starting with the presupposition that there is a heaven to go to after death. If you don’t believe in heaven, then this book is not right for you. The idea that only good people go to heaven is troubling for Stanley. How do we determine what good is and how much good does a person have to do? Is there a scale of goodness and where does one have to fall on the scale to be allowed through those pearly gates. Are we rejected if we fall one good deed short? It does point to the flaw in this type of thinking.

Stanley does say that “the logic behind good people go to heaven is seemingly impenetrable on two accounts. First, it is fair. Second, it coincides with the notion that there is a good God.” (19) He deals with a good God notion first in the book and with the fairness issue at the end of the book.

I did appreciate the analogy that he uses in his argument that only good people go to heaven by using the bible story of the thief on the cross next to Jesus. That argues against the only good people go to heaven worldview and against the fairness all in one fell swoop. The thief wasn’t good and it wasn’t fair that he lived a life of crime and yet Jesus promises him heaven at the end of the day.

Stanley goes on to make the case for Christianity versus just following the Ten Commandments or other systems of rules and regulations for goodness. He says that if we are going to follow this particular set of rules, we can just pick and choose which Old Testament rules one follows. He says, “Christianity is the fairest possible system in a world that is irreversibly unfair.” (77) And let’s face it, in the end, we really don’t want to be judged on fairness, what we really want is mercy.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.