I am holding them out I want to give you ( Read more... )

I preached a difficult sermon today which i fought about all weekend long until the threads finally came together right before class.
I got some good adjectives out of it:
Impressionistic
Surrealistic
Salvador Dali (ok, that's not an adjective)
a detective story
playful

I don't think I've ever thought about what an impressionistic SERMON would be, but ( Read more... )

annnd,
it's late,
and i have hours of work to do,
but I'm (1) playing with Ugandan video footage and (2) writing a paper on the Holy Spirit
and Andrew poked his head in the door and asked how I was doing,
as in "you alright?"
and I'm not alright
I am THRIVING

what is this madness? Where the heck does it come from? Three journal entries in a night after I ( Read more... )

WE
ARE
BEARERS
OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

(He never speaks quietly. He shouts it at us. Spits it at us. Leans over his podium and beats his hands on it. He needs a hearing aid, and we need to pay attention. We need to internalize it and live it. Have we learned it?)

I am a bearer of the Holy Spirit

(hands full and outstretched I am bringing it to you)

So, Halloween came and went, but that's not what this journal entry is about.  And we had a party, and a keg, but that's not what this is about -- this entry is about drinking beer in the middle of the afternoon in the most beautiful place on earth, which is my front yard. We HAD to drink beer because it was leftover kegness and the keg had to be ( Read more... )

so, I might've hit onto something. Maybe. Basically, the plot is something like this ( Read more... )

So after a stressful week, my mom and sister and I were sitting around in the living room, discussing the respective sermons that mom and I have to preach soon. And life, and everything. All the stressful things. And I've  been here all of "reading week" and I read one book, and it was a book that wasn't even assigned. Now I go back to school, and ( Read more... )

I am failing in the WWJD department... it's good that we're not graded on our Christlikeness. I don't think Jesus would finish his sermon (practicing at home in front of his mirror) with shouted obscenities, or with a Bible slammed to a close against the forehead ( Read more... )

Really, anyone could have been shocked by it. It's not just that I've come from Africa - I don't want to beat that point to death, and I think I'm in danger of doing so. It's mainly that I've been raised in a ridiculously wholesome family environment, where we did not participate in fashion or, really, mainstream culture. My friends here have ( Read more... )

everything's awesome except there's something boiling inside, and i can't find it name it or decide what to do with it, but it makes me want to cry laugh scream or run around dancing, kiss someone (anyone), sing like Amy Steinberg, play bass like Edger Meyer, fly off the chapel roof, whatever i do -- loud LOUD LOUD!
except i don't know what it is, ( Read more... )