Engagement and Mozilla

December 17th I became engaged to the woman of my dreams. I had proposed August 4th, and it took her a while to make up her mind. The next year should be exciting. She's been stressing about telling everyone, as well as working out the details of how to combine our lives. She's great though, and we'll make it work. She wants to have the groomsmen wear kilts. I think I'm OK with that, but the fear is that my pals won't wear anything underneath.

I am slowly transitioning to Firefox's Mozilla. So far I have really liked it. If you haven't given it a try, I suggest you check it out. I'm still using IE as my primary browser, but expect that over the next month or two I'll move to using Mozilla pirmarily. So far it seems faster than IE, plus I like the tab system. It's clean and quick, and I haven't seen any problems on any pages or anything yet to suggest I will have problems.

I think I have survived finals

I think I have survived another semester of finals. I think. More on that in a bit.

From my previous post, I forgot to complete the "pain in the foot part." I had a tray drop on my foot at work that week, and I was at that point wondering if I had broken my right foot. I limped around the house and school for 4-5 days, icing it regularly, and by the next time I had to work the pain was mostly gone. Thankfully it wasn't broken, because I only have crappy student insurance. How I miss the days of full benefits and a company car.....

Finals - I am actually not quite completed. I have one paper to put the finishing touches on (which was due yesterday). Thankfully this particular professor has been quite gracious. I'll turn it in early Monday morning.

I am an avid Seattle Supersonics fan. As of today, they are 17-3 with the best record in the NBA. Not even fans of the Sonics could've dreamed this. Not even the ones on heavy drugs. I don't get too excited about things usually, but it sure is fun rooting for this team. So much to like about them.

The Minnesota Golden Gopher women's Volleyball team won today to advance to the final four. Generally I dislike the Gopher's, but it's hard to not cheer for these women. They have been very nice in my interaction with them (I've waited on them at the Salt Mine a number of times the past few years). Friendly, and very good conversation. They represent much of what is good about college athletics. Keep up the good work!

I'm heading to Colorado for a wedding of a cousin of my girlfriend. Should be a chance to meet some of her family and to see some of my family who lives there. Most will ski, but I think I'll refrain. I hurt my knee 4 weeks ago in Grand Marais while on vacation.

Pain in the foot, culture, and family

Thanksgiving was a great day. Lots of food, and great company. Spent the day with my gf's family and learned a new card game called hand and foot. I'll refrain from trying to explain that game, as it has more rules than I could ever remember.

I have been thinking a lot about culture and how culture relates to the church lately. Christ was at times extrodinarily counter-cultural, but at other times was very much in the culture. Too many in the modern church would have us go one way or the other. We are called to be seperate from the world, but are required to work within the world. We must leave it up to God to cover our shortcomings beyond that. While I may not always agree with the methodology of President GWB, I do appreciate that he is making an effort to affect change. Whether or not that is the route to properly make change occur is a second seperate issue to me. I personally think this needs to come from the church as an out-pouring result from the body of Christ being built up and filled in their personal and coporate faith. I see the great failing here in the Boomer's generation and on moving into a consumer form of faith. People are not taking as much personal responsibility for their faith, and instead are relying upon others to "do" it for them. This covers thinking deep about faith matter, service to others, ministering to others and studying the Word of God. This results in their spiritual tanks running on near empty, and because of this there is not the over-flow of faith into the world. Their views have changed. How they interprete life and church is no longer how it once was. This is part good, part bad. Maybe if I have more time later I'll expand on some of these thoughts.

Republicans, Bush, and a night of prayer

Last night I attended the Republican Victory Party in Minnetonka, Minnesota with my girlfriend. Got to shake hands with some party officials and politicians etc. The cool part was that a friend of my girlfriend had two rooms he opened up and used as prayer rooms for whoever wanted throughout the night as election results came in. They put up signs all over the hotel for it, and throughout the night strangers walked in and were able to pray with other Christians for the elections. What a great ministry. I am excited that Bush won (more excited that Kerry lost), but I am most excited that John Thune defeated Tom Daschle in South Dakota. With a majority in the Senate and House, it will be interesting to see if the Republicans can build on the election momentum. With Daschle out, and the people of the USA speaking on the importance of morals through their votes, I think great things can happen. I know you cannot legislate morality, but you can create an environment where the laws reflect more closely the values of the majority of people in your country. McCain/Powell 08!



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Church and discipline

What ever happened to Church discipline? I have been observing the decay of church unity in recent year, much of what I attribute directly to the failure of individual churches and denominations to lovingly discipline their membership. The Anglican Church is the obvious first choice, but this can be found in many other places. The ELCA has allowed aberrant theology to enter in via it's seminaries for so long that they are now struggling with how to stop the pollution from behind the pulpit. The Catholic church refused to hold people like John Kerry accountable for their views that specifically contradict their teachings. This failure undermines the authority of the church to shape the world. When the non-Christian world looks in, and sees an anything goes mentality within segments of the church universal, they are not able to see the differentiation between the world and the church. Part of love is discipline. Part of love is accountability.

Integration of community

Right now I am studying community, on many different levels. It is interesting to see how leadership and culture shape community. Following this weekend, I should have more time to write. It is amazing just how tired a person can be and still manage to learn things. Praying that I don't get sick, way too much to do. I never want to be a bi-vocational pastor.





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Baby steps

I've been considering blogging for a while. Today I enter into the strange world of putting thoughts onto paper where the world can read them (ok...electronic paper). No promises it'll be good. No promises it'll be regular. But it will be me. Because I said so.