Merry Christmas to all

Hope that everyone has a wonderful Christmas. As a special treat, we wanted to let you see what we have affectionately nicknamed "the Christmas garlic clove," a rather large tree outside of the Cullman Shopping Center that is festively decorated for Christmas.

I've survived my first Christmas Eve as a pastor, which featured the second shortest sermon I've ever given, as well as tripping in front of 90% of the congregation while holding a lit candle (at least it was lit, before I tripped). My parents just left after their fourth church service of the day, heading back to Birmingham. Amanda's family will be coming in tomorrow. We've had a great (although tiring) Christmas so far. We pray that each of you are blessed this Christmas as you're surrounded by friends and family, and that you can realize the miracle that God became flesh at Christmas. Merry Christmas, y'all.

if looks could kill . . .

Breaking news - a mass murder was averted this afternoon at the Cullman Post Office when news came in that looks, in fact, cannot kill, thus thwarting the efforts of one Amanda von Herrmann to obliterate the entire staff with the look typically reserved for Peter when he embarrasses her in a sermon. Hopefully we will have comments from Mrs. von Herrmann in the near future.

Bizarre compliment

"Do you go to church?"
"Yes."
"You smell like it."

This was an actual conversation that took place between me and a first grader at Cullman Primary School last week while I was tutoring her. I hope most of you know I was not the one talking about smelling like church, telling the child she smelled like church.

So I'm not sure why she asked if I go to church, and I'm really not sure why she thinks I smelled like church, or even what she thinks church smells like. I do think that it is kind of cool though. I'd like to think that being "like church" emanates from all of us - that people can just tell that we are Christians by the kind things we do, by our loving demeanor.

I bet she didn't think I smelled like church today, though. I had to be more mean today when she wouldn't pay attention and sit down.

In all seriousness, I hope you will pray for the children we tutor. They are children of all races who are having trouble and are behind in school. Some of them don't hear English at home, some of them have parents who don't or can't help them with their homework, some of them have parents who don't make sure they have breakfast before they go to school, and some of them may even have parents who physically abuse them.

I know I can't imagine what it is like to go to school hungry or hurting or not understanding English, much less try to sit still and learn something when all I can think about is "when is snack time?" or "will mommy beat me when I get home this afternoon?" or "what did the teacher just say? I can't pronounce words like that." I know having the tutoring program helps, and I know that the breakfast program our church sponsors that gives a good breakfast to the children who are there early enough helps, but I just know that it isn't perfect. The breakfast program and the tutoring doesn't help the child as much if the parents won't get them to school in time for breakfast and then the child is hungry and can't pay attention during tutoring. so please remember children like these in your prayers, as well as the teachers and administrators who have to work with them and who try to help them.

P.S. You smell like church.

October 29 sermon

Here's this week's sermon, the last of the Lord of the Rings series. I ended up changing a good bit at the end, since I got kind of nervous and I tend to resort to a long series of challenges when I do that. So, anyway, this is what I was intending to say this week in the sermon.

Mark 10:46-52

Knowing and being known

One of the first lessons that we take from hearing this story is how persistent and passionate Bartimaeus is in calling out for Jesus. Anyone who is willing to reach out to Jesus over the objections and the ridicule of the crowd deserves our respect. Clearly, that sort of determination is something that pretty much all of us could use a little more of in our faith.

But there’s more going on here than a simple lesson about persistence. There’s also a question of identity that cuts to the heart of this passage and the interaction between Jesus and Bartimaeus. You see, Bartimaeus is passionate in calling out to Jesus, but he only knows a part of Jesus’ identity. It’s understandable, since Bartimaeus’ name actually means “son of Timaeus,” so it’s not overly surprising that Bartimaeus identifies with Jesus as “Son of David,” the first time anyone has called Jesus that in Mark.

So what does it mean that Bartimaeus called Jesus the “Son of David.” The “Son of David” was the one who will bring justice and rule over Israel, fulfilling God’s promise to David that his descendents would be enthroned over Israel. Jesus took on that particular part of his heritage, but Jesus also takes on the role of the suffering servant, which went beyond the expectations of the “Son of David.” That Bartimaeus referred to Jesus as the Son of David shows his rootedness in cultural expectations, using a title that Jesus had not used that also held some expectations (such as political rule) that Jesus had no intention of fulfilling.

So Jesus heard Bartimaeus calling him, but knew that Bartimaeus only knew him partially. Jesus was likely reminded of that fact in the crowd’s rebuke of Bartimaeus, since there’s some speculation that one of the motivations for their rebuke was an interpretation that David hated the blind. Thus, not only was Bartimaeus’ knowledge of Jesus incomplete, it seemed as though even what he knew of Jesus wasn’t completely developed. Yet Jesus, being addressed passionately for only a part of who he was, didn’t turn away or hate Bartimaeus – he called Bartimaeus closer. Jesus did not expect Bartimaeus, nor does he expect us, to know everything about him before he calls us nearer; what Jesus wants is honest responses of faith, an honest cry for mercy.

What makes Bartimaeus’s partial knowledge of Jesus even more striking is the complete knowledge that Jesus has of Bartimaeus. This is embodied drastically in that little phrase “throwing off his cloak.” In effect, Bartimaeus strips down to his underwear as he’s running up to Jesus. Despite the fact that the cloak was one of the last things that beggars could use as collateral to get a loan, and despite the fact that he’d be running around in his underwear, Bartimaeus throws off his cloak and anything else that might hold him back as he runs to Jesus.

So we have Bartimaeus, who knows Jesus only partially, standing before Jesus in his underwear, exposed in every imaginable way. And Jesus, rather than pointing out what he can clearly see, pushed Bartimaeus to understand himself, asking Bartimaeus what he wants Jesus to do. Bartimaeus understands the part of Jesus that’s about power and influence, but doesn’t realize that another aspect of Jesus’ identity is Jesus’ service, that “the son of Man came not to be served but to serve” bit we talked about last week. Yet despite that partial knowledge, Jesus meets Bartimaeus’ need, allowing Bartimaeus to follow Jesus and learn the rest of the story.

Bartimaeus was able to regain his sight and to follow Jesus because he trusted that Jesus knew him. Bartimaeus was able to stand before Jesus, exposed and vulnerable, and ask for mercy. So what does it mean for us to be fully known and still ask for love and mercy, as Bartimaeus was fully known by Jesus? It makes me think of a successful marriage in a lot of ways. What makes a successful marriage isn’t that each person sees through rose-colored glasses, only seeing the good things about the other. What makes a successful marriage is that each person knows the other, warts and all, and still loves them. Just like that journey of becoming fully known to another, Bartimaeus standing in front of Jesus in his skivvies begging for mercy becomes a symbol of our relationship to a God who already knows everything about us, yet whom we pray to and ask for mercy.

This idea of being known and the power that it has to transform our lives brought to mind a scene from the Lord of the Rings movies where Elrond delivers the sword Anduril to Aragorn. Aragorn has struggled throughout his life with his identity as the heir of the deposed king of Gondor, as you can see in his scraggly appearance. Aragorn knows some of who he is, yet he is unsure about how his identity as King of Gondor will be played out. He sees the potential for both good and evil in his past and in his identity, so he has hesitated to claim that identity for himself.

It takes Elrond, the king of the elves who has helped raise Aragorn and knows who Aragorn is and what Aragorn can be, to help Aragorn “become who he was born to be.” Aragorn is hesitant to claim all of his identity, yet Elrond calls him to take on the duties that only the king of Gondor can fulfill by taking a sword forged from Aragorn’s ancestors’ broken sword, a sword broken in battle against the same enemy Aragorn fights. Elrond knows that it is only by taking on his true identity that Aragorn can gather enough troops for battle and fulfill his role in the mission. Let’s watch their interaction:
THE RETURN OF THE KING DISC 1 SCENE 30 1:40:10 to 1:42:42

Aragorn is only able to take on his identity because he is already known by Elrond, because Elrond sees Aragorn as he truly is and forces Aragorn to acknowledge his true identity. Being completely known has a powerfully freeing impact on us when we accept and embrace the fact that someone else has seen us at our very worst and loves us anyway. In the midst of his blindness and his brashness, as he’s standing there in his underwear in front of a huge crowd of people and Jesus, Bartimaeus was nothing if not exposed and vulnerable. Yet he made himself vulnerable as an act of faith based on his incomplete knowledge of Jesus’ identity.

You can see at the end of this clip that Aragorn remains unsure, that he “keeps no hope for himself.” Yet he is able to trust that he is known, to trust that Elrond does in fact know him and earnestly desires his success and welfare, even though Aragorn doesn’t know fully what will come to pass. Because of that trust and because of that faith in the one who called Aragorn by name, he is able to face those fears and accomplish his role in the mission. It is by being known and by submitting his own desires to the needs of the mission that Aragorn is able to find life and to fight for that which matters most.

Bartimaeus was able to trust when Jesus called him, a trust so complete that Bartimaeus lost all concept of decency and ran forward in his underwear, tossing aside what was his only potential source of money for the chance to meet Jesus. He was able to stand with Jesus and to follow Jesus because he had discovered his true identity as someone valued by the Son of David. Yet it is only in the process of discipleship and in following Jesus that Jesus would be able to correct Bartimaeus’ limited understanding of who Jesus was and what Jesus was doing, thus we can’t forget the next step: and he followed Jesus down the road.

That was are known yet do not know fully is one of the reasons that we’re mistaken if we assume that you have to get to a certain level of holiness or knowledge before you can become active in the church. One of the emphases throughout Methodism has been on a process called sanctification. We uphold a three-pronged understanding of grace – prevenient grace that constantly “woos” us to Christ, justifying grace that puts us in right relationship with God through Christ, and sanctifying grace whereby we are made more and more into the image of Christ and become more Christlike. That can be summarized as first being known by God, then our coming to know God, then learning to become more and more about God. We know that God loves us before we are even aware of it, and loves us as we are coming to know God, not just when we’ve proven ourselves “worthy.” We can never know everything about God, but we can know some things and be passionate about those things.

This movement toward trust and towards intimate knowledge of God is always a process, and is a process that will only be complete upon death. We strive to know God as we are already known not because we will ever completely understand God, but because we have experienced God’s love and want to embrace that identity that Christ shows us in ourselves. As we discover more about who God is, we discover more about who we are, so that as we come closer to Christ in asking for healing we begin to come closer to seeing ourselves rightly.

Today, Christ is calling not only Bartimaeus but you to come to him. He’s also calling us as members of the crowd to be his messengers, to help other people to know who it is that is calling them and to know the love with which they are being called. Then, he calls us to join his followers, to be a part of Christ’s community so that we can know Christ and follow Christ along the way. I invite you to think about where you find yourself in this story – are you part of the crowd, trying to figure out what Jesus wants? Or are you Bartimaeus, hearing your name called and passionately pursuing Christ, believing that while you don’t know everything, you do know something. Can you say that this, this cross and the love that it shows, is the one thing that I know and the one thing that I believe in? If so, will you chose today to follow him and come when he calls?

October 22nd sermon

I decided that I would post the last few sermons on "The Lord of the Rings" on the internet for discussion for anyone who cares to read them and ask questions about them. I'll be delivering the finale this Sunday, October 29th, and will post my script for that when I actually do it.

This is the third of the Lord of the Rings series. I decided to start off with the clip rather than the scripture, trying to work some more with the balance between preaching the text and matching the image to it and using the image as a way to view the text.

Today we continue our series on the Lord of the Rings trilogy, using its images, its characters, and its plot to help us understand Jesus’ message about community and how to relate to others. The first week we talked about the Palantir and the law, discussing how we must never let tools become more important than their purpose. Last week we talked about Gimli and the rich young man, and how each was challenged to set aside something important to them so they could serve in a life-giving mission.

This week, we’ll look at the tree-like Ents and the disciples James and John, as each are challenged to look beyond their own interests to create a better world. Let’s see what they each want and why, and how their looking inward is redirected to looking outward. First, let’s hear Treebeard, the leader of the Ents, talk about whether they will get involved in the war.

Two Towers Disc 2 – Scene 52 1:11:23 to 1:12:14 “Go back to your home.”

We see in this clip a couple of excuses that the Ents use to disengage from the problems surrounding them. For one thing, they convince themselves that they are powerless to have any effect. Whenever we’re involved in a project as massive as the church undertakes, it’s easy to get discouraged and see our role as insignificant. Some of us just give up and ignore the problem, while some of us simply try to hold down our own fort while ignoring the problems around us. Whether we say “we cannot win this” or pretend “we can just avoid the issue,” we are turning our back on the issues at stake and the problems that are being exposed, as well as on the people who are wrapped up in those problems.

This problem of moving from an inward focus to an outward focus is not unique to modern cinema – it’s a concern that Jesus had. This is particularly evident in today’s lectionary text from Mark 10:35-45, where James and John show that despite being around Jesus for all this time, they still are simply unable to grasp where the focus should be. Let’s hear that encounter now, from Mark, Chapter 10, verses 35-45.
35 James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.’ 36And he said to them, ‘What is it you want me to do for you?’ 37And they said to him, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.’ 38But Jesus said to them, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?’ 39They replied, ‘We are able.’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; 40but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.’
41 When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. 42So Jesus called them and said to them, ‘You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 43But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.’
“The son of man came not to be served, but to serve.” All too often we look at our talents, our gifts, our status as God’s beloved as a reason to lord it over others. Jesus, who had more status, more talents, and more gifts than anything we can imagine, showed us a different way of looking at things. Jesus challenged us to ignore our status and make ourselves servants, to use our talents and our gifts not for the furthering of our kingdom, but rather for the furthering of God’s kingdom. The son of Man came not to be served, but to serve. Or, to put it in a little more blunt fashion, I’d like to quote my friend Will, who once said to someone upset over a change at the Wesley Foundation, “I’m sorry, I must have misread the sign. I could have sworn this said “Wesley Foundation” and not “Jennifer Foundation,” that we worship Jesus and not Jennifer.

We look for excuses, we look for ways out of our responsibility as Christians to look at others more than ourselves, but eventually Jesus always catches us with the question of focus– are you here to serve, or to be served? Are you going to make it your business to improve the world you live in, or will you just wait for the world to fit your needs? Or, as Merry challenged Treebeard, “you’re part of this world. Aren’t you?” We are told to be in the world but not of the world, but we are nonetheless put in the world for a reason.

We as a church are like the Ents in so many ways. We make ourselves believe that “this storm will pass” and claim, “we must weather such things as we have always done.” We become obsessed with the way that we have done things and the stability of our organization, so that we disengage from the problems of our world rather than engaging them, saying “this is not our war.” Whether that’s environmental issues or it’s political corruption or it’s bad business practices or it’s straightforward unkindness, we all too often turn our backs on those who are hurting and those who truly need the church because we’re too scared of upsetting our balance. Sounding at all familiar to any of you?

What can finally wake us up, what can finally force us to realize that we are in fact part of this world and that we are in fact empowered and equipped to improve this world? For many of us, it’s having a connection with the pain of others. What finally makes us take faith and our relationship to Christ seriously is a tragic event, some sort of death or painful experience that causes us to realize our need for connection to Christ and to help others be connected to Christ. Sometimes, it’s our own pain that causes that reflection, but sometimes it is seeing and experiencing the pain of our friends. Let’s see how Pippin helped Treebeard to see that connection, and how Treebeard responds.

TT Disc 2 –Scene 56 – 1:21:09 to 1:23:38

Treebeard is drawn into action by seeing the damage that’s been done, by seeing some of his friends who have died because of the spread of evil that he thought couldn’t reach him. Empathy is one of the most enlivening of emotions for a Christian because we can all hear Jesus saying “just as you did it for one of the least of these, you did it for me.” What Treebeard lacked wasn’t the knowledge that what was going on was wrong, or the sensitivity to be pained by what happens. What Treebeard lacked was the courage to risk, the courage to make what might be “the last march of the ents,” to risk his own self in service to others and in service of preserving what is great and good in this world. Treebeard was more concerned with his survival and with his own needs than he was concerned for the needs of those around him, even his friends. It wasn’t until he walked across that threshold, when he saw the pain and desolation that was left by those who were only looking out for themselves and their own power.

James and John missed Jesus’ point because they were so focused on what they could get out of following Jesus, on what position they would end up in. As we hear their question, and as we ponder where we are called to engage the world, we’re challenged to ask again the question we heard a lawyer ask Jesus a few weeks ago – who is my neighbor? Is it only those in my inner circle of friends? Is it only those who chose to come into this church, only those who are members of your Sunday School class? What about the people who we’ve lost touch with, who had been friends of ours but for whatever reason went a different direction than we went? Are they also our neighbors?

Jesus pushed James and John to become other-centered, to look at what they could do for those outside the circle of Christ’s community, rather than what Jesus would do for those inside the circle. The harvest is truly plentiful, but the workers are few. We are not going to run out of people who are hurting, people who need to be loved. We’ve just got to remind ourselves that we are part of the same family, that even when we look as far away as Africa, we see our brothers and sisters.

October 15th sermon

Here is the second part of the Lord of the Rings series. The sermon began with me reading Mark 10:17-22.

Today we continue our journey through Middle Earth and Mark Chapter 10. We just heard Jesus exposing the obstacles that the rich man held that would keep that man from joining Christ’s mission. Many times our obstacles are material things like possessions, but sometimes they’re more subtle things like distrust of others or suspicion that keep us from joining this mission we’ve been called to. Let’s look again at the Lord of the Rings movies, focusing today on the relationship between Gimli the dwarf and Legolas the elf. In the following clip, pay attention to the differences between them and the obstacles that would make them working together difficult. FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING COUNCIL OF ELROND – Elrond saying “the ring must be destroyed” until Merry says “well that counts you out, Pip.”

There are clearly a few differences between Gimli and Legolas. For one thing, we’ve got their appearance. Legolas is tall and thin, tactful and graceful, and, how can I say this, he’s Orlando Bloom. Gimli, on the other hand, is short and stocky, blunt and intentional. Legolas is thoughtful and considerate, while Gimli is impulsive. And then we also have that whole suspicion thing. Then there are those things that Gimli was yelling, that “I will be dead before I see the ring in the hands of an elf” and “never trust an elf,” which make it difficult to imagine that Gimli could work, serve, and fight side by side with an elf.

Gimli reacts this way because Dwarves just don’t trust elves. Dwarves lived underground, mining and searching for treasures, preferring the dark and enclosed to the bright and open. Elves had magic that the dwarves likened to witchcraft, believing that the elves were only pretending to use their magic to heal and were really plotting to gain more power for themselves. When you add to that a few historical incidents where elves and dwarves had worked together and the elves had come out better and you have a recipe for distrust.

So, is the lesson for today “just smile and trust and everything will be okay?” Not exactly. One of Gimli’s best traits is his honesty, his willingness to say what he believes and live with the consequences, yet even more important than that is his willingness to lay aside his suspicions for a common mission. For someone who is convinced that elves are out to destroy him, Gimli shows tremendous courage to still work beside and with an elf in a dangerous and important mission. Gimli had every opportunity to disengage and to work to fight evil in other ways, but he knows that this is the most important and significant mission he will ever be involved in, so he sets his prejudices aside for the sake of the mission, just as Jesus had asked the rich man to do.

The question that Gimli had to ask himself, and the question that we all have to ask ourselves, is whether what we’ve got already is more important than what we hope to get. The rich man who asked Jesus what he needed to do to inherit eternal life was looking for something beyond what following the letter of the law had given him. This man had money, he was religiously upright, yet he still lacked something that he knew Jesus had. So he asked what he needed to do to have the kind of life Jesus lived.

And Jesus looked at him and loved him. Jesus could tell what was the most important thing in this man’s life, and that Reaching Up to God and Reaching Out to others was not the most important thing for this man. So Jesus directed the man to give up that most important thing in service to the gospel and to follow Him, and at that point the man would have treasure in heaven. The way for this man to change his priorities was to give his wealth, that which he saw as a blessing from God for his faithfulness, to those who were poor, who he likely believed were being cursed by God for their lack of faithfulness. Sadly, this was more than he could handle.

What is it that we hold most strongly to? Is it our possessions like the rich young man? Is it our prejudices like Gimli? Are we willing to give our money to the poor, to work side by side with our enemy, to put aside that which we have made most important so that we can embrace the gospel and the mission of reaching up to God and reaching out to others in love?

This is the second time in my life that I’ve preached on this text, and neither time I’ve wanted to focus on what Jesus literally says to do – sell everything you own, give it to the poor, and follow me. I’ve heard so many bad attempts to manipulate people into giving money to the church (or to the preacher) that I get really uncomfortable even thinking about preaching stewardship sermons, fearing that I’ll just be heard as another greedy televangelist. Yet that fear, that discomfort, and that doubt about how I’ll be received is the very thing that Jesus calls me to give up in service to the gospel.

Money is something that Jesus talks about extensively and repeatedly. “You cannot serve both God and money,” “sell all that you have and follow me,” and “it is harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” It’s almost as if, with all these references to money, God’s trying to tell me that I can’t avoid talking about how that’s one of the things that God wants us to offer in service to the mission.

Just like God calls me to give up my apprehensions about certain types of sermons and being a certain type of preacher, Gimli had to give up his suspicions and prejudices about elves and be willing to work together with Legolas in this most important mission. Are we willing to work with people we don’t get along with, people we’ve been taught to distrust, and people we think are in it for the wrong reasons? Or, like the rich man, will we hold on tighter to our prejudices and our possessions and refuse to express our unity with those who are different. Let’s see what Gimli and Legolas chose to do: Return of the King, disc 2, chapter 29 last 30 seconds

As Gimli and Legolas fight and serve together throughout these three movies, they develop the most unlikely of friendships. They stop seeing each other as elves and dwarves and start seeing each other as coworkers. Likewise, we’re challenged not to see ourselves as rich and poor, as thoughtful and impulsive, or as optimistic or pessimistic, but rather to see each person in this room as a unique part of the body of Christ and as someone made in the image of God.

What is it that you’re holding so tight to that you can’t look around and see your brothers and sisters here in this room? What is keeping you from saying “how about side by side with a friend?” Is it money? Is it prejudice? Is it fear of losing face and looking bad? Is it a grudge that you’ve been holding for years? Jesus is calling us here and now to lay those things down, to lay that down at the foot of the cross and proclaim to the world that our identity as Christians and following Jesus is more important than our identity as Americans, as rich people, as wise people, or as popular people. And then together let us follow Jesus, to reach up to God in love and to reach out toward others in love. Let us offer our knowledge, or like Legolas and Gimli offer our bow and our axe, to the service of the living God who brought us here and sends us now to show God’s love to the world. In the name of the father, and the son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

sermon October 8th

Here's the text of the first of my LOTR sermon series. The sermon began by reading the lectionary passage for the day, Mark 10:2-9.

As we begin reading Mark chapter 10, we see something that has happened countless times in Jesus’ ministry. We see here the religious elite of the day questioning Jesus about his teaching, trying to get him to admit that he’s teaching about a different God than they one they believe in. These are people who are educated, who are upstanding citizens, yet they fail to see Jesus for who he is because of one tragic flaw: they are more focused on the rules of their religion than the features of their faith.

Even the question that the Pharisees ask is more focused on what is permissible than what is right. “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” There’s no focus on what’s right, there’s no focus on whether it’s favorable for a man to divorce his wife. All they want to know is “can I get away with it?”

But Jesus, like he does so often, shakes his head and tells his questioners that they’re simply asking the wrong question. Jesus admits that legally there are conditions in which divorce can happen, although those conditions are concessions to human failures. But should divorce happen? Jesus focuses our attention away from the law and what is permissible and back to the purpose and intent of the law.

This is even more evident as Jesus goes back with the disciples, and they ask him to clarify his statement. Jesus speaks even more bluntly, yet he does so by referring to not only the man’s legal right to terminate the marriage covenant, but also the female’s right. There are a couple of reasons why that’s important: first of all, the female wasn’t allowed to initiate divorce in Palestine during that time period, yet Jesus talks about the “woman leaving her husband.” Jesus observes how both the man and the woman join to begin marriage, thus logically either can break the bonds of marriage. Breaking those bonds, however, is fundamentally opposed to the direction God’s kingdom is leading people toward. Jesus thereby challenges those who worship the law by pointing out its internal contradictions and by pointing to, as Paul later says of love, “a more excellent way.”

All too often we see the law as a rulebook used to oppress us. Our culture constantly tells us that the way to happiness is to eliminate rules, to “live life by your own rules” and forget about any rule or guideline that doesn’t fit with what we want. The only purpose of rules, we’re told, is for the powerful to enslave the powerless. When that’s the case, we start to look for ways around the rules, ways to get what we want without technically breaking any rules. One of the hardest lessons many college students have to learn is that just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Can you skip all of your classes without anyone yelling at you? Absolutely. Can you pass if you do that? Probably not.

God’s laws, just like class times, are not intended for your torture. There might be other things that seem like they’d be more fun, more entertaining, or more profitable. But before you skip all your classes, and before you break all of the Bible’s advice for living just because you can, ask yourself – why are they there? Why are these class times being offered, and why do we have these rules for how to live life? Both are tools, intended to help us grow, to help us become engaged in the world in new ways and to live more fulfilled lives.

Jesus points us today to consider the purposes of what we’re doing. As we read the Bible and learn the story of God’s people, God’s purpose is constantly that people might live in right relationship with God and with each other. The Bible tells the story of how God chose to be in relationship with humanity in creation, how God worked to maintain that relationship despite our human insistence on running away from God, and how God finally sent Jesus to once again express how deeply God loves us. We as a church gather to proclaim who Jesus was and is in our midst, to live a life transformed by God’s love revealed in Jesus, and to expand the circle of God’s loving community until it reaches every part of God’s creation.

We have various tools at our disposal in this mission. One tool we’ve got is the best-selling, most translated, most historically documented book in history – the Bible. Like the Jews of Jesus’ day, we have a document that outlines how to live embody and expand God’s community. But like the Pharisees, Jesus challenges us to look beyond the letter of the law to the Spirit, the divine love behind that law and behind that tool.

There’s an old Buddhist proverb about scripture that is helpful for focusing us on this reality that we should gather around a mission, rather than gathering around our tools to perform that mission. Scripture is like a hand pointing toward the moon. Scripture is not God, but it points us toward God. If we waste our time focusing only on the hand, we miss the opportunity to see the awesome, mighty God that this hand points us to.

Whenever we disconnect a tool from its purpose, the tool has the potential to be used for good or for evil. When separated from a loving God who wants our fulfillment, laws are simply hoops we have to jump through or obstacles to avoid. The Bible that is meant as the story of God’s love for humanity becomes the weapon of people’s judgment of each other. When we forget the purpose of Christ’s coming, we shout John 3:16 at people without moving on to John 3:17, “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” When we start using any tool, even the most Godly, for our own gain rather than to further God’s kingdom, we start to be used by the tool rather than users of the tool.

We see this vividly in the clip we’ll look at in a moment. In the clip, we see the wizard Gandalf coming to his old friend Saruman for advice about how to deal with the ring of power, one of the most powerful tools ever created by the enemy Sauron that remains tied by its design to the enemy’s will. Gandalf comes to his friend still focused on the goal of defeating Sauron and destroying the ring. He finds there that Saruman has become consumed by a tool called the palantir, through which he can see across Middle Earth. This tool, originally designed to aid in the fight against the enemy, has been corrupted by the enemy, who uses the palantir to create fear, distrust, and suspicion in Saruman. See how convinced Saruman is that what he sees in the palantir is reality, and how focused he is on his own strength and influence rather than the common goal of a better world. Because Saruman has started to worship the tool rather than using it for its purpose, he becomes a slave to his own desires and is manipulated. Saruman turns on his friend Gandalf because of his obsession with what he can see and what he knows, thereby “trading reason for madness.” FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING Disc 1 46:40 to 50:16

We see in the Lord of the Rings story two fundamentally different ways to look at tools. The ring must be destroyed, yet the Palantir can still be redeemed and used for good. The ring must be destroyed because no one can use it, because it is more powerful and corroding than any user can withstand. The Palantir, however, can be used, since it can more easily be placed in perspective. Neither, however, can be used lightly or for personal gain without them corrupting the user, as we see with Saruman.

In Return of the King, Aragorn, the king of Gondor and the leader of the Fellowship, takes the Palantir in order to provoke Sauron into battle, thereby protecting Frodo and Sam and the ultimate goal of the mission. Aragorn knows that the only way for their ultimate mission of destroying the ring to succeed, he has to convince the enemy that he intends to fight at the gate. Watch this clip from the extended edition of the movie and see Aragorn’s decision to use the palantir for good. RETURN OF THE KING Disc 2 58:30 to 59:37

Will there be fear involved in serving? Absolutely. You can see Aragorn’s fear in that clip, and you can see the fear in the disciples throughout the gospel as they saw more and more clearly how hard was the path that Jesus lead them toward. “Fear not, for I am with you always” Jesus said. Or, as John said, “perfect love casts out fear.” Not being sure of what the results will be makes it far easier to focus on the tangible things we think we can control. We start to focus and become fixated on how we do things rather than why we do things.

But in the midst of fear, in the midst of uncertainty, and in the midst of a world where we’re constantly challenged as to whether we are serious about living faithfully, we have this common calling around which we can gather. God formed humans to be in community with God and in community with each other. Jesus came to expand that community, to remind those inside the community of their purpose and to invite those outside the community to come in. Will we do likewise?

love quadrangle

Seattle Grace Hospital = UA Wesley Foundation West

last Sunday on easy street

Well, tomorrow will be my last Sunday in awhile when I'm not preaching. As I told some folks at the Heath's house today, I did so well when I led both services alone a month ago that I haven't preached since. Actually, we had already planned that so that Bob could do a sermon series, but it's a lot more entertaining to act like there's a grand conspiracy to keep me from preaching. But it'll be kind of nice to have something every week that can be somewhat of a performance gauge, since it's hard to tell if I did a good job visiting people or preparing, but I can usually notice when a sermon tanks or if it goes well.

We had a return visit from Ahab the Armadillo (read this to find out more about him) on our way home tonight. He was running across the street this time. I actually didn't spot him, but Amanda saw him scooting across the road and into the woods. I guess I'll look for other ways to not watch football after the game today (although seeing Georgia Tech win in Blacksburg was nice). I could do what Amanda was just doing, looking at some of the "25 greatest plays in Alabama history" to cheer ourselves, but I'll probably just go to sleep.

google calendar

I've spent a good bit of time over the past week messing around on Google Calendar. We've decided to use that for the church's calendar so that everyone can see it easily and so that we can distribute the right to add things throughout the staff. The calendar is here if you're interested. It's also embedded in our newly redesigned website.

Amanda and I went to the Cullman versus Walker game last night, which was pretty fun. I saw quite a few people from the church, so I guess maybe I should wear a polo shirt instead of a t-shirt next time. Oh well, it was fun talking to everyone outside of the church.

It'll be interesting to see how the Foxsports commentators do on the Alabama game. They can't be any worse than JP, whose commentators just praised an Auburn defender for his excellent coverage on a play where the ball hit the defender on the back of the head and Brandon Cox just happened to pelt the guy on his helmet. At least we can listen to the Bama game on the radio if they're too bad.

we're agin' it

Just so you all know - I work at the Cullman Un Meth Church, as opposed to the Cullman Meth Church.

From the first line of the letter that accompanied this day planner: "Surprised to see the Cullman First Un Meth Church name on the enclosed Regatta 2-Tone Diary sample? Looks impressive, doesn't it?"

Impressive indeed.

all by mysellllelllf

So, this Sunday should be an interesting one at Cullman First UMC. First of all, we're moving the traditional service into Hearin Hall, the Fellowship Hall where we normally have contemporary worship. Normally we have 3 services (traditionals at 8:30 and 11 in the sanctuary and contemporary in Hearin Hall), but now we'll have just the 8:30 traditional and 11 contemporary. The sanctuary is currently filled with scaffolding and such for the installation of the new organ, so everybody will be trying out Hearin Hall.

This wouldn't be such a big deal were it not for the fact that this will be the first Sunday that I'll be flying solo at both services. Bob, the senior pastor, will be in Atlanta helping his daughter move into her dorm at Emory. So, I'll get to try to comfort all the traditional folks who are kind of freaked out by the contemporary setting. We did move a pulpit in and are going to have a more decorated altar than normally. We've also gotten about 10 pews moved into the room that are lining the back walls (they had to be taken out of the choir loft).

I'm looking forward to the chance to see how things go without Bob there, just in case there are some things that he does that I haven't picked up on that change the way the congregation reacts. I'm also looking forward to the next few weeks when I'll be able to watch more and let it be a little more like I'm actually attending a worship service, rather than being nervous about preaching. It's really bizarre when something that you'd do anyway is part of your job and you have to approach it differently. Oh well, I guess that's this growing up crud I've been avoiding for so long.

invincible, but I can't sing

Today was the first Sunday since I got to Cullman that I didn't have to preach (we had a Discovery Weekend with the youth, and thus a youth-led service). So, I got to sit in the congregation during the contemporary service and just watch, which was kind of cool after a few months of leading the service but never just getting to experience it.

I was, however, unable to completely avoid mention during the service. Jim, the 9th grader who gave the sermon (and did an excellent job), mentioned me in two different ways, both of which led to me laughing extensively. First of all, he was talking about the different roles that people are called to in the church. He did a good job, except that he has a little overly-high view of ministers and youth leaders. He described us as "invincilbe," comparing our spiritual fitness to Super Mario when he gets the star super-power. So yeah, I laughed just a little bit at that. He also made a comment about "there are people who can sing really well, like Paige, and then there are ministers." He meant some people sing, some people preach, and he realized how it sounded,
and then started saying "I'm sorry Mr. von Herrmann and Mr. Alford." Several of the people around me started hitting me on the shoulder, saying "yeah, we knew you couldn't sing." So all in all it was a really good service, and I enjoyed getting the week off from preaching. Now I get to prepare for preaching at the traditional services August 20th.

We had four senior high guys spending the night at the parsonage the last two nights because of the Discovery Weekend. They were pretty fun, although I will definitely not miss getting up at 6 or whichever other repulsive time we had to get up to get everyone going.

So that's the weekend. Things are going well, I'm just trying to get my body used to the routine. It's doing alright, I'm just trying to make sure I don't get sick.

What we purchased today...

Jesus the action figure!

Accoutrements.com has a line of action figures for everything, including librarians, albino bowlers, male nurses, freud, einstein, on and on.

Check out the deluxe Jesus action figure complete with glow-in-the-dark miracle-working hands, a water-into-wine jug, 5 loaves and 2 fish.

Excellent!

it's the end of the world as we know it.

open invitation?

We've told most all of our friends that if they'll come visit us in Cullman, we'll take them to the All Steak. We haven't had many takers yet, but we did entice the great Kennard Craig Smith up (as well as taking my parents and grandma). We're excited about any opportunity to go, as it's quite good.

We might, however, have made the invitation a little too broad. I'm sure that I've said previously that I'm a friend of nature (I'm not sure exactly when, but I'm sure I have).


Well, apparently Ahab the armadillo considered the invitation to show up at our front door as being open to him. We pulled in this evening after going for a walk in the park only to find an armadillo running off of our front porch into the yard. It's an image that I can't stop laughing at, having seen armadillo as highway shoulder decorations throughout America but only alive in New Mexico.

Thought we'd share the latest from Cullman.
Peter

another Sunday down

Well, another Sunday down. Dad and Grandma Young came up to hear me, so that was nice to see them. Our lay leader came and helped out with a lot of the service, doing the prayers and concerns, offertory prayer, and greeting. It was definitely nice to have another week to get comfortable with everything without having everyone depending completely on me for direction. She came to talk about that last week, and one of the guys in the praise band made the same offer that they could help me get more comfortable with everything.

There was an article in the Birmingham News about Cullman and other "micropolitan" communities. I just thought it was interesting for anyone wanting to know more about our new home.

i'm famous!

Well, I'm now famous. I was the lead story in the Religion section of the Cullman Times. My favorite part of the article - "Von Herrmann quickly rose to the peak of the organization, serving twice as its president. The foundation proved to be a dual blessing, as he met his wife, Amanda, at Wesley." I thought Ken Smith was the peak of the organization. Oh well, I guess president was the next best thing.

It's kind of bizarre, opening up the paper and seeing your face in it and an article about you. I guess it's a similar weirdness as picking up a bulletin and seeing myself listed on it. First I get a job, then I get in the paper. Man, this growing up stuff is running up on me quick.

lost in translation

Well, I got a reminder yesterday that I've got to learn the "language of the people" or I'm gonna end up looking pretty daggum stupid.

Well, the whole thing started out with me being stupid on Friday night. We drove Amanda's grandma, Maw Maw, up to Huntsville for her birthday and to go to Macaroni Grill. When we got back to her place, I unlocked the door and put the keys in my pocket. The problem was, they were her keys and not my keys. So when I got back to our place, I realized that I had her keys to her house.

So, I called Maw Maw and told her what had happened. I originally offered to bring them over for her and take her out to eat for lunch. What I thought happened in the rest of the conversation was that she said, "no, y'all should come for dinner," so I told her that we'd call her before we left.

I always thought that we ate dinner pretty early at the von Herrmann house, usually around 5:30 or 6. So we left around 4:30 so we'd have plenty of time to talk with her. When we got her on the phone, she said "well, it'll be cold, but come on over anyway."

Come to find out, "dinner" is the second meal of the day in Holly Pond,usually served from 11-2, whereas "supper" is the later meal. So, needless to say, we were just a tad bit late for dinner at 5 pm.

We still had a good time, but I felt pretty dumb for completely misunderstanding when she wanted us to come. From now on, we're gonna set a time to avoid this mistake again. Dinner=lunch, Supper=dinner. I've just got to repeat that to myself and make sure I know what folks are talking about before making myself look dumb again.

new church fun

Well, we've finished our first full week in our new home and new church. All in all, it's been great. Peter survived his first hospital and nursing home visits, and his first Board of Stewards meeting (although in the course of discussing going from three services to two, someone did wonder aloud, hopefully to the chagrin of the others present, if that meant they could get rid of one of the pastor positions). I survived my first church event without Peter there - a church league softball game. I may be bad luck as a spectator; it was the first game of the year that they lost. It was neat though that the games are played at the city park within a mile of our house.

We got a visit from the great Kennard last week. It was fun to see him and catch up, and it's always a treat to eat at the All-Steak.

We had our first delivery of fresh homegrown produce from a church member. We were pretty excited. And it's even something I eat, too!

We also survived the welcome reception the church had for us between the two services yesterday. The UMW hosted it, and sent us home with a big tray of mini-muffins, pigs in a blanket, sausage balls, cheese straws, mini ham sandwiches, and fruit. Eat your heart out all you non-preacher types. hehe.

Walking to the recpetion I had a flash back to our wedding reception, walking together to a room full of people waiting on you, wanting to talk to you. We laughed about how we would be announced this time if they did that like a the wedding. "Give a big round of applause for The Reverend and Mrs. Peter von Herrmann!!!" How corny. I told Peter this time he was not allowed to run straight to the food (At the wedding reception, he immediately grabbed a handful of nuts at the cake table. I don't remember it at the time, but we have it on the dvd) But it was eerily similar - lots of smiling, shaking hands, seeing people you don't really know, everyone around you eating, but not really getting the chance to yourself.

At least one thing happened there that did not happen at our wedding reception. No one at the wedding confused a couple we were talking to with us. We were chatting with a young couple (maybe late twenties, thirties), and two ladies walk up to talk to the new pastor and his wife - only they think the other couple is us. That poor couple!
Ladies: "I don't think I've met you, I'm Jane Doe."
((At which point I think, "well, maybe they just haven't met these members and want to meet them. O, no.))
"We're so glad you're here."
Young woman: "I think you're wanting to meet them." (points to us)
Ladies: (still oblivious)"We're just so excited about you're coming here."

I'm still not sure how we got the whole thing straightened out. I can't imagine what must have gone on in the couple's minds.

I'm sure I'm leaving out lots more of the fun stuff from this week. Those were some of the highlights.

settling in

Wow, it's been almost a month since we've posted. Well, in that month we've moved back to the great state of Alabama, moved in to our first house, and spent waaaaay too much time packing and unpacking. We did throw a good bit of stuff away that we realized we wouldn't need, but there was still a lot more stuff than I realized.

Among the things we've learned in the last month:

- Cortez of Two men and a Truck Atlanta is a hoss. That man took care of in 15 minutes the couch that took us an hour and a half, 5 people, and two near death experiences to move in. We gave the couch away to the Burkett's across the street neighbor, which we were happy to do because a) he wanted it and b) we won't have to move it again.

- Packing material is expensive. Luckily, I borrowed about 15 boxes full of biodegradable crinkles from the VON Corporation, so we didn't have to buy those, but we would have had to spend about $15 a box for the material and the boxes. So hooray for Radar Engineers and their packing methods.

- People are pretty gracious at CFUMC your first week on the job. Everyone been very nice and so far no one has called me out on doing anything stupid. Since I'm sure I've done something stupid, it's nice to get some time to figure out what that is on my own.

- Having Wal-Mart within a 2 minute drive of your house is a whole lot easier than having to drive 45 minutes to get to one.

- We're not going to move again without paying movers. Each one of them were the best money we'd ever spent.

- diesel trucks give a nice back massage while you drive, but they nearly make you deaf.

That's about all for now, guess I need to use my office for something other than posting.

Not a Yankee

It's good to know that I'm 0% Yankee.

-Amanda

Your Linguistic Profile::

50% General American English

40% Dixie

5% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

0% Yankee

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

P.S. I wonder why this only adds up to 95%. I guess I am just that cool.

no more tests? really?

Well, I've now officially finished my 19th consecutive year of trying to get educated. The last few weeks have been really surreal in a lot of ways for me - realizing that this is my last class, realizing that I've just finished my last paper, printing off my thesis and sending it off for binding. There have been so many things wrapping up, it leaves me with a really weird feeling.

I guess a lot of it is knowing that I can pull off being a student, but not being as sure about pulling off being a minister. Sure, I've done some stuff that will prepare me, but this is a completely different ballgame than classes. It won't just be a bad grade that I'll get in the future, it'll be someone I've hurt or failed to help. It's made me start taking things more seriously, which is kind of interesting seeing that play out and realizing some of the habits that are keeping me from doing as well as I can (such as msn zone games).

It's also kind of weird thinking about leaving a mark, how I've made some friends that will probably remember me for a while and who I know I will remember. On that same line, the fact that my thesis is going to be put in the library is still just bizarre, and I'm not sure I'll ever get used to the idea that someone can look up my name and get a book-like item out of one of the largest theological libraries in the world. Maybe I've been a little contemplative, thinking about the things I didn't do that I hoped to and the things that I hope to do in the future. Balancing taking things seriously while also not taking them too seriously is not something I'm very good at, and hopefully I can work on that in the coming month before we move. I imagine, however, that it'll probably be a longer process than just a month. Here's to figuring that out.

Peter

and the winner is ...

Jonathan Page!

Jonathan Page is the winner for his identification of the church (Cullman First United Methodist) via private messenge this afternoon. But, we'll go out to eat with whoever wants to come and visit.

Since he guessed on the first round, I guess we won't have a second round. It was likely going to involve saying which district it will be in (Central) which would have narrowed it down to about 150 churches, of which Cullman and only one or two others have around 1000 members.

Here's the church website in case you're interested. I'll be the associate pastor, likely preaching 3 times a month at the contemporary service and once a month at the two traditional services. From talking with the pastor and meeting a few of the staff people, it seems like a really good church and we're excited to be going up there. Let us know if you've got any info about the area or the church.

Thanks for playing,
Peter

Let the games begin

So now we can share where Peter will be appointed in June. As our faithful readers suggested, we thought we'd post some of the first information we found about the church and the community and let you try to guess them.* Those of you who already know, please don't spoil the fun. Those of you who don't know and are the first few to figure it out will be rewarded with fun times at the new von Herrmann household. We will buy lunch at the best restaurant in town for the first one to guess correctly (and bonus dessert if you know/figure out the best restaurant in town). Questions may be asked; questions might be answered.

* These are our previous posts on the subject: we're moving to ... and more internet investigatin'.


Good luck, and let the games begin.



The Church

First church building 1881

More than 10 staff members

Peter will be preaching every week

Three services, two traditional (8:30 and 11 a.m.) and one contemporary (11 a.m.)

About 1,000 church members

Community

Demographics
Population of city (as reported by ePodunk) - between 13,000 and 15,000 people

Ethnicity of city residents - White 96.4% Black or African American 0.4% American Indian and Alaska native 0.2% Asian 0.5% Native Hawaiian and other Pacific islander 0.0% Some other race 1.1% Two or more races 1.4% Hispanic or Latino 4.9%

Population of county (as reported by ePodunk) – between 77,000 and 80,000 people

History
Founded by a German settler

Originally settlers planned on growing grapes to make wine, but found the area better suited to growing corn, strawberries, and sweet potatoes.

Amanda got her first and so far only speeding ticket in the county in which the church is located

more on the waiting game

Well, we've now heard that Peter's projected appointment did not change from round one to round two. Someone told us that it is about 97% likely that it will stick through to the end now.

We'll just have to wait until the end of this month to find out, and until June 1 to be really really really sure.

It's hard to get excited about our potential new community, new church, new house, when we aren't sure that is where we'll be going. I think it will get better when we start finding out more and more about each of those aspects and begin meeting more and more people there.

On a side note for our loyal blog readers, Belgian Crockpots (or Crackpots, as the DJ sometimes says mistakenly) are now defending champs for three weeks in a row. We'll see how the streak holds up tonight. I won't be holding my breath.

the waiting game

Well, once again I'm sitting by the phone, waiting on my DS or future senior minister or Jesus Christ to call and let me know where we'll be moving in June. I realize I'm toward the bottom of the line as far as importance within the system, so I'm not expecting a call from the Bishop on the way out of the cabinet meeting or anything. But it's still kind of nervewracking, just sitting around and waiting for something to happen. As Amanda just said, "now you know what a teenage girl feels like."

So now that we've developed that I feel like a teenage girl, today's news was that I had a presentation on Gary Gunderson's Deeply Woven Roots in Mission and Western Culture. It was pretty entertaining, since the entire course talks about intersections between modern culture and the church, so we're allowed to make some bizarre connections. For instance, my presentation was done jointly with Lonnie Pittman, a Florida fan from Pensacola. So, naturally, I began the presentation with a discussion of the role of Alabama football as religious community. My discussion was based on an article written by David Chidester about "the church of baseball," but basically it took the four major functions of religious community (timelessness, continuity, community, sacred space) and applied each of these to Alabama football (the rituals of holding up four fingers and our crimson jerseys, our tradition of winning, the connection between likeminded fans, and bryant-denny stadium). Lonnie retorted with a slide about Florida winning the basketball championship, so I fought back with a picture of the scoreboard from the 2005 UA-UF game. After that, we talked about the news about the American Bible Society refusing to print bibles with the phrase "Jesus loves Porn Stars" on the cover. Pretty interesting stuff.

top 10 reasons to move back to Alabama

We have succumbed to the writer's standby, the top 10 list. We came up with these on our way to Tuscaloosa the other day, and we thought we'd share this with our faithful reader(s). Starting with #10 ...

10. Less traffic
9. No Georgia fans, big G's on cars, or ugly bulldog symbols that make me want to puke.
8. In the time that it currently takes us to get out of Atlanta, we can be halfway to one of our parent's houses.
7. Not being called a radical conservative because neither of us think that eliminating the military or making them hold bake sales would be a good idea.
6. Fewer yankees telling us our accents are "cute"
5. Wal-mart
4. Not having to explain what "Crimson Tide" means, or why "Big Al" is an elephant.
3. Week long Iron Bowl coverage
2. Milo's sweet tea and good southern cooking
1. Central time, the way God meant it to be

The Return of the Belgian Crockpots

Belgian Crockpots are now the two-time champion of team trivia. Tonight's team was made up of mostly Candler students. We beat the Dutch Ovens in double tie-breaker rounds.

Hooray for the reigning champions.

Belgian Crockpots forever.

P.S. Being crazy like this is what happens to people who go to seminary. :)

team trivia

Hooray for the Piette, who was a major force in our triumph at team trivia at the glorious Famous Pub and Sports Palace in lovely Toco Hills, Atlanta.

After being mercilessly beaten by the "Dutch Ovens" team almost weekly for over a year now, we were finally part of a winning team. Yeah, sure you could say we "won" all those times we came in second place (usually under the name "Second Place"), but this time we were ready. We brought in the great Piette, and we were victorious. "Dutch Ovens" did not know what hit them when the three musketeers known as the "Belgian Crockpots" came to play last week; they didn't even place.

So hooray for the Belgian Crockpots, winners of $50 house cash. I guess we'll have to share our winnings with the sad people who weren't members of the team last week. Maybe I'll hold the certificate ransom until we pick a better name than "Second Place."

Wish us luck as we fight the good fight again this evening. I'm sure the Dutch Ovens will be bringing reinforcements tonight. Damn the Dutch Ovens, full speed ahead!

it's all becoming clear

So, Amanda and I went to see my Uncle Lewis and Aunt Sharon tonight to have dinner and pick out some paintings that my Great Aunt Martha had drawn. We ended up with 17 pictures, and we're pretty excited about framing them and all. She had painted throughout her life, so we got to see a painting she had drawn in the 1928 and others she had drawn in 1998. Several of the paintings were of the lodge and the lake at Camp Sumatanga, so that was also surreal to recognize the places that she had painted. The fact that she was a preacher's kid might explain her paintings of camp, but it was still pretty neat.

What was particularly intriguing was the box of stuff that Uncle Lewis gave me as we were leaving, which he called "some Bibles and stuff." Included in that box was a Methodist Book of Discipline from 1886, an obituary of my great grandfather, and the following two articles about my Great Uncle, which might explain some of my activities from my freshman year in college:

Howell Defeats Dick Marland in Pingpong Event

Richard Morland bowed to Wilson Howell in the finals of the Y.M.C.A. Older Boys Pingpong tournament at the Central "Y" Wednesday, losing by the scores of 21-15, 21-16, 21-17. both the champion and the runnerup will compete in the annual state tourney at the Boys "Y," March 13, under the banner of the Central "Y."

Howell beats Karrh In Ping-Pong Final

Wilson Howell, defending champion, defeated Calvin Karrh in straight sets in the finals of the State Y.M.C.A. ping-pong tournament here Saturday by scores of 21-12, 21-12, 22-20.

Howell reached the finals by beating Albert McInnis, Montgomery, 21-15, 21-12. He defeated Johnny McConnell, 21-11, 21-12, in his first match.

Karrh advanced to the finals by scoring victories over Charles Prince, 21-18, 21-16, and over James Bradshaw, Montgomery, 21-13, 23-21.

McInnish defeated Bradshaw, 13-21, 21-11, 22-20, to take third place honors.

more internet investigatin'

We have found some additional information on our potential future residence.

I used this website to find out if there were any wi-fi hotspots in the area, and if so what they were.

Peter went here to find what stores sold Milo's tea in the area.

Sperling's Best Places is a website that lets you search for lots of data on cities or neighborhoods (zip codes), not just the demographic data we saw before from ePodunk, but also unemployment rate, job growth, precent 'religious' and protestant, air quality, water quality, physicians per capita, climate, percent of each political party, and cost of living.


This site will identify the biggest polluters in your area, by zip code.

A lot of these websites I found from Hometown Locator.

That's all for now. Next time you're bored and googling you name, look up information on your hometown or somewhere you want to live.

A

the dawn of a new day

Well, Amanda and I just did something we'd never done before: we watched a sporting event live over the Internet. Alabama just barely held on to beat Marquette, and we got to watch it via CBS's internet feed. It's actually kind of cool - you watch a couple of commercials each commercial break, a couple before you get started watching it, and then when they don't have enough commercials they just stick you on a backup feed of the game. So during one timeout, we got to watch Chuck Davis stare blankly at the floor for 2 minutes. We also got to hear the entirety of Rammer Jammer, which was particularly enjoyable as we tried to figure out what Marquette's mascot is. I knew once, but I don't any more.

One thing that was slightly annoying but also pretty smart was the way that CBS limits the number of people getting the live feed. When you first log in, they have a "waiting area" which is basically a lame graphic showing you how many people are in front of you, when they're next "admitting" people (at 1 minute 30 second intervals), and encouraging you to register earlier by talking about the benefits of being a "VIP" member. That was slightly annoying, but the fact that they're forward thinking enough to make sure that some people get a decent connection, rather than just having it a free for all and having their servers fail, shows that at least somebody there has a brain.

Newlywed Lesson of the Day

When something happens to one of your major appliances, say your clothes dryer, do not take it apart to try to fix it yourself. It will take twice as long to put it back together as it took to take it apart.

we're moving to . . .

So, I've now had my first taste of the appointment process. After being sworn to secrecy on the life of my wife, mother, and firstborn child as to where I'm projected to be going at this point, I was tempted not to mention anything about it. Matt Reed had some thoughts on this and its implications, which you can read for yourself. But, I figured I could talk about all the fun things that we found out about our prospective dwelling place.

*Note* - in lieu of the word city or town, I will use the term "community." So stop trying to figure out where we're talking about, 'cause we can't tell you.

Here is our journey of discovery:
First, we looked at the church website. From there, we found out the number and type of services the church has, the size of the staff, how current staff members define their jobs, what programs the church has, and a brief history of the church.

Next, we used whitepages.com to find out where the current pastor lives, our potential future parsonage.

Then, we used Google Maps to identify where that is in relation to the church and the community as a whole.

Then, we found information from the tax assessor posted online that identified the value of the parsonage, the size of the lot, the number of rooms, the type of building materials, when the church acquired the property, and who owns the neighboring properties. We also saw what is allegedly the shape of the house.

We then tried to get a view from the sky, but both Google Earth and terraserver didn't have detailed enough satellite imagery to see anything much.

We moved from there to Yahoo maps, where we determined how close the church and parsonage are to restaurants, bookstores, malls, Wal-Mart, banks, grocery stores, drug stores, and hospitals.

Then, we went to the Conference website, where we found the 2005 Conference Journal. From there, we were able to determine the number of church members, the change in size of the church last year, how many people go to Sunday school, how many people are members of United Methodist Women and United Methodist Youth Fellowship, how much of their apportionments they pay, how much the parsonage is worth, the value of the church building and property, and the amount of debt the church carries.

Then, Amanda showed how well she knows me - as we were going to bed, she went to This is Cable, which redirected her to another site where she determined that we could in fact get both cable and high speed internet at the parsonage.

This morning, we looked on e-Podunk (thank you Bart Styes), which provided us demographic information about the community and county such as ethnic origin, education level, marital status, industry, median income, median cost of housing, as well as a history of the community and a list of festivals that are important in the community, as well as historic sites and museums. We also got a link to the community newspaper.

It's amazing that in less than 4 hours, we found out all this information without leaving the couch or talking to anyone, either in person or on the phone. In some ways, it's kind of creepy, like spying on people, but it's also a little better than harassing the current pastor to find all this stuff out. We're so used to looking up information, we can't imagine not knowing at least some of this immediately.

I've been told that the next two rounds of appointments are in early April and late April. Sometime after the third round I might actually be able to tell people. And if the appointment changes in the next two rounds, we'll get to do this information investigation all over again. Joy.

I did my civic duty.

About a month ago, I got the wonderful piece of mail every American dreams of. No, not the Publisher's Clearing House sweepstakes entry form - jury summons.

There was a questionnaire to fill out and send back in to the court; I thought about checking the box that says I no longer live in DeKalb county and getting out of it. I didn't. Anyway, the paper had a tear-off part to keep, with instructions and a phone number to call the night before your date to find out if they actually need you to come. My number was 88. I called, and they were wanting numbers 1-91. So close.

So this morning I reported to the DeKalb county courthouse jury assembly room at about 8:00am for the 8:15 call time. I was amazed at the number of people who did not call last night to find out whether or not they needed to report. They made that trip only to be told they could leave immediately. I was also amazed at the number of people who were really late.

About 8:30, we started orientation. A judge came in to tell us how we were doing the highest civic duty. We watched a video about jury selection. They told us a few more things, including how often the cases settle before going to trial just because the jurors are waiting in the assembly room. I guess that the people are procrastinating, thinking the other side will back down, up until the last minute, and then decide they really don't want whatever they are asking for or trying to keep that badly.

They called out 15 names and said the rest of us were free to go, that the other cases had been settled. I left the courthouse about 9:30.

Not too bad for $15. I think I actually made more per hour with jury duty than I did working at the bank.

So that was my jury duty experience. Nothing exciting. I did get to wear a snazzy blue sticker that said "JUROR DeKalb County" on it. That's about all. Moral of the story: don't be afraid to do your civic duty. It's probably not as painful as you think.

hard out here for a pimp

ever since watching the oscars last night, neither Amanda nor I have been able to get this freakin' song out of our heads. since i've been sick and laying around the house today, it's been particularly annoying. anyway, it's gettin' easier and easier to be a pimp.

march on

So March is here, and my thesis is kind of done. I've sent it to Dr. Runyon and Dr. Erskine, and they'll email me in a week or two with suggestions. So that's kind of relieving, but still kind of stressful. Also waiting to find out how the appointment will go, and I have no idea about that.

In other news, not long until Amanda's birthday. Hopefully I'll find a present that is pleasing in her sight, an acceptable sacrifice, whatnot. I don't tend to thrive in gift-giving occasions. We did find out some good news last night - moving day is the Wednesday after our anniversary, which means that our anniversary will not be my first day serving as a pastor. So that was good news, means we might actually celebrate our anniversary rather than Amanda trying to keep me from burying my head in the sand.

Amanda's been getting all sorts of advice from preacher's wives in North Alabama, so that's been kind of fun. She sent an email to a clergy spouse listserv, and has gotten about 10 responses back.

That's about all for now, there's food to be et.

Peter

join the meredith grey haters club

Meredith Grey, of the TV show Grey's Anatomy, is so terrible it is beyond words. How can she be so bad to George? George is the best; she doesn't deserve him! I guess the only good thing that comes of her being so horrible to George is that now he can move on, that it looks like he'll get together with the nice new doctor, Callie Torres, and that he finally cut his hair!

Maybe I'll try to ignore Meredith and join the George fan club. Yea for T.R. Knight!

aaaaaaah, . . . pecan pralines

Our church, (Druid Hills United Methodist Church), is having fourth-Sunday-lunch tomorrow themed around New Orleans (Mardi Gras, remembering Katrina evacuees and issues). People are making all sorts of Cajun foods. I am making my usual corn casserole, but I also decided I would try a new recipe for pecan pralines, "tout de suite pecan pralines." Tout de suite means immediately for you non-frenchies out there. It is a microwave recipe from Lane, a fellow Candlerite of Peter's who is interning at our church. I've made Paula Deen pralines before, but I thought I should try these out for tomorrow. The recipe I made (I tripled it) had 6 cups of sugar in it. mmm good. It was very sticky, I made a huge mess, and licking the bowl and eating as many as I could talk myself into eating, I have such a sugar high. I almost can't type this! Wheeeee. I bet I'll be sick later. I wonder if it will be worth it. aaaaah, pralines. I miss New Orleans.

announcing pet peeves

Lacking Will Heath's idea of muting announcers during athletic events, I've decided to just enjoy making fun of the announcers that make stupid statements. From women's ice skating tonight, we got such gems as "that was a lady skating." Although that one was kind of funny, the highlight of the evening was the "I take this way more seriously than I should" comments by the announcers following Sasha Cohen's program. "Other skaters skate to Romeo and Juliet. Sasha Cohen is Juliet." I laughed at her "being Juliet." Amanda's response was "what, does she have a knife so she can stab herself in the chest?" She has since pointed out that, although it's a lame metaphor, it is an actual metaphor that makes some amount of sense, as opposed to the typical football announcer fare that makes absolutely no sense or is simply wrong.

In other news, Tom Long has the most amazing voice ever. We were sitting in class today, and the presenters had sections of class read different sections of the passage. Dr. Long was on the other side of the room from me, a row in front of me, talking along with 10 other people, and I still heard him distinctly from everyone else and extremely clearly. If you've never heard him talk, you probably think I'm just insane, but the dude has a phenomenal voice.

I had a conversation with Dr. Long last Thursday that helps me claim that I have more random conversations with people chosen as "The Most Effective Preachers in the English Speaking world" than anyone else. I've talked with Bishop Willimon about the whore of Babylon among other things in the past. Thursday, I had a conversation with Dr. Long about Desperate Housewives. In discussing one classmate's sermon, Dr. Long was talking about everyday applications of the concept. "How would this play out on main street, or wisteria lane?" Carolyn replied that "she didn't really know about Wisteria Lane, but I could fill him in." I knew I shouldn't have told her to come the time I preached a sermon using the Desperate Housewives as the primary examples. Now it comes back and bites me in the butt. So now I'm up to 1/6th of the people on this list. Now I'll just have to meet some more and see what random stuff I talk about with them.

uncertainty

I guess the theme for this semester is "uncertainty." We don't know where we'll be going, we don't know exactly what we'll be doing, and we don't know exactly how we're going to handle the transition to being the preacher and preacher's wife. I guess this sort of uncertainty is just part of the process of moving into the "adult world," but it's still kind of scary. From what I've heard, there'll be three "rounds of appointments" in mid-March, early April, and late April. In each of these, I'll get an idea as to one possibility of a place that I could go. It could be the same place through all three rounds, or it could be a different one all three times. I'm kind of looking forward just to get some idea, since then I'll at least have something to focus on. It's just kind of hard knowing that things are completely out of my hands.

What I should focus on is my thesis, which is due to Dr. Runyon and Dr. Erskine a week from today. I've currently got 37 pages, and it's got to be at least 50. I've got a lot of information, but I need to shape it into an actual argument. Hopefully, I'll be able to pull that off in time to not be too stressed out.

NASCAR: the grown up wrasslin'?

So, I watched the Daytona 500 today with Amanda and her parents. It's the first time I've watched a full NASCAR race, and I made a realization: Tony Stewart's a prick. I think NASCAR's trying to pull the same kind of bad guy / good guy stuff that pro wrestling pulls. Like the bad guy that's a complete jerk to everyone, yet gets all the benefits from the organization? That's pretty much Tony Stewart. Dude was clearly on a mission to screw over multiple people, which is bizarre since he won the points championship last year. There were something like 6 wrecks, and Tony Stewart was responsible for at least half of them. He took out Jeff Gordan pretty quickly, then he moved on to Matt Kenseth, then he ran someone else into the grass (I can't remember right now who). And yet, Kenseth got punished more for "not responding quickly enough" when NASCAR told him to calm down after he found out they were basically penalizing Stewart something like .5 a lap, whereas Kenseth had just been knocked out of contention for the day.

Anyway, that's my NASCAR theory - they're trying to become like pro wrestling. I didn't watch wrestling for long enough to be able to make a good analogy, but I think it's there. Anyone who has feel free to comment.

By the way, congrats to George O'Malley of Grey's Anatomy. He'll likely not end up with Meredith, but he got his groove on and said what he'd been trying to say forever. As someone who was always uncomfortable expressing myself to folks I had a crush on (or, rather, I never did until college), I'm happy for ole' George. Good for you.

hello february

Well, it's clearly been a while since I've posted last. Been going to class, trying to eat healthier and exercise more, and actually being somewhat prepared for school, which is kind of bizarre. Me doing reading is probably just compensating for not having done as much on my thesis as I should (since the whole thing's supposed to be ready to give to my advisor on March 1, and let's just say he'd get about 30 pages of random thoughts rather than 60 pages of sustained argument at the moment).

In other news, I got to vote for the first time at the Special Session of the Annual Conference, so that was kind of cool. I was glad that we shrunk the number of districts, since that seems like that'll be a good thing. It's been interesting to see things changing in the conference, and I'm sure that there'll be more changes as things progress. It was kind of funny when people kept getting up and asking about the composition of the "transition team" with questions like "do we have any young people?" "do we have any local pastors?" "do we have any ethnic people?" (to which I responded "I believe everybody up there has an ethnicity, even if it is mainly white). One of my ministerial role models proposed standing up and saying "do we have any gay people?" I would have paid good money to see the look on everyone's face if he'd done that.

I'm working on a letter to my D.S. to tell him about what sort of church I might like and how I'd describe myself as a future minister. It's kind of bizarre, since most of the time I have no clue what I'd like to do or where I'd be most called. I guess God'll be answering those kinds of questions in the coming months. I'm sure it'll be interesting.

starting again for the last time

It's kind of weird starting what's probably my last semester as a student. I had my first two classes today, one of them looks pretty neat and one will probably just be something to endure. I should be able to learn some ways to do baptism and preach in the practicum in liturgy class, so that'll be nice, but I'm not sure having that class for 3 hours while sitting in the chapel (whose seats aren't the best in the world) is going to make for an engaged Pedro. The early class, preaching the parables, should be pretty engaging though, Dr. Long is an excellent presenter so that keeps things interesting, even if it is at 9:30. I'll have Missions with Dr. Daniel tomorrow, and I've had him before, so that should be interesting.

Tomorrow I'll probably buy all my books, I'm thinking I can get them for under $400 this semester, but we'll see. You never can tell.

fun with factoids

I had a great time this evening edifying (read annoying) Peter with Alabama factoids. I found them on al.com (Click here for factoids).

Did you know that Alabama has a pledge of allegiance? and a state creed? a state shell, gemstone, insect and butterfly, on and on? I like Alabama history and knew our motto ("We dare defend our rights"), bird (Yellowhammer), flower, tree, fish, etc., but did not know the extent of the madness.

Our state creed reads like something from church.

"I believe in Alabama, a state dedicated to a faith in God and the enlightenment of mankind; to a democracy that safeguards the liberties of each citizen and to the conservation of her youth, her ideals, and her soil. I believe it is my duty to obey her laws, to respect her flag and to be alert to her needs and generous in my efforts to foster her advancement within the statehood of the world."

Really though, I think it is neat, and think that if more people read it and thought about it more often that it might help us to remember our call to be good citizens of the places we love.

Speaking of call, the message at our church this morning (Druid Hills UMC of Atlanta) was given by Myka Kennedy Stephans, a probationary deacon of the North Texas Conference who specializes in theological libriarianship. She talked about her call to ministry. (On a side note, does anyone else think as I do that January is always call to ministry month? I know the lectionary focuses on John and on Jesus's baptism, but I didn't realize that it continued on to the call of the disciples and the call of Samuel. I guess it is not a bad way to start the year, but for some reason I am tired of it.) Anyway, she mentioned her favorite creed is the United Church of Canada's creed. It is mine, too. We actually decided to start going to our current church in part because they use it there. (It made us feel more at home, butthat wasn't the only reason.) If you haven't used it in church and don't know about it, look it up next time you are bored in church. It is number 883 in the UM Hymnal.

"We are not alone. Thanks be to God. Amen."

slow down there

Well, I started earnest work on my thesis today. Sadly, I'm averaging about a page an hour at this point. Maybe it's because I do things like post on this blog . . .

Amanda's sick, which is never fun. We're just hoping that I don't get sick, since that usually involves a lot of grumpiness, which usually leads to me making Amanda feel bad, and that's just no fun.

Apparently, my wife and grandmother are not alone in their obsession with coke in glass bottles. Patsy Willimon agrees, which led to Bishop Willimon's analysis that "this is what's wrong with America, there are people who actually believe there's a difference between coke in glass bottles and coke in cans, as well as between coke with corn syrup and coke with pure sugar" (the coke in Panama is made with pure sugar rather than high fructose corn syrup). Another interesting coke note, during a certain Jewish holiday orthodox jews aren't allowed to have corn syrup, so Coke releases a yellow top coke which is made with sugar. Apparently, those who notice the difference between sugar-based and corn-syrup based cokes hoard the yellow-cap cokes. And that is your daily bit of random information.

more on Panama

We had a wonderful trip to Panama over New Year's week.
I got to see and touch the Pacific Ocean for the first time! We stopped for lunch at a beachside restaurant. It was very hot on the beach. The sun was brutal.

We are glad to be back in the U.S. where we can put toilet paper in the toilet instead of in a trash can next to the toilet. It's funny the things that are luxuries other places that you would never imagine. Running water to wash your hands was another from this trip. We used a lot of antibacterial wipes.

The trip was probably the most posh mission trip I've ever heard of, especially to a foreign country. We rode in a very nice, pretty new minibus that had air conditioning, and all the places we stayed (slept) had air conditioning and hot water showers. Yes, it was nicer than Camp Sumatanga (pool camp at least). These creature comforts did help us to rest better and hopefully work harder, but they left cold-natured me wishing I had brought more long-sleeved shirts and pants! I was prepared to be stifling in the heat and humidity! We were stifling at the community multi-use building where we worked painting.



It was not air conditioned (duh) and there was no running water. There were two toilets that were operational if you poured collected river water down the bowls. I installed new toilet seats on them.

The children of the community where the center is located are very sweet. They helped us paint some. I wish I had been able to speak to them more, but some of them spoke a language native to the Ngobe Indians and only knew Spanish from school, and I only knew a tad of Spanish.



Anyway, it was a great trip, we were so blessed to go and meet the people there, experience their culture and the ministry that is going on there. I hope we can go again sometime and visit the building that Peter helped build walls for in 1999 and we helped paint in 2005.

my appointment

We're back in Georgia after our week in Panama. We had a lot of fun, got to know some of my fellow pastors, and got to know Bishop Willimon and his wife a little better. We had a lot of interesting conversations and stories, which will likely be shared later, but for now I thought I'd just mention that I know what I'll be doing next year.

During a discussion about how lame and stupid Carson Daly is, the Bishop pointed out that "someone just needed to take him out" so we wouldn't have to endure his lameness. I pointed out that I would be coming up for an appointment this year, and that we could probably make a case that me taking out Carson Daly would serve the preaching of the gospel. The Bishop observed that going up to New York, into the "heart of darkness" as I called it, undertaking this mission had a "high risk of becoming a tool," but that since our vision statement is "taking risks and changing lives" I might have to take that risk. Anyway, rather amusing if I do say so myself.