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