In an attempt to be more reflective and transparent, I’m resurrecting this blog. Plus, it’s just a great way to share fun stuff that I stumble upon while surfing the web. To kick things off I thought it would be appropriate to give a quick update in regards to what’s been going on in my life. I’m not about to go all the way back to 2008 so I’ll just give y’all a recap of this summer. And just to preface: Read this particular post as a series of scratches on the proverbial surface that makes up my summer. These bullet points will serve as sneak peaks at my next few posts. In other words, the details are coming soon!
- One of my Bible study groups has been going through Alan and Debra Hirsch’s book titled “Untamed: Reactivating a Missional Form of Discipleship“. To summarize I’ll say this: WOW. What a great read this book has been. I’ve spent a great deal of time reflecting on anything and everything that has to do with the church (i.e. What is the church? What models of church are the most successful? How should we even define “success” within the church? Etc…) and a great deal of these reflections have been stimulated by Alan and Debra’s reflections. I’ll most definitely take another post to share more of my thoughts in detail concerning the church and everything related.
- While I’m on the topic of church I’ll say this: thank God for community. This summer has been a breath of fresh air in this respect. To update briefly, I’m still attending Mountain View on Sunday mornings when I’m around. On top of that I’m attending house churches on Sunday nights and Thursday nights. I’m new to the whole house church thing but so far I’m loving it. Pardon the cliché but less really is more. The small group atmosphere that the house church fosters seems to breed honesty, openness, and transparency. Both of the house churches that I’ve been involved in this summer have been committed to living out 1 John 1:5-10.
- On that note, I’m making 1 John 1:5-10 my theme verse for this upcoming school year. I leave in just under two weeks to head back up to Columbia Bible College for another year of studies. I’m going to be a Resident Leader again which essentially consists of building relationships with the 11 guys in dorms that God places under my care, facilitating spiritual growth to the best of my ability, and just keeping things under control in the dorms. I was an RL last year and I learned quite a bit and I look forward to taking another crack at it this year.
- Politically, I’ve been on quite the journey this summer. When the 4th of July rolled around the American flags went up and patriotism was bubbling forth everywhere I looked. I confess that I felt a little uneasy about it all. Some of you know what my political journey has looked like over the course of most of my adult life (for those of you who don’t I will be taking you through it all in another post) but to summarize, due to where I’ve come from I am what you might call hypersensitive to hyper-patriotism. Anywho, my uneasiness led to yet another paradigm shift concerning my political views. To sum up where I’ve landed I’ll say this: Jesus is King. Of course, I’ll be teasing that out in another post.
- Nothing has changed this summer concerning my man crush on N.T. Wright. I finished “The Resurrection of the Son of God” at the beginning of the summer which I can honestly say has changed my life. His work on the resurrection has changed the way I view the world. On top of that I am almost finished with his book entitled “What Saint Paul Really Said” which is essentially a summary of what many are calling “The New Perspective on Paul“. Without going too in depth I’ll say that despite the recent criticisms of Wright from those who belong to the Reformed circle, his work must be taken seriously due to his commitment to being faithful to the Scriptures. I love that Wright’s aim is not to view Scripture through the lens of Luther and Calvin (which is, in my opinion, the aim of Reformed theology) but instead, to “think Paul’s thoughts after him.” I’ll leave it at that for now.
Anywho, every one of these bullets are begging to be teased out but, like I said earlier, the deets are coming! Until then I’ll conclude by saying that this summer has been great in regards to learning what it means to be more in love with Jesus. It’s my prayer that every season of my life leads to growth in that respect.
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