What Caleb wants me to pray for

Every night when I tuck Caleb into bed, I pray for him. Recently, I've begun asking him what he wants me to pray for. His standard response has been "All of the things"

When I asked him last night what he would like me to pray for, he said, "Daddy, you need to pray for all of things all of the time. Can you remember that?"

Another good blog to read

For those who read the odd blog here and there, I want to call your attention to another one. It's at rub-a-dub.blogspot.com.

My friend Matt writes it and it is largely spiritual mixed with home doings and the odd orgasmic response to good food. He writes from an Eastern Orthodox perspective, which I find highly interesting and highly parochial. Yet EAstern Orthodox theology and practice challenges me and helps me to keep asking the question of how to effectively worship God and minister to those He has given me. I may find Matt controversial at times (at least in terms of Protesant theology) but never boring.

So Matt (yes, this is for you). Iv'e got 2 pop music cds you need to check out, both by Bruce Springsteen. The first is with The Seeger Sessions Band and is a collection of old Pete Seeger songs (as opposed to all his new material). It's Dixieland folk music. The second one is the new Springsteen cd called "Magic". Just listen and enjoy.

Got a job!!!

Yes,I am no longer in the ranks of the unemployed. No longer a burden to society. And boy, did it happen fast!!

I got a call about noon yesterday from kaiperm Federal Credit Union. They are the credit union for Kaiser Permanente. They are getting more into the auto finance world and were looking for an area rep. They wanted to interview me at 3:30 and they told me I had teh job at the end of the interview. It's not 100% official yet, because I still have to pass the background check and receive the actual offer, but this sounds like a great opportunity.

So give praise and glory to God for what He has done. Today is the last day of my severance package from the bank. I start at Kaiperm on Wednesday. That means that I will be officially unemployed for only 1 day, that being New Year's Eve.

Seismic prayer shift

It started a couple of weeks ago with a many named Jeremy who is in my small group Bible study. He was concerned about some financial blessings that he was sure God would bring to him but hadn't yet. He was unsure whether he should thank God in prayer for what he was convinced God would give him or continue to pray that God would give it to him. His concern was whether, if he prayed that God would give it to him, that he wuld be showing a lack of faith instead of simply being in thanks for God's provision.

After a long discussion, we came to the con clusion that we need to do both. We need to thank God for the way that He is providing for us, and yet atthe same time, pray that He would continue to provide for us.

Upon a couple days reflection and prayer, I realized that this situation also pertained to me in being unemployed. I've spent so much time praying that God would provide me with a job that I had forgotten to thank Him for the way that He had already been providing for me. He has given us a good severance package. He has given us unemployment money. He has given Christa work during the week to help out. He has given us good financial skillsl in order to deal with this. He has also given me a unique opportunity to be with my kids in a way that would be impossible elsewhere.

So my prayer has undergone a seismic shift. I no longer simply pray for a job. I give constant thanks for what God is already doing in out lives and I pray for the faith and trust to continue to look to Hm in the future.

Why the ants would survive a nuclear war

We've been having a b it of an ant problem lately but I think I am winning. I'm killing more of them then they are of us.

Yesterday I found some ants crawling around in the microwave when I needed to use it. But instead of leaning out the ants, I just warmed up the food that I needed to in there. When I opened up the microwave to take out the food, the ants were still crawling around. The microwave did not affect them at all

Being totally blessed

We have been adopted by a family ( actually a collection of families who are all related) this year for Christmas. The other day, they brought over some Christmas presents totaling about $500! Included in this were diapers, formula and baby wipes for Regan, clothes for Christa (she needs them for her job), a gift or two for Caleb, something for me (not opened yet), $100 gift card from Macy's and $225 in cash.

We have been blessed beyond belief in this season of being unemployed. Not only are we extremely grateful for this, but it has made Christa and I think about how we might respond. We've decided that, starting next year (assuming I'm employed by then!) that we are going to adopt a family at church also and do the same for them. We want to bless a family that is down on it's luck and help them. Ideally, we'd like to do this with a series of families so that we can really bless someone.

Tonight's menu

It's Friday, the night where if I'm reaaly going to cook, this is the night.

We are having grilled buttermilk chicken with herbs. Christa made this a couple of weeks ago when she went to a Simple Chef night that the church's women's ministry put on. I'm also making mashed potatoes with goat cheese and carrots that are sauteed with a balsamic glaze.

Since it is Friday, it is also Martini Night.

Blessings from others

Being unemployed this Christmas season has been on opportunity for us to be blessed by others. One family at church gave us a $200 gift card for Lucky's. Another family iscdropping off some Christmas gifts tonight including such necessities as diapers and baby formula. Neither one of these family are particularly close to us.

Christa has been a little reluctant to accept sopme of these gifts, but I think we need to be open to the way that God is going to bless us in the midst of everything going on. I am also firmly resolved to do the same to others as soon as I get a job. I want to provide food and monetary assistance to a family in our church who is going through what we are going through.

College group

At Bay Hills, we are beginning to have a college ministry. A man I know at church named Alex has been halping out to get this thing going and he just told me today that he is not going to be able to do it. He is also involved with our high school ministry and told me that high school is where his true heart for ministry is and he can't do both. So it looks like I might be taking that over, at least on an interim basis. Whenever we hire a new youth pastor, this will be his ministry. But even if we were to hire someone today, it would be 3-4 months before he would be able to dig into the college ministry. First he will have to get the high school and jr high ministries running full steam ahead.

Right now there are 5 people in this college group. 2 guys named Joseph and Nikita, a girl named Amanda and 2 other girls whose names I don't know. Alex and I will be getting together Friday morning to talk about this ministry. Right now there is a strong emphasis on relational ministry, which I want to keep. Teaching needs to be important also but I think we will just tell stories...probably Abraham stories, since that is where my heart has been for the last year and a half or so

Caleb's theology takes a hit

Caleb's favorite game to play is Candyland. Sometimes we play it a half dozen times per day. For some reason, he wins 2/3 of the time...and I don't let him win. For those who are not familiar with Candyland, you draw cards with different colors on them an go through a maze to get to the end and win. But there are some wild cards which, if drawn, send you to a different part of the board, sometimes forward and sometimes backward. The 2 worst cards to get, especially if you are near the end, are the gingerbread man and the peanut.

When we were playing the other day, I was getting close to winning when Caleb closed his eyes and prayed, saying, "Dear God, please let daddy get the peanut" (He prays this somewhat regularly during the game). The next card he drew was the peanut, sending him almost back to the beginning. He then closed his eyes again and said, "No, God, not me...it was for daddy!"

Franz Kafka

'If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a first hammering on our skull, why then do we read it? So that it shall make us happy? Good God, we would also be happy if we had no books, and such books as make us happy we could, if need be, write ourselves. But what we must have are those books which come upon us like ill-fortune, and distress us deeply, like the death of one e love better than ourselves, like suicide. A book must be an ice axe to break the sea frozen within us.

Franz Kafka

A nice bruise on the side of my face

Caleb and I were playing some type of hide-and-seek/scare the kid game yesterday afternoon. He was in the bathroom and I was on the far side of the door. When he opened the door just a little bit, I said "BOO!" He then swung the door totally open and caught me on the left side of the face right near the eye. Hurt like a mother. Now I've got a nice scratch and bruise there. I'm waiting for people to ask who hit me

Job update

Right now I've got three things working as far as a job goes...one with a bank and two with churches.

The one with a bank is with The Mechanics Bank. It's a Sales Manager position on the corporate banking side. I'm the only internal candidate that they are interviewing, although they are looking at a couple of external candidates. I've got a good feeling about this, not only because I'm the only internal candidate but the fact that years of service with the bank and the fact that I marketed auto dealers is a big plus for me.

The first church job is in Walla Walla. This seems like a good fit as far as ministry description, theological outlook and ministry style. I've had a couple of interviews with them and am waiting to hear back about whether we will be making a trip to Washington to candidate for the position.

The other church is closer, in Chowchilla. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go out there and candidate after New Year's. I've been as much as told that. I could almost commute there...not every day, though...until we sell the house. Beautiful church, growing community and reasonable home prices.

Working the angles

I'm reading Eugene Peterson's book "Working The Angles" for the first time in several years, but it is feeling as if it is the first time. This book is quickly becoming formative for how I do and see ministry.

A pastor does 3 main things which are visible to the congregation. These are preaching, teaching and administration (running the church). This is what the church sees week in and week out. If ministry were to be seen as a triangle, these are the three lines.

But what gives the lines their peculiar shape? How do these 3 lines go from being just simply three visible lines to being a triangle? It is all in the angles. A triangle without angles is nothing but a cuple of lines. There is something else at work to give shape to these visible lines.

Peterson says the three angles which give shape to pastoral ministry are prayer, Scripture study and spiritual direction. These are the things which a pastor does but which are generally invisible to the congregation. We do not often see the pastor at prayer, studying Scripture or giving spieitual direction to anyone (usually done on an individual basis but can be in a small group as well). Without these three essentials, the triangle of ministry simply consists of 3 unconnnected lines.

These are the three areas in my ministry that I will be working on in the near future. I work on these three angles to an extent, but not to the level that I need to. Without these as being essentialo in my ministry, it too will just drift into inconsequential lines, unconnected to much anything else. These are the angles to work on