Home. A good place to be. Got back from TX on Friday night and have only briefly left the house since. It was nice to not feel as though I had to get a lot done before my next trip. I've only been on two trips, but they've been stressful in the sense that a)I don't have Michelle (who is my favorite) with me; b)I've been in seminar/conference settings - long hours and information overload; c)On both trips, I shared hotel rooms with two other guys, which is fine, but no alone time wears on me; d)I lack any hint of routine that would help ground me. As I was sitting in the Denver airport on a two hour layover Friday, I looked around at all the business travelers who live life this way, I just shook my head in disbelief. Heck, I don't even have kids!

So now that I'm home, and have no plans for additional travel, I'm groovin' on figuring out which end is up. Maybe I can actually act on some of the information that's been pumped into my brain.

And then there's the future. Michelle and I have some interesting questions to consider in the weeks to come. Potentially life changers. And for all the family and friends who wish we'd finally get around to having children, no, that's not what I'm referring to. I'll talk about what it is, or isn't, in due time.

Uhhh, I'm in Texas. Sitting in the library computer lab for my denom's seminary. Huge huge campus with very stately buildings. Air conditioned inside. 97 degrees with like 180% humidity outside. This place scares me.

Just when I was beginning to settle in back at home, I'm going away again. I'm flying out this morning for a couple of days in Ft. Worth, Texas. It's been a long time since I spent any time in Texas (outside the walls of an airport, at least). No big deal, though, because my experience of that place is that things don't change very quickly. I'll be going to the Emerging Multihousing Church Conference. That's about all I know. Someone else is picking up the tab for me to go, so what the heck, right?

I'll blog on my return.
Peace

Whew! Back home for a few days. Vegas was good - but extremely tiring. In the four days, we spent about 35 hours in session. I'm almost recovered by now, but I had to get up at 4am to take a friend to the hospital for a surgery today, so catching up is a challenge.

O.k., so there was some very cool stuff about the seminar I attended. It is a new training thing (this was the third time it's been done) that will be done around the country by my denomination. Because I'm always a little wary of what the denom will come up with, I wasn't expecting to be impressed . . . but in a lot of ways, I'm happy to report that I was pleasantly surprised. Especially with the degree to which there is an embrace of house church expressions as legitimate, healthy, and even superior to the institutional model at times. None of what was shared was really new to me, but I've never seen the official voices of the denom say it. Even better, there were a good number of folks in the training that actually seemed to be embracing it.

I did see some of the ugly side of the denom, in the form of some anal retentive traditionalists who would rather gargle Liquid Drano than admit that their way isn't the only way. But for now, I choose to focus on the positive.

Here's a cool story about a God thing that happened while I was there: I went to dinner one night with a new friend, Chuck, who works with a bunch of churches in northern California. We went to a dinner buffet at one of the hotels on the strip - we had been dropped off by another friend, and had planned to walk back to our hotel after dinner (it was about two miles away). While in line to be seated at dinner, we started chatting with this guy in front of us. Turns out he's a lawyer from Italy, and he's cruising the U.S. with an unlimited use Greyhound bus pass. Right before he gets seated, this lady behind us, whispers "You guys should invite him to have dinner with you." Sounded good to us, so we sat down and had dinner with him. Sort of a Joan of Arcadia moment or something. Good times, though. We got to hear his perspective on American politics, the war, culture, and faith. We were able to share our simple approach to following Jesus too. The buffet wasn't bad either!

After dinner, Chuck and I cruised the strip a bit, watched the fountain show at Bellagio, and began walking back to our hotel. Except that we didn't know how to get there. We could see the hotel from where we were, but kept running into dead ends, railroad tracks, etc. We happened to get as far as the part of town where a bunch of strip clubs were. Taxi cabs kept pulling over and offering to give us free rides to the clubs - don't know if they some sort of kick backs for that or what. We had come to another dead end at an intersection, and must have looked very very lost or something, because this lady who was stopped at the traffic light rolled down her window and offered to give us a ride. We said no thanks, but asked for directions to the hotel. She said, "You can't get there from here. I've lived in this town for 47 years, and I can't find my way around this part of town. Why don't you just get in the car, and I'll take you back the only way I know how." So, we did. As we're driving, she started telling us that she always gets lost in that part of town. So I asked her why she was driving there at 10pm. She said that she had been looking for her son, and had just found him at a crack house. Ouch. He's been in and out of rehab a bunch of times, and this time, he's not welcome back home. Again, ouch. She was pretty upset, and by the time we reached the parking lot of our hotel, it was pretty clear to Chuck and I that this wasn't just a coincidental meeting. So we prayed with her, offered whatever little help and encouragement we could, and just let her vent. As we were getting out of the car, she reached into her glove compartment and pulled out a free dinner buffet coupon to the Rio, and offered it to us as a little thank you. I just smiled, and told her that she should use it herself, and while she was there, look up a guy I know - Joe Boyd - who's an actor in a show at the Rio, and happens to pastor some house churches in Las Vegas. I don't know if she did or will, but how weird is that? At the very least, I'm grateful that we were able to offer some encouragement and hope at a really tough time.

Two days later I got to offer encouragement to another lady. I was sitting in the hotel lobby reading, and she hobbled in and plopped down on the sofa next to the chair I was in. I looked up to give her a friendly smile, and immediately noticed that she was wearing a hospital gown. She said, "I just got shot." Uhhhhhh, come again? Night club shooting. Innocent bystander. Her cousin had been shot five times. So I prayed for her, and tried to help her get to her room.

I almost started getting paranoid about who I might meet next.

Yeah, so I only made it about six hours after dropping Michelle off at the airport before having to call the fire department. Me and the pup nearly stepped on this guy accidentally in our garage yesterday. Pretty scary - I have an intense hatred of snakes. I've caught a rattlesnake before, but I had help. This time I was alone and it had slithered under some shelves, and I didn't want to risk it. After the fire fighters successfully decapitated it, I measured it at 30", not including the rattles (7 of 'em). Ahhh, the feel of adrenaline.

Busy days around here. I'm putting Michelle on a plane for Portland, OR this afternoon - she's judging some equestrian rating thingy. She gets home late Sunday night, and I'm splitting for Vegas early Monday morning. I'll be going to a Church Planting Movements seminar all next week. Should be interesting - exploring the possibilities of using some of lessons learned overseas to North American culture. Jeez, I thought we westerners were the ones with all the answers, and now I'm finding out that God loves non-white, non-republican, non-men, non-hierarchical church types too. Mind blowing, really. (Just in case I ever run for public office and these words get used against me, let me clarify that this last statement is purely satirical and I am not in favor of white, republican, male, hierarchical church types).

I'll get back late Friday night. So, as if my blog posts had been very regular anyway, I'm guessing I won't have a chance to be near a computer for several days.

Then the next week it looks like I'm going to another training event in Ft. Worth, TX. Uh, yee-hah I guess.

Later

I just got home from helping Jason and Brooke move in to their new home in San Diego. What a completely rad house! I know Brooke is gonna go crazy with her decorating genius . . . and Jason will get a workout using some power tools. Even if they didn't do anything to the place, it's very very cool - lots of character. Great little neighborhood too, right in the heart of San Diego.

On my way there, I stopped in at the only Christian book store in San Diego worth going to. It's old, has ugly carpet, and minimal Jesus junk. I was very pleased to see a sign inside directing me to their "Bargain Basement." Here's what I bought:

The Politics of Jesus, by John Howard Yoder
Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony, by Stanley Hauwerwas and William Willimon
Unleashing the Scripture: Freeing the Bible from Captivity to America, by Stanley Hauerwas

And for these three books, my combined total including tax was $8.34. Stoked!

O.k., so I'm a few years behind the curve in getting to this, but The Continuing Conversion of the Church by Darrell Guder is a new favorite book for me. It's right up there with Missional Church by Guder and company, but this one is more oriented toward laying a theological base for the pragmatic suggestions.

Guder talks in detail about reductionism and the gospel. Some "reduction" is necessary when we take the gospel into a new culture or relationship - in other words, we have to translate our experience and understanding of the gospel into language, thus reducing it. The problem comes when we apply our own agenda to the reduction, and turn it into a thing of its own - what Guder calls "reductionism." We will always run the risk of, and be guilty of this, and will thus forever be in need of a continuing conversion to the gospel. Mmmmm, that's good. Can't wait to finish it.

I checked this book out from the library, but now I'm gonna have to buy it - I need to be able to read this multiple times, scribble in it and thrash it without feeling guilty.

Various random thoughts . . .

Study, study, study. In addition to the bag o' books I checked out from the local seminary library last week, I'm studying in preparation for a training thing I'm doing in a couple of weeks. It's pretty interesting info and quite possibly exciting, in terms of the possibilities it might represent in North America. I'll talk more about it if it stimulates more thought in a missional direction. Oh, by the way . . . the training is in Las Vegas. Ugh - today's weather predicts a high of 102 (F). That's some serious sweatin' . . . for five days.

I'm having some conversations with local folks in the church planting department that are equally exciting and frightening. I may be meeting with some more folks that do a cool church - that's cool in terms of music, lighting, yada yada yada. This is a different cool church than the one I talked about last week. If I do meet with them, I'm hoping to challenge some of the assumptions they're making - hopefully in an encouraging sort of way. We'll see. I'm not holding my breath.

On another note, I was asked the other night about the deconstruction process I've gone through over the past couple of years. I was asked what it has produced in me, and whether I've been able to hold on to anything of my former way of faith - like, is there anything that I can absolutely say that I hold to unswervingly anymore. Good questions. My answer was that I'm confident in the presence of a God of love, who desires for his Kingdom to reign in the hearts of the people he created. This kingdom is available and close at hand, and I want to announce that to the world. My deconstruction has given me a lot of heartache, but a lot of freedom. I wouldn't go back for anything - even though I used to think I had a pretty good thing going.

Creativity. Work . . . but worth it.