Married Life

Last night, I spent my first night away from the love of my life in more than 5 weeks. Katie was invited to go on an overnight residence life retreat yesterday and this morning. However, when I woke up yesterday, I found the following wonderful reminder in our newly painted bathroom cabinet:

In five and a half weeks (and months, years, and hopefully decades), I hope to return that love in as many ways as I can.

Mockery Monday

Are you having a bad start to the week? Well, just think, you could be one of these three lucky people.

Check out this travesty from American Apparel Store.

The chest hair totally makes the shirt.

Do you have anything this atrocious in your closet?

Is it possible to have anything this atrocious in your closet?

Look Ma, no hands!

From tonight's talent show at Highland

This is Calvin, our life group leader, and in his mouth is a harmonica. (You'll have to trust me, none of my pictures turned out that great.) He's playing Battle Hymn of the Republic, and his hands stay in the same position throughout the song.

What kinds of strange talents do you have?

By the way, I'm back on blog land--and hopefully for good. I'll write more about this tomorrow night.

Birthday Wishes

In a day where my brain got destroyed by positive and negative feedback loops and my Huskers got destroyed by the pretentious Trojans of SC, a very special someone had a very special day.



Happy birthday, my love!

Though it seems like we've been apart for quite a few of these special days (for example, we've only shared one Valentine's Day together in the four years we've dated), the day is coming where we'll be together forever and celebrate the good times, mourn and struggle through the difficult times, and live faithfully through the mundane times.

So though we're worlds apart, my love, please know that you have a very special place in my heart.

Forever.

Happy birthday!

Kisses from Third Graders

So Monday morning, I came into my office at Highland and was greeted by the following:



As Suzetta--the children's minister at Highland--explained to me, on Sunday morning during Sunday school, the third graders did different service projects throughout the building. Some of them cleaned up the auditorium; others cleaned the windshields of cars in the parking lot.

Each third grader also decorated a paper sack and put candy in them and distributed them to each person on the ministry staff. Each person got two sacks, but evidently, a couple of people didn't like candy, so they put it on my desk (ironically, I'm not a big fan of candy myself, but I got a bunch of kisses from third graders, so I'm not complaining.)



One of my favorite things about working at Highland is how supportive the church is. Every Sunday that I lead, I always have a few people expressing their appreciation for what I do (or what God does through me). This week, that encouragement came from a contingency of 8-year olds.

Church with Steven Moore

Okay, I think I'm for real this time. I've decided (more or less intentionally) to take a break from blogging for almost two months. In the past, my sporadic blogging has been due to laziness and inconsistency, but (although both of those contributed a bit to this blogging break) there were other reasons that I don't necessarily want to get into that I took this most recent break. (The main reason the last month has happened is because we haven't had the internet at my new apartment. That changed as of Friday.)

So enough with excuses, and on to the continuation of singingjeremiah.blogspot.com

For the first time in I can't remember how long, I didn't show up to church until 10:55 yesterday. Friday and Saturday have been really busy at work (which doubles as church)--I worked 15 hours those two days alone--so I felt like sleeping in a bit was appropriate and justifiable.

I got out of my car, and I heard someone honk their horn at me. I turned around, and it was my good friend Steven Moore. Steven is an English professor at ACU who has a heart for social and racial justice--he just finished his dissertation at my beloved University of Nebraska on "Black Rage" (I've also had the opportunity to lead a forum at Lectureship two years ago with him concerning the movie "Crash" and its racial implications)--a heart for education, and a heart for serving and worshipping the Lord. Steven is also certifiably out of control.

So we talked from the parking lot all the way into the building about things like the transition out of undergraduate and into graduate studies and George Pendergrass leading chapel on Friday. (The two are connected because as a graduate student, I no longer receive emails from campus life telling me what's going on on campus; for example, who's leading praise Friday at chapel. That makes me really sad.) I thought it would be really neat to sit by him at church, just to mix things up again, so I followed him across the back of the auditorium (we were intercepted by our friend Lorin, who asked us to serve communion), where he met two of his students--David and Christina.

The five of us (Christina brought her 7 year old nephew Anthony) sat on the back pew in the back right section of the auditorium.

Generally, this would drive me crazy. Because of our sub-standard sound and lighting system (among other things), Highland is a completely different church in the back half of the auditorium. It's really easy to get disengaged.

The first half of the service was pretty normal, but during the second half of worship, I got to see how Steven Moore does church. It's very different from the way that I (and I would assume most people at Highland) do church. But there was something so rewarding and fulfilling about watching these differences.

It started when we served communion together. I'm going to do my best to avoid a soapbox of how frustrated I am about the current state of communion in corporate worship--I can devote an entire separate blog entry to that. Steven and I were on joining aisles (we basically passed the trays down the row to each other). One of the things that Calvin, our lifeteam leader, focuses on, and tries to get us to focus on when we share the Lord's supper is communicating with each other--whether that takes the form of eye contact and a smile or actually saying "This is the body of Christ, broken for you."

Steven took that idea to the next level. As he passed the trays, he shook hands with and hugged people at the end of the aisle. On the way back to our seat, another gentleman stood up and gave him a hug, and they chatted with each other for a few minutes while Mike was beginning his sermon.

Mike was on fire yesterday at church, especially during the beginning of his sermon. He started passionately talking about the difference between religion (in this context, following laws) and Jesus (and the love and grace that he continually reveals to sinners)--a theme that has infiltrated several of his recent sermons. But I haven't heard Mike speak this passionately in awhile; after he got through with a good point, Steven and I applauded his thoughts amongst ourselves, but at the same time, were frustrated at the overall response of the congregation. (Part of this was the fact that we were sitting in the back corner, somewhat isolated from the rest of the congregation.)

At the same time, while Mike was preaching, Steven would take a minute or two to talk with David, Christina and Anthony, laughing amongst themselves. Usually, something like this would seem disrespectful and bother me--perhaps it was a bit disrespectful. But even then, he was getting joining in community with these students.

I guess a blunt version of the question I'm trying to pose is: Why are we so stiff when we worship with the body? Why and how have we established this idea that we are supposed to be absolutely quiet and reserved at church? Again, I know that part of this is a respect thing--respectfully listening to people that have spent hours of preparation in to presenting a word from God (whether that be singing, praying, or preaching). I'm not suggesting total chaos, where we can say whatever we want to whomever we want whenever we want to. But I'm extremely frustrated with the model that requires me to sit still in my seat, not turn around and interact with the people beside or behind me (unless the worship leader does a "Greet someone around you" type thing at the beginning of church), and be quiet, knowing that I'm going to get weird looks if I start clapping my hands in agreeance with something Mike says.

I suppose a better question is: Where is the medium between these two ends of the spectrum?

I'm interested to hear your thoughts.

(I'm also interested to see who still reads this thing.)

Engagement Photos

Well, engagement photo. There's more to come.

Katie and I spent this evening with our friends Mark and Debbie. Debbie owns a company called Pure Photography--check out her blog. She did some fantastic Sing Song pictures, even though she was about 250 feet away from the stage, and we really wanted her to do our wedding photos (not only is she our friend, but she's one of the best photographers in Abilene, if not the best), but she decided to take a break from doing wedding photos, so we begged her to do our engagement shots, and she said that she'd love to.

Debbie and Mark are such a sweet couple--they were routinely making comments about how romantic me and Katie are. They're always incredibly encouraging to the two of us at Highland whenever we see them as well.

This is the part of the wedding planning that's a lot of fun, inviting our friends to join us on this journey by sharing their gifts with us.

Again, more engagement photos to come.

Job Meets Highland

One of the new responsibilities I've gotten at Highland is leading worship on Wednesday nights. I started last week, and will continue to lead worship on Wednesday nights through the school year.

Tonight, my friend Will (who is also Mike's graduate assistant) spoke at Highland. I met with him Monday afternoon at the "Starbucks" at ACU to plan tonight's worship. He came into our meeting on the verge of tears after traveling all weekend to visit his grandpa, who was hospitalized after quadruple-bypass surgery. In spite of his pain, he kept the meeting as professional as possible, focusing on the community meeting Wednesday night and not on his own pain.

He told me that he wanted to speak from Job, concentrating that in this world of evil and suffering (such as the one that Job encounters), it's difficult to keep our hope, especially in the mundaneness of our daily lives, but Job manages to say in chapter 19, "I know that my redeemer lives". I had two immediate thoughts:

1) Mike often says that it's funny that a lot of times he doesn't choose the texts but the texts choose him. Case in point.

2) The book of Job? Oh crap.

As a worship leader, I feel most comfortable when I'm singing about the power and glory of God as we can see it. Songs like "Shout Hallelujah" and "Great in Power" and "Shout to the Lord" are easy for me to lead because of their joyousness and excitement. God wants us to worship Him with a full gambit of emotions, but I often want to make that my little secret and just worship Him by celebrating.

But the book of Job makes us ask difficult questions. It makes us doubt. It makes us worry. It makes us angry, as we ask questions like, "God, where are you? Has your mercy left us forever?. Job is a very important book, but in my evangelical "Rise and shine and give God the glory glory" upbringing, it's very uncomfortable. Especially for me. I've never had a life-threatening disease or injury. I've never experienced the grief that comes from the loss of a parent or someone (or something) dear to me. To be honest, compared to a lot of people, I've lived a pretty easy, stress-free life. I don't know what it's like to suffer like Job did.

I'm not gonna lie, tonight was really difficult for me. It was important, as we strive for a more ecumenical view of the qualities of our relationship with God (i.e. the emotions that we can appropriately show Him--Job says some pretty crass stuff to God, so do the psalmists). My biggest fear coming into tonight was that I'd say something ignorant or trite about suffering, or sugar-coat the hopeful vision that Will drew out of the book of Job. But then I thought about the prayers that I've prayed for change in my life that aren't being answered in the ways that I want them to be. I thought about the people that I'd hurt recently, and, although I generally don't have this problem, it was difficult for me to truly sing "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness". I realized how inadequate I was to lead this service. It was kinda a downer.

It helped a little bit to see David, a four-month old friend of mine. (David is in our lifeteam--his mom is Jennifer and his dad, John, is serving in the Middle East right now.) After service, about 8 people were gathered around his stroller, including Jennifer, her sister-in-law, and several men from the life group. David's getting to the age where he recognizes friendly faces and smiles at them, so he looked at Calvin and smiled, then his eyes darted to me, and once he recognized that I held him for 20 minutes and let him suck on my finger on Sunday, he smiled, then his eyes darted to Monty, and he smiled.

Calvin said, "You know, I think the first thing we'll hear when we get to heaven is a baby laughing." Monty agreed and added, "The great thing about babies is that they don't differentiate with skin color or language, they just smile at you."

Will was absolutely right tonight. God doesn't give you all the answers, but He provides little glimmers of hope, such as a baby's smile, to guide you and comfort you along the way.

Time & Church

"Time is wasting, time is walking, you ain't no friend of mine..."--Darius Rucker (aka Hootie)

For those of you that know me, this is going to seem like an unusual, somewhat paradoxical post. For those of you that don't know me as well, I am a time freak. I always have a clock running in my mind, making sure that I'm at least three minutes early to whatever appointment that I have. My iCalendar is up-to-date, complete with where I need to be at what time. A big reason that I quit Cracker Barrel a few weeks ago is because of time--and the CB managers' lack of concern for my time (I didn't know whether I was working on Saturday or not until Thursday--two days before. They didn't respect the fact that I need to spend time at my other and more important job as worship intern at Highland and scheduled me for days that I asked off for. Etc.) I try to respect other people's time as well (sometimes to the detriment of making relationships with them), making sure that meetings and conversations end in an appropriate time. Time is a big part of my life.

Except when it comes to leading worship.

A few weeks ago, several people at our worship committee meetings at Highland brought up the issue of the time (duration) of our worship services. The reasoning behind this is fair--there had been several services to begin the summer that lasted only a little over an hour (our "official" worship time is 9-10:15 in ths summers), meaning that classes were extended. One of the members of worship committee is a mother of three children and said that it's not fair for teachers of children's classes (or really any classes) to have congregating time after worship taken away because they have to receive children that other parents drop off. Classes end at 11:30, and a lot of time, teachers are left with 15 minutes of dead time, time that they didn't plan activities for. (Mike believes that we should have classes first and then worship during the summer--I'm in that contingenet as well--but the elders voted against that idea.)

I led worship yesterday at Highland, and we didn't plan a whole lot for worship compared to other Sundays. So Gina, my boss, frantically asked those that were leading communion and that had special announcements to extend their thoughts as they could in order to extend time. Friday, she left me a message asking me to think of a few songs to add to the end of service (which was fine, I'm always down for more singing). Sunday morning, before our praise team practice, she told me to keep my eye on the time, that if we looked like we were going to get out at 10:15 without our Friday additions, that I didn't have to do them. That drove me absolutely nuts. Although I'm usually an obsessive watch (or in my case, cell phone) checker, I didn't check the time once during service and went about with the Friday additions. Service ended at 10:13.

This blog is not me lashing out specifically at Gina or at the Highland church, but at the broader spectrum of white American evangelical churches, because just about every church that I've qualified that I've either directly or indirectly witnessed fits into this category. I'm glad that our culture is so time-conscious--it promotes effectiveness and productivity--but I have a problem when it comes at the expense of worshiping or Maker. People get restless when "long-winded" preachers speak longer than their 15 minute slot in the order of worship--after all, every minute past the time we're supposed to be dismissed is an extra minute waiting in line at Sunday lunch. Or, the flip-side, we end up just plugging songs and prayers into our service to fill a set amount of time, whether that be an extra five minutes or an entire discontinuous service.

The extreme of this gets represented daily at ACU chapel. Every day in Moody, at about 11:28, about 50 people decide that they've had enough of chapel--a time set apart for a communal experience with God (realistically speaking, the mission of chapel doesn't always get played out, I know)--and carelessly walk down the stairs and out of Moody Coliseum, paying no respect to whomever is speaking or praying, but more importantly, disrespecting their Creator.

The language that we use perpetuates this problem as well. Spending time with God often involves taking a 30-minute chunk of time out of our day and praying or reading Scripture, and that's great, but in the Old Testament, when David and Moses spent time with the Lord, I have a feeling that it was more of a constant state of being rather than a specific amount of minutes in a day.

So I guess the question that I'm posing is: "What will it take for churches to be less concerned about confining our worship experiences by time?"

I long for the day when our churches can worship God and be through when we're through, not when it's 10:15.

Plan B

A few weeks ago, after a Wednesday night Bible class, I was talking with my friend Jackie, who's also the director of the Marriage and Family Therapy program that I'm entering at the end of August. She asked if I was ready for the program to start, and I told her, "Yah", and that I was beginning to read some of the books required for the program. Jackie's response surprised me:

"I don't suggest that you do that. None of it will make sense to you yet. And, you'll forget what you read by the time you cover it."

So I took Jackie's advice. I still want to read this summer, but it's good to know that I have a few weeks to read whatever I want. For example, I finished Harry Potter 6 a few weeks ago, a book that I started over Spring Break but never got around to finishing. Two weeks ago, I borrowed "Plan B" by Anne Lamott, author of Traveling Mercies (actually, the "sequel" to Traveling Mercies, which I read and enjoyed) and Bird by Bird (which is Katie's favorite Anne Lamott book). As I read, I marked quotes that stuck out to me for one reason or another and copied them into a Pages document.

So I present to you: Wisdom from Anne Lamott:

“When God is going to do something wonderful, He always starts with a hardship; when God is going to do something amazing, He starts with an impossibility.”

“Laughter is carbonated holiness.”

“Unconditional love is a reality, but with a shelf life of about eight to ten seconds. Instead of beating yourself up because you feel it only fleetingly, you should savor those moments when they appear.”

“Only God can put Scripture inside. But reading sacred text can put it on your hearts, and then when your hearts break, the holy words will fall inside."

“Augustine said that you have to start your relationship with God over every day. Yesterday’s faith doesn’t wait for you like your dog with your morning slippers and the paper in its mouth. You seek it, and in seeking it, you find it.”

“The thing about Easter is that Jesus comes back from the dead both resurrected and broken, with the wounds from the nails still visible...He had lived, He had died; and then you could touch Him, and He could eat; and these four things are as bodily as life gets.”

Even though Anne Lamott isn't married, she had some incredible thoughts on weddings and marriage that made me smile as well.

“The thing about Easter is that Jesus comes back from the dead both resurrected and broken, with the wounds from the nails still visible...He had lived, He had died; and then you could touch Him, and He could eat; and these four things are as bodily as life gets.”

“That’s what’s so touching about weddings: Two people fall in love, and decide to see if their love will stand up over time, if there might be enough grace and forgiveness and memory lapses to help the whole shebang hang together.”

Although I don't suggest this book to everyone (especially if you get offended at the thought of a Christian author using consistent foul language), Lamott invites the reader into her life and explicates pieces of wisdom accordingly. She does get somewhat obnoxiously on her high-horse about several issues (for example, politics--I think she believes that Pres. Bush is the anti-Christ), but she also writes some poignant pieces about her relationship with her high-school son Sam, members of her church, and advice to high school and college graduates, taking a hilarious yet honest approach to Christianity.