Was 5’11” and 3/4
Am 5’10” and 3/4
Weird.
Year / 2005
"Uh oh, my laptop’s out of gas…"
How about a fuel cell for your laptop??
This Seems Related…
I noticed this article posted to The God Journey as I was publishing mine tonight (just below). Seemed related.
(PS… I have not gotten to mention yet. The God Journey is a weekly podcast where two guys who are outside of the traditiona church structure discuss issues relating to that, or really just about anything. There is a bunch of participation through email and other media by believers all over the world. It’s always a great 45 min to an hour. AND, now they are using our songs as the intro/bumper music. 🙂 Thought that was pretty cool too. They put a banner on their home page for us. That was also nice.) 🙂
Redefining Church
In a conversation with friends recently, we found ourselves discussion various incarnations of the body of Christ and at one point I stopped to correct what I think is a fundamental error in our understanding of who we are as “the church”.
It was simple, really, and one might argue that it is mere semantics, and I needn’t concern myself with such trivialities, but I must insist… this may be one of our biggest misconceptions of who we are.
We applied the word “Church” to a public gathering where many believers (and/or non-believers) gather to sing, listen to teachings, often participate in a ritual of eating and drinking small emblems of greater significance than their size would indicate, and usually there is some chance to present an offering to God from the bounty of our wallets. 🙂 We, as a society, as a culture, and as “the church” call this event, “Church”. It’s pretty universal. That time, always on Sunday mornings (but could be other times in addition to Sundays, unless your Seventh Day Adventists, then it’s on Saturdays) is what we call, “Church”.
To further complicate linguistic matters, we also call the entire 501c3 organization a “church”. We also apply the term to the edifice in which said organization conducts meetings and other business. Sometimes we even apply the term to a larger organization, encompassing many other smaller organizations (aka a denomination) such as the Methodist, Wesleyan, Baptist, Episcopal or simple, Christian “Church”.
Are you confused yet?
We have applied the term “church” to such a variety of things, who knows what the real meaning of the word really even is anymore???
I am not here to embark on some tireless, etymological debate on the Greek words used in the NT for church. If you read my post about academia, you can probably understand why that is not my focus here. My point is much simpler. As is, I believe, the definition of “church”.
We have added so much to what we really are as the church. From my reading of the new testament, the church is not an event, or a location, but a people. We who trust our lives to Jesus are the church. We exist as the church not because of anything we do, but as we opt in with Jesus, we are added to his body and become a part of the Body of Christ, his Bride, The Church. We don’t have to sign a membership agreement, or even go through a series of membership classes. Our “membership” in the church is an outcome of our relationship with Father.
The church, as I understand it would not cease to exist if there was no building to meet in. Nor, (and perhaps here is where you reach for your stone to silence the blasphemer) does the church cease to exist when we cease to meet for worship. What?! How can that be? THAT IS church! Really? Is the bride of Christ simply a gathering of people to perform some predetermined (or even spontaneous) act of worship? I think not.
There are many things that we as members of the church can do together, and obviously, worship is one of them. (That in itself is a broad and perhaps abused term, that may precipitate another blog at a later date.) We can also study together, play together, grieve together, laugh together, serve each other, help each other, and anything else you can think of “together”. The church is definitely meant to do life together, but none of those activities, should they cease, could somehow preclude us from being “the church”. When we’re in Jesus, we simply are the church. Period.
Does this make sense? I am not decrying our gatherings of any sort. We must. That is really one of the main purposes of the church – the “one anothering” that we can do. But we must understand that the church is not an event, and it is not a location, or anything associated with either of those.
We are the church. The body of believers whom Jesus has gathered. There are many manifestations of his body, and I am pretty sure these days that they are not the ones that we think they are. They are not housed by bricks, nor do they brandish towering steeples. They are a body, whom the Head directs as he pleases.
Consider this from Ephesians, written to the people who had been considered outsiders by the Jews, who felt their lineage provided them special access to God:
Eph 2:19-22
So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family. We are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself. We who believe are carefully joined together, becoming a holy temple for the Lord. Through him you Gentiles are also joined together as part of this dwelling where God lives by his Spirit.
Or these words of encouragement from Peter:
1 Pet 2:5, 9-10
And now God is building you, as living stones, into his spiritual temple. What’s more, you are God’s holy priests, who offer the spiritual sacrifices that please him because of Jesus Christ.
But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are a kingdom of priests, God’s holy nation, his very own possession. This is so you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.
“Once you were not a people;
now you are the people of God.
Once you received none of God’s mercy;
now you have received his mercy.”
We are a nation. Natural citizens born into new life offered through Jesus. He is our Head, and we are his members. We are not an event you can go to, nor a place you can visit. We are a living, breathing house of God. He dwells in his people… everywhere.
This really only matters because I think we need to reconsider how we use the word church. As we apply it more correctly, the life we live as the church might begin to focus more on the relational, family life it was intended to be, and less on the structures we have created to maintain that life. I read recently that a healthy church is focused on the Groom and not on the Bride. When we are only thinking about how to “do church” better, and not thinking about how to be Jesus’ bride, we are missing the point of who we are.
We are the church. His beloved. That’s better than any meeting or building or any other thing we could settle for.
Academia
I always thought that word had something to do with Macadamia nuts, or vice versa. But, that’s for another blog.
We were chatting tonight about our son Ian’s reading abilities. He’s phenomenal. During last weekend’s visit with Grandma & Grandpa, Ian was reading like crazy because he loves it, and equally wowing the grandparents as he did. He is only six years old and can read just about anything he picks up. A very smart little boy, and if you compared reading ability and comprehension skills, he would beat just about anyone in his age group, and probably several years older.
Why is that, I wondered? Is it because he’s super smart? Yes. His memory (which I suppose is connected to other intellectual capabilities) is simply outstanding. He effortlessly remembers details that would be hard for me (who also has a fairly decent memory) to retain after studying the subject. He routinely has us shaking our heads in disbelief at his retention prowess.
But it’s more than that. I am not ready to say Ian is so super special, that he is somehow specially gifted and that is how he excels far above his peers. I love my son, and I think he’s got some amazing gifts from God built into him, but I think that’s selling everyone else a little short. Ian has not always liked to read. He used to dislike it very much. He does not like to get things wrong (which is very much like his Dad) and so, he would not even try. It was very hard to get him started, but after some gentle coaxing from Mom, he discovered many new, exciting worlds through reading. And now, he’s fantastic! As I have mentioned, he is far beyond many of his peers in that academic skill.
Which leads me back to why.
Now, bear with me here. I am not a wacko who thinks everyone should homeschool or (1) you’re not a Christian, or (2) if you’re already not a Christian, then you just don’t love your kids if you don’t homeschool. However, I’d like to put in a little plug for the way we have chosen to mentor and train, or “educate” our kids.
I believe that Ian has excelled because of his learning environment. It’s not the institutional setting of academia, as most of his peers, where 20-30 or more kids all try and learn academic skills and knowledge via one 20-something teacher who is giving his or her all to impart these skills to the kids. Ian’s learning environment is … life. He is never really in school or out of school. Yes, there are times during the day when Jen will sit down and work on academic skills (such as reading and writing, or math) but those times are pretty limited. The real learning comes as life happens. And the teaching is more of a mentor/apprentice relationship, rather than a presenter of knowledge, facilitating the absorption of facts and information. Ian is taught the facts in the course of life every day within a family who loves him.
That, to me, seems so different from what we think of as education. And, I am speaking now as a student and product of such a system. I survived the educational institution and have not suffered any long term damage that I am aware of. (Which some people point to as a reason not to home school, but that’s sort of like being on an airplane that you knew had several mechanical defects, and encouraging people not to choose alternate means of transportation because the plane didn’t crash with you on it yet.) We are so concerned with transferring all of the facts and intellectual knowledge we have attained over the years, that our educational system has become only that: a means of filling young minds with information.
The institutional structure somewhat necessitates that. If you have 1000 kids from so many different backgrounds in life, and you are bring them together in one place to “teach” them, then you are not really going to ever agree on any sort of life training, such as moral, or ethical, or spiritual beliefs. So, we try to steer clear of those and create as sterile a package as possible, which, to a degree makes sense. Except for the fact that we are not computers, who can just be filled with data, and then perform at peak capacity. We are more than that.
But in such a public setting, true discipleship (which, means teaching, training) can not happen effectively. Sometimes it happens as a side product. My wife and I fondly remember our high school Chorale teacher. (That made him sound dead… as far as I know he’s still alive and kickin’…) He did more than teach, he definitely shared his life with his students as well. I think we learned more from him than just how to sing. And there are lots of great people in the system, who are trying to do more than teach. But, when we create a place where the teachers (who could be like mentors) are restricted from even touching students (such as a hug, or an encouraging pat on the shoulder), then we are depriving the students of a much richer learning environment.
History is not facts. History is people. Reading is not a means to more input, it is a bridge to other people’s hearts and minds. Math is important, but only secondary at best to learning to live selflessly and consider other people even ahead of yourself. You can’t learn those things in a classroom. They are not imparted through academia. Life is only learned by observing it in action, and then living it.
Life is meant to be lived.
This is nothing new. Every time I get a chance to think through something that at least seems new to me, I usually end up realizing that someone else has been here before. But, mostly when I consider it worthy of exploring through these writings, it is something that I feel we generally have not gotten right, even if someone (or many someones) have already been here before. So what do we do? Should everyone homeschool their kids, and that would make the world a better place? Well, based on how I feel about that, I would say yes. But, the world is a great place because God made us all differently, and gave us the amazing gift of choice. So, I would have to intellectually disagree with my own conclusion. 🙂
However, I do feel so strongly that we are so focused on the wrong thing. If we want to help our kids prepare for life… we must shift our focus. Life is not about facts, but about relationship. We are built to relate. We learn through relationships. Mentor, student, apprentice, teacher. We are made to excel through hands on discipleship, one-on-one, rather than mass dissemination of information. Academia has missed the true fullness of education. I think we do a fine job of passing along the facts. But we have tied our hands by virtue of the system we have created as far as equipping kids for life.
Academia is a reality we have manufactured that does not allow our kids to excel, but I would argue, holds them back, and teaches them that wisdom is correspondent to the amount of knowledge we have managed to pack into our cranium. It’s not. Real education incorporates academic skills and knowledge into a much bigger package, that is lived out everyday. Every day life is full of chances to learn, and to live that out. To make decisions based on what you have learned so far. To me, that is superior to a passing grade on a test, or knowing the right answer to a question.
I think Ian is a testament to that. And he could tell you, after he’s done reading this.
Alex The iPod
Alex got many comments this evening on his fine Halloween attire. 🙂
Here’s a few shots of Alex in his pregame warmups. We’ll post some of the whole crew when we get a chance.
But, hey… I’m on VACATION! So, this is all you get. 🙂
All Hallows Eve
I don’t know if you have heard this or not, but there are varying opinions on whether or not professed believers and followers of Jesus should participate in the various frivolities associated with the celebration on October 31st that we call Halloween.
This post has nothing to do with that. 🙂
Two things that were both cool and odd about tonight’s Trick or Treating adventures for the Campbell Family:
1. The Location
Half way through the hunt tonight, I literally stopped in my tracks and laughed out loud that we were in Vermont. Again. We don’t live in Vermont. It’s several hours drive from our house. But this is now the second Halloween in four years that we have walked the streets of this tiny Northeast state in search of benevolent candy donors.
Isn’t that crazy?
2. Jo
We were running behind schedule and had two, no, make that three tiny children who were looking forward to trick or treating somewhere in the northeastern US on this chilly Monday evening. (Well, OK, Kirstie didn’t exactly understand how much she was looking foward to it, but we knew she was too!)
It was dinner time (5:30) and with the day-old time shift, it was already quite dark. We stopped first at McDonald’s to fill up the tiny tummies before traversing the unknown urban corridors we found ourselves surrounded by. I was not satisified with waging urban warfare, though. I knew there had to be less concrete clad communities nearby, and as we sat down to eat, I noticed a lady seated by herself at the table next to ours.
“Do you live around here?” I queried.
“Yes.” Her reply assumed that everyone who was in that building, and perhaps in that town currently, was of course a resident and had been for 4 or 5 generations. That was not the case, as I assured her.
“Well, we’re from out of town, and we have three little guys who would like to do some trick or treating tonight. Is there a neigborhood nearby that you could direct us to for a little halloween fun?”
Boy could she.
Long story short, Jo (we later discovered that was her name) directed us to her neighborhood where hundreds of folks wandered through blocks of small town America, dressed in an array of festive costumes and fraternizing with the locals – all seeming to know who the other one was, and have some history with each other. (All except us, of course). We were warmly received, though, and the boys were a hit with their Rockstar (Ian) and iPod (Alex) costumes. Great, great stuff.
So, we had a blast, and got home from our second tour of duty in Vermont with three full bags of candy, and three very, very tired kids.
Not to mention Mom & Dad.
Another Halloween in the books, and it was a great one!
Jen’s Birthday Adventure
The main event for my wife’s birthday this year was our departure for a weekend in Maine – without our kids! We were to leave shortly after Grandma arrived at our house to take charge of the kids at 10:30 in the morning. Well, you know how that goes. We ended up not leaving town till almost noon! 🙂
No problem, though. We were on vacation! It was Jen’s birthday!!
Let me back up a bit. As I was packing up on Thursday night for our week in Maine, I thought it would be fun to put our 24-hour McDonalds to work for Jen’s birthday. She had gone to bed by 11:30 or so, so I knew it would be perfect. She thought I was packing, so wouldn’t wonder where I had gone off to, and I could slip out to McDs and grab her some of her favorite food to eat at midnight on her birthday!!! After a few adventures, I returned about 12:20am with some McNuggets and fries, and set them out on our coffee table in the living room. I went upstairs and told Jen I had something for her downstairs for her birthday, and she (surprisingly) went along quite willingly, and we enjoyed a little happy birthday snack while taking in an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise.
A great start to her birthday. 🙂
Back to the trip to Maine… on our way out of town, I got Jen a roasted chicken sub from Subway, another one of her favorites, and a two-liter of caffeine-free Coke from Family Dollar (another Jen favorite) 🙂 We had a decent trip to Albany, where we took a little stroll through the Apple Store in Crossgates Mall. I had hoped I could buy Jen something from the Apple store for her birthday, but with our finances as they are, she had to settle for a Pretzel from Mr. Pretzel. 🙂
We got back on track for Maine at about 4pm, and the hope was to get to our destination and buy Jen a nice dinner to complete her birthday celebration at the on-site restaurant where we would be staying. But, in Rutland, VT, we noticed that we still had quite a ways to go, so dinner would be quite late. We were at a McDonalds for a pit stop, so we both thought it would be a good idea to grab a snack.
While we were ordering, we were chatting about our trip with the man taking our order (who seemed to be the manager on duty). We mentioned how we were looking forward to a few days without kids, and he talked a bit about his kids, and how he was glad they were grown. 🙂 And, as I got my wallet out to pay for our food, the manager slapped the receipt down on the counter and said, “Happy Birthday. It’s on me.” 🙂
That was cool. Free McDonalds for Jen’s birthday! 🙂
So we continued on, and after navigating through some small New England towns (usually behind a few slower vehicles) we realized that we were not going to make it to Maine in time for a birthday dinner. We were in a little town called Lancaster in New Hampshire (Our first visit to that state. Can you believe that? We’ve visited probably 45 other states, but not New Hampshire… which is two states away. Quite odd.) Jen saw a little family restaurant, so we stopped in at 8:55pm for her birthday dinner. 🙂
(The sign said they closed at 9:00, so that was again, quite nice of them.)
This was a very unique location as the owner had once owned this family restaurant and the local Chinese restaurant, but had since combined them into one. So the menu and the decor were half American, and half Chinese. It was really very interesting.
So, we had a nice dinner, and then only about another hour on the road until we reached our destination. It had beena long day though, so we unloaded some stuff, and enjoyed our new location for a bit (I think Jen looked in every closet) and then we wearily went to BED! 🙂
A long day, but a great one for Jens’ 2005 birthday. 🙂
Space Elevators
I found this yesterday in a news article, and thought it was fascinating, and wanted to pass along.
Apparently, people are trying to build elevators that will take us (and heavy payload) into space.
Fascinating.
Check out this video, too.
Jesus & Susan
A little while back, we met a lady named Susan. She boldly approached us – who at the time were strangers to her – on our city sidewalk and asked if we could help her and her husband purchase $10 in groceries for that day. She had received no help from the local churches (which I told her was to be expected, as they are organizations, and not as able to help individual people with such needs) and they didn’t know what to do.
Well, it happened on that day that there was actually cash in my wallet. I had gotten some out of the bank for our upcoming trip to Buffalo. We have had problems paying our bills recently, so as the clear thought to give them one of my Twenties resided in the front of my mind, I wrestled vigorously with it. But, in that brief, albeit lively conversation in my head with God, I decided that perhaps he had arranged the timing of this meeting. We never have any cash on us. It’s quite rare. So, we did, and they needed it, so we helped them. We stayed and chatted a bit, and found out a bit about each other, and in the end, they invited us over to share a meal after her husband got paid the following Friday. We accepted, and moved on, pondering the events that it seemed God had just arranged.
Well, Susan and her husband forgot we were coming to dinner, so we ended up just spending a little time hanging out, getting to know each other. It was slightly awkward, but it was alright. They definitely do not have what most would consider a “normal” life. They are both slightly different than the general populous, both in physical and mental capacities. But they are children of our Father, whom he loves. And it was nice to get to know them a bit.
A week or so later, I came across Susan again, on a walk to the post office. This time, she asked if I could give her a ride into Rochester to hook up with some friends. She said she and her husband were having a hard time, and she needed to get away for a while. I was in admittedly in a hurry, but did not just want to brush her off, so we chatted for a few minutes, and we both came to the conclusion that she just needed to talk with her husband about what was bothering her. So, she went home to do that.
That’s the last I have seen of Susan. But recently she came to mind again. And my first impulse was that we should go over and check on them. Make sure they are OK.
And then I thought that oh-so-familiar, free enterprise marketing genius phrase… WWJD?
🙂
I wondered, did Jesus ever deal with people who need a little extra time or help in life? And immediately, I concluded, “Yeah, he did. A lot! He was always helping people whom society might leave behind.” But, then I had a strange realization. I could not recall any time that Jesus went back to help someone he had once connected with. The only people he regularly spent time with were his disciples, and Mary, Martha and Lazarus. Other than that, we have no record of Jesus keeping tabs on someone, or helping them make the right decisions in life, and “checking up on them”.
And that’s when I realized that perhaps we are not doing WWJD as much as we think. Perhaps we do a disservice to people who we deem as “high maintenance” by continuing to provide “maintenance”? Jesus was great at helping people with their immediate problem, and then allowing them to continue their lives making their own decisions. That is how we have been built. We are equipped to fully choose our own path. Good or bad.
We are not left alone in that. We should encourage and support each other – in good and bad. (Not support people’s bad choices… support people who may have made, or even… are going to make a bad choice.) And Holy Spirit is with us, in us, so that we are not left to journey alone.
But, we are still capable of, and perhaps designed to make our own choices. That’s something I am not sure we as the church have been so good at doing. Even broader than the church, many people feel government organizations should step in and make sure everyone is taken care of, and/or doing things the right way.
Well… I think we might be better off letting people live their lives. Enabling people to choose, good or bad, which way they will go.
It seems like that’s what Jesus did. He didn’t try to conform anyone to his way of thinking. He offered the true kingdom perspective, and he helped people with their immediate needs, but he did not become a care taker for anyone. He allowed people to make their own decisions for their own lives.
I like Jesus. He’s cool.
So, I don’t know if you know a Susan, too… but perhaps we can be more help to each other by treating people as Jesus did. No favorites. No one he stepped in and checked in on regularly. He just loved people, and pointed them in the right direction – toward Father – and allowed them the freedom and the joy of the journey.
I’m still processing all of this, but these are some of the things I learned from our path crossing with Susan.