Friend needs prayer

My best friend and his wife live in Oelwein IA, where he pastors a small Presbyterian church. He's been one of my best friends for almost a decade...which is a long time for me. I visited with him the other week when he was in town for Presbytery. During dinner he told me he thinks his dad is having an affair. John's dad used John's computer to check his email. When John got back on his dad forgot to close the site he was on. John said based on the site his dad was on there was little doubt that his dad was having an affair. John, confronted his dad. His dad said he was not "having" an affair but that he "had little projects in the works".

John's parents have been married for a long time and have been through a lot in their time together. Part of what is happening is the empty nest syndrome, where all the kids have gone and now it's the two of them and their life now is now what they expected it would be.

If you have not heard about John here's his life in the last two years:
Married...moved from Austin...church problems...wife diagnosed with MS...bought a house...baby was born (incidentally the kid has the coolest God-father)...church going broke...beginning to circulate PIF...father having an affair...

John needs prayers from all of us...please keep him and his family in your prayers...

BBQ

What’s the plan for the BBQ tonight? What about drinks and other food?

This is your brain on seminary...

This is just a rough estimate, but I quickly counted the books on my shelf and looked at my three master lists of “all papers due,” and came up with these dizzying figures:

Over our three (or more) years in seminary, we read some 104 books (plus numerous handouts), composed some 75 papers (ranging in length from 2-20 pages), and spent 1152 hours in class, and spent some 2304 hours studying out of class (for those of us who actually studied the 2 hours for every 1 hour in class!), totaling some 3456 total hours of lecture and study.

Any wonder that our brains are fried & I for one get nauseas just picking up a book!

And look at where it all got me…unemployed in Greenland!

code of heretics

There are those of us who want to push the limits of our salvation and God's grace so we are going to see "The Da Vinci Code" Tuesday night. We will be meeting at Potterveld around 745pm and will be going to the 830pm show. I do realize this is late for some of you older folks but I promise it will be fun. When it's over we can yell "heretic" at the screen and to everyone leaving the theater. Seeing Tom Hanks with a mullet is worth the price of admission. Who can turn down a movie where people laughed during the climax and the intense moments?

DA
DAR
DEA
DOA
Dar
Edit...
Ignore all
Add to dictionary

Vince
Vinni
Vance
Vin's
Vines
Edit...
Ignore all
Add to dictionary

Potter veld
Potter-veld
Petaled
Potbellied
Outfield
Edit...
Ignore all
Add to dictionary

heretic
hieratic
heuristic
heroic
erotic
Edit...
Revert to "heritic"

screen
screened
screens
Serene
serene
Edit...
Revert to "screene"

BBQ Friday Night?

Hey everybody...a quick question from Casa Del Phillips. How about a community BBQ Friday night? We can all help Amy move and then meet for meat to send her off! We could even have a giant pinata of The Man!! Anyway...thought that Friday would be a good day to do it, feedback is welcome...we are very flexible.

Dissapointment

Well, Kim, I guess your church didn't pray hard enough or something :)....Unionville chose someone else. At least they were nice about it. They said that they chose someone who had demonstrated ability as a youth leader and was an associate pastor for a few years.

Anyway, so I'm back at square one and I don't know what to do. Maybe I'm not meant for this after all. Thanks for your prayers, though, all of you. I'll see you around.

Questions from left field

Last night as we were cleaning up after the concert and picnic, (a great time was had by all - thanks Matt and m28 - and it was great to see you John and Jennifer), one of my parishioners said she had a question for me... It seems that her friend, who attends a non-denominational church - told her that their pastor has been teaching them that "Our Father/The Lord's Prayer" is an individual prayer and not for corporate worship. It didn't make sense to LeeAnn, who was raised Catholic, and she asked for clarification...

I was so surprised by the question that I didn't give her a very good answer... I basically muttered about how it is definitely a prayer for us all to say together, as well as in private...I don't think I said anything disparaging about the other pastor...but it makes me wonder what is going on out there...geez - aren't we all on the same team? Don't we have at least a few basic things/traditions/beliefs that cross all 'flavors' of Christianity? I am having a running disagreement with someone about whether Mormons are Christian...I guess we, the universal American/Western we, just don't know much about what we believe and why we believe. Sure makes it harder...

Maybe there should be a seminary class on how to engage these discussions with witty repartee...there are days when I feel so unprepared. On the other hand, I am so thankful that LeeAnn asked, and that we had a place outside of worship to visit, and that she and her friend are even talking about their church and their faith and what they believe!

Blogging FYI

I'm sure many of you have already thought of this, and please do not take this as an effort to stifle your limited human freedom to write what you want, but think twice about what you post on blogs and message boards. This is a public forum (anybody can read these post) that is also archived by search engines and a frightening thing called the internet archive. Practice safe blogging ... don't say anything in a post you will regret, because the internet doesn't forget and search committees know how to use Google.

[insert NBC "The More You Know" rainbow and cheesy bumper music]

Nothing is Impossible with God

Just got back from a great time with everybody in Apple River ... good to see Deb and extra good to see Johnny Ray (or is it Raye?) and Jennifer. As sad as it made me, I had made the assumption that there were a few of you that I would probably never see again. It pleases me to have been proven wrong. Indeed, nothing is impossible with God.

I do regret, however, not having made the time to get to know all you graduates a little better. But there is still time, right? Have the sleeper sofa ready because I might just come visit you wherever it is you all end up landing. Yes, that is a threat and a promise ... nothing is impossible you know.

Miss you all!