Thursday, July 06, 2006

"The cars hiss by my window..."

"...like the waves down on the beach..."

Ok... so, who am I? Perhaps it is just coincidence that a picture no longer shows up in the "My photo" box on the right, but I would like to ask the question with a degree of seriousness.

I just read a bit of the beginning of the book Starving Jesus and what is sticking in my mind isn't his rebellion against church but his history as a youth pastor and Christian upbringing. Sounds like someone I know. And you know what, it's getting me thinking. Out here in the megacity of Oxford I'm still getting my feet wet as to who I'm ministering to and receiving from, how I should go about doing ministry, and what I should actually do. The church here is progressive in some ways and conservative in others and I'm cool with that. But reading this bit of reflection is stirring me up a little. I'm not saying that I don't want to pastor--cause I do. I'm not saying I'm going to look back on these years and shake my head--I'm sure I will regarding many of my screw-ups but I hope to have a good experience overall. What I'm saying is I am quite postmodern in the way I think, like to rock the boat to uncover the true motives and agenda, and can be obsessively non-conformist. I don't want to stilfe these elements of me and just "do church." At the same time, a lot of the things that feed my personality are not naturally a part of small town culture.

However, there is something in the air at night in Oxford (besides the rank smell of the local frozen food plant cleaning out the old onion rings) that stirs my soul and makes me want to roar. I just want to yell from a precipice "Awake, O sleeper! Rise up from the dead!" I've felt such before... and I like it.

I want to do great things. Really, most of us do. I don't know if what I think is great now is what I will achieve--and frankly, God's got dibs on the truly great designs--but I refuse to just be or just act or even just do. It's total cliche from my high school days, but I've gotta "live the life" in way more ways than I understood back in 1997. Curiously, that phrase reminds me of Mike Farrow: a dear friend who has been gone for two years now and whose memory (along with others) spurns me on in hope.

1 comment:

Jon said...

Well, now there is a photo (of a man of God) and an updated profile.