• Archive for April, 2009

    Honeymooning?

    April 28, 2009 // 12 Comments »

    Because you were all so helpful with wedding music suggestions, I thought I’d throw out another major feature of the wedding planning to get your thoughts on – the honeymoon!

    What ideas/suggestions do you have?

    Where did/would you go and why?

    What do you think is most/least important to consider?

    Not asking you to think about us in particular necessarily – feel free to try and convince us.

    Posted in Amy, wedding

    Good News for Memphis

    April 15, 2009 // No Comments »

    My friend JR Woordward has put together a fun line up of people to submit brief blog posts answering the question…

    If you local city newspaper asked you to describe the Good News – what would you write?

    Here’s my submission and I encourage you to check out the other posts offered between now and Pentecost.  Feel free to offer your comments here if you like, but there are already several good ones over at JR Woodward’s site that you can add to as well.  I will be checking and responding over there too.

    The Commercial Appeal is the place where countless Memphians turn for news – some of it good, much of it, not so good.  We are a city divided by race, stricken by generational poverty, plagued by crime, and disadvantaged by socio-economic stratification.  Good news for us usually comes in the form of an absence of bad as opposed to the presence of beautiful surprises.  For those with eyes to see, these problems are far more than the result of individual human errors and failings; they also stem from firmly entrenched systems, paradigms, and powers, which create a broken culture that produces broken people.  There is a cycle at work here more insidious than we realize or could hope to finally defeat on our own.  But there’s good news.

    I’m a Christian and Christians are good news people.  In fact, a central manta of the Christian faith is, “Repent and believe the good news.”  This isn’t about saying you’re sorry to God so you can go to Heaven when you die. It’s Jesus’ invitation to, by grace and through faith, escape the consequences of our capitulation to a world gone wrong by joining him in the ways he sees and engages the world.

    See, God plans to recreate all that has been tainted and lost by evil and darkness.  The sphere in which this happens is known as the Kingdom of God.  Jesus embodied this Kingdom in his life and sealed it in his death and resurrection. That’s news, but it’s not quite good yet; cause news is only really good when it’s experienced.  This news becomes truly good for us when God’s plan for the future intersects with our present.  Ours is not good news that God will do, but good news that God is doing.

    Jesus was the bearer of good news par excellence and those of us who bear his name but fail to similarly bear good news to the world around us have a share in the guilt and misery of the city and people we are called to lovingly serve.  This is where the Church comes in.  God means for the Church to be a unique body though whom Jesus actually continues freeing people from harmful things and reconnecting them with God and others. The Christian God is one of relationship.  Therefore, God’s Good News to the people and city of Memphis is purposefully intertwined with communities of people gripped by it.

    Fellow Memphians, if you’re like me, grieved over the many sad circumstances of our city, if you are desperate for a new start, for healing and wholeness, I hope you will consider the news of God’s desire and plan for the world including the tiny metroplex of Memphis.  The news might not be the sort you’d expect, maybe not even the sort you’d prefer, but it’s good in the truest meaning of the word.

    Posted in Fuller Seminary, gospel, Jesus, kingdom, memphis, questions

    Know A Good Wedding Song?

    April 14, 2009 // 17 Comments »

    wedding-music

    Of course Amy and I are going to want to add our own personal touch and flare to the music during our ceremony and reception, but we wonder what kind of great suggestions others might have.  Is there a song you just love?  Something you were really glad you used for your wedding?  Feel free to add any suggestions by way of comment.  Let us know: artist, song, whether you think it’s good for a ceremony or reception, and anything else you want to say.

    Posted in Amy, music, wedding

    Chicago

    April 9, 2009 // 8 Comments »

    I proposed to Amy at the end of February and ever since the main thing on both our minds and the question we were asked the most was, “So where are you going to live?”

    It was an ineviatble question (well, for most people anyway) and one we were anxious to hear from God on in the context of community.  We prayed a ton, talked a lot, asked those we respect for wisdom and advice, and in the end, felt like we had our answer, Chicago.

    chicago

    This was a really, really hard decision for both of us.  Neither of us had a good reason to leave the places we were.  I have been in Memphis for just a year, Amy in Chicago since October.  Both of us liked where we were living, our jobs, the people around us, and the opportunities God was giving us to serve.  We kept hoping something might happen that would essentially make the decision for us, but that never really came about.

    So, Amy was in Memphis this past weekend and was with me when I shared the news with the body of Living Hope.  This was very hard to do, but brought with it a sense of relief as we begin to make plans for the future together.

    I am in Chicago as I write this – we brought all my stuff up here this past Monday and have been busy looking for an apartment since then.  I have no leads on jobs as of yet, but I’m actually kind of excited for the search (networking and connections always welcome!)

    Amy and I are off to Davenport, IA (her hometown and the location of our wedding) for Easter weekend to see her family and do some wedding planning and then it’s back to Memphis for me to enjoy the remainder of April with good friends and the Families on Mission Seminar that we have been planning for the end of the month.  I will be in Chicago full-time as of May 1.

    So the really big question, do the Bears, Bulls, Cubs/White Sox have what it takes to make me a true Chicago convert?!

    Posted in Amy, chicago, living hope, memphis, wedding