Archive for August, 2008

7 Years…

Published
by
Justin
on August 10, 2008
in Life
. 6 Comments

Today is Jen and I’s seven year anniversary! They say that the hardest years of marriage are the first, seventh, and twentieth. So far, we are on par with the first two! Most of the time the seventh is rough because people have had kids and this changes everything…but our seventh was difficult for so many other things. Here is the short list that kept us on edge for lucky year number 7: We lived out of suitcases for all but 8 weeks of the year. We both went through significant identity (re)formation periods. We we’re both fighting for different things for a while. We both questioned what we (and the other) were doing with our lives. Our finances were going downhill. Blah Blah Blah…This year sucked in so many ways…but in a number of other ways, it was the best year of our lives. 

At our conference the other week we went to a marriage seminar by our psychologist friends Mike and Mary, who work with Christian Associates. One of the things that they said was the strongest factors in lasting marriages is friendship. I can honestly say to all 6 of you who read my blog that Jen is my best-friend. Our friendship was the core of what kept us talking, trusting, playing, and laughing together during a really hard year. We’re certainly not perfect (our environment is not….well…lacking emotion or opinion), but I can always count on the fact that Jen and I are for each other and we are both willing to sacrifice for the other when the chips are down. Somehow, by the grace of God, we have come out of this year stronger, more together, more honest, more of a team, more gracious, and more proud of each other than when we started. 

We are entering year 8 of our marriage in another crazy season of life. Living out of suitcases. On the move. And I’m sure lots more learning to do. I certainly hope that we don’t have to repeat a year like this past one, but even if we did, I’d be going through it with my best friend, knowing that somehow and in someway, if I just trusted, God would bring us closer together. And to be closer to my wife, to know her more, to trust her more, to encourage her more…is worth anything to me. So, who knows how different life will be a year from now? Who knows what challenges we’ll face? Who knows what twits and turns will be on our road? I know that God has gifted me with the chance to do it all with my best friend….

Here’s to seven years…they’ve gone by so fast, but I can barely imagine life before them or without them…and wouldn’t have it any other way. 

I could write on and on about this, but I won’t for two reasons. One: I’m tired and need to sleep. Two: I don’t think that I could ever really communicate the depth of gratitude I have for my wife. I’m not that good of a writer! So I’ll stop now….go to bed…and wake up in the morning with my best friend to get on with the journey of life…

Staff Conference Pictures…

Published
by
Justin
on August 10, 2008
in Photography
. 1 Comment

To give you an idea of how busy I was at this past conference I wanted to show you all of the pictures that I took…but I came into a problem. I didn’t take any pictures during the whole week. Not a single one (with my own camera, to be fair). I was importing pictures last night and they jumped straight from Chicago to Amsterdam…not a single click in between. This is almost sad to me.

Thankfully, Rogier took a bunch of pictures and he’s put them up on Flickr to share…here.  

But being back in Europe is inspiring me to take more pictures again and I’m going to try really really hard to share them with you all!

Greg Boyd on CAI

Published
by
Justin
on August 9, 2008
in Life
. 0 Comments

The speaker at this years Connect was Greg Boyd. He’s written a lot of books and is really smart…and can be somewhat controversial…which adds to the fun. His most well known book may be ‘Letters from a Sceptic‘. He did a great job communicating aspects of the Kingdom was a real encouragement to us. Specifically, his last talk…which was the least theological in nature…really impacted us as he shared about his past and how he’s learned to invite Jesus into his memories and imagination. You can find it here and it’s called Waking Up to a Revolting Beauty. 

Check out what Greg had this to say about CAI here on his blog. It’s cool (and encouraging) to hear an outsiders (who is now an insider) perspective on CA. I do believe that Christian Associates is a unique movement and we are the front edge of missional thinking on a movement level. We make a lot of mistakes along the way, but as scripture says, “Love covers a multitude of sins…”! And love is something that we are not often short on in CA. I would take love, family, freedom, grace, a development ethos, and humility in an organization over a lot of other things…We’re blessed to have been on the journey with CA for 4 and half years now. I see good, Kingdom things on the horizon.

Big

Published
by
Justin
on August 8, 2008
in Life
. 1 Comment

Today we were eating a late lunch and I turned on the tv to see what was up with the Olympics and the opening ceremonies. I caught the very end of the performance aspect (which was spectacular) and I began to watch as the different countries who are participating in the game were being announced. 

I consider myself good at geography and could recognize most flags, but I didn’t even recognize some of the names of the countries! The introductions seemed to carry on and on. I wanted to see the U.S. be introduced but I wasn’t sure if I had the time to wait. Finally the US came out (wearing dorky golf-like caps that most athletes tried to play off by wearing them cockeyed or something) and I was surprised at how many athletes we put in these game…more than 5 or 6 other countries combined! But that’s not the point. 

The point is…as I was watching these people be announced, country after country, I got this rare sense of how big the world really is. I’ve travelled a bit, so understand the distance. But not always the breadth of diversity. I was humbled to be a human while watching this. There are so many of us and each of us are unique with dreams, pain, hopes, hurts, and desires. The people of the world that I saw briefly on the television today represent cultures, people groups, and the bigness of the human race. It hit me deeper than I expected. I found myself admiring God for his immense creativity and ability to express beauty in so many different ways. Literally…red, yellow, black, and white…He paints equally well with all the colors.

Even if just for a moment on the TV and for a sporting event, I felt a glimpse of the Kingdom when all is said and done. People come in with their tribes, much celebration and dancing, but in the end become as one…In the real story, we get to be as one in a perfection the doesn’t commence competition, pain, disappointment, frustration, and rivalry, but instead ends all these things into the true fulfillment of humanities purpose: to be in harmony with God and each other forever. 

I’m definitely going to be watching the games…I love the Olympics. But I hope that I catch myself stopping, and appreciating just the fact that I get to see the people of the world in one camera shot. We live in amazing times. Let us see the world as big as it is…and love God all the stronger as Lord and Lover of it all.

Jen’s Blog

Published
by
Justin
on August 8, 2008
in I Love Technology
. 1 Comment

We’re experiencing some technical difficulties in our little corner of the blog world…so if you’ve gotten to my blog and were really looking for Jen’s blog (which you probably are!) the click here to get there. 

And please bookmark this new address for Jen’s blog: http://allmyish.com/blog/

It will look like this if you get to the right place:

If you are looking for marital issues…

Published
by
Justin
on August 7, 2008
in I Love Technology
. 2 Comments

…mess with your wife’s blog. 

See, I’m the nerd in the family. I like technology. I like hacking my way through some code and messing things up and then fixing them. This is mostly fun, until I get in too deep. Which happens more than I’d like to admit. 

Today I set sail into dangerous waters…I started messing with Jen’s blog. I’m trying to migrate her blog from typepad to wordpress. I think that wordpress is superior and I’ve been using it for the past year. I think that it’s getting better and better and it’s…free software. Between the two of us we were spending close to $200 per year on our blogs. Not anymore. 

But I got going too fast today and did some dumb techie thing (rerouted the domain name from the old blog to the new) before Jen had a chance to do what she needed to do…update her pictures on the new blog. So, because of this, I lived a few moments in fear of my life as all of Jen’s pictures on both blogs went missing. Oops. She was not pleased. I was frightened. Frightened that I’d be alone in a house with her if this didn’t get fixed and even more frightened that I wasn’t sure that I was going to be able to undo what I had done…

Thankfully, I did. Jen smiled. My pulse went down to a normal level. And we’re harmoniously trying to do this in the right order. I think…

Hmm…we gotta do some thinkin’ on this one

Published
by
Justin
on August 5, 2008
in Leadership, Missional Church and To Think About...
. 2 Comments

I got this stat from another blog called ‘Next Reformation‘ who writes from Canada…Worth a listen and some time asking this question, “If we are really serious about blessing the world around us, are we really listening to what those further from God care about or do we just simply want to do what we care about better?” 

“Studies have shown that only 10% of the non-churched population are comfortable with and open to ‘contemporary worship’ style services. (ie. Hillsong style singing - preaching etc). Yet the same study shows that up to 90% of churches are moving towards this type of service. By my calculations that leaves around 90% of the unchurched population without a church presenting the message of Jesus in a culturally relevant method for them.”

This stat could be seen as a negative thing…but I see it like this: We have much possibility for innovation in the ways in which we express the Kingdom. And if our innovations move towards blessing others there are lot of people who will be on the receiving end of the good that Jesus will do through us.

Bells

Published
by
Justin
on August 4, 2008
in To Think About...
. 3 Comments

I had forgotten about church bells in Europe…funny the things that leave the mind after a year. But near Phil and Laina’s there is a church called De Bron (in English = The Source).

On Sunday as Jen and I were sitting up in the office at the house we heard the bells ring. And then 45 minutes or so later, we heard them ring again. Both times they rang for a while. 

Jen asked, “Why are they ringing so much?” 

The first thing that went through my head was, “To remind people that they are still there.”