A Weekend of Camping

It's been quite a trip this past weekend, camping with the folks from Green Valley Church in Rancho Bernardo. We all (as many could come) travelled up to Hurkey Creek, near Idyllwild. It really was an amazing weekend, full of dirt, fire, food, and plenty of sunshine. The weather was literally perfect: sunny and warm in the day, not too cold at night. We were all reasonably comfortable. I still haven't quite mastered sunscreen at my young age, but maybe someday I will...I wouldn't bet on it. I really hate sunscreen with a passion, and my body usually pays for it. But I'm not planning on aging gracefully anyways, so it all fits!

As far as activities went, there was always something going on. Sports of all kinds were being played, including a volleyball, bocce ball, whiffle ball, and some frisbee tossing. There was even a water balloon toss and potato sack race for the kiddies! The best part about the weekend was the lack of agenda. We did all hang out together, but there was no pressure or expectations on anyone to do anything or pretend to want to do something. Sometime during my Saturday afternoon, I took a look at all that was going on around me and simply thought to myself that this is the sort of natural family that I want to spend my life with. It really is amazing to actually experience the sort of intimacy and natural relationships that have sprung out Green Valley Church. It really is a bunch of people living life together who just decided to go on vacation together for a weekend. So much fun! And so inspiring!

For my own personal experience, I left Friday afternoon with my friend Leanna Jean. We drove up in her little bubble car (the Toyota Yaris). And that thing was definitely packed out. And fortunately for us, we left early enough to avoid all traffic on the way up. We just cruised. We even had time to stop for some lunch, pick up her wine club wine, and get a little wine tasting in ourselves. When we got up there, there were already plenty of people there who had arrived Thursday in order to extend there little vacation. So, the car was unpacked and it was time for some serious hanging out! I threw the frisbee around with Geoff Horn for a good long while. There was a big grass field right in the middle of all Green Valley's campsites, which was awesome! So, while Geoff was throwing the disc, I was running all over the place to try and catch it. Scottie Johnson even jumped in and showed us a thing or two. Dinner was a bit of an ordeal, since boiling water for Mac 'N' Cheese is hard with an old propane grill. But we finally got it to work and had our meal. It was hanging out around campfires and games for the rest of the night.

The next morning, I took off at about 6:45am for a run. I know most people would think me crazy, but it was a good run. It was about eight miles in total and looped around through the hills near the campsite. When I got back, I ate a bunch of food for breakfast, mostly consisting of fruit and fruit-based foodstuffs. Throw a shower in there, and I just had my ideal morning. I had some good time for reading and praying and thinking after that, which is just special in a setting like that. There is something unusually powerful about studying God's Word or hearing from God's Word in such a natural setting as that. I'm tempted to say that it's something inexpicable, but there is an explanation. God has revealed Himself in nature. Romans 1:20 says just that! God has placed His stamp on nature. Why is that a beautiful grove of trees with sunlight gleaming through them is so much more alluring than a downtown highrise? God's power is there, His immensity, His great divine intelligence. We have simply lost the sensitivity to see it. We have forsaken by choice the awareness and sense for such things, and in so doing, have forgotten them completely. But if you are able to spend time in nature with God's Word long enough to forget all the rest of the noise in your life, you will begin to feel it and sense it again.

Anyways...after reading, I spent a good hour just watching a game of Settlers of Catan being played, which was actually nice. I didn't want to move, and this was the perfect option. After a quick lunch, I threw around the frisbee disc some more. Running around the grass field was so much fun! I threw with Geoff Horn, Paul Quinlivan, and David Toney all at different times. I did get in time for some bocce ball as well, which was great, too! Dinner Saturday night was decidedly one of the highlights of the weekend. Scottie Johnson brough one hundred pounds of tri-tip to cook and served everyone with that feast! Combined with some baked beans, salad, and watermelon, I really couldn't have asked for a better camp dinner. The evening was really cool because we had a laidback church service, complete with two acoustic guitars for worship music and a "campfire version" of Doug Kyle's sermon for Sunday morning. Afterwords, there was some more impromptu worship music playing for whoever wanted to hang around and sing/listen. Singing songs late at night with acoustic guitars around a campfire felt a bit stereotypical of camping, but there's a reason it's typical: because it's so much fun! Guitar singing around a campfire is one of those experiences that is just special about camping; wouldn't have been a good trip without it.

The next morning was all just packing up and getting ready to go back home. There was coffee and oatmeal for breakfast, a lot of packing up, and a round of Phase 10 with Leanna and the Quinlivans before we took off back home. There's my weekend in a nutshell. As per usual, the trip felt all too short and we wish we could have stayed for a week or a month or six months. But life beckons us back, and here we are! So, yay for our Monday mornings!

Change Comes Faster Than You Think

It's been quite some time since I last posted because honestly, there just hasn't been time. I have been running to and fro, trying to keep it all together, and when I get super busy like this, stuff like blogging kind of falls to lower rung on my priorities list. I don't think I have very many people reading this blog anyways, so I'm not too worried about it. Most of the people who really want to know already know much of what is going on in my life, so this blog should take care of all the rest of you guys!

First for the trivial: I did get a second tattoo, which is great. I was told when I got my first that these sorts of things just snowball on themselves, which has turned out to be true. I had the Bible verse Romans 12:1 tattooed on my back, below my original. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures yet; otherwise, you could see it. You'll just have to ask next time you see me. Depending on who you are, by that time, I might have three tattooes or even ten! Ha ha, don't expect ten...

I have officially gotten all of my great benefits activated from working at Starbucks. It was pretty cool to be able to sign up for all of those myself and know now that if I actually hurt myself rock climbing, I can go to the doctor! I even have a life insurance policy. No actual benefactors yet, so I'm accepting applications. Best of luck to all who apply.

On a more serious note, I am actually taking a serious look at going back to school and getting a masters. Specifically, I am considering attending a seminary. There is a particular seminary down here in San Diego that I am looking at, not just because of its location, but also because of its programs offered. We shall see what that path may hold. I've simply had so many people tell me that I should go to seminary and that I would be good in seminary that I think it's finally time I listened and went to seminary. Since graduating college, I have gained a new appreciation for learning and the active application of the mind, especially as it pertains to spiritual matters. Engaging my mind, particularly in thinking critically about the culture I live in and how to reach out to people within that culture has become much more of an active pursuit for me than it was before. It my early years of ministry, I feel that I was definitely taught to take a method that had been used in the past and simply apply it to a culture in faith, hoping to find success. I have rejected that method of ministry and outreach wholeheartedly and now hope to become a lifetime student of the culture I am a part of in order to shape my personal ministry and any ministry I may lead. There is much more dynamism to a ministry that actually humbles itself to a culture, releases some control over the "necessary" procedures, and uses program as a tool, not an end in and of itself. So, there's that.

For those of you who don't know, I was in a car accident on April 19. It SUCKED! I am physically fine, but my car was completely totalled. In short, I was driving down a road here in San Diego and another driver started making an unprotected left turn into oncoming traffic (me). I hit my brakes and my horn, tried to turn, but there wasn't anything I could do to prevent the accident. The front end of my car was just demolished. My airbags went off, my windshield spidered completely. It was bad!!! Obviously, I'm not at all at fault, but my car is gone. Richard (my car) has been deemed a total loss and I will be reimbursed appropriately. I am driving a sad excuse for a rental and actively looking for what I will be getting next, while awaiting the payout for my car. So, that's that!

I have begun talking seriously with a few friends of mine about founding an intentional community. For those of you who don't know what that is, or think that it's just a crazy hippy idea, allow me to shed some light on the subject. It is a living situation with a number of people (we're shooting 6-10) living in a common space, sharing possessions, sharing lives, and generally allowing the familial relationships that are formed to transform us and the circles in which we live. Especially in this day and age, in the culture that we live in, personal space is very deeply valued, and maybe even idolized. This occurs to the point where many end up living lives predominantly isolated from one another, with no overlap or outside contact beyond what is absolutely necessary to function. Too often do I meet and talk with people about this idea, only to have them say to me, "Wow! That's a really cool idea, but I could never do that." And certainly, this is not the situation for everyone. There are many good, legitimate reasons for which a person should not enter into this kind of living situation. I don't want to call down judgment on myself by rashly condemning other people who really couldn't live in such a situation. But if I am honest, when someone says that to me, my initial thought is, "Is that really true? Could you really never do that? Or do you just really not want to?" Call me a jerk, but that's what goes through my head. This intentional community is such a drastically different way of living that goes completely against the cultural norm right now that I think it will be a powerful tool of outreach to those around me at a ground floor type of level. To foster the type of community and family that so many are missing, potentially even within one's own family, can be an amazing witness to the people in my life of a better way to live. We want to be a spiritually minded group of people who actively place themselves in a situation where they will be pushed and challenged and transformed in order to introduce real, lasting change in a culture so desperate for it. For me, it is all truly about introducing the Kingdom of God here on earth and actively incarnating the Gospel in my own life in order to help others do the same. As I often say, it could be amazing...

Those are the major updates in my life thus far. More to come as time permits. Thanks for reading!