Monday, October 30, 2006

02259

weekend thoughts...

1) baseball season is over...the world won't be quite right again until april.

2) (not that this was the most significant part about last night, buy)...preaching out of I John while wearing my project 86 t-shirt was fun!

3) we had another new face last night, which is awesome. people are coming.

4) don't read books by shane claiborne in the laundromat unless you want to look like a blubbering idiot. (fyi. shane's book "The Irresistible Revolution" is probably the best book on Christian Spirituality i've read since Blue Like Jazz. if you've ever heard anyone from willow creek speak, you've probably heard them talk about the guy who made everyone pile up their shoes in the back of the auditorium after he was done speaking....this is the guy. read his book!)

5) yesterday fort lewis won the RMAC championship in soccer, 2-0, in front of a packed house at dirks field...it was awesome! (actually both the men and the women won this year). not only that, but the colorado rapids advanced to the western conference finals in the MLS. colorado just might be the best soccer state in the union!

Thursday, October 26, 2006

02159

some midweek thoughts...

1) hanging out with grandpa is fun

2) i have to "preach" this week...it's slowly coming together

3) all apologies to will ferrell, jack black, dave chappelle, etc...stephen colbert is the funniest man in the world.

4) i am currently reading "Dear Church: Letters from a Disillusioned Generation." (my favorite line so far...'they (as in the disillusioned/twentysomething generation) chaff at the pragmatist/programmatic approach to ministry.') (my second favorite line...'we can't all be articulate, middle-class, college-educated, Gap-wearing, small group leaders...and if we were, who would be in relationship with all the world citizens who will never shop at the Gap?')

5) my favorite song of the moment is "have you forgotten" by the red house painters

6) this is the greatest picture of all time (look closely and you'll see what i mean).

Sunday, October 22, 2006

02059


it's for real! CTK Durango at pickles restaraunt...it felt so good to finally be meeting in our "place."

aside from the excitement of actually being somewhere for the first time, we also had three visitors tonight. there's a good feeling right now as people are getting to see some of the things we've been talking about actually happen.


Thursday, October 19, 2006

01959

in what will likely be an ongoing theme of the ID i offer my first installment of "apartment adventures." last night the roommate walks in and proclaims: "dude, i think we have a problem." he leads me to the bathroom and sure enough our toilet is burping water all over the floor. i made a strategic phone call and myself and the landlords got to spend some quality time together moping and snaking and doing other plumbing chores. turns out some major sludge got backed up and a few other apartments experienced the burping toilet phenomenon. all is well this morning, but something tells me this is not the first and the last adventure! now if only i could get the kitchen light to turn on....

Monday, October 16, 2006

01859


tonight was pretty much my favorite night of church so far. 25 people packed into the johnson home to celebrate our last week in the living room and to commemorate our move to pickles! we had a blast...eating bratwurst, listening to chip talk about where we've come from and where we are going, and then singing our lungs out!

i think my favorite story so far also happened tonight. this dude named joe came with one of the daniels kids. he just moved here to durango two weeks ago. he said he had been to church before but hated the singing. he kept telling people afterwards about how when we started he just really "felt it" and started singing too and couldn't stop! it blew his mind that he could actually sing at church. this week we also continue serving at the local soup kitchen as well as starting up two small groups. this thing is really happening!



i have included a few pictures from tonight in this post...next week i'll have some pictures from the first night at pickles.

Monday, October 09, 2006

01759

lot's of cool things happening here in durango these days....at CTK we are all about three things: central worship, small groups, and outreach. as far as central worship goes we finally have a place to meet that is not chip's living room. we'll be starting at "pickles" restaurant on october 22nd. we tried several other spots and it never worked out...somehow, pickles, the least likely place, turned out to be the right fit. we already have two small groups going right now, but in two weeks we'll be starting two more groups. this is very exciting as we hope these new groups will be "birthing" groups...groups that will give way to even more groups in a relatively short amount of time. finally, this week well be starting to serve our community on a regular basis at the "manna house", the local soup kitchen.

some soccer news to report. i went to the fort lewis match today and it was awesome. ft. lewis (ranked 5th) was playing the 8th ranked team (who also had a lot of fans in the crowd). it was a "chippy", physical match....the fort jumped out to a 2-0 lead, gave away a goal early in the second half and then played tightly contested game until the final ten minutes when they put it away for a 3-1 victory.

arsenal is back in the world power rankings top ten, which is a good sign for my adopted EPL team.

finally, i saw the movie "Goal" this weekend. awesome movie...kind of a classic underdog, over come the odds, rocky story, but from a different perspective than normal (also great themes of family, cross cultural differences, father/son relationships). probably the best movie i've seen this year.

last but not least...check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuECatf6qaw

Monday, October 02, 2006

01659

"hunting the hunters: how to reach specific people groups." that was the assigned topic for my session this weekend at the CTK conference i attended. it was a lot of fun...i talked about durango and how it is so subculture driven, and then brought up paul in acts 17...how he integrated his knowledge of jewish culture when he was in a jewish context and how he infiltrated greek culture and used their language, poets, and symbols to communicate christ to them.

people were digging it! i've never had 15-20 furiously writing down words that were coming out of my mouth (certainly never happened when i was teaching geometry)...i concluded that we need to integrate groups that we are already a part (ie soccer players) and share jesus with those people, but there are also groups we need to infiltrate and learn their ways and customs before we start sharing jesus with them.

then i opened it up for feedback and questions and discussions and i got more strokes! a lot of people were resonating with what i had to say and asking good follow up questions...then, right at the end as i am about to wrap things up, this one dude speaks up: "i'm sorry but i have to totally disagree with everything you are saying...we don't need to infiltrate or integrate anything....we have the truth, the gospel....and the gospel is confrontational, there's no way around it...we need to be getting in people's faces...going door to door...passing out tracts! in fact your title it perfect...these people are hunting for souls and we need to HUNT THEM DOWN!"

after his little speech everyone was stunned...i started to respond but the frazzled host quickly dismissed everyone to the next session. i had a short but good conversation with the guy afterward...it was good to have a little tension in what was an overwhelmingly positive experience....but definitely not going to forget that for a while!