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readretreatserve

yesterday 20 of our students were plunged deeply in to the question: "what is the church's role in culture?" through reading, reflection, discussion, and action this question was explored with the intention of raising more questions, most specifically: how do we translate what we've learned today back on to campus. good stuff...i feel like students were challenged and encouraged at the same time, and while this experience was intense and condensed that question, how do i interact with culture, is one we wrestle with everyday.

56959

world series

this:

and this:

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progress

If all the news you have of my life is culled from my recent twitter and facebook updates than you might think that the Giants are the only thing going on right now. As fun as it has been to watch them make this run, there is actually a lot of really great stuff happening in ministry!

Our northeastern group is growing numerically and deeply. This last week we had a bit of breakthrough with them: the first girl joined our weekly meeting and we had one of the best “honesty” moments of the year as they wrestled with the story of Joseph in Genesis. It was awesome to see them move beyond easy answers and sit in the tension of messy stories.

We have our first Read.Retreat.Serve. event coming up next weekend. The response so far has been great...it looks like we could have 20-25 people attend this event which would be a new record. I really love RRS because of the way it demonstrates our values so clearly to students and it raises the question of how to engage culture for students in a fresh way. 

I am probably most encouraged by our progress at UMASS-Boston. A month ago we nearly lost our RSO (registered student organization) status, but now, for the first time, it feels like we are really starting to gain momentum.  We’ve seen new people join our weekly meeting and it seems like this is a time that students are seeing as really valuable to them.

We are (finally) launching our SAT tutoring program next week at UMASS, and I am excited to see students take ownership of this and get involved. I love seeing students get passionate about an idea that helps promote kingdom values (The “hope” bracelet you see pictured is something I bought from a girl in our group who is raising money for a students without borders project.)   

UMASS-Boston is still a work in progress as we try to figure out effective ways to minister to students at that campus. Our experiment of the week involved setting up “baggo” in a central location and inviting people to play with us (picture is of the game but not on campus).  This went remarkably well and we played for over two ours and met about 15 new students. Slowly but surely we are establishing a presence and becoming part of the fabric of the campus.

A month ago I was in a bit of a funk trying to see the “win” but right now I am feeling super encouraged about Sojourn’s progress on campus this semester!

Also, go Giants.

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being_a_fan


i am obviously enjoying the Giant's playoff run so far. it's been fun to "go through" this with amy who has never had the awesome privilege of experiencing my behavior during a playoff swing. 


in my life time Giant's baseball has been a "tortured" affair (to use the trendy descriptor of this 2010 version of the team). i recently explained the torture of my particular life from '85's 100 loss team, to '87's NLCS collapse, to the WS earthquake in '89, to the team almost moving to tampa, to the bonds era, to the marlins in '97, robb nen and the one game playoff in 98, to benny agbayani in 2000, to falling 2 games short in 2001, to the world series collapse in 2002, to the marlins again in '03 (this time with the horrible iconic images of jose cruz jr and jt snow), to the late season disaster at the hands of the dodgers in '04 (darn you steve finley), to the dark ages of '05-'08, to the "are-we-really-going-to-waste-historically-good-starting-pitching-with-this-lineup" of last season, to some of my sojourn colleagues. i don't think they look at me the same way.


baseball seems to produce a special kind of suffering...a suffering that cannot be brushed aside for a week and engaged only on sunday's...no it is deeper and more pervasive than anything other sports can offer. giants fans, often overshadowed by the red sox (until 2004) and the cubs and the indians and various other teams, have suffered as long and as traumatically as anyone.


this postseason can end triumphantly and ecstatically or with another chapter of suffering written, but either way, without a doubt, i will be back next year (sooner actually because i will likely be scouring the internet for off season news). 


i've been reading some excellent baseball books recently, and the one seen here (are we winning) is now safely among my all time favorite books. will lietch nails what it means to be a fan:


"these men (referring to management and players) can go somewhere else: dusty baker can go to chicago and then cincinnati. jeff kent can become a dodger and an astro (i changed examples here for the sake of the analogy). we have no such options. we're not going anywhere.


when you break it down, what exactly is a sports franchise? is it a succession of ownership? an institutional philosophy? a corporate machine? pretty orange and black uniforms? all of these can be changed...


...but when people talk about The Giants, they are not talking about players or managers. they are talking about us. that's the constant. that's the single continuous line..."


Go Giants!   

56559

jimmy

amy and i went to the house of blues on friday night to watch jimmy eat world play their songs. i always get worried right before a show by one of my favorite bands...i get afraid that this will be the show where i notice a huge drop off and i'll be super disappointed. but jimmy did not disappoint.

two thoughts on this show: watching/listening is like reading old journals...this band has been a part of my life since my freshman year of college. that's five albums, tons of downloads, and a couple of eps worth of songs. several of these songs have helped shape and define eras of life: college, post-college, colorado, marriage, boston, and a whole host of events in the midst of all those eras. as the band played songs from their entire catalogue i was transported back in time to all these eras. the band has become a soundtrack for my life, a music memory device.

the other is that this is the band that amy i share more than any other. what makes these shows so special is that jimmy has been important in both of our lives and while we both like a lot of the same artists jimmy eat world is a common language we share. and that is kind of special.

here's "goodbye sky harbor" from friday night:

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greatness

born to run is the best sports book i have ever read. i love books like this: the author weaves a variety of stories and topics together around a central narrative...it's a book about running and yet it reads like a suspenseful thriller. it's absolutely fantastic writing.

it is a book about running but it's also a book about love, passion, anthropology, biomechanics, shoes, crazy people, ultra races, joy, and what it means to be a good person. all of this information crafted and told by an expert story teller.

the most compelling part of the book to me centered around a crusty old cross country coach at adams state (in alamosa, co not too far from durango). this dude unlocked every secret of running and training from a scientific standpoint, but still felt like he was missing part of the puzzle. 

coach vigil: "couldn't quite put his finger on it, but his gut kept telling him that there was some kind of connection between the capacity to love and the capacity to love running. the engineering was certainly the same: both depended on loosening your grip on your own desires, putting aside what you wanted and appreciating what you got, being patient and forgiving and undemanding."

later in the book the focus turns to scott jurek, the greatest american ultra-runner ever.  jurek would win races and then spend hours at the finish line encouraging fellow runners and cheering people on. the author writes: "what Coach Vigil had sensed about character...Scott had been his entire life. the reason we race isn't so much to beat each other, but to be together...Scott learned that early on...other runners tried to disassociate from fatigue by blasting ipods or imagining the roar of the crowd in Olympic stadium, but Scott had a simpler method: it's easy to get outside yourself when you're thinking about someone else."


good stuff!