Amen [Let it Be So]

My Lord my Savior my God

Save me from my ways

Convict me when I need convicted

Let me know what it means to know You

Let me follow in your footsteps

Keep me from straying

Teach me your ways

 Save me from my numbness

Convict me with the Holy Spirit

Frustrate me until I change

For you are the only thing that should matter

Why do I doubt You?

Why do I not continuously praise You

Let me change

Let me live in your way

May my actions reflect You and only You

May people see You when they see me and not evil within me

May perverse things not come out of me

May Your Glory be revealed in my every step

Where would I be without you

I’ve had glimpses of that way and God I don’t want that

Charge me anew

Let me glorify you

May I not become so comfortable with my falseness that I accept my perverse ways as how I am designed to be

God afflict me until I understand

Frustrate me until I grasp my mistakes

Charge me until I meet Your request

Challenge me to uphold Your truth

Surround me with accountability even when it hurts

Lord show me You

Hesston Mennonite Sermons

Back in December the campus pastor here asked me if I was interested in helping with some sermons at Hesston Mennonite after Christmas up to Lent. I agreed and my what a time it has been; we are studying Genesis.  5 of us (the lead pastor, 2 church members, and 2 Hesston College Students) are helping with this and are having such engaging conversation and study. 2-3 people meet each week discuss ask questions and meet again Sunday morning with a final rough outline for the sermon. The congregation has been responding each week with e-mails and verbal questions and comments about our discussions. We are not pretending to have the answers to everything, but our discussions seem to be prompting discussion within the congregation. Tomorrow I will be helping with the fall story, from our discussions we have to much to continue asking and discussing, it'll be interesting and exciting to see where we go and what makes it into the outline and out to the congregation.

Soprano Surprise

I made Bel Canto! For those of you who do not know what Bel is I should say that it is the choir at Hesston that one has to audition to get into.

It happened pretty quickly; Thursday night I checked my e-mail around midnight and read an e-mail that said there was going to be 1 or 2 openings in Bel this coming semester and that auditions were Friday between 11:30 and 12. I figured I did not have much to lose auditioned. Around 4:20 that day 10 minutes before I was leaving for work Anna congratulated me. I asked her for what and she said that I made Bel and should check my e-mail.

This is a big deal for me because I have never really thought that I had a singing voice. I had a good friend tell me when I was young that I could not sing. College here in Hesston is that first time that I sang in a chorale. I am happily surprised that I made it into this 20 member group that one has to audition for!

This opportunity is exciting and I am very much looking forward to my time in the group.

Thanksgiving weekend at Hesston

I am grateful that I was able to see both Nathaniel and my parents during this weekend. Nathaniel drove out here which is 25 hour drive when 3 hours are added for sleeping time. He got here Tuesday evening while I was at work. My parents arrived Thursday afternoon they had gone to see Caleb and the other Gugel's in Iowa before they came down.

As seems to be a pattern we played lots of Apple's to Apples. Bill sent out some of his smoked pork with Nathaniel and we enjoyed that with the cookies sent out for me with my parents. The 4 of us went to see my cousin Mark on Friday in Hutch, we went out to Chili's and then back to the VS house he lives to continue talking and catching up for a while. After the fun there we headed to see "The Blind Side" which was a great movie that all four of us enjoyed.

Now I am turning back to my school work for 2 more weeks, a few days of exams, and then Christmas break!

the lie of fairytales

I just read my Bluffton roommates facebook status, and this is what she had to say. 

"All the fairytales tell a lie; they say that everything has to happen perfectly to get us to our happy ending."

Thank you Rachel, I think it is worth pondering

Silent Retreat

As a wonderful story from my experience at a Silent Retreat:

I went on a silent retreat this past Saturday for my class Faith and Discipleship. I spent the morning focusing on just being in to moment,praying for others, and for organizations/conflicts around me. After lunch I decided to walk the trails; it was during this time that I prayed about my future. I talked with God about how I felt that I was seeking and he was not responding and that i did not understand. I was lead to re-ask myself what God wants me/Christ-followers to do.

I had just read Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne over fall break. While reading the book I was pleased to find that what Shane talks about is what is inside of me that I lacked the vocabulary to vocalize.

Thinking of that book, Jesus' example, and my own believes I realized that simple radical truth: God desires for me (for Christ-followers) to love (radically love, something so many Christian's do not do). God wants me to love a love that gets not just my hands dirty, but my life dirty. If we love someone then we get involved in their lives and help them (which can "mess up" our own comfortable lives). God reminded (okay, had to reveal to the silly narrow minded me) that I do not need an organization to do live out the Radical Love that Jesus lived out.

I felt once again re-affirmed in my plans to move to Pennsylvania. I do not know if i will end up with an organization or not, God may in fact lead me to an organization; however, I am very open to the possibility of being a full time lover without an organization. I could very well work at a "regular" job (like transfer to an applebee's out there) and love.

This may sounds silly; however, to me it helped me move from just having the internal understanding of love to grasping the radical external lifestyle of real love.

My Thoughts on the book: Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne

Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne was written to push people to live a life the reflected Jesus’ life of living with and amongst the poor and outcasts. Irresistible revolution does just this when Shane Claiborne destroys the comfortable Christianity that the American church created and un-remodels Christian living taking it back to its simple and true form of love. Jesus calls us to love and to love those around us; Shane Claiborne wonders how people can follow Jesus from the comfort of their middle and upper-class lives while letting the poor go hungry on the streets. Jesus, Shane Claiborne points out, does not want his disciples to be so detached from the homeless on the streets that they send them a monetary donation everyone once in a while to ease their conscience. If disciples of God are to follow Jesus’ life and teachings then they had better do just what Jesus did; build relationships with those on the fringes of society. How can a Christian say that they love someone if that Christian has no relationship or connection to that someone?

In Irresistible Revolution Shane Claiborne mentions that wealthy people ask him what they can do to help, usually meaning “where can we send the money?” In response Shane Claiborne often replies that they can come down to The Simple Way, where he lives, and spend some time building relationships with the kids and families on the block. The challenge is that if everyone who claimed to follow Jesus would really follow Jesus and get the know those around them who are in need the needs would be able to be met and people would cease to be marginalized.

At one point Shane Claiborne and a friend wanted to contact Mother Theresa to see if they could join her in India. After many tries they got her number; he asked if they could come and told her when and how long they wanted to be there for. Mother Theresa told them to come on out; when Shane Claiborne began to ask about the travel details and where they would stay Mother Theresa told him that if he wanted to come and serve God’s people then he should just come and let God take care of the details. That is the kind of lifestyle Christ-followers all are suppose to live; people are suppose to love God’s people even the details clear. Following God gets dirty; when people start to really love those around them they get involved in their situations and suddenly the easy life has intertwined with their friend’s reality. The clean cut separation between another’s problems and their own life becomes fuzzy as they work more and more to help their friends. This is what Jesus did, Shane reminds us; Jesus spent his time with tax collectors, prostitutes, and outcasts showing them God by loving them. Jesus got involved in their lives blurring the social boundaries that existed.

My understanding of God’s desire for us to love was driven home during the silent retreat I attended on Saturday. During the nine hours of silence I spent some time praying about my life after graduation in May. I have been searching out youth organizations in South Eastern Pennsylvania to get involved with and have not been having the best of luck finding them. I asked God what He really wanted me to do and re-asked what I was essentially called to do; it was then that I remembered Shane Claiborne’s book and how I when I had read the book I felt like he was putting into words the truths I did not know how to vocalize. I remembered that God wants me to love, racially love, first and foremost. I do not need an organization to love God; I can radically love God by honestly loving those around me wherever I go.