Shoutouts

Two of my teens, Brian and Chris, preached Sunday night. They did awesomely, and I'm uberproud. They laid their hearts on the line, which is risky, but the only way to do it.

Blair turns 17 today. She's an amazing young lady who's journey in Christ comes through everything she is and does. All this, while being really real, which certainly isn't a given with 17-year-olds.

Leah turned 14 last Thursday. I was going to stop by to wish her a Happy Birthday, but I got too busy. Happy birthday, Leah.

Dustin got me out of a potentially huge jam Friday evening. Muchas gracias.

Seed Spreader started a really intriguing, and I'm pretty sure important, train of thought in this post. Then he left us all hanging.

He's a youth pastor who's keeping it real, even in his blogosphere, which is most certainly not a given. I've enjoyed his stuff, and he's been in my thoughts and prayers.

C'mon, man - keep going with your thought. You're killing me here.

- - - -

Oh, and the baptistfunkrevolution has begun.

I'll have a tall skinny boycott

I read this Time cover story last week in the airport on the way to Atlanta. Around the same time, I was hearing and having conversations about some Christians' decisions to boycott Starbucks because of their support of gay pride events.

Some personal observations:

- Being a homosexual teenager in 2005 America is worlds apart from being homosexual in (place your favorite time period here) America. It just is.

But do Christians do the hard work of approaching the two differently?

- The article mentions that many of the teenagers coming out as homosexual in today's world have no desire to adopt overtly homosexual lifestyle indicators. The image of the "flaming" homosexual is of no interest to them. They're disappointed that there aren't camps where gay teenagers can do the same recreational sports and traditional camp activities of other camps.
It's possible now - and will be more so - to interact on an accquaintance level with someone who's gay, and not recognize it.

Is that reality compatible with the rhetoric/ministry approaches we've used so far?

- To boycott means not just that I stop consuming some product: it also means that, to one degree or another, I make it known that I am not consuming a product, and why. So, how do I, on one hand, be vocal about avoiding a place of business because they support gay pride events, and then on the other hand, love a homosexual the way that Christ loves them? Doesn't the attitude necessary to pull off the former spill into the attitude of the latter?

- If I'm going to draw attention, at any level, to my avoiding a place of business because of their connections to the homosexual community, then doesn't my pursuit of integrity dictate that I do an inventory of my life and remove every single other element that has similar connections? And if, for instance, I find out that my couch was made by a company with such connections, am I not obligated, not just to take the couch down to Goodwill or something, but to put it out on my front lawn and burn it?

Just wondering.

And I'm wondering as someone who really has a burden for this subject and this area of culture. I don't even know why - I've documented the only conversation I've had where someone was open about their homosexuality and I haven't had one since. But I can't get it out of my head.

It was a good day to be 30

October 11, 2005

5:30 am
The alarm clock goes off, reminding me that the guys are playing basketball at 6:30. Normally, this is enough to get me out of bed: today, however, is not a normal day. It's my thirtieth birthday.

So I roll over and go back to sleep.

6:45 am
Kristy kisses me on the cheek and says, "Happy Birthday." I'm pretty sure I can get 10 more minutes of snoozes in here, I think to myself.

7:45 am
I get out of bed. I have ten minutes to get ready before Rob picks me up for work. At this moment, my momentous day is shaping up thus: work, rush home to get ready for services at church, services at church, supper if we haven't squeezed it in somewhere else, bed.

8:30ish am
I arrive at work to a week's worth of unanswered emails, this being my first day back after a week at a conference in Atlanta. Trying to get through them all, I have no chance at all for my normal online routine: usatoday.com, espn.com, check my livejournal friends, apple movie trailers, more blogs. I make it to usatoday.com for two minutes, then it's back to the grindstone. Oh yeah, and Malcolm Gladwell's site - I heard him speak last week (really cool stuff, by the way).

12:02 pm
This is the exact moment in 1975 when I was born into this world. Thirty years from that moment, I am showing my dad and Evangelist Bill Behrens around the offices of Samaritan Ministries, preparing to be taken to Famous Dave's for a birthday lunch.

Didn't see that one in the ol' crystal ball, lemme tell you.

2:00ish pm
I get back from my birthday lunch, and within five minutes, Joel (my team leader) asks me what I'm doing. This means a) we have a time-sensitive task that needs to be done right away, and b) I'm not getting stuff done quickly enough.

It's not really b), but it feels like it sometimes. The new cubicle configuration, with its openness and proximity to other members of the team, has unleashed in me a low-level paranoia in this regard.

4:30ish pm
I'm supposed to get through a list of need keys to change the status, but the phone keeps ringing. Arrrgh! This list is huge! It's gonna look like I haven't done a thing! It's looking like I'll have the chance to contemplate being 30 when I'm 32.

5:15 pm
Kristy and the kids have picked me up. We were going to have double stuffed tacos (my request) for supper tonight, but between 5:35 and 6:45ish, we need to: 1) get three kids cleaned up and ready for church, 2) get ourselves ready for church, and 3) practice a few songs, since Kristy and I have been asked to sing tonight. The menu quickly gets downsized to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

5:45 pm
I make the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They're really good, as PB&J's go, because I tend not to skimp on the ingredients.

Which, in some cosmic culinary parallel universe, means that turning thirty has not made me old. Everybody knows that old people don't put nearly enough peanut butter and jelly on their sandwiches - at least not the ones they pawned off on me.

6:20ish pm
I get a phone call from my friend Dave. He has no idea it's my birthday: it's just been a couple weeks since I posted or had been in touch with him, and he wanted to check on how we were doing. How mind-blowingly like Jesus is that?

6:50 pm
Getting the kids and ourselves ready and wolfing down sandwiches has reduced our practice time to deciding which three songs we can do without practicing. And so we roll into church: Kristy's pregnant and just bushed, Gracie's cranky and wants to be held, Derek's just cranky, Trey's mostly oblivious, and I'm...here. Turning 30 is feeling less and less momentous by the second.

7:10 pm
Kristy and I go to the platform to sing. I mention to the congregation that I turned thirty today, and that I think that moments like the one in which someone turns 30 are not momentous in and of themselves: they're momentous because they make you stop and recognize the transitions that have been occurring more slowly over the previous - what, months? Years?

I still think this is true, but my saying it at this moment causes everyone to laugh, which is not an uncommon response to most of what I say before singing. So I continue the conversation in a humorous direction for a few more moments, and then we sing.

8:35 pm
The service is just over, and Dad calls me into his office. He wants to talk to me about something.

8:45 pm
Dad's done talking to me, and he wants to show me something downstairs in the basement of the church. So I follow him down the stairs, where we're greeted by all the church people, and some of my extended family, yelling "Surprise!"

Kristy's put together a surprise party for me and Dad!

9:15 pm
I'm eating cake and opening cards. My brother Matt is next to me, and Blair (whose reference to me as "old" is the first by a teenager that I can remember) and Morgan and Chris and Brian and Andrea (more of my teenagers) are in a glob around the other side. Down the table a little ways is my cousin Nate and his family, my Grandpa Hammock and his wife Polly. Opey and Renee are serving things and chatting. I get a very special "full circle" gift, and several cards with special, heartfelt greetings.

Yep, I'm one blessed dude.

10:40 pm
We've cleaned up and headed home, and we have four helium-filled balloons that will be the object of our kids' delight for the next, oh, 12 hours at least. Suddenly I get an idea: there's one more thing I want to do.

I take one of the balloons, and I tell Trey and Derek they can come out into the yard with me. Kristy follows at a distance.

"I want to tell God thank you, so I'm going to send Him this balloon," I tell Trey.

I let it go, and we watch it drift into the night sky. The reflective material makes it visible for much longer than I'd expected.

As it drifts away, I contemplate my journey - where I am, where I've been, where it's going - and I realize that it's all Him. It's all God, all the time. The balloon was my spur-of-the-moment way to say thank You, to have a moment of connection with the One who is my life. For a moment, it really feels like it's going to get to God.

I looked down at Trey, who was still watching. Derek was grabbing my leg, Kristy needed help carrying in leftover cake, and Gracie was more cranky and more wanting to be held.

Ahh, life. Sweet, sweet life.