You Wretched Mal-Content

So, i have come to abhor blogging. The laste few days i have felt like i have been way to busy living my life to write about it. I really haven't even been that busy, but i find myself wanting to spend less and less time writing about stuff on this blog. Partially because my life has been such a big secret lately. Making quiet plans to go to vancouver, hearing quiet whispers of a future job, and here's the thing, nothing is set in stone (nothing is ever set in stone) and so i don't feel like sharing everything thats going on in my life because, what if it goes belly up, and then i've told you all this stuff that was going to happen and then doesn't. Thats how i feel.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about church. Well, i guess it has to do more with youth ministry and how to connect the youth of the church to the larger body in acts of service and community, and growth. My vision with youth ministry is very multi-generational, i hate the compartmentalization of ministry, youth ministry is seperate from childrens, and adult ministries, and seniors are their own thing, i want our churches to break down those walls and have old learning from young, and the young learning from the old, and the parents involved in the lives of thier kids, while teaching them about growing up, responsibility, and when people don't step up to the plate to do these things other people in the church would. I don't know, it sounds so naive and idealistic, especially when you throw in kids who are from outside the church, but i do believe in the transforming power of the Holy Spirit and it's wonderful choice to use the Church as a vessel of this transformation, more and more i want this to happen in community, and see potential for this happening in community, and i wish we could become more like a family of believers then independant life forms who congregate at the same location each sunday. I know family's aren't perfect, and there is conflict in real life, and i think thats impotant, and is also why we have elders and leaders and instruction from scripture on how to be in relationship with one another. To not hold grudges, to work things out amongst yourselves unless a third party becomes neccesary. I don't know, i see so much truth and beauty in the church, but pray for it to be realized in a real and tangible way in my ministry, the ministry that God gives to me.

I've also been doing some thinking about sales. As you know, i work at a retail outlet. Often times i find myslf working in the music department, and people ask me about music, they ask me if i have heard albums, they ask me if i like certain artists or records, and i do my best to be honest with them. Now at the place where i work, there are about 4 or 5 albums that i love. Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama, U2, David Crowder Band, Derek Webb, and anyway, when people ask me about these albums, i almost always convince them to buy it because i love these records and artists, and because my my knowledge, experiance and passion, people see that and can really take my word for something because of how i present it, both in word, but also in deed as i let them listen to the record. This is the reason i can't sell cd's by Third Day, or Mercyme, or Toby Mac, or Underoath, or whatever dingleberry Christian artist is popular this week. I mean, i can literally sell them, like the monetary transaction for goods (not services), but if someone asks me if i like them, i try to be diplomatic, and chalk it up to differant tastes but i can't get excited about a Third Day concert, or a Mercyme CD, or the fact that Underoath was featured on disgusting prime time show "The O.C.". The best (and worst) salesmen are people who can sell something they don't believe in or know nothing about. Thier conciounce allows them to sell something to people, whether they believe it a worthy product or not. I haven't been able to do that, at least not when i comes to something real, i can sling bull pretty well sometimes, but at the end of the day (and first thing in the morning) I come clean...and so should you. I wish William Wallace was here, he would know what to do.