de-teching

Posted on September 28th, 2007

One of the ministries I have launched at the church since I started is a Sunday school class (that one day in the not-too-or-much-too-distant-future will be oh-so-much-more) for singles aged 18-34. Other than the singleness thing, it’s right up my alley. I still fall towards the middle of that age range. For now.

It’s a small class. We live in a rural area. But two of the class members live by their cell phones. Literally. One of the things that came up in our lesson last week was the things we consider essential to our lives. And this one guy could not fathom life apart from his cell phone. He doesn’t get signal where he lives at the moment, except when his phone is on a particular spot on a particular window sill. So he leaves it there. All the time. And just looks to see who calls/texts him and then calls them back on the very-lame landline.

Before moving from where my wife and I went to seminary to where we live now, I had a cell phone on my hip all the time. I disconnected my landline phone and lived quite well without it for several years. I never got into the PDA-crossover phones that do everything except type term papers for you, but I lived by my phone and did not want to be apart from it. I felt lost without it. I could not imagine driving anywhere for fear that something would happen and I would need to be able to call someone. (How did humanity survive for thousands of years without these contraptions, and how did the twentieth century endure cars, planes, traffic, accidents, and all the other nightmare scenarios without them I must now wonder.)

Not all that long ago, I joined one of those social-networking sites and quickly became obsessed with checking it and finding out how many friends I had and whether I was reconnecting with some long-lost friend from a prior existence that my life would be crashed to pieces without if I did not reconnect RIGHT THEN over the Internet.

So you can probably tell from my tone where this is heading. (If the title of the post didn’t tip you off to begin with.)

I am quite contentedly de-teching my life. My wife and I own one cell phone. It’s a pre-paid phone. We buy one of those cards that last for a year, have a plan that lets us roll-over unused portions to the next cycle, and spent a grand total of about $50 last year (not including the remainder of the card, which was supposed to rollover but we lost when I forgot to renew in time, don’t tell my inlaws) on a cell phone. I know people who spend $50 in a day on text messaging alone. Sometimes we even turn the phone on! (Assuming we’ve remembered to take it with us when we are going somewhere.) And, amazingly, life continues unscathed. The sun still rises. The world turns. There are clear days and rainy days. And when someone needs to get hold of me, they manage to find a way. AMAZING!

And I have decided to stop obsessing over the social networking thing. Sure, it’s nice to be able to know a little bit about people I know who are now scattered across creation. But I don’t keep in touch with any of them any better. And I certainly haven’t discovered any new friends in the social circles I engage in my off-line life!

Anyway, this is a rambling post with no real point, other than to say that I am trying to simplify and detach myself from technology’s stranglehold on my life. We’ll see how it goes.

Tags: Life
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No longer my own

Posted on July 8th, 2007

A prayer from a list of prayers on the web site of Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor, available here.

I am no longer my own, but yours.
Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will;
Put me to doing, put me to suffering;
Let me be employed for you or laid aside by you,
Exalted for you or brought low for you;
Let me be full, let me be empty;
Let me have all things, let me have nothing;
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal.

And now, glorious and blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
You are mine and I am Yours.
So be it.

And the Covenant now made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven.

- A prayer of the Methodist Church

Tags: Life, Ministry, Worship
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Conveniences

Posted on June 8th, 2007

Okay, so this is not anything to do with Reflections in Ministry. You’ll forgive me, right?

Welll, I should say that it is connected. This time last year my wife and I flew from our comfortable southern-state home to New Jersey to interview for the church position we’re now working for. We moved two months later and have been loving life in New Jersey ever since.

A couple of things that we have learned about New Jersey:

• It has incredibly high property taxes. Fortunately, we live in a parsonage and it doesn’t directly affect us.
• Getting into New Jersey is free, but the surrounding states will charge you to get back out. There is no way to leave NJ without paying for a plane ticket, ferry, or bridge toll. Well, there may be a way in to get from the New York suburbs into New York state without paying, but I’m not sure about that.
• While most of NJ is citified, there is a lovely part of the state called “South Jersey” that has some beautiful farmland and is sparsely populated.
• New Jersey is one of two states where it is illegal to pump your own gas (Oregon is the other that I know of). So every gas station is full service (well, not in the sense that they will wash your windows, check your oil and tire pressure, and give your engine a once-over, but they do pump your gas for you).

The funny thing about this last one, the pumping gas, is that my wife and I were both sort of intimidated about this fact when we first arrived. Mostly because neither of us just relishes new experiences, and we had never gone to a full-service station. But after 10 months of it, we’re quite accustomed to just pulling up to a pump and sitting in our car while someone comes up to us and pumps it for us. Oh, the life of luxury!

So we’re traveling this weekend. And not to Oregon. We’ll have a car to rent. I’ll have to return it with a full tank (or pay upward of $7.00/gallon for them to). That means I will actually have to pump my own gas for the first time in 10 months. Wow. Life changes quickly!

(As an aside, New Jersey is a small state – you can get out of it and into one, two, or three other states in a matter of one or two hours, depending on your course. The surprising thing we’ve found is that NJ, where they pump the gas for you, generally has gas that is $0.15-$0.25 cheaper per gallon than the other states. Because we have a lower gas tax. So even if we’re running on fumes in, say, Delaware, we’ll cross over to NJ and get gas there where someone else can pump our gas and we can pay less for them to do it!)

Anyway, having someone pump the gas for us may be a legally mandated luxury in NJ, but we certainly enjoy it. I hope that I can remember how to pump gas when we get to where we’re going!

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Romans 1:21

Posted on September 23rd, 2006

I am in what is essentially a small group, and we have begun working through Romans. We covered Romans 1:17-32 today. I think it is pertinent to where our discussion has been. The particular verse referenced in the title of this post is what I believe to be the hinge of this section of scripture.

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Early in the morning

Posted on August 27th, 2006

Mark 1:35-39

In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there. Simon and his companions searched for Him; they found Him, and said to Him, “Everyone is looking for You.” He said to them, “Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby, so that I may preach there also; for that is what I came for.” And He went into their synagogues throughout all Galilee, preaching and casting out the demons.

I think Jesus knew the reasons for the crowds and why they sought him. I think he understood them and their need, and what he had to offer them. But I also think that the crowds exasperated him. I suspect he preferred the independence and freedom of a carpentry shop. I think he longed for those interludes when it was him and the Father communing together. I think on his choice alone, Jesus would have stayed in the deserted, lonely places. But he knew that the need was great. He needed to go to the crowds and meet their longings and their needs. And he knew that because of prayer.

Before any major event in his life, the gospels record that Jesus went off by himself and prayed. Between his baptism and the start of his ministry. The transfiguration. Walking on water. Being arrested. They are preceded by Jesus in a solitary place, praying, asking God. I think his prayer times throughout his ministry were often like what we have recorded of his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane before his arrest. Pleading with God for rest, respite, and a different path, but always leaving the time with the sense of purpose, conviction, and assurance that he was doing the right thing, the necessary thing.

He rejects the allure of popularity and acclaim offered to him by the crowds for the higher calling of the purposes of God. Jesus was popular because he was a healer, but the healings he did at the time were only temporary – the people still died. The crowds followed Jesus because he gave them good gifts and fixed their problems (however temporarily). But Jesus did not come to perform miracles and pass out Band Aids for problems. He came to call people to repentance and a new path, a difficult path.

How difficult is it to maintain focus when crowds are clamoring around, when peers and multitudes demand certain things from us? Jesus faced this as well, and I think he needed the time of prayer he often took to withdraw so that he could refocus and reclaim the mission and purpose for which he was sent.

Tags: Life
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