Another Exciting Truett Chapel Coming Your Way...

This Tuesday, we are going to do experiential worship in the Great Hall. For those of you who don't know what that means, it's a worship service where you go to different stations for different worship exercises, like communion, confession, and intercessory prayer, instead of listening to someone preach for 20 minutes. (Not that preaching is bad. I happen to like preaching very much.) Josh, Adam, and I met with Eric, this semester's student chapel leader, to plan out our different stations. I am excited about this. It will be interesting to see how our seminary community reacts to this. If you are free you should definitely come by and check it out.

Excitement, my long lost friend

I got an exciting phone call yesterday. I am going to be mentoring at Journey, an amazing community in Dallas with an incredible pastor named Danielle Shroyer! I'm pumped. It's so good to be excited about something again. It makes me feel more like myself. I've always been the five year old kid who lived for cartoons on Saturday morning, except cartoons turned into summer camps, dates, lovefeasts, 80's proms, etc. I haven't felt that way about anything since October. Not even getting a new car. It's almost like Danielle's phone call woke me up from something.

It's a strange transitional moment. It's my last year of school ever, and personally, it's by far been the hardest. Another year of school to... well not, get back to my old self, but to adjust in a familiar environment would have been nice. Instead, it's learning to be whoever I am now in a totally new place in the real world. I've dreaded graduation and anything that would take me out of Waco and away from UBC. I knew that was not good. I wanted to feel the freedom and drive to carry this "Love God, Embrace Beauty" revolution wherever life takes me, but how do you leave people you love who are hurting when you still love them and hurt so much? I still don't know the answer to that, but I know I need to graduate. I know I cannot put dreams on hold. I know Journey is a community not isolated from this pain. They are fellow revolutionaries, kindred spirits of sorts. I can't imagine being with anyone else. I can't wait to learn and grow with them.

Blue is Still Beautiful

Maybe I should be mad at them for talking smack about my baby, but instead I'm just laughing because I honestly think it's just pretty funny crap. http://baptistpress.com/bpnews.asp?ID=22885 And for added kicks check out my llama's response at http://www.xanga.com/freethinker777

Back to E-town

Back in Waco after a long and uneventful week in the homeland. I finally watched Elizabethtown, which I bought for myself on Valentine's Day. I don't know why I put it off. Maybe it's because so many of my friends have harshly criticized it, and I didn't want to face the possibility that they might be right. Maybe the events of the past few months made me remember it through rose colored lens. Here's what I think after my second viewing: Yeah maybe Cameron Crowe wrote a movie around his favorite songs. For you artsy types, maybe it is a poor man's Garden State. It might take weeks instead of days to put together a map like that. And no, when your whole world crashes in on you, there are not beautiful people in red hats who automatically develop sincere and romantic feelings for you, BUT...

...I still cried like a baby during the entire road trip.

...grief is really like the montage of Drew and the ashes in the car, at least for me. It's funny memories, gratefulness, and longings to have the ones you've lost there with you. It's regretting all the things you never did together, and all the future things you'll never experience together.

...the best loves, the most true loves in our lives are the ones that teach us how to live. I hope there will be many more of those in my life, and I hope I can be such a person.

...I still connect with that movie on a pretty deep level. It relates a little more closely to my experience of losing a parent than Garden State does, but I think I love them the same and for different reasons. I get defensive when you criticize Elizabethtown because I feel like you are invalidating my feelings. (even though that's not anyone's intention)

...the soundtrack is one of the best you'll ever find.

...I really, really want a red hat like that. Maybe it will fool the fellas into thinking my all natural accent it cute, even sexy.

Just for the Record...

I just scrolled few my last few posts, and boy do I look like a CCM subscriber. There's all the SCC business, a post named after a favorite Rich Mullins/Cademon's Call song, and a shout out to Andrew Peterson, who I love. Recently, my life has been inundated with Christian music. I feel uncool, and I am embarrassed by the insecurity that causes me to care what others think. That music was an important part of my past. Sometimes I still enjoy it, but I'm just afraid that you'll think I'm Hillary Faye (the main character from the movie, Saved).

So to set the record straight...
1. I listened to Kanye West, Bon Jovi, and Ryan Adams on my way to work this morning.
2. I'm planning on seeing a PG-13 movie this weekend.
3. I no longer own any witness wear, and I am slowly but surely getting rid of my d-now t-shirts.
4. I don't go to a church that does interpretive movement or hand motions to songs. (Except for the Hey! in Undignified)
5. I no longer aspire to be Skip the cool youth minister.
6. I now despise the book I Kissed Dating Goodbye.
7. Harry Potter is not from Satan. I perfer those books over the The Left Behind series.
8. Toby Mac is no longer my celebrity crush.
9. I stopped boycotting Disney in 1998.
10. I no longer carry tracts on my person at all times. I can't even remember the last time I saw one of those.

Baby it WAS Paradise!

Paul Powell chapel is a most reverent place. It sees weddings, multiple preaching and pastor's conference (not to mention the cowboy church conference), chapel choirs, world renowned-organists, prayer services, and the occassional covenant group meeting when all the classrooms are being used. It was the first place I ever heard Kyle's last sermon read by my friends, and it was the first place where I heard Crowder sing "You Make Everything Glorious". You better believe it is indeed holy ground. But until yesterday, it had not seen the joyous celebration and fellowship that only comes by way of a nine-time grammy award winning artist who in his songs and his very being encapsulate everything good about growing up in a youth group. (That maybe pushing it, but just barely.)

In the words of an email from my dear friend Kathleen, "I mean, I don't even need to email and say this b/c it, like the 10 commandments, is written on our hearts. SC squared rocked it hard yesterday. And I believe he had a teensy bit of help from the first two rows on his left. What happened to us? I'd love to talk about it. I tried to articulate last night what happened in that one magic hour yesterday, but to no avail. If you can put it into words please help me out here."

Well Kate, I'm going to try my best. For weeks, we looked with an eager anticipation for March 7. We plotted and planned, made T-shirts, and broke out our greatest hits cd's. We shared our favorite SCC stories and songs. We hoped against all hope that he would sing his "Freebird". He did not disappoint. The room was abuzz with excitement. Everyone pushed towards the front, and no one save the dean and name sake himself ever covets those seats. Of course all of my best friends, except Josh who is way too cool, claimed the front two rows. We jumped to our feet like wide-eyed teenagers, who listened to nothing else but him who was before us.

He started out with a little "Live Out Loud", which is old enough to still be recognizable for us. Then our hope turned into rejoicing. In an instant, we were on our feet. "Started out this morning in the usual way..." It was over. We were screaming the words. I swear I almost cried when we rared back our arms together, punched our hands towards the sky, and shouted with all that was within us, "LET'S GO!"

Basically, we became a youth group in those moments, and it was B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L. I'll never forget it. It's funny because while I still love teenagers, I don't really enjoy youth ministry anymore because of moments exactly like this one. However, this is a definite exception. Many of us never knew each other before August of 2003, but that one song coupled with so many other great expereiences, made me feel like we had been friends since Jr. High.

God bless you Steven Curtis Chapman. We may not have bought any of your cd's since Speechless, but your songs will always take us back and unite us.

Okay, now I'll be 26 again.

Hope to Carry On

Yesterday felt like Spring, and boy how I love the in between, non-extreme seasons of Spring and Fall. They draw me outdoors, and since my night class let out so early last night, I headed home, grabbed the ipod, and went out for a walk.

Yesterday was pretty rotten. I’ve kind of been in a funk lately, and yesterday I think it came to its head. It’s hard to describe a funk, but you sure know when you’re in one. I’ve been in one, for about three weeks. Last night during my walk, I think I realized why. The month of February came and went and brought no major crisis. There is still much grieving to be done, but for now it seems like the storms have passed. Yes this is cause for rejoicing, but at least once in every month since October, the bottom has continued to fall out a little more, and I’ve been living in crisis mode. Over these past few months, I think I found a lot of my purpose and use in crisis management. Now, I am kind of at a loss for what to do with myself.

Maybe the question that I can’t figure out is “How do you live in a new world, when you never thought yours would change, and when you miss the old one so much?” Maybe our best attempts at pastoral care and comforting are trying to find ways to help the grieving see that remnants of what we once found our solace and contentment in are still lingering around. Sometimes hope seems like a song whose lyrics you’ve forgotten. You know it exists and it is good, but your memory cannot do it justice. Then a friend comes along and helps you remember a line. Together you start to remember it more and more, and pretty soon you are singing and giggling.

I remember a preacher once saying he couldn’t imagine how life could get any better. I was struck by his obvious sincerity, but I couldn’t imagine that ever being the case in my life. Maybe things could be that good for really cool pastors with beautiful families, but not for a sad little seminary girl like me. After walking with him and his friends for about year, I was a believer. I learned exactly what he meant, and I could say with a sincerity of my own, “right on”.

I want to be able to say that again, and maybe one day we will, and maybe one day will come sooner than we think. Until then, I’m glad I have friends to help me remember the lines.

Heaven is Comin' to My Real World

So Stephen will be at Baylor in only 5 days!!! (6 if you are going to wait to hear him at Truett chapel). We are so excited! Running into his daughter Emily today only made my anticipation greater. We're even gonna make t-shirts at the Truett Oscars Party on Sunday night. You should join in on the fun, but if you can't.................

Create the best slogan for my t-shirt, and win a fabulous prize!!!Post your ideas on the comment section.