Hey everyone from Chicago!
We're all here for St. Patricks Day. Today we went to the Mexican section of the city and tomorrow we're going to go to the parade. We're having lots of fun. Ok. I'll be back later this week for a longer post.

Thoughts from a Coffee Shop

Today I sat at a coffee shop all day and did homework on my computer using my bible. I came across two things in the course of my work that interested me.

The first was Psalm 18:30. I was reading through this chapter and its an incredible chapter. It speaks of God rescuing David from powerful enemies and ends with praise for God. The 30th verse was my favorite. It covers so many grounds. "As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the Lord is flawless. He is a shield for all who take refuge in Him." God is perfect and flawless. He's a shield for any who want it. All we have to do is take refuge behind it and we'll be fine. Because God is perfect the only way we can get hurt is if we choose to step outside his protection. For me I choose the shield.

The second thing was the mention in Genesis 6 of the Nephilim. This topic interests and I'd like to know what all of you think about it. So any ideas?

Chicago

I'd like to thank my sister here for hosting a fun-filled weekend in Chicago. It was so great that I might just have to do it again. For more details you can check out her blog. However I would like to add that the Thai food we had for lunch was good also and that our waiter at the Cheesecake Factory was a pretty cool guy. And also, what is so wrong with wanting to jump down to walk on the ice chunks that were obviously thick enough? Oh well. Thanks Jane.

More Stuff

The following takes place between 3:00 AM and 4:00 AM. I sleep. Period. Anyway. So continuing my update, I've been watching some TV. The past few episodes of The Office were hilarious; especially the vampire thing with Jim. The newest Lost episode was cool and interesting but I won't go into specifics just in case. I do agree with Steven though and the idea that they're obsessing over the others too much. I want to know whats going on at the beach more. I started watching 24 for the first time. Its pretty cool. Of course I miss a few things because I haven't watch any of the other seasons but it helps to have Dustin there to help explain thing every once in a while.
I've also been following the Red Wings and the Pistons and the Suns. They're all doing pretty well but I'm not sure if any of them are ready to do it all. But then you never know.
I'm staying here in Michigan for spring break. I'm not going to like it but I guess its something I have to do. I'll get a lot of work done and I'll be able to give support to CAV in a time when support wavers. I was looking forward to come home but I can wait...for a little while.

Update

Hey everybody. Sorry its been so long. So here's the update. School's going well. My class are pretty cool. I really like my Introduction to Missions class with Chuck White. I've gotten some interesting questions like "Why are you taking this class?" Its fun. We watched "Beyond the Gates of Splendor." I love that story. I've been hanging out a lot with Juan Cordova in his room. He's a cool guy. We speak spanish together and it bugs everybody. Also I've been hanging out with a girl in my Soc100 class. Her name is Ashlee Lemmon and she's from Minnesota. I've seen her everyday since about a week before Valentines Day. We talk about church and missions and class and people. We talked about dating and decided that we had decided before this year that we weren't going to date until next year. Then a few days ago we set some boundaries for our friendship. CAV is going well. I'm giving guitar lessons on thursdays and I'm leading worship two weeks in every month. My friends are great there. So I'll be posting more often now.

thoughts from foundations of worship

I thought I'd share a few ideas that either drifted through my head or were stated out loud during my foundations of worship class today.

We started out today by telling everyone what our denomination is and it surprised me that so many of the people in the class are nondenominational. I'm trying to decide how I feel about this because its a trend that is really spreading. On the one hand I think we don't fee secure enough in our beliefs. But also it shows the quality of discipleship in the church. People are coming to believe less and less what their fathers believed (again: good thing or bad thing?). Its this non-conformist movement thats sweeping the world as well. On the other hand I think it shows that people are becoming more and more aware of the fact that people in the world don't understand there are 24,000 denominations. Why the division? Why the problems? Why do christians all believe different things? So while its good that we recognize that denominations are bad, its bad that the solution we have found is to create more churches, each with their own set of beliefs. I'm not sure if any of that made sense. I was thinking out loud.

The second topic has to do with why we go to church. The question brought up is are we going to church for what we can get out of it or for what we can give to God through worship? In other words do we go to give glory to God or to feel good about ourselves for another week? An interesting thing that came up was feeding versus consuming. We get fed so that we can have energy to work for God, but if we continue to eat without exercising our spirit its just consuming. We get spiritually unhealthy, out of shape, and fat. Isn't that a great testament to our faith? I'm goiing to be thinking about these things a lot for awhile.

sorry

I've been a little busy. More coming soon