This weekend I am flying up to Manhattan to take care of some things before I move. Sunday is the last week for two services there so Matt is using it to give his farewell address to the church and then there will be a symbolic "handing over of the keys" to me, which will involve all of the elders giving me the charge and then praying over me. Then it will all be ceremonially official - I will be declared the campus minister for Cats for Christ and the Manhattan church.

It's interesting to think about because it seems like such a big change. It's kind of like a wedding - in a ceremonial kind of way it changes everything, and yet, it is still the same two people, with essentially the same relationship they had five minutes ago before they weren't married. I'll still be the same guy with the same gifts and faults, the same ways of going about things, the same hangups, the same successes and failures. I like to think that ceremonial kinds of things don't really define the reality, but in an odd kind of way they do. After Sunday that church and community will be looking towards me in a way they wouldn't have before. Which means I'll have to necessarily look at myself differently. The ceremony is going to symbolize some of that in way, because Matt is going to hand me a pair of his old shoes, and I will let him know that they don't fit me. They'll be thrown away at that point, indicating that I'm not a replacement for Matt, I'm the next campus minister who is unique in all my own ways.

So, Sunday is going to be like a wedding for me. Scary!

I know I said I would only post original content, but this is an exception. This is a song recently written and recorded by my friend Alaina. I find it relevant right now.



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Tonight I did what I should have done much earlier in the semester and went to an elders' meeting at the Highland church. I needed to get this out of the way for one of my classes, and unfortunately it meant missing the last CoffeeHouse of the semester and of my Abilene tenure. Nevertheless, it was great experience, and here is why.

Frist of all, any and all visitors are welcome at the elders' meetings. So my presence was very welcome and I must have met at least half of the 40 elders before I even sat down.

Highland is working very hard to embrace missionality in everything that it does. The elders are leading this charge in a big way. I would say that close to half of the entire meeting was spent in prayer. Part of this quest is an intense focus on scripture. And by intense, I mean every elder spending time in every meeting in a solid focused time over Luke 10 (the sending of the seventy-two). They read it to each other. They pray over it. They read it again. They pray some more. They have been doing this over individual xeroxed copies of Luke 10 for about nine months now. At every single elders' meeting. More time was spent praying over a new member in the congregation. He stood in the middle of the room and 40 elders crowded around him, laying hands on him and blessing him in the ministry he is doing with middle school kids. Some business was talked about by one of the admin elders then all of the rest of the time was spent in specific prayer over various needs of the congregation. One of the elders on staff sat next to me and explained everything that was going on. They announced that I was going to be the campus minister at Kansas State, which brought out a ton of encouragement before I could leave from a group of men who I didn't even know.

Part of the extraordinary life I am living is getting to have experiences like this. I know that my own elders at Southern Hills operate with a similar kind of spirit, and it is great to be in a faith community with that kind of purposeful and spirit-led leadership.

When I instituted my new blog upon my return to Tulsa in 2004, I made a commitment to myself that I wouldn't post things that I didn't write or create. Lately I have started to stray from that, so I'm doing a little cleanup around the blog house and am recommitting to a blog that is entirely original content.

I've been thinking of creating a section devoted to interesting links, videos, etc. But we'll see. I'm not sure I want this to be a clearing house for the rest of the internet.