Belated Italian Lunch

So, I've never blogged at work before (don't worry I'm on lunch). Actually for lunch I'm having some an Amazing concoction of pasta goodness. Anna Marie, 1st generation Brooklyn raised American-Italian, made me some pasta with beef and turkey sauce with marinara and fresh mozzarella cheese melted on top. Ahhhhh...... It's a happy belated birthday present (it's still in the same month, so it's all good).
I can't believe that the summer is on the downswing! I think of June and July as the summer. However, all the kids up here were still in school until like the middle of June and don't go back until after Labor Day! So, I guess my thinking is a little different. I know that it will continue to be hot for a while.

Summer is Here

So this Sunday at Forefront, the AC wasn't on when we got there. It was like 75 degrees at 6am when I left my apartment to be there for setup, and a heat advisory was in affect for the day. So we turned on the AC, and it did not much. Remember, we meet in a theater with a tall ceiling. We were pretty hot doing setup, but got it all done earlier than usual. Yes! we thought, now we can get breakfast sandwiches in the nice cool corner deli. But no, their AC was not on either (but the breakfast sandwiches as always wonderful). So back the the warm Blender Theater.
I think everyone had in the back of their minds the idea that it would be cool by the time the first service started. Wrong. The programs were thicker because of life group info, so they made pretty good fans. At the end of 1st service, Jacob and a few others went to Walgreens, bought up some bottled water and ice and passed them out as people left and came in for the 2nd service. I must have drank at least 3 as well as a bit of OJ.
Usually when there's a heat wave, you hear about fights breaking out. The atmosphere at Forefront was different. People joked about it, dealt with it, and kept going.
After church, we had some reorganizing to do of all our supplies, so a bunch of people stayed after in the heat to reorganize and eat hot pizza. It was great. By the time I left for the train, I was completely drained. When I got off the train in Brooklyn, I had to get yet another drink - Gatorade. I took a wonderful cold shower and relaxed. Ahh, what fun! God is good!
Ya know, millions of Christians worship every week with no AC at all and they're fine. So I guess we got a glimpse of what it's like for them, as well as what it was like for Christians in New York 1900.

Static vs. Dynamic

So I was thinking about my life lately. Over the past two years, it's been filled with transition. During my senior year at Ozark, I started in preaching at a church in Commerce, OK. Shortly after, I moved off campus into my first apartment (and what an apartment it was...that's another story). I graduated and a week later I came to Forefront to do a Summer internship. Then God led to move to NYC and do stuff with Dave Smith. For a few months I was in limbo, and then I started my first full time job with Jews for Jesus. After a few months of a "stable" situation at J4J, Brian talks to me about a possible Leadership Residency at Forefront! It's seems ironic. During my 5 years at Ozark, I often longed for the "stability" of ministering in one place to one people, pouring all my energy into a church.
Maybe transition is a part of life, an essential tension. When we're kids we want to grow up, but when we're older we want to be kids again. I wonder if the danger is to put too much weight on either side of the tension. Too much focus on stability can stunt growth, but rapid and frequent change can suck the life out of you. Not too profound I guess. But it's true.
I wonder if this tension will be the same in the New Heaven and New Earth? We will be with the Lord, and that will be a stable thing, right? But I like to think that we'll have transition and growth. It's part of how we're created. Heaven won't be singing all the time. What will we discover, invent, change, or create? Life both now and then is dynamic vs. static.
What about God? At first I would think that God is static. Ya know, Alpha and Omega, beginning and the end, always the same yesterday and today. Gracious and compassionate; slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness. But God is also dynamic. When there was nothing but God, He created! He changed the status quo. He created man, who is dynamic. What a gamble! He spoke to man, did miracles in space and time, he gave the Law to the Hebrews. he spoke to the prophets. He even became a man himself, Jesus. God died on a cross. God defeated death by rising again. God now fills his people with his Spirit. He continues to perform miracles, reveal, speak, and guide us. He will come again to judge the living and the dead. Static yes, but also dynamic.
So in the midst of everyday static life, we serve a Dynamic God, who is reconciling the world to himself through Christ Jesus. During the mundane, the Holy Spirit empowers us to bring his Kingdom to this earth. While there is nothing new under the sun, God is doing a new thing.
And when life is falling out of control, God is the same yesterday and today. When we are faithless, he is faithful. He is an ever-present help in time of trouble. When the weight of sin hangs on our shoulders, we know that he alone is Holy. Whatever our present circumstances, Jesus came, died in our place for our sins, and rose again to bring us life.
So...if life is mundane, maybe you need to embrace some change that God will bring into your life. And if your life is in transition, trust that God is the same that he always has been and always will be.

Only in New York

• The Wendy's Dollar Menu is $1.19.
• Standing 1/2 inch away from total strangers, while avoiding eye contact for more than 2 seconds, trying not to fall on someone, for up to 10 minutes.
  
• Seeing homeless people every single day.
• Real. Good. Breakfast Sandwiches.
  
• Riding a train with Chinese, Hasidic Jews, Hispanics, Whites, Blacks, and whoever else you can think of.
• Real. Good. Bagels.
  
• Nearly being run over by a taxi and having people close to you laugh and say "welcome to New York."
  

Gross things in NYC in no particular order

• Grabbing the warm part of the pole in the subway.
• Humans picking up dog excrement.
• Pigeons.
• Rats.
• Walking into an invisible stench of garbage, sewer, BO, or something you just can't put your finger on...and you wouldn't want to.
• Crowded subway car with no AC in the middle of July.
• Dried throw-up on the sidewalk, particularly prevalent on early Sunday mornings.
• Being caught in a sudden downpour with no umbrella...in Central Park (yes it's happened to me, and it was gross).
• 59th St and 5th Ave where the carriage horses are...it's a mix of manure, hay, and horse food all smashed together (I wonder if they sample it now and then...that's gross!).
• 85% of public bathrooms (it's a great thing when you find a clean one!).

Life Group

So Forefront has life groups three times a year. Out spring one just finished. We were looking at the gospel of John. It was pretty different since we did the entire book in about 9 weeks. We were having to do like 3 chapters at a time to get all the way through at times. But we got to see the big themes in John, like Life, Divinity, Love, Truth, stuff like that. Anyway, for our last meeting we did some artistic reflection. We had paints, playdoh, and I played a song I had written on my guitar the week earlier. It was all pretty awesome. Kevin, who is a music connoisseur played some sweet "artistic" music he had on his ipod as we created our art.
Here is Katie and her fish. This is one of the fist caught by the boy to feed the 5000.
Here is Carrie's pic reflecting the Life that Jesus gives.

Here we kind of took a picture too late and Kevin was taking his playdo masterpiece apart...

Here's my picture. I just wanted to paint, so I started splattering and dripping paint on the paper. It looked cool, so I ran with it. I decided that it's the blood of Christ on the road to the cross.

Afterward, we went to a bar close by to hang out and eat hushpuppies! Yeah!

All in all, it was a great group. Some are moving away :( but the rest of us will hopefully stick together during the Summer as we look at the book of Proverbs.

The Mets

So it's either the Mets or the Yankees. You've got to pick one right? I'm not sure it's the same as Chicago with the Cubs and the White Sox where you must pick one and be against the other. It's definitely not real heated in New York. But at this point, when people ask, I always say I'm a Mets fan more than a Yankees fan. Why you ask? Well, it all goes back to my childhood.....not. A few experiences. Comparing the fan base, Mets fans were much more excited and supportive of their team at the first game I went to (granted I sat in pretty bad bleachers at the Yankees game I went to). Then there's the sense of just jumping on the bandwagon of the Yankees, since they are iconic of New York City. Then there's ARod and his fickleness (will he stay with the Yankees or not? How many more millions does he need?).
If you know me well, you know that I've never been a hard-core fan of any team anywhere. So who knows if being a Mets fan will stick? And yes, I did have to do some wikipedia searches to make sure that some info in the post was correct if that tells you anything.
So a few weeks ago, Forefront had a volunteer appreciation and Caren got a bunch of us decent tickets to the Mets Braves game (Mets won by 1, yes!). So here's my boyish picture at Shea Stadium. It was so cold that day!