One Busy Week

So much has happened in the last week that I don’t know where to begin. Since Tuesday, the day I last wrote, I have had many more firsts. My first meeting at the church, my first meeting away from the church, my first successful visit, my first Greek study group, and my first youth event, to name a few. I’ll hit the highlights of these events so you don’t get bored.
Wednesday was by far the busiest day that I have had so far with four of those firsts falling that day. The hospital visit wasn’t too special or strenuous so I’ll skip that and go right to the meeting that I attended at Inter-Faith Ministries. This really wasn’t even a meeting so much as a discussion/presentation with/by Richard Cizik who is an Evangelical from the east coast. The time was sponsored by Inter-Faith Power and Light, which is a group who promotes energy efficiency, renewable, clean energy, and conservation. Rich is very well connected and he talked about all of the politicians he meets with regularly in Washington. After listening to him for a while talking about making changes in the ways people think about energy and all the people he was working with, we talked as a group about how Kansas could become an example for the nation on energy and global warming the way that Iowa has been for Gay rights. I was very surprised by how political the conversation became and the ways that he suggested we should attempt to either change Todd Tiehart’s mind or remove him from office. I walked away from this lunch very intrigued by what he had to say and I suggest that if you have time you look up Rich. As soon as I got back to the church I sat in on Tom’s Greek reading group. While sitting and listening was a good experience, I don’t think I’ll be doing it again because I came away with a nice headache. Before I could head home and indulge in my wonderful supper of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, mac and cheese, some lettuce, and a rotten apple, I sat in on a meeting of the Peace Action Task Force. Despite my waning energy levels I found this meeting to be a good opportunity to discern more about LAMC’s Peace Journey 2009. Finally at 7, I got to go home and relax.
Thursday is Tom and Lois’s day off so it was much less hectic. I took the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test and found out that I am an ISTJ type, Introverted Sensing Thinking Judging, which I think fits me well. Meribeth showed me how she puts the bulletin together and I did some reading on MBTI and ministry. Then, following a wonderful surprise supper with Megan, Brad, Sarah, and Jamie, I went for a short run which showed me how out of shape I am. While recovering out on the front steps the Harders all came out one by one and I had a nice conversation with Hillary, Madeline, and Anna in which we contemplated playing ultimate spoons and I received an invitation to come over and play cards, providing that I showered first. This was the best evening of the week, playing cards around the table, eating ice cream, and watching Seinfeld. When I got home at 11 I realized that I had hamburger to deal with and so I made Lil’ Chedderless Meatloaves at 11:30.
Friday proved to be quite interesting but not relaxing at all. I helped a church member move an extremely heavy piano, did more reading, met one of the most interesting members of the congregation, learned about worship planning, did some worship planning, and after I was done for the day, I headed back to church for a youth lock-in. It was fairly typical as far as youth events go, games, snacks, and movies. It turns out that while I am terrible at finding people while playing Sardines, I am an expert hider, although it helped when Lois told a little white lie when people asked if I was in her office. I feel as though I learned a lot about youth ministry during this one night. You have to separate yourself from at least some of the fun if you want to have any authority, lesson learned when I finally got the youth to go to bed at 2:30, more than 30 minutes after Lois said they should be asleep.
Despite running on four hours of sleep, I didn’t take a nap Saturday because I was out at camp the entire afternoon!! It was great to be at camp, seeing Greg and Mike, playing games outside, and having campfire. I helped with a makeshift softball game in which I reminded myself and everyone else how uncoordinated I am with my right hand. Later in the evening I participated in a talent show but I was showed up by anyone and everyone with the last name Harder, go figure. After a quick game of ultimate it was time for campfire and I got to play some with Tom. This ended up being harder that I figured, no pun intended, because Tom is so good that he adds little improv things into his playing and sudden key changes which my chord knowledge is not good enough to follow. This is part of the reason I decided to come to LAMC though and I’m sure that I will learn a lot relating to guitar in addition to everything else.
Sunday morning came and I was a very active participant in worship, reading for the children’s story, reciting a litany with the worship leader, and helping with communion. A few interesting notes, the LAMC Chancel Choir is wonderful, even if they do sound “too white” to quote Lois. The church practices baptism in the river at camp and then the new members, some by transfer too, help to serve communion, which is an open table. I plan to have a discussion about this with Tom and Lois later this week.
This weekend was a great opportunity for me to meet people and see them multiple times which helped me to put a few names with faces even if I do have a long way to go. Even though this post if over 1000 words it does not begin to describe everything that happened this week so feel free to inquire more about anything that might interest you, my phone is always on (except when it doesn’t work).
Peace
Daniel