first ever contest!
Just as the Supercinski’s were inspired to offer contests on their blog by their friends, so too they have inspired me. That said, I welcome you to the first ever, online diary for the masses contest.
As you should know by now, I’m going to be loving people in Brenham this summer and getting paid to do so! I decided to pack 14 t-shirts for the entire summer, and to do laundry bi-monthly. What does that have to do with the contest? Well, I want you to tell me which 14 shirts I packed. So this contest, when all is said and done, will show who knows me (or at least my wardrobe) the best. I’ve already given you an enormous hint in the photo above. Your job is to describe each shirt to prove you know which one it is. Ex: red randomshirts.com (another hint: the red one IS NOT my randomshirts one). Get the idea?
You will enter this contest by submitting your answers, from top to bottom, in the form of a comment on this entry. You may only offer one set of 14 guesses each, so there’s no changing your mind after you click “post comment.”
Oh, and what would a contest be if there were no prize? Well it would be lame. Therefore, there will be a prize awarded to the winner of this, our debut contest. No purchase necessary!
In related news, I found out today that I will be focusing primarily on Jr High students and leading worship while in Brenham, which I must admit I’m very excited about. More on that in the near future, when I’ll be posting updates sans photos throughout the summer (as far as I know now…).
So that’s it! Submit your submissions. All entries are will be due before midnight Friday, June 2!
the picture that should have been…
Jon, doing his thing… He tied with Colby for first, JB in third, and myself in a distant fourth.
let it be known…
I’m at home in Arlington for the week, and I’ve done a few things that are worth blogging about. However, I have no way of transferring my pictures from my camera to the computers here in A town. If you are new to this area, and you don’t see a problem with a blog sans photographs, please see The People v. D.O. here. So, until I find a cable or something, hang in there.
"the sub that hacks"
Being the college graduate that I am, I’ve been thrown from putting all my expenditures on my parents tab, and have been forced to generate some cash flow of my own. Knowing that I would be reaching this point, I started substitute teaching a few months ago. That’s “temping” for you School of Rock fans (one day I actually temped for an elementary school music class…). Though I have subbed for children of all ages (save junior high), I seem to have found my home at Bryan High School.
My first day ever on Bryan High’s campus I was plenty early, and as I was passing between the two campuses, a small circle of students caught my eye. They were taking part in one of my favorite past times: hacky sacking. Some of you may recall my being on the cover of the Battallion back in college when the photographer caught me hacky-ing it up between classes. That headline read “Eye on the Sack” which remains in the Batt’s top ten worst headlines of all time - but I digress.
I approached the hacking students and their leader said, “You wanna hack?” as if to challenge me.
I meekly accepted and the next thing those students knew, they were watching the magic of hacky sack unfold before their very eyes. There were stalls, sidekicks, jesters, the whole bit. As I ran out of tricks (unbeknownst to the students) I kicked the hacky sack to one of them, who soon lost control of it and watched it lay on the concrete.
I politely withdrew from the circle and closed with, “When you guys learn to hack, let me know and I’ll come play with y’all.”
Very similar incidents unfolded with the two other hacky sack circles at Bryan High within my first two weeks there. Now when I walk in between the two campuses, without fail I hear a student say, “Look, there’s that sub that hacks.”
Say all that to say, thank you Carol Cune, BHS Principal (pictured above) for allowing me the opportunity to impact your students’ lives. It is truly my pleasure.
this is so HARD!
I was afraid I had forgotten how to cry. Over the past month there has been so much talk about the day when everyone was going to leave, and we would all be forced to say goodbye. Many tears have been shed over the past few weeks, but none of them were mine. It wasn’t that everyone leaving (including myself) didn’t spark the same emotions in me as it did everyone else, I just never cried about it. And I hated it. I wanted to cry so badly.
Well all my concerns about forgetting how to cry were smashed today as I watched six girls who I love dearly leave the house where we fell in love. I sat outside with their parents while they were saying their final goodbyes in the house, and when they came out, the tears started flowing. Not mine though, everyone else’s. We all hugged one another and told each other that we’d meet again in a month at Lauren’s wedding. As comforting as that reunion will be, today still proved to be extremely emotional. After many hugs, tears, and a few photographs, everyone drove out of the driveway in a line leaving Mikey and I to load up the girls gift to us (leftover food). When Mikey drove off with the food I walked back to my car and just lost it.
I went back to the porch where I sat when the girls were still inside, only this time I was the only person within a 50 yard radius, and I was crying like a junior high girl who just saw her first boyfriend kissing another, more popular girl. I just sat on that porch for at least 15 minutes crying and praying, thanking God for putting those beautiful girls in my life. Every time I thought I was done, I would look up and start all over again. It was such a sweet time in the Lord, and at the same time it was so hard. I finally pulled myself together enough to drive home and the song playing in my car as I drove out of that driveway for the last time was “If You Say Go.” Upon realizing that this song was on, I laughed at God through my tears for being so clever. The line that stuck out to me, and that I will forever associate with that moment was, “Your ways are higher than our ways, and the plans that you have made are good and true.” What a blessing.
Girls, I love you all way more than you think I do, and I’m sorry I can’t convey that message strongly enough. I love you.
brand new format
Today as you read my blog, I would like you to take a look over to the right of the text you are currently reading and notice that I have added four blogs to the “also worth your time” list. If you want to laugh, I highly recommend Anson’s or Hayden’s blog. If you want to cry (and I’m not joking) then do not tarry and click on The Parents Hendrick or my girl Brookie’s blog. That’s your assignment for this blog entry. I’m not kidding. You’re done here.
book review vol. five: Confessions of a Reformission Rev.
If you can remember back all the way to the post before last (thiiiink… or scroll down), I threw out some thoughts about the Emerging Church Movement and told you that I’d give you a little more info soon. Well good news, soon has come. I’m in the delightful process of reading this book shown above, “Confessions of a Reformission Rev.: hard lessons from an emerging missional church.” It’s a long title with at least three questionable terms. “Reformission” (this isn’t a typo) is a word that Driscoll coined and the idea is basically taking the traditional missionary mindset and applying it to the culture in which we live. I find “missional” and “reformission” to be synonymous, and I don’t think Driscoll would disagree. The third word that ought to catch your eye is “emerging.”
I feel like I’ve learned more about the Emerging Church Movement from the intro to this book than I did from reading the entire book from McLaren (”A New Kind of Christian” - below). Mark Driscoll says in his book that he used to be closely associated with the emergent church but had to distance himself do to theological differences. He makes a distinction between the emerging church and the emergent church. Note the differences in the suffixes. The emergent movement is technically under the banner of emerging, but seems to be the more theologically liberal sect. In other words, all things emerging (as far as I see it right now) are not bad or false teachings. However, as with any teachings, we must be solid in knowing what we believe so as to discern what is true and what isn’t. That said, here is what Driscoll says that helped me a lot. Note: He’s kind of sarcastic… be warned. (p. 22, Zondervan, Copyright 2006, other legal stuff…)
“I am particularly concerned, however, with some growing trends among some people: the rejection of Jesus’ death on the cross as a penal substitute for our sins; resistance to openly denouncing homosexual acts as sinful; the questioning of a literal eternal torment in hell, which is denial that holds up only until, in an ironic bummer, you die and find yourself in hell; the rejection of God’s sovereignty over and knowledge of the future, as if God were a junior-college professor who knows only bits and pieces of trivia; the rejection of biblically defined gender roles, thereby contributing to the ‘mantropy’ epidemic among young guys now fretting over the best kind of looffah for their skin type and the number of women in the military dying to save their Bed, Bath and Beyond from terrorist attacks; and the rejection of biblical names for God, such as Father, which is essentially apologizing before the unbelieving world for the prayer life of the flamboyantly heterosexual Jesus, who uttered the horrendously politically incorrect ‘Our Father’ without ever having the decency to apologize for being a misogynist patriarchal meanie.”
So there’s that. I liked it, I hope you like it. Maybe it will be helpful for you. If nothing else I hope you at least giggled or smiled or something. This has been a very long post. Time for some very long (and numerous?) comments. Go!
end of the beginning
As of 3:30 on Cinco de Mayo, 2006, I am officially done with all things related to or dealing with college (save graduation)! This is an exciting thing when you think about it. You see, I have successfully spent the last 16 years of my 22 year life in the public education system. That’s a lot of time! I mean, not that you didn’t spend the exact same amount of time in school yourself (if not longer), but we’re talking 73% of my life thus far. But no more baby!
I normally don’t take pictures on the porch on the last day of school, but I couldn’t resist this time. I wore my best good bull outfit I could find (I forgot the 12th man towel) in honor of it being my last day. I know what you’re thinking: D.O., why would you wear A&M stuff on the last day of school when you never wore it any other time? Or you’re thinking: D.O., that shirt is clearly too small for you, you’re dumb. Well to each of those I say nothing, and just look at you.
Here’s to never having to walk into Wehner again!
book review vol. four: A New Kind of Christian
That’s right, I finished another book. I actually finished this one a few days ago and am just now getting around to reviewing/ discussing it for you. It’s called “A New Kind of Christian” and it’s by Brian McLaren who is often labeled as the poster child for the Emergent Church Movement.
What is the Emergent Church Movement you ask? Well I was wondering the same thing. I asked a few people I know who are smarter than me, and they all told me to read what the Emergent Church had to say about themselves so I could form my own opinion. This wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear especially when I realized that nearly everything on the internet that is produced by the Emergent Church is very vague and seems to beat around the bush. I did learn in my journey to understand this movement that this book, “A New Kind of Christian” was the one to read to get things figured out. So I gave in, I had to settle for the hard way of learning, actually reading the book.
A lot of people have asked me what I thought about the book, and what I think about the Emergent Church Movement now that I have read the book. I usually tell them something along these lines: First, it must be known that as opposed to a book on theology that would be set up in some sort of organized fashion, this book is written as a novel, the conversation between two believers. So all of the different beliefs of the Emergent Church were cleverly presented in a fictional form. I feel like the entire book was dedicated to presenting ideas that most Biblically-sound evangelicals would blatantly reject, but because said ideas are presented so cleverly, it allows us “moderns” (as opposed to “post-moderns”) to chew on the ideas. I wish I could elaborate on some specifics, but I honestly can’t remember them very well because of how they were presented. I do know that some of the issues that rubbed me wrong (I think…) were the interpretation of Scripture, doctrine of Hell, and view of other religions.
I actually think that this is a pretty good book for people to read, no matter what they think or have heard about the Emergent Church. For one reason it will allow you to base your opinion on what one of the Emergent Church’s front men says about the movement (albeit vague). It will also allow you the ability to contemplate some of the questions that the Emergent Church is raising. My wiser friend, Ryan Couch said of the Emergent Church that, “they raise a lot of really good questions, but some of the answers they come up with are [insert hesitant smirk/shoulders raised/head slightly to the right].” I think that’s a pretty good way of looking at it.
I’ll end this long post in saying that regardless of what your thoughts on the Emergent Church Movement are, please do not be hateful towards people who have differing opinions. It is possible that one of you is right and one of you is wrong. It is also possible that both of your are right or both of you are wrong. Those are the only four possibilities, but the tendency is to be hateful towards people on the “other team,” and it is frankly quite disgusting to see and hear Christians hating on each other.
(note: I anxiously await your comments on this post, and stay tuned to another post on the emergent church)