The First Day of School

I have always loved the first day of school. The new books, the new teachers, the sense of excitement over all that we will learn over the course of the semester. I know, I know…[NERD SALUTE].

Some observations about my morning classes (Old Testament, Barth)

• Intro to Old Testament Exegesis is going to be a huge course. We have a lot to cover and hardly any time to cover it. It will be good, though, so I won’t complain. I don’t have to do as much intensive Hebrew as I expected, so I’ll make it.

• My class on Karl Barth is going to be fun, although I’m one of only three grad students in the class. I feel like I am at the point where I can understand and interact constructively with his thought. It has taken six classes that had a major emphasis on Barth’s thought to get there.

• Rule of thumb for differentiating between grad students and undergrads in a mixed classroom: grad students use laptops…They also tend to cross their legs while listening to the professor and generally have an expression of, “I am understanding this at a way deeper level than you” on their faces. It’s not true, but we don’t let the undergrads know that.

• When asked why she was taking a class on Karl Barth, one girl said, “Well, my Mom used to wake me up every morning by reading a selection from Barth’s writings.” I’ll note that for future parenting techniques.

• There is one thing I can’t stand about people who are into Karl Barth. I love Barth, but lots of people do. He’s hot right now in theology in the English-speaking world, and American Evangelicals are waking up to the fact that he is awesome. At the moment, everyone who is into theology is into Barth. The problem is, even though the whole theological world has a major crush on Barth, everybody thinks they are the only person who appreciates him. So, you hear a lot of comments like, “I’m studying Barth because everyone thinks he is evil and they are all idiots. He gets ignored in American theology, and nobody realizes how awesome he is. But, I want to help change that and bring him back so that people will stop bashing him. I want to change the church’s opinion of Barth, because nobody likes him!”…All this, said in a classroom that is overflowing with so many students that there aren’t enough desks, and every student in there is thinking the exact same thing. How come we always think that we are on the cutting edge? Why is everyone else not as insightful or enlightened as ourselves?

Well, I’m off to get started on my reading.

Looking Ahead to the Fall

The summer is winding down. It has been a good summer. I took three classes. We visited family in PA. Michelle and I are caught up on Lost. I read some good books. (Old School by Tobias Wolfe, Ender’s Shadow by Orson Scott Card, On the Priesthood by John Chrysostom, and The Discarded Image by C. S. Lewis were among the better ones.)

As the summer ends, I look ahead to the fall, which will has a lot going on…

Weddings

The most obvious thing that stands out on Michelle and my fall calendar is the crazy number of weddings we have to attend. There are five before the end of September. Michelle has more showers and bachelorette parties to attend than she can handle. Of course, this is a good problem to have. We are very happy for our friends and excited to celebrate their new lives together. One cool thing for me is that in December, I will be performing my first wedding. I’m pumped about it, because I love the couple. I am proud that they want me to bless them in this way.

School

School starts in a week. I’m excited, although it is going to be an intense semester. The core courses for my program are coming up, and, according to the horror stories of past students, they are the most difficult ones. I’m a little rusty on my Hebrew, and that scares me. Hopefully, I’ll be alright after some more review. It may not matter how much review I do though, because Dr. Beale and Dr. Walton are going to kick my butt either way. The only class I feel ready for is my Barth class, since I’ve read most of the readings before. I’m finally starting to understand that guy.

Ministry

Michelle and I have been figuring out our ministry schedule this fall, as well. Right now, it looks like we are going to be continuing to teach in Sunday school, following the kids we were with last year who will now be 4th graders. I’ll be team teaching with a guy who is in the same program as me. Michelle will also be playing in the orchestra on Sunday mornings.

What is new for us this year is Alpha. It is the program our church uses for new Christians and non-Christians to help them explore the basics of the faith. I’m not too familiar with the program, although it is a national thing that a lot of churches do. From what I understand right now, we will be leading a table discussion group. We’ll watch a video that raises some basic issue of Christian belief, and then talk about it over a meal. I don’t know much more than that, but I am excited about it because I don’t spend a lot of time with non-Christians or new Christians in my daily life. (i.e. in the Wheaton College library) In order to have time to do Alpha, Michelle and I are not doing a small group with Ecclesia. This is both good and bad. We were in a small group with great people, and the past couple years have been a lot fun with them. It is sad that we will not be spending a couple hours each week with them, talking and praying. However, our group has been ready for a change for a while now, and this will stir things up for Michelle and I in a good way. We will be stretched, and that it is so important for our own growth. Because of that we are very excited.

On top of this, I will also be coordinating the “Labs” ministry for Ecclesia. These are the training and educational sessions that Ecclesia does every month or so. I am looking forward to helping with this again and helping to develop other teachers in our community. More and more, teaching and training ministry is becoming a passion of mine. This year will be a good year to develop that.

Blogging

If you haven’t noticed by now, I am going to be very busy this fall. What does this mean for the blog? Considering that I had a flexible schedule this summer, and the blog fell silent for weeks at a time…probably that not much should be expected. I hope to keep writing, I doubt I’ll have consistent time to do it. I have learned my lesson of promising to write about certain subjects too far ahead of time. I still hope to write about heaven and the Lord’s Supper and respond to Tim’s comments on my Ephesian’s paper and many other things, besides…but I don’t know when or how it will pan out. Instead, I would expect waves of sporadic posting for a while. I’ll basically write what I feel like at the moment, not attempted any extended series of posts. Oh well.

Best thing about the new church building…

Free WiFi. I’m here at the new home of Wheaton Bible Church, and I am blogging in our cafe. Pretty sweet, if you ask me. Of course, that could mean people surfing the web from their smartphones during the sermon. But of course, I don’t know anyone at our church who would do that.

Another friend blogging…

Just after posting about my friends who blog, I found out that another good friend of mine just started a blog. Her name is Jenna, and she is a friend from Ecclesia. She also participated in “the Experiment.” She is an elementary school teacher. I am looking forward to her blog because she has a good sense of humor that I enjoy. Check it out: Herding cats…

Memories from my Old Church Building

My church is moving into a new building in about a month. I have been going to our current building for my whole life. It is kind of weird to be moving out. As part of the process of celebrating the good things that happened in that building, they have asked each of us to share some memories, which they are posting on the church website and using in the final service in the current building. My wife recently posted her memories. Here are mine. (Note: Some of these memories are going to make more sense to people who have been a part of my church. For others, it may feel like inside jokes. Herd = Junior High youth group. Student Body = Senior High Youth Group. Project Serve = Summer mission trip for students. Main Street Chapel = Student Ministries Building. 209 House = Student Ministries Offices.)

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There is not enough space for almost 26 years of memories.

I remember Awana, with all of the frantic cramming and hasty recitation of Bible verses. Mrs. Brown would always make me go back and try to learn them again because I never remembered the reference. Her patience and my desire for prizes combined into a real blessing from God, because most of the passages I memorized then are still with me today.

I remember Breakout, the junior high prayer meeting that met early before school. All the older boys would chase the 7th graders around, but I kept coming anyway because they served Lucky Charms and my Mom didn’t. I’m glad I did, because this is one of key places where I learned to pray.

I remember being baptized in the main sanctuary. It was scary and cold and one of the best moments of my life. I come and witness as many baptisms as I can at WBC because never get over the wonder of seeing someone embrace new life through Christ’s death and resurrection.

I remember as a teenager sneaking into every corner of the building, from the storage behind the sanctuary, to the closets between the bathrooms in the gym, to the roof of Main Street Chapel. I think I know this building as well as any home I’ve ever lived in.

I remember getting my first job at 17 as a Gatekeeper. That consisted of sitting at the front desk for hours on end, stuffing the pew racks with giving envelopes, and preparing the candles for the candlelight service on Christmas Eve. We used to always get collect calls from some crazy guy who said he was “Jesus.” We weren’t supposed to answer them, but I mean, when Jesus calls collect, you accept the charges.

I remember my first Project Serve experience. We were sitting in the lobby of the main building with brown paper bags on our head, waiting to be chosen by a leader to find out what sites we were on. At that moment I swore that I would be a student leader the next year so that I didn’t have to do that again. This year is the first time in 12 years that I haven’t been on Project Serve. I’m thankful for every one of those trips because they taught me the value of missional living and gave me a potent vision of what it means to be a worshiping, serving community.

I remember giving my first sermon in Student Body in 11th grade. I have no idea why Rob Rienow thought I could do it, but I’m glad he gave me the chance. It wasn’t a very good sermon, but it is how I discovered my calling to teach the Bible.

I remember volunteering to be a Herd leader when I was in college. Week after week, Chris McElwee had us filling rooms in WBC with unusual objects, from hundreds of over-sized inner tubes to tarps full of slippery slime to strobe lights, all so we could gather junior highers and tell them about God. Some of my best memories are the nights where we didn’t play any games or watch goofy videos, but instead taught 7th and 8th graders that the coolest thing of all is to worship Jesus. Some of those junior highers are now missionaries.

I remember hundreds of meetings with high school students in the 209 house, where we would pray and plot about how to reach their world. I remember showing up to Main Street Chapel very early every Sunday morning for two years to get ready for Student Body. I’d look over the notes for my lesson, track down all the misplaced tech equipment, and pray like crazy for the students that I would be teaching that day.

I remember the first meeting of Ecclesia in Main Street Chapel, a little experiment in doing church in a new way in the hope of reaching the postmodern, post-Christian world around us. Four years later, I still love gathering with that community, to celebrate, learn, pray, and break bread together.

My favorite memory of all is meeting Michelle Sokoloski in a student leader meeting for Student Body. I thought she was cute. She thought I was an arrogant nerd. I remember how five years later, I watched Michelle walk down the aisle of the sanctuary to become Michelle Keenon. I still think she is cute, and she still thinks I’m a nerd.

Some of the best moments of my life were spent in the buildings on Main and Franklin. I am truly thankful for all that God has done during my time on that campus. I’ll miss it. I hope the new campus will provide as many good memories for us as this one has.

I have been officially declared “competent.”

I just got done with my last Greek class, and I passed my competency exam. I officially “know Greek.” Of course, that doesn’t mean I can just pick up the New Testament and read it without some help, but I do feel pretty comfortable and confident. I didn’t feel like this the first time I took Greek five years ago. This is one of those times where I actually feel like I accomplished something. It is nice.

Of course, Greek is technically a prerequisite for my whole program. This fall, I’ll be taking the core classes, and they will all assume a knowledge of Greek. Which means, I’ll be continuing to sharpen my skills and learn new vocab over the summer.  But that is okay. I never thought I’d say this, but I really like studying Greek. It is kind of fun. [Clayton pushes up his glasses in a nerd salute.]

So, now that my Greek class is done, the rest of my summer consists of a pair of historical theology classes, (Early Church and Medieval), a couple of trips to see friends and family, and watching as much Lost as my wife and I can get through while maintaining a normal social life. Hopefully, I’ll squeeze some blogging in there too.

End of the Semester, Sister’s Wedding, and Summer Blogging

The semester is done. Thank God. The summer will be a welcome break. I will be taking classes, but they will be one at a time and paced out so as to leave Michelle and I plenty of time to enjoy the summer.

This week, my youngest sister, Hillary, gets married. It is quite a big deal for our whole family, and we are really pumped. Although, I’m sad because she will be moving out of state. The guy she is marrying is a solid man, and I am really proud of them. Please pray with me for their wedding, that it would be meaningful, that as they make their promises to each other, that they would mean them and God would give them strength to keep them. Pray also for their marriage, that it would be full of grace, that they would help each other become more like Christ, and that their family would be a blessing to the people around them.

As far as blogging goes, this summer, hopefully will provide plenty of opportunity for that, that means I will be able to blog some. I have had some good requests of topics to write about. My foster sister asked me to write about heaven, because she is interested in that. Heaven is a fun topic, so I think I’ll tackle that. My other sister liked my baptism thoughts, so I think I might finish those and maybe post a couple of thoughts about the Lord’s Supper. Also, Tim left some good comments on my Ephesians paper, and I would like to respond to those. So, if all goes well, I hope to hit up those topics pretty soon.

Moving and Blogging

A week ago, Michelle and I moved into a new apartment. “The Experiment” is over, but the data is still being processed. The reason I haven’t posted much about it for the last six months is that most of what we learned and experienced was not interesting enough to share online. On the other hand, the interesting stuff is probably too personal to share online. So, there is not much left to say. Overall, I’d say it was a good experience, and under the right circumstances with the right people, I’d do something like it again. But, Michelle and I are happy to be in our own place again. We’re just a few blocks from Wheaton College. I can walk to class, and I am enjoying that a lot.

Because the last couple weeks were spent moving and unpacking I haven’t been able to blog much. I will slowly get back into the swing of things, I hope. Although, it may still be a month before I get rolling completely. I have final papers and exams coming faster than I like.

I have more thoughts on baptism, especially after going to the Easter Vigil at Church of the Resurrection, where they performed baptisms and recounted the rich Biblical imagery for baptism through Scripture reading. However, the series has gotten long, and probably less than interesting for most people. Plus, I’ve been getting comments from weirdo’s on the internet, and I don’t want to get attract any more of them.  So, unless I have a request from someone reputable to continue on the topic, I’ll move on.

As more people are reading my blog, especially from my own community, I feel like I should start using it to address more of the particular concerns of my community, rather than just what tickles my fancy. I get a lot of questions emailed to me, and I love addressing people’s concerns. I might try and tackle more of the issues I get asked about here on the blog.  So, if you have a question or an interesting thought, let me know, and we’ll talk about it.

All this is to say, real posts will be coming again soon. Stay tuned.

Spring Break

One of the nice things about being a student again is that you get time off every few months. It is great. My break is going to be quiet and relaxing. I’m going to be catching up on some odds and ends in my life. I’ll hang out with some friends and do some reading. The only interesting I’ll be doing is going to see a slam poet that Michelle is bringing in for her classes. That’ll be sweet. I also plan on writing some posts for the blog, including the promised follow-up posts on baptism. It should be a good break.

A Visit from My Pastor

This year, our pastor, Ted, is trying something new with the leaders in Ecclesia. He had us all review the past year from the perspective of our church’s mission statement. He asked us to evaluate how we were doing in multiple areas of Christian practice, from prayer to finances to serving people in need to church attendance to befriending people we didn’t like. Then, Ted met with each leader to talk over their evaluation and to make resolutions for the next year. It was the first time he had done anything like that, and I thought it was a strong step in the right direction.

It reminded me of the practice of older ministers, especially the Puritans (ala Richard Baxter’s Reformed Pastor) whose main responsibilities were preaching and oversight of worship, along with regular visitation of families to assist parents in leading their homes in discipleship. The pastor would visit every one a couple times per year to see how they were doing in pursuing Christ in obedience.

For many of us who have attended large churches (like mine), the idea of a pastor who actually asks you to tell him how you are doing is a foreign one. The pastors just can’t oversee that many people in such a personal way. So, when Ted this is, it was new experience, both challenging and welcome.

A few of the things that he said and asked about really struck me and hit home. I share them with you here.

He challenged us to fight boredom with mission.

I expressed to him how over the past year, I had felt a strong feeling of boredom, both in my small group experience as well as my participation in public worship. Other than my growing love for the Lord’s Supper, my experience with on Sundays had been somewhat flat. He responded very wisely. He said that he had heard that complaint from a number of people, and all of them were the same kind of person. They were the people who had grown up in the church, who knew a lot about the faith, and were capable of contributing to the ministry of the church. But when he asked them how often they interacted with non-Christians or people in need, they usually hadn’t been doing much of that. He then said, “Clayton, if you are constantly being challenged and pushed by non-Christians that you are trying to minister to, you won’t be bored. There is nothing boring about it!” Those wise words cut to the heart. I spend a lot of time around Christians. I know far too few non-Christians, and those that I do know, I do not interact with frequently. People who come to Ecclesia who do not believe or are on the fence, I hardly know. I have not made enough effort to connect with them. I am off mission, so it makes sense if I am bored.

He challenged to us to move from fellowship to hospitality.

Related to this, Ted also pushed Michelle and I in the area hospitality. Our natural inclination is to have people over for dinner and to invite people into our home. We have tried to make this a priority from the start of our marriage. Michelle is an excellent hostess, and because of my family background in foster care, it is natural for us to do this. But, we easily slip into the pattern of inviting over people that we already know fairly well. We like to have friends over. Who doesn’t? But, Ted challenged us in this. Just like Jesus teaches in Luke 14:12-14, we need to not invite just our friends, but people we don’t know well and people in need. As Ted said it, when you have over people you know, it is fellowship. When you have over people you don’t know, it is hospitality. When we move into our next apartment in a month or so, this is will be one of our priorities.

He challenged us on our finances.

I also liked that he asked me about my finances. He asked how generous we were being and how consistently we were giving, not just to the church, but in general. It is something most pastors avoid. People often consider it rude or off-limits, and as a result we have a lot of church-goers who are never challenged by what Christ says about this area of their lives. But, in I Timothy 6:17-19 Paul instructs pastors to talk to their people about this. He tells Timothy:

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.

Paul was telling pastors that it is their responsibility to talk to their people about their financial life, especially people who have money to spare. For pastors this is difficult to do, because people resist being challenged in this area, because, as Jesus says, money is tied to our deepest heart-issues. (Matthew 6:21) But, for the sake of those of us with money “taking hold of the life that is truly life,” I am thankful that our pastor will ask about this.

He challenged us to cherish the Scriptures.

Ted also issued a challenge to all the leaders to be people who cherish the Scriptures. In the Bible, God speaks. We should savor this. We should celebrate this. We should enjoy this. He asked to to commit to daily reading of the Bible in some form, so that as leaders, we would be deeply rooted in Scripture as we lead. It was a simple challenge, but I’m glad he pushed it.

He challenged us to minister to our ministers.

The last thing that came out of our conversation was sort of a side-note, but I thought it was really important. In the course of the conversation, Michelle and I assured Ted of our commitment to supporting him. Michelle and I are not, what you might call, uncritical people. We have a slight cynical streak, and we wanted to make sure that Ted knew that he had our personal support no matter what we might think needed improvement. Ted thanked us for this and went on to explain that as a pastor he needs people to support him, and specifically to minister to him. He needs other leaders around him who can, in a sense, be his pastors, people to ask him how he is doing, to challenge him, to encourage him when things are hard. Not a lot of pastors have that. Many pastors feel very alone. This leads to all sorts of trouble, from exhaustion to depression to strained relationships to sin. I experienced this in my short time as a pastor. Pastors need pastors, just like the rest of us. So, for those of you reading this, if you are leaders in your church, please remember your pastor. Take up the calling to minister to him. Don’t just let him care for your soul, care for his.

All in all, it was a very good visit, and I am glad that Ted is taking active steps to really push those of us who are leaders. Hopefully, we can follow through on his challenges.

(By the way, if you were wondering, I will be posting more on baptism soon.)

The Experiment: The First Couple Weeks

So far, Michelle and I have been living with our friends (Brian and Jenna) for a little less than a month. It has gone fast because all of us have been busy. There are two teachers and a student in the apartment who all started school in the last few weeks. Between that, church stuff kicking off along with a couple of family events and business trips, we honestly haven’t seen much of each other. With that being said, let me make a few observations.

• First of all, it doesn’t feel that weird. After the boxes were cleared and the pictures hung, it felt pretty normal. There were a few strange moments at night when I have felt like I was supposed to go home to my own place, but after a week or so, that went away. Sometimes I feel like I am visiting my friends’ place, especially when using some of Brian and Jenna’s stuff (i.e. the TV, especially since we did not have one until we moved in with them). However, we had refrigerator rights with Brian and Jenna before moving in, so that helps. Overall, though, it feels pretty normal at the moment.

• We have more privacy than we expected, at least Michelle and I feel that way. I haven’t had a chance to see how Brian and Jenna feel. Sure, we can’t walk around the apartment in our underwear, but on the whole, Michelle and I feel like we have our own space and time. One thing that helps is that we have in place two nights a week when one of the couples will be out for the evening so the other couple can have the apartment to themselves. That helps. So, on Mondays, Brian and Jenna hang out with their family. On Tuesdays, Michelle and I go to her parent’s house. We already had these nights with our respective families, but it has taken on the added purpose of leaving space for each other to have privacy. Also, it obviously helps that we don’t share bathrooms, and we also each have our bedrooms set up to include a love-seat so that we have our own private sitting area, if we need it. Michelle and I also have a table where we can eat meals alone if we want. We haven’t used it yet, but if we needed to, we could.

• One important logistical problem we ran into early on was one that we had anticipated ahead of time, but still was a little awkward. We knew that there may be times when the guy from one couple found himself alone with the girl from the other couple. From the example of Joseph in the Bible, we know that this is something worth avoiding. We are supposed to be “above reproach”. (And although the verse my father often quotes about “avoiding the appearance of evil” comes from a mistranslation in the KJV of 1 Thessalonians 5:22, we know that it is still good advice most of the time.) So, we tried to come up with a way that this could be dealt with.Our basic idea was that the guy would take responsibility to displace himself until someone else came home or the girl left. Along with that, he would call his wife so that she knew what he was up to. It seemed like it would work. It turns out it is easier said than done. During the first week of living together, when it was still summer time for those of us on the school schedule, Jenna and I often found ourselves at home alone together. Sometimes, I would simply displace myself by walking down to Borders or running and errand. Other times, we would call Brian and Michelle and find out how long until they would be home. If they were already in transit, we would stay put and not worry about it, since it would be less than 10 minutes until someone else was home. These were easier situations to handle, and they mostly happened in the afternoon or at lunch time. The more awkward times were when one of us would sleep in (it was summer after all) and then wake up without realizing the other person was still home and Brian and Michelle had gone to work. It wasn’t as easy to just leave the apartment when you just woke up. So, it required more communication ahead of time about what our schedules were. We didn’t quite get it right before school started, but now our schedules make it so that we hardly ever run into each other at all, so that problem has gone away. We may have to figure it out again when Thanksgiving and Christmas break come around. I explain all this to highlight two things. First, there are definite logistical elements to community. Good relationships are facilitated by things like procedures and boundaries. Relationships are hindered by poor logistics. Good attitudes are not enough to live in community. Structures and logistics matter. Second, it also highlights one of the major obstacles for communal living in a co-ed situation. It simply is not enough to say, “I trust my wife/husband/friend to not do something inappropriate.” We know, simply by statistics, that adultery and other more subtle forms of infidelity are real threats today, even for Christians and people of character. Good intentions or values are not enough, and planning for that helps. Even if just so that there are there is not unspoken uneasiness about these types of situations.

• Meeting the neighbors has been interesting. One of our goals in community is to extend it to others, namely, our neighbors, by meeting them and welcoming them into our home. So far, we really have only met one of our neighbors. His name is Dan and he is the maintenance guy for the whole apartment complex. We first met him on the day after we moved in. We were putting up pictures and bookshelves at about 9:30pm, and we were playing some music. It wasn’t that loud, but he could hear it through the wall, and he has a young daughter who was sleeping. So, he stopped by and asked us to turn it down. That sucked, not because we wanted to play music, but because it was a bad initial impression. A couple of days later, I talked with him about it, and things were cool. But then, there was this loud clanking pipe noise in our wall that woke up the lady who lives above us. She kept complaining to Dan, and over the last few weeks, he has come over to our place a few times a week to find the source of the noise. I feel bad for him, because he hasn’t been able to find it, and the lady upstairs seems to be pestering him. Instead of calling in to the central office like everyone else, she just knocks on his door whenever she wants, even if it is at night. In the process of trying different things, he has adjusted our sinks, replaced our air conditioning unit, cut open our ceiling, and ultimately replaced something in our toilet, which, so far, has finally solved the problem. So, I’ve gotten to know him a little bit through all this. I think we’re going to have him, his wife, and daughter over for dinner now that it is all done.

So, those are my fairly mundane thoughts so far. I’m sure things will get more interesting as we go. We’ll start going through the stages of community, which include chaos…but I’ll explain that in a post later this week…and we’ll have to grow and change. I’m looking forward to it in a weird way. I’ll let you know how it goes.

An Experiment in Community

Ten days ago, my wife and I, along with two good friends, started an experiment in community. We moved in together. It may seem a little odd at first, I know. Two couples who have both been married two years or less, moving into an apartment together. It is not something that happens every day, but we did it. We aren’t crazy hippies, just ordinary people trying to live in real community in a way that honors Jesus. Here is a little background.

Two years ago, when Michelle and I got married, we moved into an apartment close to Wheaton College where Michelle was finishing up grad school. We chose it based on proximity to my job and her school, and cost. It was very cheap. Up until that time, we had both lived either at home or in college housing. We had lived in dorms and apartments with other students, and overall we loved it. The college lifestyle of being close to friends, having plenty of time to talk and share life, as well as the common purpose of getting an education made community flourish. Coming out of college, we had made some really close friends. I was close to one of my roommates in particular, Brian, who ended up being the best man in my wedding. We were excited that he and his wife, Jenna, were going to be living in the area after college, just like us. They had an apartment a few towns away, and it only took about 25 minutes to get there. It was a little out of the way, but not too far for good friends to keep up. We expected to see each other a lot.

But we didn’t. Life rushed in. Work was busy. School was busy. We were tired and our schedules were filled. We found that it took a lot of work to get together with friends. We had to plan weeks in advance just to hang out or have dinner together. It didn’t matter how good of friends they were, it seemed like maintaining relationships was complicated. Even with friends that lived closer (and, truth be told, I lived in the same building as a couple of good friends as well as my sister and her husband), either they were busy or we were busy all the time, and so we ended up not doing much together. Over time, Michelle and I felt more and more isolated. We got lonely, and honestly, depressed. We felt like we had a lot of friends in college, but just a few months into marriage and work, we just couldn’t seem to connect with people anymore.

We talked about it with older adults around us, which made matters worse. I repeatedly heard adults say things like, “You should really savor your college years because they are the best years of your life. I had such great relationships in college. They were really special. You will never have friends like that again.” Now, I understood that they were trying to say that college is a great time that should be enjoyed to the full, and I agree. Your college friendships are special, probably because it is a time when you are forming your opinions and lifestyle in major way. But, it made me nervous to hear people comment that their friendships were never quite as good for the rest of their life since graduating. We thought about our parents, and we realized that most of their friends were from their young adulthood, and that most of their stories were from when they were college-aged. As they got older, they had less friends. My parents told us that this was normal and that we’d get used to it. That didn’t settle well with Michelle and I. We did not want to live lonely.

People talked about college community as something that was unnatural and artificial. People live in dorms or houses with their peers in mass. They are thrown in with dozens of others with whom they share life with in an close environment. In the real world, there is nothing that corresponds to the communal living of college. However fun it was for a time, it is a passing experience. Enjoy it for the time that you can have it, then savor the memories for the rest of your life. And yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the communal living of college felt more natural than the isolated lifestyle I was experiencing after college (and that the older adults around had seemingly resigned themselves to). It was a breath of fresh air, really, to live with people. It felt like the way things were supposed to be.

When I read the Scriptures, I also found that they discussed life in community a lot. Most of the New Testament seemed to be about community life in various churches and how the Gospel impacted the way they functioned as a group. The early church community in Acts stuck out a lot, too. It was extremely communal and close. Of course, when I asked people about these passages, just like college-life, they would say they were unique situations for a particular time in the church’s life. They weren’t for all times. They weren’t for now. Draw general principles from them, but don’t use the Acts community as too close of a model. We’re not communists. And yet, even when I tried to get general principles from Acts, the more seriously I took them, the more I realized I could only follow them if I was living in a fairly close community. It was the background assumption for just about everything commanded to groups in the New Testament; they were sharing life together.

So, I chose not to believe what the adult world seemed to be telling me, that I was doomed to a fairly isolated life of work and my immediate family. Michelle and I vowed to pursue a future that was full of rich and fun friendships. We would do whatever it took to have long-lasting, life-impacting, close relationships.
Our first step was to talk with our friends about intentionally moving closer together and making space in our schedules to spend more time with each other. We thought it would be a long shot, but we talked to as many people as we could about doing it. As people’s leases ended, a bunch of us slowly moved into a large apartment complex in town. Eventually, about 14 people from our church moved in, and before long we were having bi-weekly dinners with everyone. About two or three times a week, my wife and I would have dinner with a handful of friends that lived nearby. It was incredible. Over the past year, our lives have become so much more full of relationships, and it has become more natural to develop friendships because people live close by. It is easy to stop in or invite someone to come over to hang out. Our first small experiment in community went great.

But then finances got in the way. We were hit with a one-two punch. First, the apartment complex raised their rates about $130. It moved them out of our price range on our current salary. Second, I quit my job as a pastor to go to grad school and Michelle got a job as a teacher. Even though Michelle makes more money than I did, pastors receive a tax break on housing (ala the old-time parsonage). As a result, even if our rent had remained static, we wouldn’t have been able to afford to live in the same place.

It felt like a punch in the gut. We had just gotten a more community-oriented lifestyle going, the key being our close proximity to friends. And now, simply because of money, we were going to be forced out of the neighborhood we had helped organize. So, we talked to our friends. We asked them if they could come up with any solutions to help us continue to live close to them. We didn’t come up with much, but someone, half in jest, tossed out the crazy idea of having us move in with them. And something clicked.

My old roommate, Brian, and his wife, Jenna, started talking with Michelle and I about the possibility of moving into a larger apartment in the same complex and sharing the rent. It would save them money. It would save us money. And even more than that, it would move our ideals of community forward rather than backward. We talked through a lot of details as well as friends, family, and people around us, and we realized it might just be possible. So, that is what we did. For the next 7 months, we will be living together in a two bedroom, two bathroom apartment with a kitchen, living room, and an office. We expect it to be an interesting experience. I will be blogging about it for the next six months. I’ll tell you about people’s reactions to the idea, the problems we have to deal with, the insights we learn, and the funny experiences that it generates. I will also try and give some of biblical and theological foundations for community, as well as exploring church history, other cultures, and different groups that exist today for their insights into communal living.

We don’t know how this will go, but we have high hopes. We think God is in it, but we’ll find out. The bottom line is this. We are trying. Most people just do what the rest of the culture is doing. They live on their own. We think Christians should be more creative. We don’t think our idea is for everyone, but we do think that pursuing creative forms of community should be for all Christians. We see how it goes.

Back from Trips

Michelle and I are back from our trips to Alabama and Pennsylvania. I am wrapping up things at work, gearing up for my summer class next week, and getting things in order to move to a new apartment in August. I plan on blogging about all of these things, especially the move in August. It is more interesting than just switching locations. We’re actually moving in with some friends to do a little experiment in communal living. I will probably be writing about this a lot over the next 7 months.  It should be fun. But, we’ll get started on that later. I just thought I’d do a quick update to let my teeming sea of readers know that I’m still alive and will be blogging regularly again soon.

If you know PJ…

This will probably only be funny to you if you know my father, P. J. He eats breakfast a couple of times a week at a local restaurant in town called the Red Apple. He has developed a sort of reputation for going there a lot, especially among the guys in the youth group. So, when he and I were out for lunch today, we were both surprised to see that he is part of their current advertising campaign. We were going to go to Wendey’s, but we just had to stop in and get a couple of steaks because of this. This will only be funny to you if you know my dad or have been to the Red Apple.

Life Update: I’m going back to school!

I have wanted to write about this for a long time, but I couldn’t until this week.

I am going back to school next year, which means, starting in August, I will no longer be a youth pastor. I am going to Wheaton Grad School to get my Masters in Biblical Exegesis and my Masters in Historical and Systematic Theology. They overlap a bit, so together both degrees will take me 3 years to complete.

Last Sunday, I announced this to my students and explained how they would be getting a new youth pastor. (Here is the letter I wrote to them.) It was a weird experience for me, and I am still processing it. The reactions I got were not what I expected. Mostly, they were non-reactions. I only got a few, and most students didn’t say anything. I don’t know if that means they don’t really care all that much, that they are happy and don’t want to show it, that they are sad and don’t know how to express it. I’m not sure. Right now, I think for most students it hasn’t sunk in yet that I am leaving, and it will in a month or so. Also, I am in the unique position of leaving a ministry position, but not leaving the church. I am going to just become a “normal” adult that they will still see around. That probably feels different than the youth pastor who says, “I’m leaving,” and is in another state in two weeks. No matter what, I’m sure it will be a little strange for the next few months.

Looking forward to school, I am extremely excited. I have been craving the academic life from about four months after I graduated. Most people never want to go back to school, but I’m wired for it. I love the study, the inquiry, the sense of discovery. I love to read and discuss and develop frameworks for understanding things…I thrive on it. I have a basic theology class in July for one week, and I’ve already got the books and have started reading them. In the fall, my class schedule will include a lot of Greek and Hebrew, Ancient Near Eastern Backgrounds of the Old Testament, and Jewish Backgrounds of the New Testament. It’s going to be awesome!

Michelle is looking for a teaching job in the area. If you think of it, please pray for her. We know that God will provide work for her, but it is a tough to be unsure of what it will be. She is beginning to get interviews, but the districts that she really wants to be in have not yet started the interview process. Right now, Michelle is doing a long term substitute position for a teacher who just had a baby at the high school down the street from our apartment. It isn’t slated to become an opening, but if the teacher changes her mind and wants to stay home with the baby, it would be a perfect place for Michelle. We are hoping and praying.

What does next year look like ministry-wise for me? It looks like two things. First, it looks like continuing to serve in my community, Ecclesia. I’m going to be doing a lot more to contribute. I will be doing some speaking, helping with vision and planning, and offering a lot of support to Ted, our pastor. My goal is to serve however I can to take Ecclesia to the next step God has for us in this little experiment. Secondly, I am systematically trying to experience different aspects of church ministry that I haven’t done before. I want to try and understand all the different aspects of ministry that goes on in a local church, so I am doing something I’ve never done: children’s ministry. Michelle and I are going to sign up to work with elementary school kids on Sunday mornings and teach them about Jesus. I can’t wait.

I have so many thoughts and emotions about the changes that are going on right now. There was a lot that went into my decision to stop being a youth pastor and go back to being a student, and I’m sure some of those things will come out here on the blog in the future. Right now, I’m feeling a little antsy. For me, as soon as plans are set for something, I am ready to jump into it without waiting. It is difficult, after months of knowing about this change to have it be public knowledge and still have to wait a few more months. It’s hard to be patient and focused in the moment. Just a few more months…

Well, those are the basics of what is going on in my life right now. God is good.

Butterburgers with a Friend

My friend Dave blogged a story about our most recent trip to everyone’s favorite fast food chain. Enjoy: Butterburgers.

A Dream

My wife told me that I needed to blog this.

Last night I had a nightmare, which in the dream scared me, but in the morning was a bit more humorous. I dreamed that I had married into a large, Greek family like the one in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and I now lived in a house completely decked out in blue and white, with gaudy decorations that celebrated Greek culture. I was  trying to learn Greek, so I was in the kitchen of our house, writing down all of the Greek words I could remember. The kitchen was dirty, and there were crumbs all over the floor as well as several large chunks of food. Part way into my dream, my father and my brother-in-law, Al, came by to see me.

When they arrived, a large cockroach came crawling out of nowhere to grab one of the fist-sized chunks of food on the floor. This terrified me because the cockroach was enormous, about the size of a small dog. It was scurrying along the floor towards a chunk of food near my food, and I was backing away, trying to jump onto the kitchen counter, when all of the sudden, a large rat came by and pounced on the cockroach. I think it wanted the chunk of food. The cockroach was strong and it kept moving towards me, with the food in its mouth and the rat on its back. Then, out of nowhere, a bird with large talons came swooping out of the sky (of the kitchen?) and grabbed the rat and pulled it in the air. The rat held onto the cockroach, which held onto the chunk of food, and all of them rose into the sky together. This all happened in a matter of about 25 seconds, while my father and brother-in-law looked on. I had managed to scramble onto a counter top to escape the creatures, but because of the bird, it was no use. I tried to back away, but it was flying directly towards me. When it was about a two feet in front of my face, I woke up, grabbing at my wife and kicking wildly.

She asked me what was wrong. I said, “I had a nightmare. I don’t want to talk about it.” Then I went back to sleep.

Now, friends, in the spirit of the King of Babylon, I seek wise men to interpret my dream. Tell me what you think.

A Compliment from a Student

Last weekend, a student of mine told me: “Clayton, you’re sort of like Blade, who is half-vampire and half-human, which gives him the strength of both with none of the weaknesses. You are half-nerd, half-pastor. You have the strength of both and none of the weaknesses.”

I’m not even sure what that means, but I like it.

My Weekend

My wife went out of town. I preached on dating in the youth group. I will be preaching on the end times in Ecclesia. But one phrase sums up the rest of my weekend: “Save the cheerleader. Save the world.”

I watched the first five episodes of Heroes. I love it.

Yes, I’m Alive.

Well, I’ve been meaning to update here for a long time. Why has it taken a while?

Well, October turned out to be a very challenging month for me at work. I thought it was going to be the time when things started to settle down into a routine, but I was wrong. Some things came up that were very personally challenging for me, and I was short on both time and energy to blog. Honestly, I have been exhausted spiritually and physically for the last month. I am only now beginning to recover.

The last week of October was our Fall Retreat with the youth group. It was great, and it really helped me process a lot of things. I was thankful to have my former youth pastor (our church’s current Marriage and Family Pastor) speak on the retreat. It was a very powerful set of messages about forgiveness that ministered to me personally, and also opened up a lot of opportunities to minister to students.

The first weekend of of November was the National Youth Workers Convention in Anaheim, CA. It was great. Not only was it good to have some warm weather, but I also felt very challenged and rejuvinated by the content of the convention. It was a good reminder for me of what the heart of ministry is, God’s grace. It also helped me continue to process some of the things that God dragged up while I was on the retreat. I may blog about some of that if I get the time and the courage. The weekend also helped bond our student minsitries team together. I had a lot of fun with my partners out in California, and we needed that.

I finished a few books recently. I finally read Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis. What did I think? I intend to write more about it, but in a few sentences, here are my thoughts. I am sort of up in the air about Rob Bell. On the one hand, I think he has some serious slopiness in his theology and his method of interpreting Scripture. On the other hand, he has a lot of things nailed, such as the Kingdom of God, the way we ought to approach theology, and our interaction with people who aren’t Christians. He is sort of like Brian McLaren for me, only not quite as exreme. Half the time, I think he is brilliant. The other half of the time, I want to throw the book across the room. Hopefully, I’ll be able to respond in more detail in the future. I think Rob Bell has gained enough attention in my own church that I ought to address him. I get asked a lot about what I think of him, so I would like to respond in full. But, let’s just say, my conservative Reformed friends will be disappointed by my parital approval of him, and all of the Rob Bell fanboys will find me too nit-picky. Overall, I have moved from hating him to seeing him as a brother that I have some points of disagreement with.

I also finished, Reading the Scripture with the Church Fathers by Christopher A. Hall. I liked this book, althought it is not for everyone. It is a little bit slow of a read, althought writing is very good. It will be more challenging to people who haven’t had an overview of Church history and historical theology, but for those with some background, it is great. It was worth reading just to hear the biographies and descriptions of the personalities of the Fathers. They are really facinating people. I particularly liked a few of the Eastern Fathers that I hadn’t learned about before, such as Basil and Gregory of Nzaianzus. I recognized in them some of the same personal tensions that I experience, being pulled to both the contemplative/academic and the pastoral sides of Christian service. A friend of mine gave me a copy of some early Church and patristic writings, and I’m going to read some of it after finishing this book.

I am currently reading the Suburban Christian by Albert Hsu, and it is excellent so far.

Like I said, I hope to write more soon, and I do have a lot to write about. I just haven’t had time yet.

Busy, but reading…a fitting title for a biography of my life.

When you are a youth pastor, the fall is a busy time of year. The spring is even more so. Most of the winter is too. So, I guess July is the only down time, and Christmas week is okay. Basically, you are always busy as a youth pastor. I think most jobs are busy though. Yesterday, my father-in-law said that he was suspicious of anyone who liked their job. He said they must have a lame job or be lying. I mean, don’t they know the whole thing is cursed? Even youth ministry is cursed. Work is hard.

That is why I have not updated my blog in a while. It is not that I don’t have things to write about. In fact, I have a very long list of things to write about that I just haven’t gotten around to. The last month was nice to not be blogging or reading blogs (for the most part). It let me air out a little. I trimmed down the list of blogs in my feedreader to a mere 20, plus some news feeds and my personal friends. I’m bound to still waste some time on them, but it is better than close to a hundred feeds. I am finding that blogs don’t get you very deep most of the time any way. Plus, after a while, most people end up repeating themselves a lot. It just isn’t worth it. I think I learn to think better when I read a longer article or a book, anyway. Short snippets don’t form rich thoughts like something you have invest some time in. Information is not wisdom…of course, if you follow my del.ic.ious feed at all, you know I still read a lot online.

So, I’ve been reading books. Today, I finished Telling the Truth by Frederick Buechner. I love his writing. You can tell why he was a finalist for the Pulitzer. He has a way with words. I also finished More Ready Than You Realize by Brian McLaren today. It is the first McLaren book that hasn’t made me angry. It is actually one of the best books on evangelism I have read. Last week, I read Simply Christian by N. T. Wright. While some parts were brilliant, and most of it was right on, on the whole it didn’t thrill me. It sort of required that you know N. T. Wright’s theology already, because it was such a short summary of things that the richness of his thinking could hardly come through. Other than a few stellar passages, I was disappointed.

I hope that this weekend, I’ll be able to post a real post with real thoughts. I’ve got a lot to write about, and some crazy ideas that I might want to share…but right now, I’m just busy.

Reflections at a Funeral

Last night, I attended the funeral for the wife of our senior pastor, Carol Bugh. It was a very moving service and a fitting celebration of a life well lived. It was held in Edman Chapel on the campus of Wheaton College, and the entire main floor was full. The stories of her life and the testimony of her children were incredible. Her death was truly a deep loss for our community.

This was the first funeral where I was struck by the brevity of life. Part of it was because of how young Carol was. She was only 50. Her children are all under 25, including a son who is in 6th grade. We all expect someone that young to have plenty of life yet to live. Part of it was also the fact that I am now married, and I feel a little bit more like an adult then I did at any of the other funerals I have been to. It dawned on me that I didn’t know how much time I had left to be with my wife, to be with my family, or to be with my friends. Life is unexpected, and it goes faster than we know. All life-long relationships end some time. It is a hard thing to think that one day, either Michelle or I will die. It was in our vows. To be married means that one of you will face the loss of a spouse. I know I took the vow a year ago, but I didn’t realize what it meant until this week. Michelle pointed out that it is interesting that we use so many flowers in funerals. Although they are beautiful, they don’t last long. In a few days, most of them will be withered away. They are the image that the Bible uses to show how quickly our lives pass.

Funerals are very self-conscious events. They happen rarely enough and they are sensitive enough that most people are unsure of what to do when they are at one. Maybe it is just because I am young and haven’t been to enough, it seems like most people are unsure of how to act at a funeral, and so they are very self-conscious. Even though we know we are supposed to wear black, many people are still unsure about whether or not their clothes are appropriate, and they feel self-conscious about that. I, for one, never know what to say at funerals, and I think most people don’t either. I suspect that most people don’t know how to act, how to stand, where to look, or how loud to talk. For an event where we are supposed to be thinking about the life of someone else, at least for me, a lot of time is spent thinking about myself.

They are self-conscious events, though, for another reason, and I think this one is an appropriate self-consciousness. Funerals naturally make us think about our own death, as well as our own funeral. As we contempate the legacy of another person, we wonder what kind of legacy we will leave ourselves. As long as we don’t get too obsessed with this, I think it an appropriate reflection that we need to go through every now and then. We need to ask ourselves, “What will my funeral say about my life?”

Carol’s funeral said that she lived a good kind of life, full of meaning, love, and frienships. She invested in people. She learned. She trained up a godly family. She drew people to Christ. She supported the church. She prayed. She laughed and played and savored life. She did it right. It was obvious to everyone there that this was a life we should emmulate. I couldn’t help but hope that my life would turn out so well. I have been thinking about what I need to do now in order to become the kind of person who ends life well, whose life is a testimony to the goodness and glory of God.

This morning, I met with my boss, who is also a friend and a long-time mentor to me. He told me that the funeral made him think about how he was living his own life. He pointed out that Carol was not an actvity-driven person. She was not highly involved in every program of the church. She did not fill her life up with lots of things to do just to do them. But, she did fill her life with relationships. Hers was a relationship-based life, not an activity based life. Story after story from friends and family showed that what drove Carol were people, connections and relationships were the heart of her existence.

So many of us spend our days doing things. We are focused on tasks. We are driven by our projects, our meetings, and our activities. We are shaped and defined by the things we are officially involved in. We get connected to ministries at church so that we can officially be “doing ministry.” We see our purpose in the things we accomplish. But, what if our lives were driven by relationships? What if loving people defined what we did? What if our relationships were not defined by what we were involved in, but what we were involved in flowed out of our relationships? I am so task-driven and project-focused some times. I define my world by what needs to be done and what I am responsible for. What if I defined my world by who I loved? Seriously.

I want to live in such a way that at my funeral, there will be stories, not of what I did in life, but of my friendships, my family-life, and my relationship with God.

My Friends are Blogging

Two of my friends are blogging (or blogging again). The first is my college roommate. He is in law school down in Oklahoma City. He is both hilarious and smart. I have high hopes for his blog: Fluffy Thought. The other is the pastor of Ecclesia, Chris. He used to blog, but got out of the habit for a while, and now, he is back. Check him out: chrismc.

Obituary and an Article About Our Pastor’s Wife

Obituary

Daily Herald | DuPage County: Fight With Cancer Shed Light on Little Joys

Pray for one of our volunteers

Please pray for one of our adult volunteers who leads a small group of junior guys. His name is Brad, and he found out last week that he needs emergency open heart surgery. He is a great volunteer, and works well with some of our most unique guys. He is at Mayo Clinic and will be having surgery tommorow. Most of you who read this probably won’t know him, but if you are interested in following his situation so that you can pray, here is his blog: Brad at Mayo