Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Christmas Part 1

Jess: I just got a call from Mom and Chris saying that they arrived home safely after our Christmas excitement. They showed up around dinnertime last Wednesday, and we've been having a good time since. We went to New York City on Thursday afternoon to see the Rockefeller tree, and on the way we saw the WTC site, Times Square, a great Italian restaurant, and a couple of other things. It was really freaking cold, but we had a good time and I think they all enjoyed their first trip to NYC.

Friday, of course, was Christmas Eve, so we sat around the house and got some stuff ready for Christmas day, then had delicious stew (made by Wes) and went off to the two services. Mom and I sang and everyone seemed to enjoy that. It was nice to have a service that was out of the ordinary, as well. At some point, we watched one of our traditional movies: National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

Christmas day was fantastic, of course. Wes and I started it off by making homemade cinnamon rolls for everyone, then Mom and I woke Josiah up--otherwise Christmas would have started at about 3 p.m. We opened all our presents, which was a good time. We did a combination of free-for-all Cain style and the OCD version of Christmas we had at my house. Christmas dinner was wonderful, and then we just sat around watching TV, the most important being A Christmas Story.

We were supposed to go show the family around Princeton on Sunday, but it started snowing at about 10 a.m. and didn't stop until yesterday morning. The wind was blowing so much that our yard has about 2 feet of snow in some places and no snow in others. It's ridiculous. Instead of going to Princeton, we spent yesterday and Sunday playing Wii, watching movies, and reading. It was fun, but relaxing, which is always great for a vacation. I found out that my mom is actually decent at the Wii, which was pretty surprising. We also ventured out for dinner on Sunday, which wasn't too bad until Mom tried to park the car in the garage. Our driveway is uphill and we had about 6 inches of snow in it by then, so she narrowly avoided hitting the garage a couple of times and it took us about 15 minutes to actually go inside once we got home. Good times.

Now, we're sitting around waiting for Dad to show up. He was supposed to be here by now, but got stuck for 2 hours on the Pennsylvania turnpike. It made me glad that we aren't actually traveling anywhere this year. It's too much work. Lol.

Wes: So the other day, one of my best friends, who will remain anonymous (Ryan Anderson), sent me a message on facebook, asking me what was more important: the birth of Christ or the death of Christ. We had a very interesting conversation, starting with another anonumous friend (Jackie Rodriguez), who talked about how she saw the death of Christ as what was most important. Ryan replied that he thought the birth of Christ was the most important. Then I finally jumped in with my two bits, saying that the resurrection was the most important. Half-way through writing it, though, I realized that this is a which-deathly-hallows-is-best question, just like on Harry Potter. Some will hold that the birth of Jesus is the most important, because nothing could have happened without the birth. Some hold that the death of Christ is the most important, because it is the sacrifice of Christ that saved us from our sins. Some hold that the resurrection of Christ is the most important, because we participate with Christ in His resurrection and are made a new creation.

I don't think that having the answer is necessarily important, but I do think it is important to realize that none of them are as important on their own as when they are held together. It is absolutely amazing that God took on flesh and took the title of "God-with-us." That God loved us enough to become one of us is unbelievable. The fact that God showed God's love again by dying in our place is awe-inspiring. That the grave was not strong enough to hold our Lord is worth celebrating over and over and over again. The salvation of humankind is not found in just one of these acts, but in all of them.

Relient K does a really good job of reminding us of this fact. I loved that on Christmas, I could get on facebook and see around fifty statuses (statii?) that all quoted my favorite Christmas song, Celebrate the Day: "I celebrate the day that You were born to die so I could one day pray for You to save my life." It shows me that even in this world that tries so hard to take Christ out of Christmas and make the holidays a commercialized product, people still know and hold to the true meaning of Christmas. It is about celebrating the birth of Christ while at the same time remembering just why God chose to take on flesh.

On a completely unrelated note, Jessica got me my very own chalice and paten for Christmas. (For those of you who don't know what a chalice and paten are, they are the cup and plate used to hold the bread and wine during communion). I feel all pastor-like, now, because I'm not only getting grown-up gifts like sweaters and books, but I'm getting vocational-esk gifts as well. The only thing that I didn't get that would have made this first-real-Christmas-as-an-adult better would have been if I had gotten a cheesy Christmas tie or sweater. Oh well. There's always next year.

Well, we hope that you enjoyed your Christmas and that you are enjoying your four calling birds (shout out to 12 days of Christmas). Goodbye, and goodnight!

You stay classy, World Wide Web!


-Jess and Wes

Saturday, December 18, 2010

And the new traditions continue (AKA "Eight Maids a Milking, Seven Maids a Milking, Six Maids a Milking, FIVE MAIDS A MILKING!)

Jess: With a week left till Christmas, our new traditions just keep coming. Last week, we went to the tree lighting in downtown Crosswicks, where Santa showed up in what Wes called a "one-police car open sleigh." The tree is beautiful, and we can see it from about half a mile down the road when it's lit up at night. It was a fun time, and we'll definitely be going back to that every year that we're here. Nothing beats small town traditions.

Yesterday, we went to the light show put on at the local Baptist church. It's about 15 minutes of songs, the Nativity, and light excitement. We got free cookies and hot chocolate and had a wonderful time. The church does a lot of little festivals throughout the year, and I think we learned that they're worth going to.

Today, we spent a couple of hours making our first Christmas cookies together. My family has a recipe we always use that has lemon and honey in it, and it's basically fantastic. Wes isn't a huge lemon fan, but apparently the cookies are already growing on him. We'll see if we can make the eight dozen we made last until my family gets here for Christmas. We compromised on the frosting/sprinkles thing and we have about half and half. Basically, they're amazing, and we had a wonderful time baking together.

Wes: So Jessica has turned me on to a new show. It's not very well-known, so you might not have heard of it, but it's really good. The plot is complex, the characters great, and it's one laugh after another. It's this indistinct TV series that aired for a while on NBC before it was canceled. It's called Friends, and it is amazing. I have absolutely loved watching this show, and can't stop laughing over and over again. It's not exactly a Christmas tradition, but I've been thoroughly enjoying it with Jess.

I am completely done with school work for this year. It's very, very nice to not have to worry about writing a paper or getting 1000 pages of reading done for tomorrow's class. I spent yesterday working on chruch stuff and reading FOR FUN! It. Was. Amazing. And now I get like 2 weeks off where I can do nothing but church work and read for fun! I love it! Really, I just can't wait until I'm out of school and can focus only on personal and church stuff. No more school mixed in with everything.

We're having fun with all of the Christmas stuff, and it's neat walking up to the mailbox and getting at least one new Christmas card each day. Making cookies with Jess today was fun, and even though I was helping her, she managed not to burn a single batch! The cookies, even the yuckie sprinkle ones, taste great, and I can't wait to share them with the church and everyone... Yeah right. I'm gonna eat them all.

This Sunday, I'm giving what I consider to be a cutsy sermon... Not something I tend to do a lot... But it is one of those times where I am hoping that image will stick with people even if the underlying message will not. I'm hoping that, like many of the Christmas movies out there today, even if it doesn't really seem to have much depth, it will stick in the minds and hearts of the congregations so that they will ponder over it later. Maybe God will use this sermon to lay a seed in one of more of my congregants that will grow into a deeply rooted faith.

Also, I met the youth director at a nearby Baptist church yesterday, and he didn't believe me when I told him that I was the "big pastor" of the church. He was confused and kept asking me, "So, like, you're the senior pastor?" It was funny, mainly because I still do not really believe it myself most of the time.

Well, that's all for now! Check back in next week to see how everything is going with the in-laws visiting! We'll see if this house... this family... this town... nay, this nation can survive the coming onslaught!



You stay classy, World Wide Web!


-Jess and Wes

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Frosting or Sprinkles?

Jess: I knew it was time for us to write another blog, and we've decided to continue to talk about Advent, but I had no idea what to write about. After being asked 6 or 7 times, Wes finally picked Christmas cookies. So here we are.

My family always made a big deal about Christmas cookies. With Dad being a pastor, I think we focused more on Advent than some other families, so we didn't make cookies until it was almost Christmastime. For us, Advent was also a time of preparation for my Grandma coming to visit for two weeks or so, and we never did anything Christmas-specific until she arrived, usually a day or two before Josiah and I went on break from school. So there we were, somewhere around December 20, with no Christmas decorations, tree, or cookies. Yet we had usually bought all of our presents.

Then Grandma would arrive and the real excitement would begin. We spent most of a day decorating. We'd put up the tree, which was an adventure in itself. We made room in the family room for it, often making the whole room kind of inconvenient for those weeks; then we'd find all of the various pieces of the tree. We had one of those where you had to connect each individual branch to the pole in the center of the tree. Next, we'd spend what seemed like hours un-knotting the lights we had so carefully stored the year before (got a little knot here). Finally, we would be allowed to decorate per my mother's sometimes crazy instructions: "Icicles have to hang straight," "You can't have two of the same kind of ornament too close together," "Make sure you're using the inside of the branches, too," "Did you put anything at the back of the tree?" It was usually at this point where my dad would give up and go to his office. Josiah and I always fought over who got to hang which ornament while my mom and grandma tried to unpack fast enough for us to hang them. Things looked grim...then all of a sudden we would step back and our tree would be beautiful, messy, wonderful, and crazy--just like the process.

In the next day or two after the tree-lighting fiasco, we would go through the Christmas cookie disaster of (insert year here). Mom and Grandma made the dough while Josiah and I watched TV. When they had a cookie sheet full, they would call us in to decorate. We had yellow, red, green sprinkles and multicolored sprinkles, silver balls, and cinnamon candies (I'm pretty sure we had the same bottles of them for most of my life). Mom would very carefully cut out two trees, two snowmen, two Texases, two angels, etc. for each tray. Then Jo and I would decorate them--hopefully without fighting over which bell belonged to whom. The cookies went in the oven and we went back to the TV to start the process again. This went on for ages until the last tray, which was always just four round pieces of dough that we could decorate with as much sugar as we wanted. I don't quite remember what happened after we ate those...

That day or the next, we would also make mints. They're basically just powdered sugar, water, mint extract and food coloring, but I thought they were fantastic. We had to set them out to dry for a day or so before Christmas. Grandma and I usually rolled them out and set them in the dining room, which was a prime spot to run in and grab one without anyone noticing. Somehow, there were always missing mints by Christmas day...

This year, Wes, Tomas, Katherine and I put up the Christmas tree on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. There was no fighting, but I definitely caught myself trying to tell Kat to make sure she didn't put too many of the same ornament too close together. Wes and I will be making cookies and mints, and there's a pretty good chance that he'll be watching TV or playing his XBox while I carefully cut out two of each shape. We'll be decorating with icing AND sprinkles, to combine our family traditions into one. I don't know if it will be the same without the fighting, though...

Wes:
So, as far as Christmas traditions of decorating the tree or making Christmas cookies, my family had, well, none. We just did whatever seemed good at the moment. We kinda all decided together when to put the tree up, and usually that was accompanied by a chorus of groans from each member of the family when we remembered how much work it took to put our Christmas tree up. We had a lot of fun putting the ornaments on it, but it seemed like every year we managed to loose either a number of ornaments or a branch from the tree. I'm still not really sure how this happened, seeing as how everything went back into the same box each year and no one ever got into them except for Christmas decorating. Weird...

But I will say that, when given the choice, I always did love me some frosting decorated cookies. You see, I'm not really a big cake person because I don't like a lot of frosting on things. If it's too sweet, I'll probably just give it to Jess or eat everything but the frosting. But for some reason, I love frosting on Christmas cookies. They are wonderful. So this whole just-put-sprinkles-on-them-and-call-it-quits thing is just not going to fly. I'm the king of this castle, and we're going to do things my way. (If I ask Jess nicely enough, that is). So yeah. Frosting. Way better than sprinkles.

Right now, and for the next week, my life is being consumed by papers for seminary. I am not a fan of having to write a paper that literally determines 100% of my grade and have to do it at the end of the semester. I probably should have taken this class pass-fail, but then we would all know what would be happening: I would not have anything going for me, because then I would just say that it was pass fail and didn't matter and would only apply myself for a "passing" grade, and I should definitely be striving for better than that.

I am also preaching at the Christmas tree lighting at Crosswicks' town hall tomorrow. A fun "sermonette" on Advent and Christmas as seen through the song/movie of the Little Drummer Boy! I was told multiple times to view this as a sermonette and not as a sermon--the difference being duration. A sermon is apparently supposed to be between 12 and 18 minutes (yeah, right, Ryan Barnett!) and a sermonette between 5 and 10. Well, I think I'm in that time limit, but as my friends and loved ones will tell you, I've apparently been known to be long-winded! We'll see, though, come tomorrow, if I have mastered the sermonette.

Well, that is all for now! Tune in next week for a lively discussion on the pros and cons of candy canes!

You stay classy, World Wide Web!

-jess and wes

Saturday, December 4, 2010

'Tis the Season

Jess: So, here's the promised Advent post. As many of you may (or may not) have known, Advent is the season of preparation for Christmas (which really does last twelve days, from December 25 to January 6). We're supposed to prepare our hearts for Jesus' coming into the world. But, for most, Advent is the time to go Christmas shopping, clean the house for guests, prepare for meals, and generally get stressed out by life, instead of enjoying God's gift to us.

My family never did the Advent calendar thing, we didn't go shopping on Black Friday, and Christmas was an exciting time for us. My grandma always came to visit for a couple of weeks while Josiah and I were out of school for break. We put up the tree together, made Christmas cookies, and generally just had a fun family time. I didn't ever think of Advent as a stressful time. We sang some of my favorite songs in church, we lit the Advent wreath, and life was awesome.

Last year, Advent was definitely a season of preparation, and a stressful one at that. Wes graduated December 19, we had Christmas with his parents, and then we got married on January 1. There was a lot to do and very little time to do it, but it was fun in its own way. I feel like we missed out on the preparation time, though.

This year, we're doing a much better job of preparing for Jesus to come into the world. We put up our Christmas decorations and have bought all but one of the gifts we're giving. We're trying to think about what Jesus' coming into the world means for us, and realize that the season isn't about how much money we spend, how amazing our gifts are, what kind of food we serve, or how many parties we have. Taking back Christmas from commercialism is hard, but hopefully we can do something. I pointed out to Wes as we were walking down the Christmas aisle last night that I felt like we needed more Christmas decorations--it's amazing how retailers can influence our ideas of this Christian holiday...

Wes: Christmastime is here! Happiness and cheer! (That, by the way, was brought to you by Charlie Brown and friends). So I really like Advent time. Growing up, Advent was the only time of year when my family would do devotionals together around the table. Each night, after dinner, we would light the Advent wreath and go through a mini Bible study. I really loved that time with my family.

Now, Jess and I have the opportunity to make some Advent/Christmas traditions of our own. We've already implemented a couple of things, like making our Thanksgiving guests help set up the Christmas tree and decorate the house. We've also talked about different traditions concerning gift giving. I have a friend who, instead of piling presents under the tree for her kids, gives each of them 3 gifts-- one for each gift given to Jesus. One gift is supposed to be practical (like myrrh), one spiritual (like frankincense), and one fun (like gold). I think this would be a neat tradition to implement when we start having youngster scampering about the house.

This Advent season, my sermons are focusing around the Isaiah passage that is mentioned in each Gospel concerning John the Baptist. Tomorrow, I'm going to be talking about the section "A voice crying out in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way of the Lord.'" And how a probably better translation would be "A voice crying out, 'In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord.'" What does it mean that God has called us to prepare the way for Christ in the wilderness places of hearts. It's a neat take on the Advent call for preparation, and one that I unashamedly stole from Pastor Greg Ronning from TLU.

Well, this was a shorter blog than usual, but I hope that you enjoy. Tune in next week for a Christmas cookie debate and much, much more!

You stay classy, World Wide Web!


-wes and jess

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Ketchup Time

Jess: I always loved "catch-up" day in junior high, and I had one teacher who always called it "ketchup day," so there ya go. Wes made some grand promises the last time we posted and then we forgot to write for two weeks.

So Wes was gone to Tennessee November 18-21 for his conference on youth ministry. While he was away, I did a lot of random stuff (worked, went to the doctor, preached, watched way too many movies, set up the house for Thanksgiving, etc.). But I think the most important thing I did was really take a step back and try to simplify our life. I've always known that Americans have too much crap. Just drive down any highway in the nation and you'll pass several storage units that prove this fact. We have so much junk that we can't even keep it contained in our huge houses. Well, Wes and I did pretty well when we were living in the apartment, but now that we have a house, I was worried that our pile of junk had already expanded too much.

It turned out that I was correct, so I went through each room of the house, getting rid of stuff we didn't need. I donated two suitcases full of things that we just didn't bother to get rid of before, as well as stuff that we keep thinking we'll need but never use. I filled up our trash can (something we've never done before) and our huge paper recycling bin. We still have some stuff we probably don't need, but we're a whole lot better off!

This last week, of course, was Thanksgiving. We had Wes' brother Tomas and sister Katherine over, as well as our friends Tim and Brittany, from TLU. Another college friend, Kevin, stayed with us on Tuesday night, so our house was nice and full. We had some great times together and I think everyone really enjoyed Thanksgiving. I've never cooked a Thanksgiving meal before, so I was pretty nervous going into it, but everything turned out great and we stuffed ourselves, as is the custom. It was great to have so many people filling up our house, but I'm glad for the rest now between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's just enough time to get everything back in order before people start showing up again.

We were really blessed to have everyone come to visit, and I'm so happy that we were able to open our house to them. Wes and I have a lot to be thankful for, and I hope that we remember that going forward.

Wes: I'd like to start by apologizing for Jess' bad grammar in her last sentence. It should be "Wes and I have a lot for which to be thankful." I am sorry for anyone who was as deeply offended as I was by this heinous misuse of the English language.

Now that that is out of the way, I want to share what I learned at the National Youth Workers' Convention in Nashville, Tennessee. I went there expecting a roller-coaster ride of worship, learning, equipping, and encouraging, and I expected to leave there much more excited about the ministry that I am doing. And, in a way, that is exactly what happened. I was able to reconnect with some beloved ministry friends from Texas, had a great time worshiping with David Crowder, Jeremy Camp, Starfield, and Jars of Clay, and learned a lot about the ministry that the church is called to do in the world today. But in another way, I had an altogether unexpected experience. Instead of leaving the convention each night feeling refreshed and invigorated, I left each night feeling convicted and confused. God was speaking some hard truths to me, truths that I did not think I was ready to confront, and I spent more time in prayer and contemplation than I did anything else.

I left that conference feeling like God had spoken directly to me--not just about the youth ministry that I was doing for the conference but the ministry of Crosswicks and Ellisdale UMC as well. God spoke to me about authenticity, and the difference between doing shallow ministry and engaging in deep, transformative ministry. I am excited about the work that God will be doing through others and myself in the next year, and I am anxious to see how God uses me to change the world.

After arriving back in New-to-the-Jersey, it was all hands on deck for Thanksgiving. Luckily, I have a wonderful wife who LOVES TO CLEAN, so there was not much more prep to do by the time I got home. We had a wonderful time with friends and family, though. The only downside to it is now I feel more homesick than ever and am really feeling the fact that we live so far away from any of my family. I am very much so ready to be done with school and back in Texas.

Now, we're gearing up for Advent, one of my favorite times of the year. But that is the stuff of another post for another day.

Thanks for dropping by! You stay classy, World Wide Web!


-Jess and Wes

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Captain Planet, He's Our Hero!

Jess: So, as some of you may know, I love books. I went to the library last week and got something like 15 books on various subjects. I would recommend any of these books (and pretty much any book, period) but the ones that I was super interested this time around were the ones on environmentalism/living green. After our weeks of reading about stewardship, I wanted to delve into the other side of stewardship: what does it mean to be good stewards of the earth (God's original call to stewardship)?

The first book I read was The Armchair Environmentalist, which is a book made up of easily read sections about various little ways in which we can change our lives to better impact the world. A lot of it was stuff I've already heard and implemented in my life: turning down the heat/AC, driving less and using fuel more efficiently when you do, being careful about which cleaning products you use, minimizing electricity use, etc. I feel pretty comfortable with most of these basic steps to improving the environment and my life, so this book was a pick-me-up with a few new suggestions I want to implement.

The next book I read was Green You, which was not at all what I had expected. I was hoping for more tips on how to make my daily actions better for the environment. Instead, I got a book that made me scared to do anything lest I poison myself or the environment. There were so many scary statistics about what's in our air, our health care products, our food, our water, etc. that I just wanted to give up. Then I started to realize that there's no reason to be overwhelmed. It's clear that we as a nation are doing a lot of things that are bad for our bodies, our homes, and our environment. But getting worried about everything at once didn't help me. Plus, I was a little skeptical about this woman's sources, since she kept saying that widely publicized tests were not to be trusted, without any proof of her own.

So what did I learn from all of this? How am I going to let this impact my life? Well, I'm not going to stop eating meat. I AM going to try to start eating a more "plant-based diet." Meat is not something that's necessary for our bodies to survive; we can get all the nutrients we need from seeds, nuts, vegetables, etc. But I like meat, and I'm definitely not going to give up the occasional steak. If every American just began to cut down the amount of meat they eat in a week, our food industry would become more sustainable. I don't feel obligated to single-handedly revolutionize the food industry. But I will do my part. And it's good for my body to eat more fruits and veggies, more whole grains, and less meat.

I'm not going to stop taking Wes' suits to the dry cleaners, either; there aren't many other options. But I will hang his suits outside and let them air out so the chemicals don't make their way into our home. I won't get anything dry cleaned that doesn't need it, and I won't go more often than necessary.

I will, however, try to walk more often. I walked to church and back on Sunday so that Wes didn't have to drive the extra mile or so to the house and back, and so I didn't have to turn the car on just to drive it the mile home, then turn it on again to drive back to the church to pick him up. Little changes like this are going to make an impact on the environment AND on my waistline. I'm going to continue to do what I can to help the planet, but I'm not going to try to save the thing myself.

Wes: There's no force on God's green earth that will keep me from enjoying my steaks. And my hamburgers. And my ribs. And brisket. And beef stew (which I made the other day. It. Was. Awesome.). That being said, I do agree that if something does not start happening soon, God's green earth will continue becoming less and less green. And that is reason enough to take a serious look at how we utilize the resources available to us.

I know that I am horrible at this. And it's not as if I mean to be, I'm just an idiot who can't remember to do certain things, like turn off lights and lower the heat whenever I leave the house. I accidentally leave things plugged in, or I'll forget to make sure the door closes all the way behind me. I'm actually worried that one of these days, I'm going to walk in the house and find that Jessica has posted little signs everywhere that say things like "Our A/C works hard enough as it is. Don't make it cool the outside too!" or "If you don't want to have a fight, light a candle and turn off that light!" I'll feel like I'm back in preschool, where everything either rhymes or has a picture on it of a cute little animal frowning up at me. That'd be worse than a horror movie!

But I'm trying my best to do my best with reducing, re-using, and recycling, and I think we're making a difference. We're doing our part at the house, and we're also looking at how the churches can be better about using their resources as well. We didn't turn on the lights at Ellisdale last Sunday, but instead we opened the doors and windows and let God illumine our place of worship. We've cut the size of the bulletin down from a full page front and back with inserts to a half-page front and back and the very occasional insert. Good things are happening at both places, and I'm excited.

Well, I guess that's all from us for today. Check in next week to hear about my fun trip to Nashville, TN for the National Youth Workers' Convention, and then the week after to hear some of our thoughts on Advent.

You stay classy, World Wide Web!

-Jess and Wes

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly...

Jess: So I read a briefing in Time before church this Sunday that really upset me, and I still don't quite know what to do about it. It was about how homosexuality is against the law in Uganda, and that a newspaper has been printing the names and addresses of homosexuals in the area. It went on to say, "Homosexuality is outlawed in Uganda. Some US Evangelical groups are backing a bill, currently under review in parliament, that would make homosexuality punishable by death." I'm still so shocked by this that I can't figure out how to respond. I know it's going into the sermon I'm preaching for Wes on the 21st, but I just don't know what else to do.

I don't care what your personal opinions are on the "hot" issues (homosexuality, abortion, stem cell research, going 'green,' etc.), but we Christians HAVE to figure out a way to express our opinions while still loving God and loving our neighbor. I'm reading the book unChristian by David Kinnaman right now, and learning a lot about how those outside of Christianity perceive us. We are seen as judgmental, hypocritical, and worse. Yet we claim to be Christ followers. How can we be followers of a man who healed the sick, lifted up the lowly, and stood by the downtrodden yet persecute those who are different from us?

Whatever your personal opinion on one thing or another, Jesus told us that the greatest commandments are to love God and love our neighbor. Loving God means following his commandments: worship only the one true God, keep the Sabbath holy, honor your parents, don't covet, don't steal, and DON'T MURDER. Again, no matter your opinion on whether some people deserve to be punished/to go to hell/whatever, one of God's number one commandments is to not kill. There is no provision for killing those who are doing what you think is wrong. And Jesus would say that backing the bill to allow murder makes you just as guilty as the people who carry it out.

Now, I don't say all of this to accuse anyone or to make us feel bad about ourselves as Christians. God knows we're bad and that we've been bad since the beginning of time. Just check out Genesis. But our first task should be to figure out how to love God. Our second is to love all of God's created people, whether they're "good" or "bad." There is only one judge, and that judge definitely isn't just a human.

Wes: So anyone who has known me for very long has probably heard me tell the story of Telemachus in a sermon. I won't ruin the story for any who haven't, but what it gets down to is that there is a right way and a wrong way to change the world. God calls us to change the world, but God calls us to do so in a very special way: through love. There are many, many things wrong with the world, and we are called to do everything we can to right all of the wrongs that we see. But the way in which most Christians choose to go about this work is very, very wrong.

Once again, we are called to love. We are even told that our love is the standard by which the world will know that we are Christ’s disciples. Love is absolutely crucial for the faithful follower of Jesus. Our purpose in life, therefore, is to show everyone we meet the love of Jesus Christ so that they might know that we are Christians and so that they might some day come to know Christ as we do. We do this by living our lives in a way that reminds the entire world who we are and Who’s we are.

The truth, though, as scary as it may be to admit, is that the church has not always been good about this. Time and again throughout history we fall into sins of pride as individuals and people, raising ourselves up while at the same time beating others down. Whether we speak of the crusades, the inquisition, the treatment of slaves, or any other myriad of topics, it is easy to see that the command to love is sometimes lost on the people who should be upholding it.

And, sadly, this is something with which we as the church still struggle today. We have groups here in America that preach a gospel of hate across the nation, so caught up in their personal piety and so high up on their personal soap boxes that they either cannot see or refuse to see how their actions are widening the schism that forms between the church and the world. We have actual churches that will picket soldiers’ funerals to speak out against the war, disrupting an event already hard for many to bear to push their ideals at people who are hurting and struggling with the loss of a loved one. We have actual churches with websites such as godhatesfags.com that are so entrenched in getting their point across they do not see how they are hurting, alienating, and humiliating people that already struggle with their identity in a world that has constantly marginalized them. We have actual churches that will crowd around the sidewalks of abortion clinics, yelling until they are red in the face at young women entering and exiting the building, many of whom are drowning in shame already and do not need anyone else telling them that they are evil and that they are murderers. We have actual churches that would rather burn another religion’s holy book than work hand in hand with them to strive for peace in a war-torn world.


We as a church must come to understand that above all else we must act out of love. We cannot try to impact and change the world by hate or by violence or by any other means but love, because to do so would be to abandon the very thing for which Christ stood. This has nothing to do with my political views or your political views. This is about how we choose to represent our God and our faith. Nothing more.

So this was a rather... hard hitting blog, but we hope you find it interesting at least!

You stay classy, World Wide Web!


-Jess and Wes

Friday, November 5, 2010

Money, Money, Money Must be Funny in a Rich Man's World...

Jess: So, after our wonderful 10 months and 4 days of blissful marriage, we have really only had one thing that we don't like/basically annoys the crap out of us. Those of you who are really perceptive probably discovered from the title that it's money. What a pain in the butt money is, especially when you don't have a whole lot of it.

Over the past few weeks, Wes and I have been reading a couple of books about stewardship and Wes has given two sermons on the topic. It's really had both of us thinking about stewardship in general, especially with regard to our situation. I will admit that we have not been perfect stewards of our money. When we first got married and moved up here, I was the only one working and we had a very limited income. We had no choice but to be good stewards of our resources or face not being able to pay our bills. Now that Wes is working, life has been a lot easier. Not only do we have more income, but we don't have to pay for utilities or our house.

Our problem is that, now that we have a bit more money, we are tempted to use it for ourselves and trick ourselves into believing we still don't have enough. Ironically enough, one of the books we read is Enough by Adam Hamilton, which is a wonderful book I would recommend for everyone. It explains that Americans desire to have more and more, but there is a point where the possessions we have no longer satisfy us. Instead, we want to keep buying and consuming and never enjoy the stuff we have. The result of this is that we have bills we can't pay, debt we can't get out of, things we never use, and we wonder why we're not happy.

So we have committed to being better stewards of what God has given us. We are going to hold off on buying a second car until next summer, because our schedules mesh well enough until then. We have not gotten cable at our house because there is no reason to pay $50 a month for cable when we can pay $8 a month for Netflix, watch basic cable, and use Hulu if we want anything else. We only eat out once a week, and we got a BJs membership, saving us probably $50 a month on food. I think we're doing a good job, but there are clearly other things we need to do. It's going to take a lot of work to stop our desire to "keep up with the Jones'" and be content to "use up" all of our stuff. For example, I'd love to have a new pair of tennis shoes, but mine are good for at least a little longer, so I'm going to wear them out!

I read a news story a little while ago about a couple that super-simplified their life. They got rid of all but 100 of their possessions, downgraded their house, sold their car, got rid of their TV, etc. Although I don't think we all should/need to be this extreme, I think they've set a great example for the rest of us. We are stewards of God's earth and everything with which he has blessed us. We're trying to be more environmentally, fiscally, and generally responsible. So here's to continuing that awesomeness!

Wes: As Jess mentioned, I just had the immense pleasure of giving a two-sermon series on stewardship. I tried breaking it up into two topics: (1) hilarious generosity and (2) stewardship as a spiritual discipline. Now, I have struggled for a long time in how to best articulate the subject of giving in the church, because I have heard some really bad stewardship sermons in the past. I did not want my homilies to come across as a "give me money" plea. Instead, I wanted to make sure that my message came across as a call to continued discipleship. So I broke my sermons up accordingly.

The first one, hilarious generosity, was based off of 1 Corinthians 9:7, which says that we should give joyfully. Stealing from the pastor of my home church, Charles Anderson, I talked about how the Greek word that is used for the word "joyful" in this is the word hilarion, which is the same root from which we get our word "hilarious." So maybe, the better translation of this verse would instead be "give hilariously," not "give joyfully." Now, for me, this is much easier to understand. I struggle with the phrase "give joyfully," because sometimes it is hard to be joyful about parting with our things. But to give hilariously, to give when it doesn't make any worldly sense to do so, to be outrageous in our generosity, this is something to which I can grasp on. We are called to be in this world but not of this world, and we are called to trust in the wisdom of God, not the wisdom of the world. Now, I did not mention the term "tithing" or "stewardship" at all in this sermon. Instead, I tried to focus as much as possible on the generosity of the faithful disciple to those who are in need. I challenged my friends present to pray about their acts of generosity and how they could give even more hilariously.

The second sermon's premise was taken almost completely from Adam Hamilton's book, Enough, that Jess mentioned above. I talked about how we are called by God to be faithful stewards of the world's resources, and a large part of this is to give back to God from the resources God has given us. We are called to do this lovingly, and as an act of worship. This is, of course, the first ways in which God's people worshiped God: by building an altar and placing on it the first fruits of their bounty. We should take just as much care and pride in our offerings to God as a Abraham and Jacob did in building their altars and placing their sacrifices upon it. Then I had them do something crazy. I had them take part in the weekly offering in the same way that our sisters and brothers in Rwanda do their weekly offering: by walking up to the altar railing and dropping their offerings in it while grasping one arm with the other (a sign of respect in Rwandan culture). By doing this, they were shaking hands with God, and showing God the highest amounts of respect. And I was pleasantly surprised by the response. Everyone happily stood up and took part in this outward sign of worship to God.

So now Jess and I are joining our churches in looking at our own giving to the church and our own stewardship practices. And let me tell you, this is not always easy. I have an Xbox game reserved that comes out in two weeks that I have been waiting for with great expectation. I want a new pair of boots because the soles on mine are wearing down. I want a flat screen TV that doesn't weigh 250 pounds like the one we have. There is a book that just came out--the twelfth and penultimate book in a series I've been reading since I was in 6th grade--that I have reserved at the library instead of buying to be a step closer to completing my library... There are so many things that I wish that I could be spending our money on, but they are not things that we need or can't live without. We are upping our giving so that (after a few months of gradually increasing the amount) our monthly tithe will exceed the 10% that should be our minimum. We are also looking at starting or contributing to a scholarship fund for seminary students to help support people like ourselves going into ordained ministry. And we cannot do these things if we are spending all of our money of the... niceties of life.

So that has been our trip down stewardship lane. What has been your experience with churches and the topic of tithing and stewardship? Have you heard a good sermon on it, or have they all been kind of oppressive? I have very strong views on the role of the disciple when it comes to giving, but I feel like this has not been very well translated into the sermons that we give on Sunday mornings. I would love to hear from you about your thoughts on it and how you see your walk with Christ in respect to your money and resources.

Well, that's it for us! You stay classy, World Wide Web!


-Jess and Wes

Monday, October 25, 2010

Marriage

Jess: So I just read a really depressing article about how a company called Wedlock has created "divorce insurance" offers to give you money for expenses if you and your spouse decide to get divorced. Although I have many friends whose parents have divorced and am the product of a broken marriage myself, I think that this is so completely ridiculous. Why and how has our society moved so far from the sanctity of marriage? We're so concerned about who can marry whom, when they can get married, how they can get married, etc, that we have completely lost our view of what marriage is meant to be.

I know Wes and I have been married for less than a year, but we entered into marriage as a lifetime commitment, not as just another relationship. Marriage is not the same as dating someone--marriage is saying that you are willing to be with the same person for the rest of your life, even when times get tough. If you are not willing to share your life with someone, to overcome the temptation that other people will provide, to commit (if you want) to having and raising children with that person, growing old with them, etc., then marriage is not for you. There are many people today that do not marry for whatever reason, and I think this is a perfectly good solution...some people simply do not want to get married. Times have changed, and this is an option not previously available.

That said, I believe that divorce is a possible solution to some marriage problems. I think that there are definitely some situations when people should not be married: abusive households being just one example. There are also some people who simply were never meant to be married in the first place, made a mistake, etc. But divorce should not be the solution to every problem in every marriage. This is how we have such a high divorce rate in the United States, where people believe that divorce is as simple as breaking up. It is also why people get divorced, remarried, divorced, and remarried yet again, which is a major factor in the divorce rate. People who enter marriage with the right mindset to begin with may in fact get divorced, but they are not the ones who cause this statistic to skyrocket.

Alright, I'm getting off my soapbox. I was just so extremely disappointed by this new development that I had to put my thoughts out there. I hope no one is upset by this- I just wanted to share my views.

Wes: My best friend and brother, Tomas, was the best man at our wedding. In his speech at our wedding, Tomas said that he knew that Jess and I would last for "several years." We've joked about this ever since January, that he, at our wedding reception, decided that we would only be married for "several years." But the truth is, Tomas has told us multiple times that he knows that we'll be one of the ones that last.

Thinking about it, a lot of my friends are getting/have gotten married of late. I cannot think of any of them who are not the type of couple that will last. Chris and Melendy. Amanda and Jeremy. Jon and Lauren. Justin and Sarah. Andrew and Brandy. I know that we are a small group of couples in the midst of a large world full of them, but I am proud to say that I firmly believe that God has blessed me in letting me be a part of a fellowship of believers that are all "ones that will last." We're like a bunch of little puzzles with only two pieces each. It's easy to see we fit with one another, and there's no use trying to match us with any other piece (the pieces signify people for those of you who could not follow the metaphor. Sorry. I've been watching big bang theory and have gotten used to people explaining jokes and comparisons to Sheldon).

I am a firm believer that God made us to be creatures of company. We were created to be around others. I am blessed to have Jess, someone with whom I can share every aspect of my life. I do not hold that everyone is made to enjoy the same type of relationship that I have with Jess, but I do hold that all of us are made to be in fellowship and be in community.

On a very different note, Jess and I bought a pack of the Ghirardelli peppermint and dark chocolate squares the other day, and they are delicious.

That is all for now. Thus ends the reading. You stay classy, World Wide Web!


-Wes and Jess

Monday, October 11, 2010

Mommy!

Jess: This weekend, I had the wonderful opportunity to go to the Rejoice (my home church) Women’s Retreat in New York. It was great to be able to see some of the women I’ve known for so long, and I really appreciated the chance to spend time with them as an adult. It was an amazingly uplifting experience, and I hope to get the chance to go again in the future. Not only did I have a great time hearing about some powerful, influential women in the Bible, but I was spiritually renewed, as well. Plus, all the women who have known me since I was a kid gave me wonderful support as I pursue my call to ministry. I was really impressed at their ability to treat me like an adult. I know it’s tough to do that when you’ve known someone since they were a kid. It was definitely something I needed, since I am at a pretty interesting point of my journey.

Although the spiritual side of the retreat was absolutely fantastic, it was also a great time to see my mommy. We haven’t really had a lot of time to just hang out since I started college, so I really enjoyed having a couple of days to just talk with her about our lives. It reminded me that actually seeing people is so important and makes such a difference. Sometimes I just need a hug from my mom, and it was nice to get a few extra this weekend to last me through till Christmas. Despite the lack of sleep throughout the weekend, the laughter and stories were fantastic!

Well, that was the big highlight of my life this last week. Now I have to rewrite my sermon for Sunday (Wes decided he’s working too hard :-P) because I realized that I wasn’t going to preach the message God wants me to. I’m not quite sure what I’m going to say, but I know I wasn’t going in the right direction. And I think Wes survived the weekend pretty well without me; he even managed to clean the house! It was great to come home and not have to worry about that. Everyone who has ever been on a retreat knows that the return to “real life” is a pretty difficult one. Between the eight hour drive and not having to cook, clean or do laundry when I got home, I think I had a pretty nice transition between retreat and life, and I’m ready to share my excitement with others!

Wes:

So, my friends, I've been really impacted by all of the suicides that have been happening throughout the nation. It is horrible that we as a church are not standing up and showing love to those who feel so alone that they feel the only way to escape the oppression is to kill themselves. I preached on this on Sunday, sharing with my congregations the story of one of the victims, Tyler Clementi, who was a student at Rutgers, not 45 minutes away from us. I was very impressed by both church's response to this. Everyone that came up to me afterward was very moved by it and wanted to know how we can better minister to the people around us who need to know that the church is a place of love and safety. I told them in my sermon something that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said in one of his sermons: if we passively allow evils to happen, we are cooperating with that evil and we might as well be a participant in it (this is paraphrased). The churches said they didn't want to passively sit back and let it happen, so in the future, we will be having conversations about what we as a church can be doing. I am very impressed with them and their willingness to love, not judge, those who need it the most.

I didn't get to go to any special retreat this last weekend. Instead, I had to chill at the house by myself. I got loads of stuff done, though, and I battled against aliens on Halo:Reach. I also had time to think about one of my papers this semester. Two of my classes' grades are solely based on one paper (per each of course). For my class on Reinhold Niebuhr and MLK, I am seriously considering writing my paper on their work (mainly MLK's) that corresponds with the Theology of the Cross. I am excited about this, and I need to get to work on it because I don't want to end the semester with two enormous papers and no time to do either. I have no idea what I'm doing for the other one, though...

I also started a Twitter account. Yeah, I know, lame. But I did it for a class. One of my professors assigned it as a way to work on writing more concisely. My name is pstrwes, and I've been using it to share different things that I have learned in my classes or while working on sermons, and I am hoping that it will lead to some neat bits of wisdom for myself and those that might stumble across the page.

Well, that's all that I can think of to write. So... that's all for now!


You stay classy, World Wide Web!