Archive - February, 2008
Anybody Want My Job?
So I will go into more detail later, but I officially resigned from my position after 7 years as the college director at my church back on January 11th. I am staying on through June 13 and the end of the college school year for my students.
It’s been an amazing time, and I will share more about that later, why I resigned, and what’s next. It’s an exciting time. But for now I want you to either apply for my job or pass the word on. Because I love it. And because if you love college ministry, then it’s a great position and a great opportunity to work with students from UCLA, USC, LMU, CSUN, Santa Monica college, musicians, actors, etc.
If you have any questions feel free to email me at rhett@belairpres.org, but for now. Here is the official information.
Bel-Air Presbyterian
Seeking a full-time Director of University Discipleship to lead a worshipping community of university and college students at BAPC and a dynamic ministry to students across the many campuses of LA. The ideal candidate will have a healthy relationship with Jesus Christ, a passion for sharing His word, a desire to make disciples for him, administrative gifts, and an infectious enthusiasm to mobilize students to make Christ known in LA and around the world. Send resumes to: kelley.dundon@belairpres.org. For more info, check out www.thequestbelair.org.
You can also find our Facebook page at Bel Air Quest
Exploring College Ministry…
I’m going to blog more about this after the weekend, but I just had a great lunch with Benson Hines, who runs the blog Exploring College Ministry. Ben is on a year long road trip across the country checking out college ministries, so it was great to have lunch with him today and confirm some of my own thoughts and beliefs about college ministry and what is taking place, and it was good to hear his thoughts on what is happening around the country.
I left lunch feeling very encouraged. Also I left lunch knowing that college ministry is not about having a church job, but it’s about caring about college students and working with them and using your gifts in whatever tangible way that is.
Check out his great blog….he has some great thougths and insights, and who knows, he may be posting about your church or college ministry.
Contact him if you would like to pick his brain along the way, or if you would like to have him come out and visit your ministry….or if you would like to treat him to a cup of coffee.
Ash Wednesday: The Journey Begins (from March 2006)
Growing up in a non-denominational Bible church as I did, I had no concept of Ash Wednesday. Rather, that was something my Catholic friends did, but not Protestants, and certainly not evangelical, Bible church goers.
It was not until about 1999 that I attended my first Ash Wednesday service at a Lutheran Church, where my friend was a youth pastor. I remember to this day being very nervous at the prospect of going. What would happen? What did they do? Did I have to get the ashes on my forehead?
But that service was a real turning point for me, and marked the beginning of a real transformation in how I celebrated the life, death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I had always grown up just going to the Easter service where I celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And of course, that aspect is vital to our faith, and is in fact the pivotal event on which our faith is built. According to Paul in I Corinthians 15, that if we don’t believe in the resurrection, and if Christ did not rise from the dead, then our faith is basically in vain, and we are to be pitied.
But there was something mysterious and life changing as I started my Easter season, not with resurrection Sunday, but with Ash Wednesday, where I marked the beginning of Christ’s journey of suffering to the cross. Those 40 days to Easter (not counting Sundays) was a time of intense reflection….of ups and downs, but each day constantly moving us closer and closer to Christ’s death.
As Christ’s crucifixion was the culmination of many events along his journey of suffering and betrayal, Ash Wednesday places us as Christians on a journey as well. It puts us on a 40 day journey to reflect and explore our sin, our suffering, our trials, our joys, our mountains and valleys. And as the pastor or priest puts the ashes on our forehead, the words are a reminder to us that:
“Remember, man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return.”
It is a reminder of our position or status before God. That we were created out of the ground of the earth, and that one day we shall return. Those are sobering words. But those words are words that set us on a journey for 40 days to really bring us closer to the miracle event of resurrection.
There is no resurrection without death. And as we are reminded of our own mortality, we know as Christians that resurrected life awaits us. But do we really ever think and ponder and pray about these things, or are we so quick to move to Easter.
The journey from Ash Wednesday…to Maunday Thursday, to Good Friday, and then to Black Saturday is quite sobering. We start with a reminder that we are but dust….we move to the betrayal of the Last Supper…then to the dark Friday of Crucifixion…and finally to Saturday….silence. As Christ is in the tomb. We know as Christians that Christ will rise on Sunday, but think what that experience must have been like for the followers of Christ and his disciples. All of their hopes and dreams dashed….death, and then silence. This Lenten journey gives us the opportunity to reflect on the journey of Christ and his followers, and for us to really take more seriously those events.
When I do come to Easter it is a most amazing day….it is most amazing because I have been on the journey, and the culmination of any journey is only worth something because we have been on it. To simply move us to Easter without reflection on Christ’s life, suffering, betrayal, crucifixion and death, is to rob us of the importance of that resurrection Sunday.
There are many traditions that do and that do not celebrate the Lent Season. I grew up without it, but I am now thankful that I am a part of a community and tradition that celebrates it. The Lent season has brought me more meaning to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ than it had in years past. I think that as Christians we often take for granted many things, as we sometimes too often have the luxury of hindsight and history. But for the first followers of Christ they did not have this luxury. And sometimes I wonder if we too often take for granted the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Ash Wednesday is the beginning of the Lent journey that I think can make our Easter, our life…more meaningful.
Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble for the day of the LORD is coming, it is near–a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from old, nor will be again after them in ages to come……Joel 2:1-2
Read Mark Roberts How Lent Can Make A Difference In Your Relationship With God
The movie Juno, family facades and brokenness…
Saturday night my wife and I went to the movies. Now that’s a treat these days since we have a baby at home. So when we do decide to go to a movie, we are pretty picky. Basically, it better be worth it. We decided to go see Juno based on the strength of great recommendations from our friends who have seen it. That turned out to be a great decision because we absolutely loved the movie. This is the first movie in a long time that both my wife and I left saying to each other, “that is one of the best movies we have seen in a year or more.”
There are a lot of reasons why I liked the movie so much, but I think bottom line for me: It painted a good portrait I thought of everyday American life, and the brokenness, struggles and challenges that many Americans are faced with, and the humor, anger and the whole gamut of emotions that go along with being human.
I’ve spent all of my life in the church, and about 9 years in vocational ministry. And from my experience, though you would think to the contrary, the church is sometimes the last place where the everyday brokenness of people and families is accepted and supported. What do I mean by that? I think in the church we spend most of our time judging other people and families and they way they live their life or the good or bad choices they make. This experience would have clouded my viewing of Juno, if not for the fact that I finished up a year practicum in a community mental health family clinic in 2007. More than any place I have worked, served, etc., that was truly a place where one was privy to the full spectrum of people’s and family’s experiences, both broken and redemptive. And I think it’s because of that experience that I was truly able to just love the movie Juno.
There were so many beautiful scenes in the movie: Juno asking her father if it was possible for people to love each other forever…that she needed to know that was true. To the amazing banter and dialogue. To the touching scene of her boyfriend and father of her child just laying silently with her on the hospital bed, knowing that there were no words to make the situation better. To the touching scene at the end of them singing the song to each other.
I found the movie refreshing and redemptive on so many levels, and partly because they didn’t try to make the audience feel better and push for another ending. It was just real life. Real teenage and American family life.
As I finish up this post I have been thinking about one of the more striking paradoxes in the movie. One the one hand you have this what seems to be middle to lower class family with Juno’s family, in contrast to the upper middle class family that wants to adopt the baby and that lives in the nice suburbs where every house looks the same, and the home appears to be the epitome of what American life should be. But in reality, both homes were struggling and broken, but the upper middle class home that tried to keep up appearances and pretend that everything was okay was the one that ultimately fell apart.
I’m not making a statement about socio-economics here, or the suburbs vs. the city, etc. But rather, often the family that looks like they have it all together is the one that is falling apart. Often, the things that we strive for that we think will make our life perfect (i.e. money, perfect house, the right clothes, job, etc.) are sometimes just a facade for the brokenness and hurt underneath.
Those two things were bridged though I think in the final scenes when the two worlds come colliding together through the adoption and they are able to be a part of each other’s lives.
Have you seen Juno? What did you think about it? Did you recommend it to others, why or why not?
I'm a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (MDiv, MSMFT, LMFT), and co-facilitate marriage intensives. I also love to write, speak, and run.
Author of The Anxious Christian which is tentatively slated to be published by Moody Publishers on March 1, 2012.
To schedule a counseling appointment contact Auxano Counseling at 972-312-8893.
