the one after a month

well, it has been a month since my last post…and i had promised myself that i would make more regular posts to my blog. i’ll have to work on that. mid-year resolutions?

a lot has happened since the beginning of june. the GOOTH had a fabulous experience at the Massanetta Springs Middle School Conference in harrisonburg, virginia. it was CPC’s second trip to the conference. 13 youth and 4 adults attended, including meredith, who is continuing to recover from her surgery. we attended inspiring keynotes and workshops, did energizers, played fun games, sang songs, played in the rain, drank from the springs, survived an electrical storm like i hadn’t seen in a looooong time (including felicia’s near-death experience while standing on metal stairs when lightening struck near the building!!! well, we’re calling it a near-death experience anyway), had a great departing lunch at 5 guys, and made many memories that will stay with us for many years to come.

the General Assembly of the PCUSA met a week ago, taking action on a number of exciting items for the future of the church. it will now be up to the presbyteries to address the equalization of the ordination standards as laid out in the constitution of the PCUSA. i’ll speak more to that in another post.

this weekend, lynda returns to the states for a visit. her college reunion is in two weeks in upstate new york – houghton college. i will be catching up with her in shenandoah national park on the 4th of july, before continuing to new york city to meet up with the GOOTH for our mission trip. then, i’ll head upstate to catch up with lynda again at the reunion itself. she returns to peru on july 16. her term of service ends october 2 and will return to the states at that time.

during the mission trip, i will try to make daily postings so that family and friends of the GOOTH may keep up with the adventures in new york city. i hope that you will check back to hear about the GOOTH new york experience.

until then…peace, love, and chocolate.

ps – the cardinal in the window was still handing around after all this time!

 

the one about ymiLIVE – high school cantata

CPC’s youth group (GOOTH) has entered the video contest at ymiLIVE.org, an initiative of the PC(USA) Foundation Group. the top 3 winners of the contest are awarded a $25,000 endowment for use with their youth ministry.

we finished the video last week at GOOTH – practicing it during one sunday night program, and filming the video during a second. i’ve never been part of a faster musical production! thanks to Ian and Brittany for editing the final video and posting it to the site.

the objective of the contest is to create a video that interprets micah 6:8

He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

we chose to do our video in the style of high school musical, and change the words to fit our interpretation of the passage. we hope that you enjoy the video!

to watch the video, one must register at ymilive.org. ANYONE can register as a “supporter” and vote for the video and show support for GOOTH. You need to vote before June 1! Here is what you need to do…

Go to http://www.ymilive.org/
Click on the “Register” tab on the right side of the page
Enter your information (first name, last name, email, and choose “I am a supporter”)
Click “Get Started”
Enter the additional information it asks for
(a “handle” is like a screen name)
Click “Register Now”
You should see a screen that tells you to check your email for a confirmation email with link
Check your email for the email from “ymiLIVE Support”
Click on the link in the email
Sign into ymiLIVE, browse, and vote!!!

you can do a search for our video, OR you can click on “videos” at the top (clicking on “vote” will only show you the rules for voting), then go to page 6 of the videos. find ours, click on it, and then click “cast your vote” on the right side of the page.

We have 59 votes so far, but we need many more! EVERY email address can be registered and cast a vote So, vote all you can!

thanks for your help and support!

 

the one about evangelism

i just want to write something…with this new blog, i’m itching to write something. someone once told me, with blogs, you have to keep them up to date or people will stop reading it. i think that holds true. so, here goes…

i’ve been having an interesting conversation tonight with one of my youth via email on facebook. he asked me how presbyterians interpret the great commission found at the end of matthew. it turns out that in all his time at CPC, he has heard next to nothing about us telling people about jesus and who jesus is. this led him to wonder how we accept the call extended to us in the great commission. and you know what? he’s right…we don’t do much with evangelism. so, that begs the question, what do we do about it? but it also begs the question, how do we do it?

as presbyterians, we are sometimes uncomfortable with the word “evangelical.” i remember when i was on a pastor nominating committee my senior year in high school and we were writing up our CIF (church information form – which is kinda like a church’s resume). the committee wanted to describe our church as “evangelical.” my first, knee-jerk reaction was, “evangelical? really? i’m not sure i like that word.” they were surprised to hear me say that. i did have a bad taste for the word, largely because of religious television personalities (televangelists) and my less-than-holy experience with peers from the large local church. i thought it was a negative way to describe christians. i didn’t know what the word meant. i thought it was a “bad” word. ironic, though, since it is the greek word for “good news.” i had no idea what the word meant at the time, because my church did not use the word often and my exposure to it was limited to television and that local church. however, as my understanding of the word and the practice increased, so too did my appreciation for the word. we ended up using it in the CIF in the end.

presbyterians are not usually thought of as an evangelical people, but we strive to be. my home church, northminster pcusa (chattanooga, tn) had to be evangelical…they had no choice…they no longer served the neighborhood in which i had been placed 30 years prior. in order to survive, the church had to reevaluate its practice of evangelism to its neighbors. as presbyterians, should we wait until we have no other options left but to be evangelical, before we become evangelical? probably not. i’m still learning how to be evangelical. i hope that maybe i can pick up a thing or two from this youth who made this observation of our church, in addition to my evangelical, liberal, feminist girlfriend, Lynda, when she returns from Peru.

peace.