Can Smashing (or my first Acts 29 retreat for men 1)

These are pictures of a can that I smashed a few minutes ago inside of my own home. I took a picture of this can and then I smashed it and then I took another picture of it so that I would have pictures with which to illustrate this blog entry.

I went to Black Lake Bible Camp last weekend and while I was there, I lost four games of chess to Alex from Red Sea Church in Portland Oregon. I did not win any games of chess, but for every game of chess that I lost, I smashed a soda can with my two hands. The integrity of the can failed due to excessive compression. I have no doubt that some people think that I did so out of frustration, kind of like a particular young lady must have assumed when she saw me smash such a can directly after she told me that no, I was not to be allowed to ask her parents if I was to be allowed to ask her if I could go out with her. In actuality, I just smash these cans because I can (what a pun!). I figured out that I could do it while I was living at the Embassy.

Fortunately, these four chess games and smashed cans were not the high points of my weekend.

The drive from my parents house in Monroe which I had been visiting because of a stormwater product seminar and the birthday of my younger brother was exceptionally lengthy (with respect to time, not distance) because of the high traffic load with which interstate five was burdened. The unpleasantness of the excessive duration was offset by the pleasantness of the company of Ryan from Mars Hill Church in Seattle who used to be the worship leader (as opposed to worship pastor) at Seaside Church in Bremerton. I had a nice time conversing with him about Jesus, church, music, simple theology, and of course, traffic. I managed to input bad data to my computer mapping program, so we were ten blocks off of our target at the end, but Ryan was wise and asked directions and got us there before the electrical system of the Illuminate 2 became overloaded by the frequency modulator transmitter, the frequency modulator receiver, the electrical inverter, the audio amplifier, the cabin and forward lights and the engine's demand for spark while we were driving around slowly and looking for the camp site. We did arrive before 1900 when I was told that the gate would be locked and a nearsighted guard would be posted with a shotgun.

After I parked the Illuminate 2, I unloaded and joined the music worship team (provided by Seaside Church) in the chapel area and soon found that there was lots of power available and every reason to use it. The music sounded good, and I got to use a graphic equalizer that had controls for even more than three bands! Dinner was good, but the chess games were not so fun. At least I didn't throw my chess pieces all over the room.

Pithy terseness

During the meeting of my community group on Tuesday, the topic of God's specific will came up and I managed to get a word in edgewise which met with some resistance. I didn't back down and transmitted an aggressive little electronic message to the group about it the next day.

It sort of sums up a bit of what I learned from the Discovering God book by Henry Blackaby, but the references were pointed out to me by David Andrews who was the "leader" of the house at which I once lived in Pullman. These references were pointed out to him by someone else, but I pulled them out of the house meeting documents that I had built so that I could include them in the electronic message about which I am typing.

I have received so much good feedback about this electronic message that I have decided to include its text below:

Subject: Getting started on God's will

God's will for your life is God's will applied to your life.

1 Thess 4:1-12
Romans 12:2
Ephesians 5:17
1 Thess 5:16-18

I am Joshua

More Alcohol

On Monday night the Seaside Church elder candidate who is my community group leader picked me up in the Illuminate 3 and drove me to the Bremerton waterfront to a place called Frtiz European Fryhouse where I consumed some beer with many other men of said local church body. I blogged about that previous time upon which I consumed alcohol with my community group leader, so he told me that I needed to do it again this time. So here you go Eric:

Fritz European Fryhouse is owned by Andy who also attends Seaside Church. We have all been told that the group won't be back unless Andy's tithe check increases in magnitude as a result of these monthly Monday night meetings. I really don't think that beer is my thing, but I ordered the third of my life and got it down anyway. I think that soda would have been more fun.

The spiritual discipline of the month was evangelism. The leader indicated that a fascinating question to ask people would be, "If you knew that I was a Christian, which hyporisies could you point out as a result of your observations of the way that I live my life?" or something like that.

I'm leaving the comment field here open for all you non-Christian people who know me to answer that question. If you need to say any bad words, perhaps you should just say them to my face or send me an electronic message.

Superbowl Sunday

The Seaside Church building seemed quite empty to me yesterday, but two services were held in it on that day anyway. I became kind of excited because of the talk about another church being planted out of Seaside Church! No one seems to know where this church is to be planted or who the leader will be, but I have been told that we don't want to just sit around and make Seaside Church look shiny.

I spent yesterday afternoon sleeping and then walking to my community group leader's house and giving all of the parents there a hard time about how I got to take a nap and they didn't. I was probably less than gracious, but I did offer to take care of the three sons of a married couple in their own home (i.e. married to each other) so that they could take a nice nap in my apartment. The husband said that that seemed to be too good to be true. I'll see if he takes me up on it. Observing all the little kids there was at least as fun as watching the super bowl, a good third of which I missed (o dear).

Oh, on the way home from the Seaside Church building I used my debit card for the second time ever. I bought fuel this time. I didn't even have to type in my personal information number. That just makes me feel ultra-secure. I tried it last week, but at that time I seemed to be incapable of interpreting the instructional illustration correctly, so I inserted the card incorrectly and could not make the card reader function. This reminds me of the Luther movie, There is but one proper interpretation of Scripture, and of my favorite way to twist that saying: There is but one proper interpretation of the cookbook: That which your mother has established.

Tonight I'm off to drink beer at spiritual disciplines class with the elders of the church. Maybe my parents are right to be worried about Mars Hill Church and the Acts 29 Network, but I am not worried yet.