Random Thoughts

Here I sit, knowing a post is past due, but not knowing what to write. I just got home from a 11 hour day at church. It was not bad, it did not seem long, it was pretty good, busy, but good. I have chapel for the day school in the morning.

I will be talking about "Jesus Loves Me". We will be singing four different versions of the song. My pal Ingrid will be doing the readings for me so it is not just a one man show.

I also have a handyman coming to the house tomorrow. He will be putting up gutters on the addition, building a gate and installing some screen doors. I could do some of the work myself, but when do I have time?

I am watching the Angel game right now as I type. My team is not doing too well this year. They have been bit by the injury bug and they just can't hit when the pitching is good and can't pitch when the hitting is good. I will live and die with my boys, but it would be a better summer if they could string together some wins.

I got an iPod a few weeks back and I have been slowly converting all my CDs to digital. I am about 90% done and let me tell you, I have been listening to some music that I have forgot about. I also realized that many of the CDs I listened to a few years back, did not age well. I have just put some away, never to be heard again. Some things that were cool back in the day are just not even close to cool now.

I went to an Arby's restaurant today with some of Jill's students. Jill gives raffle tickets out for doing good things in class and every other week she raffles off lunch with Mr. Moorman. So we walk into the Arby's to get some yummy roast beef and potato cakes and I notice that the place has "earned" a grade of "C" from the health department. There it was in Red in the window. NOT GOOD!! You have to get between a 70% and 79% for that grade. Anything lower would get the place shut down. I have only seen one other "C" and that was in downtown LA when I was on jury duty back in '97. I still feel fine and I did not hear that any kids went home sick so I guess we dodged a bullet.

I had a great weekend. I was on duty to preach all the Sunday services and it went well. I showed a Goofy cartoon to start the message. I was preaching about road rage and I used the cartoon called "Motor Madness". It stars Goofy in a dual role as Mr. Walker- pedestrian and Mr. Wheeler- driver. If you haven't seen it you can find it in the extras section of "A Goofy Movie" DVD or in the Goofy box set. We also had some out of town company. Andrew one of Ingrid's friends from High School stayed with us. Ingrid's sister Sarah B. was with us as well and our good friend Dr. Ben. We all went to Jill's sisters house for a BBQ and to play with the nieces.

Jill and I also spent some time in Burbank at David and Heather's house on Saturday. The men built a water feature in the back yard and did some other work in the yard. The women watched the kids and made the men food. I know, a bit of gender stereotyping going on but that is just how it worked out. We listened to some good tunes and had some male bonding time in the back yard.

Well enough random thoughts from Seth for today.....talk to you later.

Origins

Greetings from the Origins Conference in Pasadena California. It is awesome!! What is it? This is from their website:

The ORIGINS experience is an international leadership convergence scheduled for May 22-24, 2006 in Los Angeles, Ca. ORIGINS is powered by Awaken, a think tank for creativity, innovation and cultural architecture, and field tested by Mosaic, a community of faith, love and hope in Los Angeles, Ca., and a growing number of churches and leaders worldwide.

That may not make much sense to you, but let me tell you, it is a wonderful creative place for followers of Christ to come together to worship, sing, learn, and engage the emerging culture of the world. There are people from all over the world here. A church called Mosaic sponsors the conference and as I stated in my last post, they do church differently. They are always looking for ways to reach out to those who don't know Jesus. Not just people who have left church, but people who are longing for spirituality. Mosaic and Origins is a very creative place. I have seen more laptops here than on a college campus. And the Mac people make up well over half of the community, including all of the people at Mosaic and Origins (That is great for me). I will post agian with some specifics but for now let me say that this has been the best conference I have ever been to. It is a powerful and uplifting event. I am on a high right now and it is only half over. Stay Tuned......

Retreat Weekend!

With the semester over, you would think that I have all this time on my hands and things are getting done around the house. You would think I have been relaxing on the couch and catching up on all the TV shows that are clogging my TiVo box. If you think that is the case you are wrong. It has been non stop since the semester has been over. I have been subbing at Pacific Lutheran High School this week for starters. It has been fun and teaching is sorta like riding a bike. You don't really forget. I also had a day long retreat with the leadership staff at church. It was awesome as we hammered out our parish theme for next year: "Disciples: By Divine Design". It should be awesome and very preachable. This weekend is also our end of the year CrossRoads retreat with the youth at church. It is the first retreat for the incoming 8th graders and the last one for the graduating seniors. It is always well attended and we will have close to 50 at the retreat this year. My pal Ingrid and I wrote the Bible studies and I think they kick butt!! The theme is "The Fab Four" with a nod to the Beatles. The weekend will have a Beatle theme and our studies will focus on another fab four from the bible: Mary, Abraham, David, and Paul. We will talk about the themes of fear, faith, forgiveness, and freedom (pretty good alliteration). We will take off for the mountains this afternoon. This coming Monday and Tuesday I will be an a conference in Pasadena. It is sponsored by Mosaic, a church that does things a new way. They are blazing new trails of how church happens and how to engage this generation in living their lives as a servant of Jesus Christ. I am looking forward to it. I also got my reading assignments for my next summer class, so it is time to start reading again. At least I had a week off.

Our home interview with the social worker went very well. And I have already had my one on one with her. Jill goes in today for her one on one. Then in two weeks we will have one more meeting to set up a parenting profile and match assistant (so they can find the best possible match of children for us). We still have to take one more class and then we will be all set. It is a very long process. We are coming up on about a year in it and we may have up to a year to 18 months to go depending on finding a suitable match for us.

That is about it for now. Hasta Luego......

Half Way Done!

Today is a great day. I am officially finished with the semester and now I am half way finished with seminary!!! I finished up my last bit of work and took a killer final yesterday and now I feel relieved. Upholding a Cross Cultural Ministry Center tradition we all went out to the Pilsner Room to knock back a few cold ones after class last night. Three of our professors plus three alumni from the program joined us. It was a good time. I have about three weeks until the summer session starts and that is a great feeling. I am glad to have this semester over. I have never read so much in my life. My eyes need a rest. I probably read more than I needed but I was just following directions. This summer I will have a class on the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, & Luke) with an emphasis on Luke. We will also spend some time with the book of Acts. I also am taking a class called "Urban Ministry". It should be fun. My summer classes are very condensed. We get the assignments a week before class starts and have to do some before we meet. Then we meet every day for nine days in a row, followed by a week to finish any assignments and projects. This is the first summer we are doing it this way. We will see how this all plays out.

As I type this we are waiting for the social worker to arrive for our family interview. She said it would take a couple of hours. It is one more hurdle to jump in the long adoption process. I will keep you informed.

That's about all for now. Talk to you all soon.

Well......

Yeah I know I said I was going to post more often and here it is with a long stretch between posts. Where have all the days gone? First of all I did take some time to travel to Florida to see some family. Josh and I traveled together to Dallas and met up with his girlfriend Molly. Then the three of us were on to Tampa/St. Pete. The weather was tremendous and the sunsets were amazing. The following pictures I took should prove my point:



The downer of the trip was that I had to still log on to class from Florida. It went well even though I did have to stay up till one in the morning. The trip back was uneventful. Since then I have been up to my eyeballs in work and school. I had a test tonight and I have been reading almost nonstop for about a week. I have two more papers to write and one more test to study for, as well as some Greek to do. Then I will have about two weeks to breathe and then the summer term starts.

Mission Alaska 2006 is coming up fast and we are behind in our planning. I think the next couple of days will be filled with Alaska for me. We are behind in our fundraising too. I know that God will provide but I can't just sit like a bump on a log and expect money to magically appear in the Mission fund. I am also busy with my weekly online Bible study. Feel free to check it out sometime. It is a lot of fun for me to write each week. I also preached all five services this past weekend. It went well and I feel more comfortable each time I preach. I also feel humbled during the writing process. It is a time to let the Spirit move me. It is awesome. I usually start in a direction and find myself someplace else. It is always wonderful and awesome at the same time. I love the journey.

Thank you for all of the well wishes for my birthday. I hope to celebrate it more this weekend. Both Jill and Sandy are out of town and the house is pretty quiet. A bit of a different birthday for me. Not bad...just different. Jill is in Washington DC with her class. They visit the Capital Building and the Smithsonian tomorrow. Well that is about it. Nothing new on the adoption front. You all will be some of the first to know when something happens. Peace...