hearts set on pilgrimage
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
 
I have been neglecting my blog! Sorry to waste so much of your time out there, checking to see if Jor posted anything. Work has been crazy. We're in the all-too-familiar, do-more-with-less, syndrome. We call it do-less-with-less, but we don't really know how to do that. We keep listening to the siren call of new opportunities. I'm an engineering manager in a high-tech, silicon valley company. And there's family, I have 3 kids, Annie, Matthew and Ethan. Ethan just go over a bout of some sort of flu. Fever, reverse peristalsis, the whole thing. He's such a great little guy, I wish I was that peaceful when I get sick. No whining or complaining.

We just became members of a church. We've been attending for over a year, and getting involved. We've been attending a small group. I help run the sound system for the worship band, and Helen is leading a book study on "The Battlefield of the Mind". It didn't occur to us that we needed to do anything else to "join" the church. One of the pastors took us aside and said, "We love having you here, and what you're doing. And we'd like you to become members." So we went to 3 meetings that explained the church's history, their philosophy of ministry and statement of faith. Then we signed a document commiting to what we thought we were doing already. Or so I thought. Actually having to "make a commitment" was a different experience than acting our of our own story of membership in a local congregation. I had to acknowledge that there was another story, the group's story, that I was committing to. I haven't reflected on it enough yet. I'll keep you posted. I observe the intentional nature of this congregation in its request that we let them lead us in membership. Rather than view their membership process as an artificial, bureacratic, rigid, modern artifact; I chose an interpretation that it was a leadership offer, designed to take care of concerns that I didn't know I had, and to take care of concerns that I didn't know the rest of the people in the congregation had.
So, this Easter we were introduced to the congregation as new members. The person who led the membership classes spoke what he had observed of our gifts and passions, briefly. Then I got the opportunity to speak how we experienced the church, and to express our gratitude to God for leading us to such a loving, down-to-earth group of people. I felt a faint echo of how I felt when I got married. That feeling was totally unexpected.
+Thanks, God, for your surprising ways!+

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