Gospel centered bus riding

Since I'm naturally interested in people and love to watch the way they interact with the world around them, riding the bus the last couple of days has been like Christmas on wheels. It's amazing what you can learn about people without them ever saying a word to you. Where they sit, how they sit, whether or not they strike up a conversation with the people around them, all these things can tell you a lot about someone. This morning for example you could tell that almost everyone on the bus was still trying to wake up. Almost all of them were wearing sunglasses so that it was easier to nap and several of them had mp3 players pumping background noise into their half awake brains. Shy people tend to sit as far from everyone else as possible, I actually saw one person sit on the edge of their seat just so they wouldn't have to sit to close to the person they were sharing the bench with.

Humans fascinate me. Since I'm a Christian and I filter all of life through The Gospel, I believe that all people reflect the glory of God and bare witness to some attribute of His nature, people watching isn't just socially informative it's also theologically informative. Obviously because we live in a fallen world these attributes and traits aren't seen in the same perfection and holiness as they exist in God but we can see a small glimpse of God in His creation. Joy, love, kindness, anger, community, compassion, and many other emotions and actions are all small flashes of His personality, like fireflies in a night sky. In the words of 1 Corinthians 13:12:

"For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known."

For Christians simply seeing creation through the filter of The Gospel isn't enough though, we must act to bring that creation into a correct relationship with it's maker. This is hard, thankless, unglamorous, frustrating, time consuming work that in the end may not bare any kind of visible fruit. Thankfully our charge isn't to see who can harvest the most fruit, but to simply work faithfully for the advance of The Gospel.

Boxes of light

Today was my first day of classes at Colorado University Denver. The campus is a very different place when school is in session. Between the three schools that make use of the Auraria facilities there are roughly 50,000 students. It makes you feel like you're part of a human ant colony. The classes I had today were the lecture and lab for Biological Anthropology and History of Immigration and Ethnicity. I don't think either of them are going to be easy but I do think I'm going to enjoy them.

Today was also the first time I rode Denver's transit system. As a C.U.D. student I can ride the bus for free and I live 2 minutes from a bus stop that goes strait to campus so it makes the most sense. I talked with a guy named John the whole way to school this morning. He's originally from Anchorage, Alaska but earned his bachelor's at Oxford and then lived in London for 2 years while earning his masters and then moved too Denver 4 years ago. Needless too say we had an interesting conversation.

My last class on Mondays doesn't get out until around 8:30 and tonight we got dismissed into a strong thunderstorm. It was beautiful. Pouring rain, giant fingers of lighting, and earth shaking rumbles of thunder all set against the backdrop of downtown Denver. Because the windows on the bus are tented when you look at the sky scrappers at night you can't really see the outline of the buildings you can only see the offices with their lights on. So from where I was sitting it looked like the whole of downtown was comprised of floating boxes of light, it was amazing.

There's more I like too say but it's late and I'm tired so I'll try to write some more here later.

Live from Denver

As of today I've lived in Denver for a week so it seems like a good time for new post. :)

The drive out was pretty uneventful until about 5 miles from our exit when we got stuck in a nasty hail storm. Chris took some pictures during the storm and there's so much hail on the ground that it looks like we drove through a blizzard. ( There was another storm that rolled through that had a little hail in it on Sunday, but nothing close to what we encountered.) After the four of us (Chris, Sara, Jimmy, and myself) got done lugging everything up to my apartment we spent the evening on the 16th street mall, including dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. Which I loved solely for the fact they had entire wall dedicated to The Clash, including one of Mick Jones' guitars.

Friday we all went to Denny's to celebrate Jimmy's 18th birthday and then Chris and Sara went to see the house Chris used to live in and the hospital where he was born. Jimmy and I ran some errands and drove around town so I could show him some things around town. (Parks, the campus, the room where High View meets, etc.) That afternoon the toilet overflowed so we had to run out and get a mop and some bleach. (It turned into an adventure that took longer then it should have, but it was great for making memories.) Not long after we got that all cleaned up Brad, the Lead Pastor at High View, came over to say hi and meet everybody. We tried to talk him into coming to the art district with us for "First Fridays" but didn't have any luck. The art district was awesome, I really wish we would have had more time too look around and really enjoy it but Jimmy and I had to get up at 3:30 a.m. so he could make his flight and Chris and Sara had to start the 1,000+ mile drive back too Indiana in the morning so we had to cut our time there short.

Saturday morning sucked. There's no two ways about it. The three previous days had essentially been a road trip with my three best friends but now reality was setting in and they were all headed back to Indiana and I wasn't. It took everything in me not too cry when I hugged them good-bye. I spent the rest of Saturday unpacking, grocery shopping, and enjoying the fact that for the first time in my life I have a kitchen, bathroom, and living room all to myself. (I've had my own bedroom since I was a kid, so that wasn't very exciting. Actually it's the only thing I wish I was sharing. lol ) :)

Sunday I went to High View and once again got "roped" into being the greeter. (For those of you who don't know, when I visited in July I ended being a greeter that day also.) I really love my new church home and can't wait to watch, and be a part of, what God does through us. The rest of Sunday was pretty uneventful. We had another storm blow through, with smaller hail this time but not much else happened until Tuesday.

On Tuesday I had dinner with Brad at Brothers BBQ, which may be my new favorite restaurant, mostly because they played three Oasis songs while we where there. Playing/knowing Oasis will always get you on my good side. (Not that it's hard too get on my good side, it just expedites the process.) :) Brad and talked and hung out for awhile and then I signed my membership covenant which makes me member family number 3 at High View. (The joys of attending a church plant.) After we were full and had talked theology, church planting, and sports to our hearts content (Okay, so that probably isn't possible for either of us) we drove to the other side of town for community group. We studied James 3:13-18 which was part of Brad's sermon on Sunday and worked our way through some discussion questions and hung out for awhile afterwords.

Wednesday, yesterday, I bought my books for the upcoming semester and attended the new comers orientation, where I learned some interesting facts about Denver, like that Colfax Ave. is the longest continuous street in the country, but didn't learn anything new about the school. I didn't really expect too get any new information but it never hurts too check.

All that brings me to today. I woke up this morning and decided that a week of sleeping on the floor was all my back could take so I drove to Wal-Mart and bought an air mattress. I also purchased a Verizon Wireless broadband internet plan so I can live in the 21st century again.

Tomorrow should be a day to rest and relax and then Saturday and Sunday I have my first drill weekend before starting classes on Monday.

Thank you all for your prayers, I'll try my best to post stuff here on a regular basis.

Where has the week gone?

I can't believe it's already Thursday, I feel like I just got here the other day and now I only have one more "work day" left in the week. It's been a productive week so far and Denver is starting to feel like home.

I spent most of today taking care of school related things at Colorado University at Denver Out of all the schools I've dealt with over the years C.U.D. has by far been the most professional, helpful, and just all around easy to deal with. (Yes, that is a plug for a school. Next thing you know I'll sprout wings and fly.) :) I'll be taking one History course, Biology, and Spanish. I'm not looking forward to the last two but they're both required core classes. The plus is they take up so many hours that I only needed the three classes to get 12 hours for the semester. Also, I've felt that I needed to learn Spanish for some time now and have prayed about what I should do about that. I'm looking at this as the Lord's answer to that prayer.

On the apartment front, I still don't have one but I do have a call in to lease one I looked at earlier in the week. Hopefully everything works out and I have a place to come back too before I leave Sunday.

I've taken to doing my Bible study (and other reading) in City Park. The scenery is awesome and the vibe there is relaxing. Right now I'm reading through Acts and Lamentations. (Brad is getting ready to do a sermon series from Lamentations so I'm cheating and reading ahead.) ;)

I'm really enjoying Lamentations, for a couple reasons. First, it flies in the face of the "Prosperity Gospel" as it clearly states that God caused all the suffering experienced by the nation of Israel. (For fun go through the book and count how many times the author directly attributes their suffering to God.)

Second, when something bad happens people generally assume that God must have "accidentally" let it "slip through." In Lamentations we see a God who is so passionately in love with His people that He will stop at nothing to bring them back to Himself. What person let's the people they care about the most continue to harm themselves and does nothing to intervene, regardless of how harsh they may have to be? An evil one. For God to be truly loving He MUST do whatever is needed to reconcile His people back to Himself. How can we NOT love a God who loves us that much? This also touches on God's Holiness. For God to be Holy He cannot tolerate sin and must punish it. Ironically, He does this by using other sinners, committing sin, to punish Israel for their sins. Which just proves we're all deserving of God's judgement. Thankfully, Jesus came and lived a perfect sinless life, died, and rose from the dead so that whoever believes in Him as the only payment for sin can receive eternal life.

That's all I've got for today, later gang. :)

Joining the Colorado Air National Guard: It's good to be a Zoomie (again.)

I signed my paperwork today and was officially sworn in as a member of the Colorado Air National Guard (ANG) at 4:00 p.m. MST. I was supposed to look at an apartment this afternoon as well but there was an accident in front of it just a few minutes before I got there that shut down the street so the property manager is supposed to call me back later and reschedule the appointment.

I've had to do a lot of parallel parking since I got here which I find humorous since my driver's ed instructor said we'd never need to do it so there was no point in teaching it. Now I live in a city where it's the official pastime. Getting you car into a spot in one take is a source of pride, and the smaller the space was the better you feel about it. I'm getting pretty good at it, I'm thinking about going pro soon. :)

Tomorrow is going to be full of taking care of a wide variety of things at CU Denver. Setting up my class schedule, getting my status changed to being a Colorado resident, getting the G.I. Bill taken care of and probably a few other things that will pop up over the course of the day.

That's all of today's highlights, more tomorrow. :)

Denver: The trip out, and what I've learned in the (roughly) 24 hours since I got here.

The trip out was pretty interesting, you gain a whole new appretiation for America when you drive across it. I've flown all over the world and lived in different parts of the country but getting to see the gradual transition in sceanery from Indiana to Colorado gives me a new respect for how large and widely varied our nation is. You also learn alot about what makes us all the same. Standing in line at Subway in Hays Kansas is exactly the same as standing in line back in Anderson. There are people who wish the line would hurry up, other people crack jokes to kill time, and the people behind the counter look like they can't wait for the lunch rush to be over. I am increadably thankful for all of you who prayed for me, the weather on the way out was perfect, I only ran into a few small spots of rain. One in southern Illinois and another about 50 miles east of Denver, where the wind was blowing so hard that tumble weeds were blowing across I-70, which cracked me up. (Add that to the list of things you don't see in Indiana.)

I'm staying with Brad and Haley Hovis while I'm out here. Brad is the pastor/lead planter at High View Church. They've been great, and spending time with them has helped make the idea of living in Denver seem much more natural. Also, getting to be around Brad and talk to him is already giving better insight into the life of a church planter. All in one day yesterday he ripped his pants, had to take his Jeep to the shop because it died on him, and found out that as of right now High View has no place to meet this Sunday. (Pray about that please.)

As for what's currently going on with me, I'm signing my contract today or tomorrow, setting up my class schedule Thursday morning at 9:30 (11:30 EST), and my biggest prayer request for myself right now is that I'd find an apartment.

I need to get a move on now, thank you all for your prayers and support.

Thursday night rundown: Iran, Jesus and Sexuality.

I really want to write something but I can't formulate enough a strong enough idea that I think will hold out for one whole post so I think this is going to end up being fragmented between several different streams of thought.

Iran: I really wish more of the prominent voices in the evangelical Christian world would speak up on what's going on over there. An Islamic nation is in the midst of turmoil and protests that could open the doors (albeit, very briefly) for Christian organizations to come in and provide aid and (hopefully) The Gospel depending on the outcome of current events there. I've seen more Tweets from most Christian leaders the past week on the new iphone and iphone apps then I have on praying for Iran. (In fact, I don't think I've seen any regarding Iran.) If we want people to believe us when we say we genuinely care about the world around us, we need to take advantage of the opportunities we're provided.

Jesus and Sexuality: I've been thinking a lot about how The Gospel relates to our sexuality as well as how we should respond to sexual sin. (Fornication, homosexuality, adultery, etc.) If anybody has any thoughts or questions I'd love to hear them.

On a more personal note I'm having a hard time getting a hold of the Air National Guard person in Indiana I'm supposed to talk to. It would be nice if I could sign the paperwork soon, but I need to talk to him for that to happen so if you could pray about that I'd appreciate it.

Turning in for the night now, hope something in all that made sense.