The May Catch Up...

I haven't posted since May 5th. Mainly because life has been insanely busy. School has ended and Avenue Church is in a sprint to finish up some business before many of our committees and teams slow down for the summer. I will be glad to see May go. I will welcome June with open arms, or at least that is what I say now! Here is a breakdown of what's been going on.

1. School's Out For Summer...sure I could've done summer school. Maybe I should've done summer school. But Andrea and Abbbie are home for the summer and I really don't want to spend too much time in Philly (unless it's at a Phillies game). I am pretty sure I got A's in both of my classes. Worst case scenario is a B.

2. Senior Adventure Trip is a Success...A dream of mine was to take our seniors on a trip to celebrate all that they have done over the last 4-6 years @ Fusion. With Lee coming on board as youth pastor, we shared this trip. Now, there are some things I would do differently in hindsight, but it was a great trip. Here's what we did...

• Friday Night: Orioles vs. Nationals. We had the All You Can Eat Seats. Great game, Good food, great company and good fireworks afterwards!
• Saturday: Kennywood Amusement Park. We ended up in Pittsburgh and went to Kennywood, one of the oldest parks in America. We road the Steel Phantom (or Phantom's revenge). It's one of the fastest coasters in the world.
• It began to rain when we left the park. It didn't stop.
• Sunday: Whitewater rafting. This was intense. It rained so much the river was extremely fast. It took us 2 hours to do a four hour trip.
• Monday: Mountain Biking. I really liked this, but it may have been a stretch for some.

3. Abbie is Walking...It's crazy how fast she learned to walk. Now she rarely crawls. She is so much fun (except for double ear infections...or so I've heard)

That kinda catches you up. I hope to blog more often this summer. I will be working on some Delanco Camp stuff soon. Have a great Memorial Day Weekend.

It's Not Easy Being Green

I stopped by Dolce this morning on the way to the office. I was there to do some reading. There is a big comfy chair that faces out towards the sidewalk with a great view of Walnut St. here in Milford. It's a great chair to read from, but also to people watch. Dolce @ 8 a.m. in the morning is a pretty busy time for people watching.

At about 8:20, a soccer mom in her early 30's got out of her vehicle. She was wearing an Orioles ballcap and a T-shirt that said "Green is the new Black....Save the Trees." Going Green is certainly all the rage and Andrea and I are doing our part by recycling, using energy effecient light bulbs, turning down our hot water tempurature, etc., etc., etc. What I found interesting (ironic?) is that the woman was driving a Nissan Xterra. According to my 30 seconds of research on the internet, a 2008 Nissan Xterra has a city/highway rating of 16/20 mpg. I have to admit, after seeing her t-shirt, I thought she would be driving a Saturn Vue Hybrid (25/32) or a Prius (48/45) or something in between.

Maybe I am being a little hard on green soccer mom. But it is important that what we communicate matches how we live. This is especially so as Christians. We may communicate one thing with our lives in regards to our faith and beliefs and communicate something else with how we live it out. I'm reading a book called unChristian by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons from the Barna Group. It speaks of the major perceptions of young people of Christianity. One of those perceptions is that Christians are hypocritical. "85 percent of young outsiders have had sufficient exposure to Christians and churches that they conclude present-day Christianity is hypocritical." Here is a statement from the same book that is really hard to swallow. "Among young outsiders, 84% say they personally know at least one committed Christ. Yet just 15% thought the liefstyles of those Christ followers were significantly different from the norm. This gap speaks volumes." (emphasis mine).

So what now? The authors of unChristian uncover a lot of useful information when it comes to reaching out to young adults who may be outsiders to the faith. In order to overcome some of these perceptions, we (Christians) have got to get back to follow Jesus. Love one another, feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, carrying our cross. An outsider should see that Christ has made a difference in our lives.