It's snowing in Iowa (well, it WAS snowing)

Hi All,
Just thought I'd mention that it has been snowing here, and more is on the way. Check out the nifty video I made in honor of the snow. Featured are: Steve, Dave, Mark, Erik and Me!

I woke up with a sore hip this morning...

I woke up with a sore hip this morning, I attributed it to sleeping on a strange bed in a hotel while at the Southeastern Iowa Fall Conference. You know how it is, you can't ever quite get comfy in a strange bed. Today was a long day filled with speakers and meals, meals and speakers. I even got a tour of the Iowa campus right here in beautiful Iowa City, IA! The highlight of my day came tonight during worship at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church.

I call it the highlight, even as my hip is still sore, because the bishop [Bishop Hougen, a great bishop!] brought a word to the people and in his word he spoke about giving voice to the voiceless (event theme) in reference to Matt. 18, then trickled over to Genesis and the story of Jacob wrestling with the man. He recounted the story we had heard during the readings, then made an interesting connection that gave me pause. He spoke about "call" to ministry and about how we wrestle with our call at one time or another. Hmmm. I have gone through this very thing within the current calendar year, so my alert level was very high! The bishop spoke of the limp we get from wrestling with and serving in our calls.

My hip still hurts as I write this, some 15 hours after I awoke. Can it be that God sometimes puts us in places that make us uncomfortable? Nah, that can't be right, can it? Could it be that sometimes God's people can be hurtful to pastors and/or rostered leaders in the church? Surely not! And still, if we think about it, I'm pretty sure all of us can think about a time when we've been hurt, shamed, insulted, let down, run over by others who claim Christ.

Still feel my hip, just so you know.

The bishop also spoke about the blessings we receive in our call. It's taken me all of two months in my internship to find my voice as "pastor" [note the use of quotation marks here so as not to confuse or blur the line between "pastoral intern" or "vicar" or some such title more appropriate to one not yet ordained]. It's taken me two months, but I feel I am finding it, and in my finding it I am realizing at least a part of the blessing God gives to those who serve. I am beginning to experience some of the "aha!" moments that confirmation students, those gathered for worship, and even myself are having. I am learning what it means to be a leader for a congregation of believers and I am finding renewed confidence in my calling.

I hope my hip stops hurting, I have to hit the hay soon.

Maybe there's something to this notion of a limp and a blessing. During the time just before receiving communion I got a chill, not a bad chill, more of a "wow, what a great feeling!" type of a chill. Maybe you wouldn't call it a chill? Anyway, often I experience that after communion as I pray and thank God for the gift of Christ for my life, but tonight I had that feeling before as I stared up at the cross hovering significantly above my head, and I felt God's presence with me like I hadn't in a while.

I woke up this morning with a sore hip, tonight I'm going to sleep feeling a blessing. I pray that you will experience God's blessing in your life in some unique and amazing way. Good night friends, God's peace be with you.

Thoughts early in internship

I have to share some thoughts about my early experiences in internship, so here we go. The first is more of a funny story than a thought, though if you think about it, it could be a thought! I went visiting some of the patriarchs/matriarchs of one of the churches I serve and as you might have guessed, this involved going to a farm (okay, you may not have assumed that, but now you know that a lot of people farm in Lost Nation and Oxford Junction). As I crossed the little bridge over the roadside creek/crick, I saw a dog come running toward the long drive. I thought to myself, "ah, the prototypical farm dog." The closer I got, the more I realized that this dog didn't seem all that welcoming, rather, he seemed more daunting. As I pulled up to the house, my soon-to-be host appeared at the screen door adorned in his pinstriped bib overalls and before I opened the door he opened the screen door. I stepped out to be greeted by TWO dogs, one of which I petted only to find out that he was REALLY wet, like, did this dog just get out of the shower? NO, 'cause this dog SMELLED! Okay, nice doggy. Next, the dog who followed me up the drive came up to me and I put my hand out in the universal "here, sniff my hand and see that I'm okay dog" move. This quickly turned into me scratching the dogs head. As I walked up to the door, my host announced, "huh, he usually latches on to a leg or somethin' - doesn't break the skin, ya know, well come on in." Now, inner dialogue is running at high speed and I'm thinking to myself "you stood in the door, knowing who I was, and you didn't say anything to Gus (that's his name as it turns out) the dog about NOT latching on to the intern pastor?" Oh well, it was a great visit and Gus chased my Suburban all the way back down the drive as I left, I'm pretty sure the driver's side running board is shorter now and Gus may be light one tooth.

Anywho, the first few weeks have been great. I'm trying to learn how to let go of my urge to run in hyper-speed mode and just relax into the pace of ministry/life in a rural setting. I've met some wonderful people and the pastor and associate in ministry are great people too.

This past week I was home sick for TWO days! I only made it through half the day on Friday before I had to head home. Saturday was even a low energy day, but I'm hoping today (yup, it's Sunday and I'm up silly early) will be my best day and that I'll actually be able to talk as I help lead worship at both churches. I also hope I'm up to full speed because following worship in Oxford Junction, the Catholic church is hosting a fall festival of sorts. We are going to attend and have lunch since they are have a "chicken fry" prepared by the Catholic ladies (that's how THEY billed it, not me!). Should be good and a great way to get out in the community to meet people.

Okay, last note, see that Jib-Jab window on the right? You GOTTA click on it and watch the video. It's Lorice and I dancing, well, disco dancing really. Only it's not really us....well, you just have to watch it. Enjoy and I'll be back with another update soon.

Internship begins!

Well, it's official. Internship has begun. Lorice and I attended worship at both churches on Sunday [August 26th] and were we ever impressed with the wonderful people we met! Our day began early since we had to drive to Lost Nation, IA and be there by 8:10 a.m. We hit the road around 7:00 a.m. Taylor stayed home as he had to get some lawn work done. It's been raining non-stop for over a week here in Dubuque, that makes it tough on a guy with a lawn business. So, we hit the road and arrived in Lost Nation.

Once there, Lorice and I stood at the door greeting folks as they arrived for worship. We were introduced during the service and warmly received. We had to leave during the closing hymn so that we could make it to Oxford Junction ( the locals call it O.J. for short and since we came from Florida, Lorice and I are greatly amused by this formerly only orange juice abbreviation). We got there in time for the start of the worship service and enjoyed singing one verse of 4 different hymns followed by a ranking of these same hymns for sing-ability and ease of learning. We were again introduced and warmly received.

Following the service we made way to the basement for a potluck luncheon in our honor. Let me just say, these folks know how to cook! Yummy stuff and we were full by the time we left for Lost Nation. That afternoon we strolled through town [http://www.city-data.com/city/Lost-Nation-Iowa.html] and met with some shop owners as we enjoyed the scenery. I'd estimate that there are about 5 square blocks of Lost Nation.

The Annual Chuckwagon Dinner came next, it began around 4:00 p.m. Lorice and I were asked to work the event, which we did. I was a ticket taker, which is a very important job at a Chuckwagon dinner. Lorice helped with keeping guests' cups full of lemonade. We had fun and got to meet a ton of people. As of the time we left we had received tickets for 163 guests! Pretty good I'd say, and it brought people from the community too, not just church members. Lorice and I sat at a table with the town mayor while Lorice ate some Chuckwagon food.

Our day finally came to a close around 7:00 p.m. and we hit the road for Dubuque. Today is Monday and I have the day off. Tomorrow I head back down to Lost Nation to move into my office.

Clinical Pastoral Education is ON!

So.....it's been a while since I've written anything here, so I want to apologize to all my fans (that's you Lorice, Mom and Dad) and provide you with something to read.

This summer I'm doing what amounts to a chaplain internship at Genesis Medical Centers in Davenport. This is a program that mixes practical experience with spiritual care for patients, along with what amounts to class group time where we process various experiences and challenges like creating genograms of our faith development through our family's history. We are also spending time in something called didactic learning. These are times when chaplains teach us about things like crisis management, dealing with fetal demise, grief processing, and more! This program is keyed to shaping pastoral identity for its participants (me) and spiritual formation. It's also a super compressed 11 week course on pastoral care (something that you actually don't get much of in seminary classes).

It won't be long before CPE will be over and internship begins. That'll be nice since internship will only be about 45 minutes away. Davenport is an hour and ten minutes each way all summer!

Adam Barnhart and I are commuting together. That's fun since Adam likes to do things like:
1] track road kill in a notebook (only majority carcasses count, and you can only count the ones that are on the side of the road on which you are traveling)

2] play DJ using my iPod

3] talk about people he knows who are "sweet" people

So, life is interesting for me right now, though very busy. There's a new version of my web site up, check it out and let me know if you like the new design!

It's almost finished....

Well, the second year of seminary is almost finished! Hard to believe, but true! Today as we sat in class, Tim and I realized that we only have 3 remaining class sessions to attend. This has been a tough year in a lot of ways, but also easier because it was the second go-round. I'm going to get vaccinations on Monday in preparation for CPE (begins May 29th at Genesis Medical Center in Davenport, IA) and my internship supervisor and I are beginning a dialogue via e-mail. I will be known as "vicar Paul" next year. Wow.

I hope you are having a great day as you read my post. Hi to Shana (whom I haven't seen for a while in spite of her now owning a Macbook with video chat capability).

Peace :o)

Cleaning up (literally) while at seminary

For those who know me, you know that I have been busy this semester. Sure, the class load is plenty to keep anyone busy, but when Lorice's aunt died we earned a special task since Lorice became the executress (yes, that's the right term, though in our politically correct day I suppose that using the term executor synonomously with executress is appropriate).



We've been commuting to Libertyville, IL most weekends this semester to clean out her aunt's home. I think the condition of the home, and the condition in which she reached her last days, is a commentary on our society. It says something about the way in which we allow our senior citizens to live. For Dede, no family was near (we were closest since we moved to seminary, but still almost 4 hours away). The pictures I include here are a statement on what happens when fear rules the day in the life of a senior who is convinced that people want to steal her identity, who lived through the depression and World Wars, the Cold War era, and the passing of a spouse far too early in life.

The good newes is, after several weekends of work, we are nearly finished. Hopefully after this weekend's dumpster filling, we will be done. It's been a lot of work, but an interesting study of life.

In the mean time, the semester is almost finished and I have 99% of my assignments completed. Feels good! We meet our internship supervisors this week and I look forward to the coming months.

Internship assignments announced

Greetings All,
Here's a little update on the big doings at seminary in the past week, plus a little news about last weekend's keynote speaking event in Florida.



I received an assignment to a two point parish, one in Lost Nation, IA (see the photo) called Bethlehem Luthean Church, and the other, St, Mark Lutheran Church in Oxford Junction, IA. This is a wonderful opportunity for me to learn what it means to be a pastor to people in a rural setting, and to gain more confidence in my "pastoral voice" as a leader in Christ's church. I'll post more information on these two congregations once I have something more.

On another note, or should I say "keynote"... last weekend, as many of you know, I was in Florida at the Metro Confirmation Retreat. I was invited to be the keynote speaker for the event. It was a wonderful experience and it was great to see so many familiar faces. I learned a lot myself and hopefully will be more effective in the future, but the reviews have all been great so far. Associate in Ministry and Synod Youth and Young Adult Ministry Coordinator Sue Mendenhall said this, "I have heard nothing but great things from Metro." Maryanne Kehlenbach, event coordinator said, "you did a fabulous job at the retreat!" Faye Belskey, event team member was quoted as saying, "Thanks for a wonderful weekend you did a marvelous job!"

Neeldess to say, I am most humbled and thrilled about the weekend. I have been blessed on many fronts in recent days (including getting my Hebrew paper done before I had to use an extension). More later, until then, go out and make it a great day!

What a weekend!

I just finished speaking at the Metro Confirmation Retreat near Ocala, FL. It's a synod sponsored event and I was engaged as the keynote speaker. The band Boywonder provided the music (they rock and have a cool web site at boywondermusic.com) and we had a blast with the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders in attendance.

The most powerful part of the event was when I asked youth to stand up and say who Jesus is to them, and they DID! In fact, we went on for a while as one after another they shared their testimony. Even more amazing, they are Lutherans like me! I guess Lutherans CAN talk about their faith, way cool. The group was a WAY above average group of amazing young people.

My friends from Lutheran Church of the Cross high school youth group volunteered at the event. They worked really hard and it was great to hang out with them. Maryanne, Faye, Denise and the whole gang from SPAM did a great job pulling this together. My good friend Erik Mathre took a billion pictures, you can see them at eventpixels.smugmug.com. I hope you have time to look at them, I'm actually in a few.

Tonight it's off to Sonny's Real Pit BBQ for dinner, then I jet back to Iowa in the morning. Thanks for stopping by!

Some pictures for you...

Here are some random pictures for you, I'm playing with Picasa (thank you Google) and seeing what I can do with it.

Just Some Test Photos

And so it goes....

Okay, first of all, I DID PASS my chanting final (pays to pick the text you know from worship, eh?), and I am now back to being at least tri-lingual. The Hebrew exam has passed (and so have I) but there are translations and papers to do. Tonight I'm working with Greek again, oh joy! Important things to remember:

1) We read Greek text from left-to-right
2) We read Hebrew text from right-to-left
3) We must not confuse these two things lest our translations of Scripture be the source of much ribbing by classmates
4) It is really, really, really important to have Accordance Bible Software on the laptop, yea Apple computers!

A lot has happened lately, Lorice's great aunt (and she was a "great aunt" who was a pen pal for Lorice for years) died at 82 after not ever (as far as we know) seeing a doctor. She had massive amounts of cancer in her liver and such. She was a sweet lady even at the end. We promised to care for her cat (code name Speedy) and so we brought the cat home to our house where we promptly learned that Speedy had feline aids. For the record, we kept Speedy in isolation for fear of just this thing. So, the vet recommended putting Speedy to rest, which we did, to the tune of $200. So, we go back to the house from whence we procured Speedy only to meet a neighbor out front who said, "you might see my cat in the house, Louise (aunt's name) kept him in there and fed him, just boot him back outside when you find him." ((gulp)) Lorice was able to keep her poker face. How the heck do you tell someone 1) your cat had feline aids 2) we promised to take care of the cat for a dying woman 3) we paid $200 for the privledge of killing your cat ????

So, now we are waiting for the official okee-dokee before going back to the house and cleaning it out. Perhaps I'll post some pictures one day soon, just for your enjoyment.

Until next time, have a super groovy day. :o)

Another day, another Hebrew exam passed...

So, I'm really psyched right now having successfully negotiated my last Hebrew language exam at seminary! This was a source of much angst and anxiety for me and now it has happened and I received a lovely 81% score. In about 18 minutes (as of the time of my writing this post) I am going to face another challenge, the final for "Chanting" and I know what you're saying, "how do you do a "final" for chanting? Well, on an individual basis we have to "chant" the leader parts for one of the worship settings found in the Evangelical Lutheran Worship book. I chose a classic holdover from the green book, setting three. Let's hope my confidence based upon familiarty doesn't bite me.

On another note, it was great to see Shana yesterday at school, she was visiting the library to check out a favorite book and I was studying or something fun like that. Then, as a bonus, I saw her again at my house later last night. She dropped by with some cinamon bread from Sinsanowa Mound (is that how you spell Sinsanowa?). A double bonus day for sure.

I continue to work on materials for a retreat in Florida, keep me and that group in your prayers friends. Peace to you now and always.

Hangin' in Tampa with my friends

Hey gang,
I'm in Tampa this weekend for the ELCA Youth Ministry Extravaganza, what a great event! It's a homecoming of sorts for me since I'm from St. Petersburg (across Tampa Bay from downtown Tampa). I'm working for the Center for Youth Ministiries and Wartburg Theological Seminary. The group that came with me includes Heather (director of admissions), Tim (fellow student), Nate Frambach (prof for youth, culture and mission), and Kris Stache (new director of the CYM and associate prof for youth, culture and mission).



Monday night I return to Tampa and go back to class immediately, then it's back to the grindstone for class and to the fun stuff, prepping for the Metro Confirmation Retreat where I will be the keynote speaker in March. I'm working on a new web site and there may be some other cool stuff on the horizon, but we'll see as time goes by. Enjoy the SuperBowl (can I use that without paying the NFL?) as I will, though I am torn between rooting for the Bears and the Colts.

Back to studies again...

Well, J-term is complete and now the second semester begins. More Hebrew, which has proven challenging to me, and some exciting classes like preaching and the theology of the congregation await. I look forward to getting back at it, but even more to learning of my assignment for internship. I also anticipate the day that my Clinical Pastoral Experience begins, that being Tuesday, May 29th.

I'm getting ready to fly down to Tampa, FL to represent the Center for Youth Ministries and the seminary at the ECLA Youth Ministry Extravaganza. This is a fun event that draws together tons of youth workers in one place for continuing education, networking, and self-care. I look forward to meeting up with friends like Erik, Steve, Faye, Sue and many others.



I hope all is well with you as you read this blog and that you might find time to pray for an upcoming event that I will be speaking for, the Metro Confirmation Retreat, held in Florida each year. This is a great event that draws young people in confirmation along with their pastors and confirmation teachers to a camp facility. This year I will talk about living in the Mountaintops and Molehills of life, Christian vocation and spirituality during the good, bad and normal times of life. Please pray for the youth, their leaders, the event planners, and for me as I continue to prepare.

peace,

Paul :o)

So, I'm in Seattle and you should see how they do church

I'm in Seattle for J-term and what an experience it is! This is my cross-cultural immersion for seminary and at first I thought "how is this cross-cultural?" Well, now I know. The people here are very nice, but the way they do ministry is off the charts for most of my experience.



They really live into the idea of ministry in context and do everything they can to be relevant to the culture. For COTA (Church of the Aposltes) where I'm living for a couple of weeks, that means serving as a commnity art center in the Fremont Neighborhood of Seattle. They have one of the few spaces large enough to fit the need and by golly they've made it work. As I type this we are preparing for "In the Round" which is essentially an open mic event for the community to share music, drama, other artistic outlets, etc. Apparently a couple hundred people come in for this each week! Worship was cool, I kept feeling like it was a youth group event if that tells you anything.



We've also journeyed to Portland Oregon to experience other "emerging churches" and see what it means to be culturally relevant in their place. We went to The Bridge, a church that feeds the culture by being punk and edgy.







They hold services in a public space that they rent, everything during the week happens in peoples' homes.





I suppose taking an offering in a Spiderman trick-or-treat bucket seems relevant to the culture.....hmmmmm. Important to note here, it's not about ME or about how I think the Gospel should be shared, it's about God using people to change lives and give new life to those who are on the fringes and probably would be passed by on the street by most of us without a word.

Pizza Night should be Memorable!

Shana is coming over for pizza and to install memory in her laptop. This is very exciting and should be quite memorable. I'm really only posting this so that Shana might find inspiration to post a new and whitty bit on her blog. I really enjoy reading her blog!!!

On another note, I've been working away on my Metro Confirmation Retreat materials (I'm going to be the keynote speaker for a weekend retreat in Florida!!) and have found time to do some cooking at home. I asked Lorice what the gang will eat while I'm in Seattle and though she had not answer, I'm pretty sure it'll be chicken mcnuggets or frostys and french fries from Wendy's. Hopefully I've equipped them with the skills necessary to make wise choices.

Speaking of choices, how do you like my choice of pictures? Pretty sweet, eh? Oh, also of note, Lorice is taking a cat nap with Friskette the cat licking her nose, it's really pretty funny/cute.

Speaking of cute, isn't my sweetie pie cute in our picture? Yup, hard to believe she's been putting up with me for almost 18 years (well, closer to 17 than 18 right now). That's all for now, this is just a way to get Shana to post after all, so let's all giver her a cheer.....ready? ONE............TWO..............THREE! POST SHANA, POST!



Oh yeah, that's my buddy Christian and me goofin' around in the library with PhotoBooth, a nifty Mac application. Well, peace out y'all!