BLOGGING
You’ve Told Your Neighbor You Go To Church…Now What?
Jul 7th
The summer is off to a great start! You’ve already gotten burned to a crisp by the sun, swam in nice clean pools and disgusting lakes or oceans and generally allowed yourself at least a few moments of relaxation. You’ve grilled meat, worn flip-flops and weeded the flower beds. Yes, everything is going great…until you make a grave mistake.
You see, summertime is that time of year when people actually venture outside – you know, into that green carpet-looking stuff around your house. And, inevitably, one day you’ll be out in your green stuff and your neighbor will also be out in his/her green stuff and you’ll make eye contact. Now, the sensible thing to do would be to close your eyes, run inside, pull all the shades and pretend you’re not home. But you’re not a sensible sort of person, so you acknowledge the guy who lives 10 feet from you and ease your way into a conversation.
You know the kind of conversation I’m talking about: “Hey.” “Hey.” “Hot out!” “Yeah.” If you’re lucky, the interaction doesn’t stray far beyond the known facts of temperature and season, but for those less fortunate, you might find yourself with a “talker” on your hands. The problem with the talker is that they tend to draw stuff out of you that you would never share voluntarily. You find yourself talking about your kids, your spouse, your 3rd job out of high school. And then, out of sheer desperation (perhaps to make them go away or to find some excuse for jumping in your car and speeding off) you mention “your church.”
Your church. Not “a church” or “the church down the street,” but your church – a phrase that indicates that you go there on a regular basis. You’ve let the cat out of the bag. This person who, despite your geographical nearness, knows almost nothing about you suddenly knows that you go to church! Now, everything has changed. Suddenly, you think back to that nasty letter you wrote to the home owner’s association about your property line. You think about the trash that sticks out of your trash can and what it says about the activities of your weekend. You think about some of the things you’ve yelled out the back door to get your dog stop eating his own poop.
Yes, all of those somewhat trivial matters come flooding into your brain now that you have identified yourself as one of “those church people.” So, what are you to do? You’ve told your neighbor you go to church…now what?
Well, for those of us who believe that you don’t have to be perfect in order for God to love you, the answer is simple. You be yourself. You see, though we need to hold ourselves to a high moral standard, when we lose the artificial expectations of what “church people” are supposed to be, we allow ourselves considerable freedom to be what followers of Jesus are supposed to be. Suddenly, we can open up our lives in ways that we may not have ever done before. Our love of people and our authenticity begin to shine through. In short, we become “real.”
In doing so, we find that our neighbor has an annoying, poop-eating dog, too. We also find out that he has an affinity for craft beers, can’t stand the home owners association and, by the way, always thought church was full of goodie-goodie, finger waggers. “Nah, if my church will take me, they’ll take anybody,” you find yourself saying, followed by nervous laughter. And maybe the conversation ends there. Maybe you never talk to that neighbor again, or maybe you become lifelong friends. Whatever the case, you’ve told him you go to church and he’s watching you – not for what you’re doing wrong (the other “believers” on your street will take care of that) but for what you’re doing that makes you and your family like him and his family.
He may even say to you one day, “You seem like a pretty normal guy, but you go to church, right?” Or, even better, “I don’t know too many church people like you.” Great! That is, if you’re here to rewrite the landscape of what it means to follow Jesus. You see, we’ve got centuries of erasing to do before we can get anywhere close to restoring the vision of Jesus for the Church. And so, if my neighbor thinks I seem different from his perception of other church people, we’re moving in the right direction. And, if I’m enough like him that he could see himself checking out my church one day, even better.
Runaway Brain
Jan 26th
Ever have one of those nights when your brain refuses to shut down? (Now that I’ve got that old Soul Asylum song, “Runaway Train” stuck in my head, my night may have just gotten even longer.) I have them often. My runaway brain nights are typically A.) when I am thinking about the past, B.) when I am dreaming about the future, or C.) when a creative writing or songwriting bug hits and I can’t shake it. Tonight, it’s kind of all three.
As I sit here about to embark on some new adventures in my life, I can’t help but think through all of the details and all of the possibilities that come with each new thing. What will come of this initial trip to Kenya? How is the first course of my new college career going to go? How in the world are we ever going to pay for this new adoption? What about Lucy’s adoption? (I must admit, there is still a lot of anxiety in that one and there will be until the day it’s finalized.)
And yet, even as I look forward, I’m also looking back. At the encouragement of a friend, I am writing out the complete story of how Melody and I got to where we are now. I will be posting it in a series of blog posts on our new adoption blog. And, what reflection I’ve done up to this point (I’m up to 2001) has brought back a flood of incredible memories and set my mind to wondering about some of the people we encountered along the way.
All of this, the looking forward and looking back (and now I have a Paul Abdul song in my head…great) has spawned a little creative monster in me. He creeps up now and again and REALLY doesn’t want me to sleep! But sleep I must, because I have a 14 month old who will wake up early tomorrow whether I want to sleep or not. So, I’m hoping that a little bit of writing here will calm that little monster down. Here goes:
Journeys longed for; adventures sought
Joy experienced, but pain brought forth
Forged by skilled hands, I stand alone
Unique among creation, just like everyone else
My story, not so unusual as to be remembered
Not so drab as to be left untold
Seemingly enjoyed by my Father
As he reminds me of its arc
Yet, once again, my particulars,
Not singularly spectacular,
Amass in strange ways
Which seem, somehow, to matter
Matter, at the very least
At most, perhaps, to shape
The course of another’s destiny
A story not my own
Would that one day a great he or she
Would put pen to paper and write
Not of my life or deed
But of that which by some divine plan
I have imparted
We’re Paper Pregnant!
Jan 21st
That’s right, you read the title correctly. We’re pregnant, but not in a biological sense. The “paper pregnancy” is term used by those going through the adoption process to describe the mountain of paperwork that has to be compiled over a number of months before you finally get to hold that child in your arms. And we are, indeed, paper pregnant.
Melody and I are excited to announce that we have officially entered into the adoption process for child #2! After much prayer and discussion, we have decided to adopt a child from The Marshall Islands, a small island nation in the Pacific Ocean. The story of how we got here and why we made the decision we did is too long and complex to write in this post. The short story, however, is that Melody and I both feel strongly compelled that God has brought us to this decision and that the time to do this thing is right now.
Of course, anyone who knows us and has been following our adoption journey knows that we have already been through one unsuccessful international adoption process and that we are currently in the midst of a less-than-smooth adoption process for our little girl, Lucy. And so, the timing of this particular announcement and the fact that we’re diving in, once again, to the strange waters of international adoption may seem strange to some. It certainly seems strange to us, and yet we know that now is the time, that our next child will be Marshallese and that God has already chosen that child for us.
In addition to letting our friends and family know about this exciting new adventure, we want to give you an opportunity to learn more about the process, to track our progress and, for those who feel compelled to do so, to help bring our little Marshallese baby home by offering financial support. So, we have created a website with a ton of information about our adoption called “You’re Doing What? From Where?”
We hope you’ll check the site out often, including our new blog that will be all about our adoption journey. As our friends, family and church community, more than anything else, we ask for your prayers as we anxiously take the next steps in this adventure. This is a big leap of faith for us and we are blessed to have so many of you supporting us along the way. Stay tuned for more!
New Adventures
Jan 21st
It’s been about a million years since my last post, but it’s 2:30am and I should be sleeping…so here we go!
You know that feeling when you’re on the verge of something really exciting and you can barely stand the anticipation? That moment at the top of the roller coaster, just before that last car breaks free? The last breath you take before leaping off the cliff into the lake below? You know that feeling? Yeah, that’s kind of my entire life right now.
As we continue to inch ever closer to the finish line on our adoption of our daughter Lucy, everything else in life seems to be in warp mode. Just to catch you up, here are a few things going on right now:
1. My missions involvement has really picked up in the last 6-8 months, with my primary focus being in two areas – Kenya and Central Asia. I leave for Kenya in just over a week for a series of meetings to discuss how we can best partner with local Kenyan churches to reach not only their country, but also the predominantly Muslim countries to the north as well. It will be an exhausting trip, but I know that God has incredible things in store!
2. Also on the missions front, I’ve been having a series of conversations with some incredible individuals about how we can support and play a role in the work that God is doing in Central Asia. There are incredible things happening in that part of the world that you just don’t hear about in the news. I can’t wait to see what happens there.
3. I’m going back to school! Only one other time in my life have I been excited about going to school – my freshman year of college – and I think that had as much to do with being several hundred miles away from home as it did anything else. This time around, I’m pumped to know that at 32 years old, I have some idea what I want to do (and more importantly, what God wants to do) with the rest of my life. I don’t have all the details, but I know the general direction. That’s a lot more than I could say at 18!
4. I’m really excited about where our church is headed. Over the past 18 months, we’ve seen a ton of new faces come through our doors and many of them are plugging into our community in exciting ways. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God is working in the lives of the people in our church community and I also know there is so much more yet to come. I love being able to share life with these people and am so thankful that God orchestrated our arrival at Trinity two years ago.
5. Lastly…well…I can’t tell you. There will be a big announcement coming from the Mosley household very soon. Melody and I have been hard at work putting the finishing touches on our efforts to communicate about this new adventure to our friends and family, so you probably won’t have to wait very long. However, I will simply say that once again, God has called us to embrace what He has for us, regardless of what we think is possible, and to trust in Him for the strength and provision to see His work through.
I think 2011 is going to be a whole lot of fun…if it doesn’t kill me first!
Theories on the Origin of the Universe
Feb 27th
Cosmologist and Theoretical Physicist Sean Carroll is trying to figure out how we got to where we are. In the process, he is making as many arguments for intelligent creation as he makes for natural formation of the universe. I don’t think he means to do this and, frankly, I’m not into looking for opportunities to say “gotcha” every time a scientist has a question about our origins.
I actually love to hear about new theories and new areas of study about how we got here. God gave us these brains for a reason and I don’t think he has any problem with us saying “How did this happen?” or even “Why did this happen?” However, as physicists and cosmologists study the universe, it becomes more and more difficult to explain how things came to be in the absence of some “outside force”. I think one major flaw in the current scientific climate is that whenever scientists bump up against this reality, they simply throw out that theory and look somewhere else. In other words, they work on a theory just up to the point where it requires input from an outside force because they have determined that there are no outside forces acting on the universe.
What if some of these scientists decided to actually continue pursuing one of these theories? What if instead of trying to explain the origin of the universe without action by an outside and/or creative force, they simply tried to figure out what that force was? What if the thing on the other side of the Big Bang was not simply a nice, balanced, symmetrical “other universe”, but was actually a force far greater – one that, once discovered, would open up to an entirely different understanding of the universe and of our existence in it. It seems like that should be interesting enough for someone to look into.
However, the scientific community and the faith community have a common fault. By and large, they have dismissed each other out of hand. The “intelligent design” folks stop listening as soon as they hear the words “Big Bang” or “evolution”. Likewise, the “big bang/expanding universe” folks stop listening when they hear the words “intelligent design” or “creation”. I can’t help but wonder what would happen if people like Sean Carroll got together with people like N.T. Wright and actually tried to discover where theology and science intersect. I believe that together with one another, we would discover deeper truths about science, nature and God than we ever will apart from one another.
I’ve included a 2 part talk from Sean below which gets a little heady at times (and a little “out there” at times) but which captures his current theory and study. Then, I’ve included a very short video of N.T. Wright discussing the power and depth of the Genesis text.
SEAN CARROL PART 1
SEAN CARROLL PART 2
N.T. WRIGHT
