Trial and Error

Here we are. I'm six days away from leaving Rockford. This summer has been a whirlwind to say the least.

I just got back from my last vacation time which was spent ironically (or maybe not so ironically) in Holland, MI. I spent some time with Mel and her family. It was great out there. I'm going to miss her a lot. That's all I'm going to say about that.

As far as my internship goes, wow. To say that Heartland moves fast would be an understatement. I got in this morning, eight hours after I got home last night, got pulled into a meeting about the Dallas mission trip that I'm going on with the Senior High. I was told that my I am leading a group of ten or so senior highers with another girl I work with and that I'm also going to be single handedly leading a mission project for a vacation bible school with one of the churches that we'll be partnering with while we're in the big D (Dallas). Then, I was told that we need to leave earlier than expected and was asked if I was okay with leaving on Thursday instead of Saturday Morning. So now I'm going to be leaving on a jet plane (I don't know when I'll be back again...) on Thursday afternoon sometime, working with one other guy from Heartland, getting all of the sites prepared for the senior high's arrival, and then doing some other work where necessary. It should be good. It's just a lot to come home to after vacation. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

I've said a lot that this internship has been great and different and exciting and interesting and thought provoking and good and slow and too fast and ambiguous and everything else. It has still been all of those things. To try and label it something would be naive. It just wouldn't be able to be done. I came into this church thinking that I might run into some pretty arrogant people seeing as the people I had talked to on the phone had said some things about Heartland that made them seem pretty high and mighty. However, after I realized that communicating over the phone does not do communication justice and that going into a ten week long internship with a sour attitude might be shooting myself in the foot, I let my eyes be opened for a second time. I'm glad I did. Everything that followed after getting here happened quickly and happened well.

So now, as I start to look back on this internship and not ahead anymore (although there is plently to look forward to), I realize that the questions that I hoped might get answered are still out there. However, those questions are more refined and some of the answers that I was hoping would get answered did. Because of these ten weeks, I know that going into ministry does not mean the same thing for any person, church or talent. I know that if I wanted to get involved in ministry and make it my vocation, I could do it with the talents that I have and I wouldn't necessarily have to reform to my surroundings. My surroundings, hopefully, could help shape me but also challenge me enough so that my talents are complemented and exuded out of me. And that's when ministry works best- when the place in which God is explored or searched after or studied or whatever, really makes the source of those actions, the person, shine at what he or she is good at by challenging them to strengthen their strengths. Basically, that means that we as people need to worship God with what God has given us to worship with. If we're painters, let's paint and praise God through that. That doesn't mean that our canvases need to be filled with crosses and sunsets. But because all things are God's, anything that is painted is of God and thus honors him.

So when I think about myself, I think about a couple of different things. First of all, I have never really labeled myself as the smartest guy. I am very capable at getting good grades but that's only when I study. Because of that, I don't think that just trying to teach will come easy to me. If I wanted to teach right now, I think I could make a very relevant teaching to a congregation but the depth of it might be very exegetically shallow. And for me, the exegesis of a sermon is where most of my inspiration is generated from. Teaching how jealousy hurts my neighbor might impact me and it might even get at me emotionally, but for me, I don't think it changes me. Until I know what Jesus was going through during the time of when he talks about jealousy (I don't know when or where that is in the Bible so don't quiz me), I am not truly impacted by it. I need to know what was happening so I can make all of the other relational connections. Why was that person jealous? What did it do to that family? What could have happened to prevent it? Why is Jesus so adamant about this situation? Why did he pick this one to talk about? How does it relate to me? Yes that is called contemplative exegesis but for me, that only happens after the exegesis. I can only relate something to me correctly when I know that the history of it is sound. Otherwise, I'm only relating what I think is supposed to be related and that is sort of like a red herring fallacy (claiming that this claim is false because you refuted the wrong interpretation of a certain argument).

So this intenship has been great for me because it really has opened my eyes to some really new ways of doing ministry. I don't know what I'll be doing in a year from now but I do know that personal contemplation is the best way to start working that stuff. "You can't grow unless you change." "The Muscle doesn't grow any stronger unless you rip it." "Why do we fall down? So we learn to pick ourselves back up." There is a lot of quotes like that. Probably because life works like that- in a trial and error method. Hopefully, the final victory outweighs the minor errors. I bet it will.