Forever Alone - in the Duluth Mall

There I was. Casually eating my friend rice with mad chopstick skills and sitting across from my little sister in a mall food court. For some reason, most schools in my area weren’t off for Martin Luther King Day, but by college had the day off and that warranted a Duluth trip. The food court was about half full and there was a mix of people milling about. A few moms with their kids, some older people, two or three guys about my age at the far end, and some other people that I really don’t remember at all – were enjoying their fast food fare.

 Then, the sound hit me. “Baby we could be so amazing and being in your life is gonna’ change me.” Oh that beautiful sound. That sound that I had been waiting my whole life (or year) to hear in a public place where I could meet the intense burning gaze of a dashing young man and have a love-at-first-sight-Romeo-and-Juliet-across-the-room moment. I searched the room – looking for a candidate – looking for someone who rivaled the beauty of Michael Buble himself.

 There was no one. I couldn’t even catch the eye of the toddler two tables down. So I just sang the rest of the song to my sister, crushed to have, yet again, gone another day without finding romance in a mall food court. Hopefully I’ll have better luck next time.

Top Five Reasons Why Church Planting Sucks

Top Five Reasons Why Church Planting Sucks

For those of you who don't know me, two years ago, my dad left a pastoring job at a Baptist church to plant an Evangelical Free Church in Virginia, Minnesota. It's a small town with plenty of rough edges and church planting in a place only 4% Evangelical isn't an easy task. Therefore, I compiled a list of things that make church planting suck. Enjoy!

1. People leave: Now this has been the hardest thing for me. You see, I came into church planting life with a lot of positivity. I knew it’d be hard work - but I thought that no matter what, we’d have the amazing people in our church to support us. It doesn’t quite work out that way. Out of the people that are in our church now, only a few were involved a year ago and maybe one was involved when we started full time 2 years ago.Seeing people leave - often over things that are related to taste - is discouraging.
2. Pastor’s Family Does Everything: Me and my mother = nursery. Yup. That’s it. I try not to complain, I really do, but it does get challenging when week after week it’s either you or mummy or both. Basically, my “get out of nursery” Sundays are when I’m on worship team - and that’s not always the case. Thankfully, we don’t have to clean. But if tomorrow everyone that cleans left, we’d have to do that too.
3. Explaining that your church plant is not a cult once a week: Okay, it doesn’t happen that often. I do, however, have to explain to people quite often that, 1) we’re not a cult. We’re Christians that meet in a old photography studio. 2) Why there’s a need to start a new church. 3) Why we don’t have a fancy building. 4) We really don’t judge people’s past and are a loving community. For realz.
4. I can’t wear skirts to church without feeling awkward: See, we’re casual. I feel more comfortable wearing holy jeans to church with a zip-up fleece than I would wearing a skirt or a dress. I like skirts and dresses and sadly have no excuse to wear them not that I go to a casual church. That’s why I’m in speech though.
5. I feel bad telling others Christians from other churches about how awesome planting is: See, what we’re doing as a church plant is pretty crazy. My daddy left a decent job as assistant pastor to go out on this insane adventure that required a pay cut and also had no guarantee of success. What we’re doing is Biblical in the Acts-Early-church-everyone-complains-about-not-being-like sort of way. We are simple and we are acting in faith because there’s no other way to do it. We’re trying to love our community with the same love Jesus gave us - this includes welcoming drunks to Bible study. (Which in my mind is really, really cool.)

Overall, church planting is revolutionary. It’s biblical and it’s bipolar. The outcome is completely unknown and as my dad preached once, we feel a little bit like the Christians from this passage in Hebrews 11. To sum it up, it says that by faith, some people stopped the mouths of lions and others got sawn in two. Sometimes, I’m not quite sure which it is for my family. Sometimes, I’m pretty sure it’s the sawn in two, “unsure if we’ll make it out”, type of action faith. But whatever the outcome and whatever struggles we face now -- God rewards action faith.

Hello Spring Semester

 Someday I feel insanely insane.

 You see, today I picked up books for the spring semester that starts on Monday. As I walked out of the college to my car with 2 very heavy bags of text books in hand, my internal dialogue went something like this: "You are insane. Very insane. Insanely insane. 17 flippen credits. A non profit. A photography business. You are insane. And you know what? It's going to be crazy. You're going to have to stop procrastinating and avoiding pain. And it's going to be one heck of an adventure ahead." 

 Part of me is terrified of failure. Well, most of me is terrified by failure. But the thing is, if you never try, how do you know what you can accomplish? I don't know if I can pull off a 3.5 GPA, launching a non profit, and actually making a profit from my photography business in the next few months - but if I don't try, then I've already failed.

 So on that account, I'm really insanely excited. I may die, but if that happens, at least I died trying to do something with my life. There's so much ahead of me in the next 4 months. Big stuff. Exciting stuff. Stuff that makes me burst with joy.

 Yesterday I purchased a domain name for my non profit.
 Today I picked up 6 college text books.
 Tomorrow I'm going to finalize my vision for Saturday's concept shoot.
 This semester I'm going to try - do or die - at least I tried.

Oxymoron Generation

My generation tends to send mixed signals to the world.

 On one hand, we can be stunningly stupid. We can forget the name of our president, be obsessed with vain self-publicity, waste away our lives on video games and television, procrastinate like nobody’s business, and get into petty drama until the whole world just wants to kill us all.

 On the other hand, we have potential. Crazy potential. I truly believe that. I look around and I see fellow teens who do crazy big things. We are the generation that’s craving action filled compassion, that’s starting business and blogs, capturing our world through snaps of the camera. We are starting to engage our potential – a dangerous thing to those who want to stay complacent.

 We are an oxymoron generation and it’s up to us what side will be dominant. Will we stay apathetic sloths? Or shall we rise to this momentous occasion called “life”? 

New Years - The Odd Style

 There's something about being by myself at the start of a new year that I absolutely love. It's weird. I feel lame. But I really and truly enjoy the feeling of it being just me. Last year I was in my bedroom - I believe that I was IMing an old friend who's geek status is superior to most. This year, however, was spent in my living room.
 Fire in the wood stove.
 Coldplay concert on PBS played on a broken TV (and of course I was white girl dancing).
 Decaf coffee.
 Robot Unicorn Attack.

Everything but the coffee all in one picture. <3

    So Happy New Year! This year - I will blog. I will be honest, raw, myself, and I will write. Let's see what this year holds.