insomniac thoughts

i wrote this for some of my online ponderosa camp friends.. thought i'd just post it here too because i don't have time to write it all over again, and i'm still kind of mulling it over...

hello.
tonight i was tired because of freakin' daylight savings time. so i figured i'd try to go to sleep early instead of working on my research paper. it is now 1:30 in the morning and i could have been working on my paper instead of tossing and turning. frick.

it is our last week of classes this week. today was our final session of "empowering the church... really-long-titled-class". we basically spent the whole semester examining the identity of the chuch (which is shifting and changing with the ever-changing culture), trying to deal with being in a post-modern, post-christendom (christianity as a guiding force in world culture) culture, and figuring out the mission of the church (announcing that the kingdom of the triune god has come near). it was fabulous, and maybe a few of our questions were answered (do we need to change? yes), lots more were raised (like how the heck do we do this?), and we are learning to live with that tension.

so, for our final class, there was an open sharing time for students to share what they'd learned from the class. then one of our professors preached about the wounds of Christ - how these wounds signify that God has suffered and is suffering with us. and these wounds bring the promise of healing. and these wounds empower us to do his will. then our profs anointed our hands with oil and blessed us. quite powerful stuff.

as i watched my classmates go forward, one of my profs., darrell johnson, encouraged us to pray for each other. as i prayed for these people, some of whom were friends, some acquaintances and some strangers, i was struck by 2 things. 1) that these people had never before appeared so beautiful to me than at that moment. because they were open to doing God's will and approaching Him with open hands to receive blessing. because they were moved to leave their regular lives, and come to school and pay to get their spiritual/intellectal asses whupped on a daily basis. because they loved God, and love His people. 2) that these people were also a ragtag bunch of misfits, if not a total freak show. these were the people God was raising up to do his mission? i wanted to laugh, not out of derision, but out of joy/astonishment. because, were it up to us, we would pick people who looked like brad pitt and jennifer aniston, that ooze charisma like bill clinton, had big muscles like shaquille o'neal. instead, the lowly, the meek,the poor, the seemingly foolish... these are the people that make up God's church. if that is not some sign of God's sense of humor i don't know what is. if that is not some sign of God's universal love, i don't know what is. if that isn't some sign of God's mysterious wisdom... you get the idea.

anyway, that's the best i can do for quarter to 2 in the AM. thoughts?

for all the problems the church has, God's will is still being accomplished.