Life Beyond College

So, I am finally at a point that I feel able to spend some time each week writing a couple blog entries.

I recently graduated college. I took one week before beginning work at Lowell Church of Christ. I say this not because people reading this are oblivious to what I've been up to for the past several months, but because I want to talk about the oddity that is life after graduation.

When you spend a summer during school working, you have a set timeline (10-12 weeks). You have goals that you want to accomplish and you set your plans into motion nearly right away. You also have a definite time when you will return to school and see all those friends whom you have truly shared your life with for the past couple years (on a side note, Christian College in some ways is the best example of Christian community I have ever experienced in the United States).

Life after graduation is different. After graduation you think that you have this great thing going, you don't ever have to worry about going back to school (by your senior year you will be ready to leave), but when the month of August rolls around you start to realize just how different your life has become. You don't know when you get to see your friends again. Many of them you have not heard from in months. There is a small sense of loneliness that sets in (even when surrounded by friendly faces).

Beyond this, you lose the structure of classes forcing you to study deeper. As a minister the temptation every week is to do only what is needed to take a lesson deeper than the people in your study, which frankly requires little effort. You have to plan ways to make yourself study passages in depth.

I am not saying this as a way of saying I wish I was still in college. Rather, I am expressing one area of struggle for a new minister just out of college.

Well, I like to end my posts with a little section of "popcorn" thoughts"
*The Colts game was amazing yesterday
*My backyard will soon look really nice
*Ministry is a life spent being pulled in conflicting directions
*Ever ponder the word redemption?

I leave you with a paragraph from Dr. Phil Kenneson from his book Selling Out the Church:
"We also think that pastors and their congregations would do well to rethink the way they conceive of preaching. Too often, preaching has been stripped of its ability to embody our belief that God is speaking through the preached word. Too often pastors and congregations act as if this activity is merely another form of human communication that we hope God will use. But if this gathering is like no other human gathering, if this preaching moment is like no other form of human communication, then perhaps we should preach (and listen) as if something different is going on."

Grace and Peace