I'd love to be Rip Van Winkle right about now - you know, go to sleep and wake up later in life. Actually, good ol' Rip went down a lot longer than I'd like to. I'd settle for about a month.

What a hectic month I'm having!! We're losing both of our church office support staff members, leaving just me and the senior pastor. We also are very very unstable in worship leadership. That places enormous pressure on us. I'm sure he's feeling the weight of his, and I'm definitely feeling mine.

With that smily intro, I had a pretty darn good weekend. Friday night, Michelle and I hosted some college students in our home for a hang-out time. We laughed, drank coffee, ate junk food, argued about social issues and church culture issues. And all the while, knowing full well that there was no particular "spiritual direction" to what we were doing, I knew we were a church. In fact, that was one of the best church experiences I've had in a while. I'm finding myself more and more drawn to my home group and gatherings like this, and less and less drawn to the larger meetings.

Saturday we went to a wedding for some friends we used to be in a college group with. It was like a reunion - lots of old friends there catching one another up on their journeys. Kinda trippy, though - people kept telling me they didn't recognize me. Since the last time many of them saw me, I've cut my hair shorter, shaved some of my facial hair, started wearing glasses, and lost some weight. They also commented a lot on my eyebrow ring - they're surprised I can get away with it being on staff at a pretty traditional church. It was really really cool to hang with some old friends, though. The reception was held at the San Diego Aerospace Museum underneath some vintage aircraft. Very groovy.

The pastor was out of town, so I preached yesterday morning. It's an interesting phenomenon when I preach now days. A while back I abandoned the idea of preaching the way I was taught in seminary, and the way that the pastor typically preaches. My text for yesterday was immaturity/maturity, and mostly I talked a lot about growing via the metaphor of Spaghetti O's vs. Olive Garden. Kind of cheesy, I know.

So here I am, back in present tense - and I do mean tense! Did I mention our lack of worship leadership? Well guess who's leading for the next couple of weeks? Let me say that I love worship (in all of its various forms), and I love music (in most of its forms). I used to write music reviews, so I think I understand it fairly well. But really, truly, in my studied opinion on the matter . . . I suck at leading worship!!!!

Well, I've officially spent too much time dreading the work I have in front of me for now, so I'll go do something about it all now.

That's all