A New Direction

Well, I have decided a number of things in one day.

1) I'll be working at a church in Yakima this summer as a pastoral ministries intern. Essentially I will be taking on a number of responsibilities for the summer ministry of the church, and generally functioning as the head Pastor's right hand man. I think I will learn a lot, and there is a strong emphasis not only on service, but professional development. I'm stoked. I also stumbled across a new insight on my last post regarding me personally.

RE: Ink - Tattoos are personal. they are for the bearer, and no one else really. as such, they are something that you can't look into in a job interview, the same way you can't ask questions about a persons family, race, or hobbies. The textbook answer is "I don't let my personal life effect my performance at work." But in applying for this job at a church, I realize that a church is hiring you FOR your personal life. We look at the paid staff as a necesarry example of living the Christian life. I'm not saying this is always so, or that it should even be the expectation. People are sinners, and I'm not above any sin. But, it is the expectation. And so even if I wore long sleeves to work, the people of the church would still see me at some point, and know that I have tattoos. This might clash with their cultural viewpoint, but is that fair? In any other industry, I would say it isn't fair, or even legal. And the assumption in that last statement is something else I disagree with. The Church isn't or ought not to be an industry, but the way the american church is set up, it looks an awful lot like one. This is an impetous for a completely different post, but a mere side note at present.

2) I'm staying in Washington. I was pretty stoked about Dallas out of the gate after I went to visit. But I believe God has placed a lot of the deciding elements in my life in Tacoma already, and many of the less significant advantages of Dallas have fallen through. So I am excited to continue at Northwest, and begin the core of my M.Div in the fall quarter as a full time seminoid.

3) In addition, the choice of summer employment marks my departure from Crossroads Bible Church (My last Sunday will be June 7th) my home church for the past 10 years and 7 months. Though to be fair I wasn't attending for the 9 months/year during the 4 years of college, and I also missed an entire year while living in Africa, and wasn't attending for the first 3 months of this year, so...that's still almost 6 years of loving my church and thinking of it as my home. It feels like a very appropriate time to move on, and for a very good reason. I hope that I am able to maintain my many friendships with the people there.