So what does this mean for me? It means that we can leverage technology in a way today that can help us be God’s hands and feet here on Earth quickly and effectively. Thanks to everybody that donated to this effort and for those that put it together. Because of a few people acting quickly, a group of much needed medical professionals are on their way to help those in need. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what it’s all about.

A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishment, perfect for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only lf half of what it had been made to do. After 2 years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. “I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you. I have been able to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house. “The bearer said to the pot, “Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw, and I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you’ve watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.

“Moral: Each of us has our own unique flaws. We’re all cracked pots. But it is the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding. You’ve just got to take each person for what they are, and look for the good in them.

I think this is one of the hardest lessons for us to learn; so often we are trying to be perfect before God when He can – and more often than not, does – use our brokenness to do great things. Thank God for crackpots… err – I mean cracked pots!

The class I am taking now is call “The Theology & Practice of Ministry.”  The course competency is listed as:

Provides spiritual guidance in helping others analyze how God has shaped them for ministry through spiritual gifts, heart for ministry, abilities, personality, and experiences.

Now, if that’s not something to be excited about learning, I don’t know what is. Here’s to another great start of what looks to be a wonderful class!

Then, I had a strange desire to watch  the other night with Ginger. While I have seen the Off-Broadway show and seen the movie already, something really struck me watching it this last time, curled up on the couch. What I was seeing in the lives of these friends was real community. One shared money they had.  Another shared what food (okay, and drink) they had. Sounding familiar yet? Not only did they share what they had, but they were there for each other in the good and the bad. In other words, it wasn’t a relationship of convenience.

How many of us can relate to this? How many of us who can’t relate have a desire for this type of relationship? Whenever we talk about community and the church, Acts 2:42-47 has to come up. It talks about the early church and how they joined together and ate together daily. Is that possible in today’s disconnected society? Should this still be a goal for the church in the year 2009 and beyond? If so, is it achievable?

After going through the week, I have realized that I really do need to make more of an effort to get some mentors in my life. That’s right – mentors as in plural. Why more than one? Well, we all tend to specialize in certain things, don’t we? So when we identify areas in our lives that need improvement, we are probably going to need to find somebody who specializes, or who has a vast amount of experience, in each of those areas.

So why do I need mentoring? There really are a lot of reasons for this – motivation, encouragement, connections, accountability, etc. The list could go on and on, really. But if I were to try to go the journey alone, without any guidance, I would probably run into a lot more brick walls than I need to. I would also have to learn more things the hard way as opposed to drawing on the experience a mentor has to offer. Please pray that God will help me in identifying the people around me that will help me focus in on God’s calling and also that strong relationships will be formed through it.

While taking my online courses through Denver Seminary, I became discouraged with how things were going. The classes were fine and the material was fantastic, but the interaction between the professor and the students and even the students/students just wasn’t really there. I got the idea that they were trying to take a physical classroom approach and force that into an online environment, which really doesn’t work well at all. It seemed kind of like trying to put a square peg into a round hole – doesn’t really work all that well, right? On top of that, realizing that the entire program was going to cost well over $45,000, I just felt convicted that I could be doing something much more substantial with the money that God was entrusting me with; especially given the fact that there are so many people in my area that need basics like food and clothes.

My discouragement had me questioning whether or not I should stay in seminary or not. Fortunately, I have a wonderful wife and some good friends that reminded me that God’s call wasn’t going to change just because I was frustrated in my current circumstances. While my wife would be supportive of my whichever decision I made, she prompted me to pray and think about it more before I made any decisions. Our wives can be such a blessing, can’t they?

Because I knew that I still needed a deeper knowledge to pull from, I began looking for other seminary options out there. That is when I found Rockbridge Seminary. Wow, what an answered prayer that was. It was just a tiny little link in the ads section of a Google results page that I happened to notice. Generally, I ignore those completely, so it was a fluke that I found it at all. After checking out their site and reading about it from all over the web, I felt this was the right place for me.

Rockbridge Seminary is geared specifically towards the online community and allows you to learn while you continue to serve right where you are. They have also taken a completely different approach to the seminary course structure and have based their program on local church ministry rather than the traditional model of categories of knowledge. This is a unique approach and one that really meets my idea of what I should be learning to be prepared for whatever God is calling me to.

Financially, the school looked great as well. The cost of tuition is less than half of what I was paying previously, which gave me much more peace in how I was spending God’s money. And for an even greater surprise, the school offered the first class free for all students registering for their September session! Pretty good deal – try the first class completely free!

Through their program, you can only take 1 class at a time and each class is only 8 weeks long. That, my friends, is another answered prayer for me. So, I have re-started my seminary journey as of September 1st with my first class there, entitled “Developing the Focused Life”.  Did they know I was coming or what? Really it deals a lot with identifying your calling, which is something I could definitely use.

I am about a week into the class so far and am truly psyched! The interaction and openness between the students as well as the professor is phenomenal and leaves me excited for what the next 3 years will bring. Only time will tell, but so far so good. Keep the prayers coming!

I ran across another organization today that is helping to feed starving people in Uganda. The organization is Children’s HopeChest and they have a campaign called “Feed the Forgotten” that they are pushing hard to try and get donations for. Their goal right now is to be able to provide food for 3-4 villages that they are currently tareting; they are hoping to expand that to more villages based on the donations given. Did you know that for $20 you can feed a family for 20 days? A lot of us spend at least that much money feeding ourselves for just 1 day. I encourage anybody reading this to visit the site and donate today! Here is your opportunity to do something today!

Why do all of this? Well, I do have to pay for my seminary education somehow, which is going to cost quite a bit. I would really love to be able to do that without incurring any additional debt, so I’m look for ways to make some additional money to put towards tuition and books. So, while this may be a shameless plug, I hope that anyone out there looking to buy anything from Amazon would help me out in this effort and buy it through me. After all, it won’t cost you a thing!

* Not looking for a book? Use the search box in the sidebar to find anything else you might be looking for.

This really fits in with the class I am taking on Hermeneutics. One thing that I think we as Christians need to be doing is really trying to understand how to read the Bible. Though I’ve heard it brought up before, this book really does a fantastic job of explaining the need to read the Bible as story. When I say that (and the author as well), it is not talking about reading it as a fictitious tale, but rather as an accounting of the history of humanity and it’s relationship with God throughout the ages.

So what does that do for us? I think that as we learn to take all things in their appropriate context, we can then better understand how to live the lives that God has called us to. We can then better understand how to share His message with the world – and with that, allow God to speak to us in our ways in our days. There is a part near the end of the book where Scot mentions a conversation he had with a close friend and New Testament scholar. It was in reference to 1 Corinthians 11:6, where Paul talks about women wearing head coverings. His friend said “Scot, some at your church don’t seem willing to ask if insisting on head coverings might do the opposite of what Paul was actually doing.” This is basically saying that demanding a woman wear a head covering today might do as much damage as a woman not wearing a head covering in the first century. Or as Scot puts it in his book:

“If we demand women do something so totally contrary to culture that non-Christians are offended or turned off, we should reconsider what we are doing. Paul didn’t want the dress of Christian women to bring a bad name to the gospel, so he asked them to wear head coverings; by contrast, demanding women to wear head coverings in our world may do the very same damage to the gospel.”

I thought this was a very good point; as we read Paul’s writings to the Corinthians, specifically in 1 Corinthians 9, we find that Paul was more interested in spreading the gospel then he was in exercising the freedom he had in Christ. So while Christian women may very well have had the freedom in the first century to not wear head coverings, it was best that they did so that issue would not affect the real meaning of the gospel message.

I would definitely recommend this book to anybody that reads the Bible. While you may or may not agree with everything the book has to say, it will at least challenge you to read your Bible more effectively while you attempt to discern its meaning.