Life in a New Place...Again...

Wow! Been a while!

For some reason I lost interest in blogging - journaling all together for that matter. As you know I've never been very good at this. That whole discipline thing tends to bite me in the butt once in a while. But I've decided it is time to resurface - even if only for one post.

For those who are not aware. I live in a new place, a new state, a new city. I'm in Phoenix. Been here since September. I roamed for about a year and then finally found a place to settle for a time.

I am a Campus Pastor. My job is to live life with college students. My hope is that I can learn how to do ministry with them. I have good days and really bad ones. But when you string them all together I would say I'm better at this than I thought I would be and I get to work with some great students.

Couple things in my head:

1. I got to go to a great conference last week. I was in California with Erwin McManus and crew. It was phenomenal. It challenged my brain and encouraged my call. I think the day is coming that I will move to California. Not sure how long I'll be there, but I think for at least a time I want to go. I want to consider planting. I want to see church lived out in a new place. It is an exciting possibility! Some great things were said last week. Now I'm trying to work out putting them into practice at Grand Canyon University.

2. Grace is an interesting animal. I've been railed by a couple students in recent weeks. Maybe I deserve it because I hold them to a pretty high standard. I don't really back down and I'm not always friendly about driving them to that place. A couple staff people were talking this week and we realized that often in the name of grace we let students run over us. We are trying to learn to combine both sides of grace...the side that says your fault is overlooked and the side that calls you to greater accountability. The tough thing is I'm not sure students see this as different sides of the same coin. In their mind one is grace and one is judgement. At least the student that attacked me said I was judging him. I didn't know I was doing anything other than calling out exactly what he was doing.

I'm rambling. But according to Kevin and other students I do that often. So I guess I'll end this first one and say farewell until I decide to return again.

PS - I have a crush...