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Friday, October 31, 2008

Psalm 143

Hello friends! I hope all is going well for you in Eugene. I had such a great time seeing you all 3 weeks ago. It was such a refreshment for Rachel and I. Unfortunately, I have found the air slowly leaking out of my balloon since leaving. What an interesting season that we all are in right now. I'm sure that God is forming us in ways that we could never have expected. My prayer, even though it seems to be rare and often spoken without much confidence, is that I would be faithful....that WE would be faithful to the call. The call to love God and people in the way of Jesus. To so faithfully believe that God has birthed that mission on our hearts for Eugene that nothing would deter us. That our passions, though they manifest themselves in a variety of ways, would be used by God to foster spiritual awakening to His redemptive story. I'm thankful to be in relationship with you all and love you all very much. Know that I pray for you often and yearn for the day that we will be together.

The last two days I've really tried to drink from Psalm 143. I just thought I'd share it with you.

Clint

Psalm 143

O Lord, hear my prayer, listen to my cry for mercy; in your faithfulness and righteousness come to my relief. Do not bring your servant into judgment, for no one living is righteous before you. The enemy pursues me, he crushes me to the ground; he makes me dwell in darkness like those long dead. So my spirit grows faint within me; my heart within me is dismayed. I remember the days of long ago; I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done. I spread out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. Selah

Answer me quickly, O Lord; my spirit fails. Do not hide your face from me or I will be like those who go down to the pit. Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul. Rescue me from my enemies, O Lord, for I hide myself in you. Teach me to do your will, for you are my God: may your good Spirit lead me on level ground. For your name's sake, O Lord, preserve my life; in your righteousness, bring me out of trouble. In your unfailing love, silence my enemies; destroy all my foes, for I am your servant.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Solving the world's problems...


This is what Drew and I do when we get together and have a drink. You see, we are commonly misunderstood as men who just talk about sports. I mean, even if Notre Dame's football team should be ranked, I don't concern myself with being obsessive about that. And, just because the Cubs blew their chances at ending a 100 year drought, I have more important things to discuss with my Yankee-fan-friend. Okay, back to the reason for this blog post. Drew and I seem to always get going about this or that, and before you know it, we end the night with saying, "Well, we just solved some more of the world's problems, good night." In fact, just the other night we had ourselves another epiphany. We began to reflect a little on our time here (it has been nearly 3 months, holy cow!) and wondered how we were doing. Clint and Rachel were here recently and gave us some great encouragement. But, what tends to happen when you are unemployed and have no one else to talk to during the day, you begin to over-analyze, which is weird for me, right? I began to talk about our running group and that it seems like our conversations with people there have cooled a little in the past couple weeks. The obvious question I ask myself is whether it was something I said. But, if you know me, I don't say too much, so I figured it wasn't that. Then, as we dove deeper into our analytical minds, we came up with the hypothesis that maybe it was because they know we are here for a church plant and fear that we will try to convert them the more we talk to them, kinda like the Mormons that visited my apartment last week. Of course, this is not our purpose with the conversations we have. Sure, we want them to love Jesus and to experience His beautiful love and grace, but we also want to be their friends. As we continued this conversation, we started wondering what we can do to bridge the gap between thoughts of bible-thumping and wanting to befriend them. After careful logical deduction, Drew and I discovered that in the first few weeks at our running group, we were new. We were the ones who they did not know, and they did a terrific job at asking us about, well, us. We told them why we moved to Eugene, that we did not have jobs, and that we did not all live in one apartment. What we have failed to do is to return the favor. Initially, we did discover some things about our new acquaintances, but we have not done a good job at following up with them. So often, we make conversations about us, and not about who we are talking to. Whether or not we think they think we are trying to get them to our church thing does not matter. We realized as we sat in the cool Northwestern night that we need to engage them even if it means making ourselves vulnerable. Rob Bell writes in his new book, "Jesus Wants to Save Christians," that, "Remember, God is looking for a body, flesh and blood to show the world a proper marriage of the divine and human." As uncomfortable or awkward that it may be, it is our responsibility to love people as Jesus does. This means engaging them in conversation. There you have it, another of the world's problems solved, or that is what Drew and I claim at least.

Oh, a quick update: We had running group this morning, and through us being a little better at engaging people, we had some pretty good conversations. Thank God He helps us, because I could not do this on my own!

Derek (with compliments to Drew)

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Hello Oregonians

I would like to warn you that I have been up since 4 am, I have consumed two containers of chocolate ice cream, and I am polishing off my second pint of whole milk...so as a result I offer no guarantees that this will resemble anything close to coherent.
I would like to offer my apologies for my lack of communication with you all. When Clint and Rachel came back and told me that many of you expected more communication from the management team, I felt very convicted. As a member of the team I should be checking in with you guys much more frequently than what I have. I may be in the hospital because the lower half of my body doesnt seem to work, but emailing and calling on a phone requires only muscles above the waist. This means I could have shot you an email, posted on here, or made a phone call...and I have done none. For that I offer my deepest apologies. My cell phone number is 374-8647 and my email is rdreid7602@gmail.com. Feel free to call or email anytime that you would like.
With that said, I would like to share a story with you. The experience I have had with becoming paralyzed has been the most challenging experience of my life. However, it has also been and will continue to be the most transformational experience of my life. As you can imagine, I am much more dependent on other people right now. One of the side effects of this whole experience has been that my right hand has become significantly weaker. I do not have that much grip with it and I do not have the normal range of movement with it because of the burns. This has caused me to need other people to open a pack of ketchup, to reach certain objects, etc. I am also bed ridden most of the day. All of the stuff I use - food, the computer, my cell phone, books - are stored on tables that slide over my bed. However, often times these tables are stored outside of my reach. This requires me to call a nurse or ask someone that is in the room to push the table closer so I can reach it. I am currently allowed to sit up in a chair for 2 hours a day. The chair they are putting me in cannot be wheeled by me because it doesnt have big wheels. It has to be pushed by someone else. This means that even when I am sitting up I still need someone else to push me around. This level of dependency is EXTREMELY frustrating for me. As result, when I am in therapy, I am pushing myself really hard because I want to be more independent. I get frustrated with my progress because by this point I wanted to be able to be in my wheel chair, able to roll myself around, and not need other people as much as what I do.
I tell you all of this not to gain sympathy, of which I want none, but to say that I understand the desire of wanting things to change faster than what they are able to be changed. All of the independence I want now is going to take time and lots of effort to obtain. It is not possible for it to happen now, and in all honesty God wants it that way. The goals we set and the visions God gives us often take time to achieve. God is a god who is much more concerned with the process than the end result. God doesnt care when I become fully independent, because He wants to teach me and refine me during this process of realizing that goal.
I was reading Proverbs and came across this little gem that really sums up what I have been going through..."He who works his land will have abundant food, but he who chases fantasies lacks judgment." Working the land takes time. I have fantasies of the fast route, but God wants me to slow down and be refined by the journey.
You guys are working the land there in Eugene. I know it is easy to want things to happen fast. After all you guys are planting a church...churches are supposed to grow and yours hasnt. I think that is because God wants to spend some time working not only the soil there in Eugene but also the soil in your own hearts. I know it can be easy to have fantasies of what it could look like, but just take a while (and I am talking about months...not just 5-10 minutes) to let God do some work in you. God doesnt care about what your church looks like...He cares about refining you to be more like Him.
I havent been to a church service in months. I havent listened to a single sermon in months. I havent listened to a single worship song. Yet I have experienced church more in the past two months than any other time in my life. I have had people love on me and my family to such an extent that I have no choice but to sit back in awe. I have seen both friends and total strangers pour out of their hearts in the most profound ways. The effect it has had on me has been that it has softened my heart and caused me to want to pour into other peoples lives. God seems to use struggle and tragedy as His biggest tool to change our hearts. That is what I now understand church to be. It is living a life with other people that causes heart changes and makes you love God and other people more. This can take place with 10 people or 100.
So when you are evaluating the success of your church plant ask yourselves these questions:
Is your heart being softened or awakened in such a way that it causes you to love God and other people more?
Is your life and the way you live it, helping other people to have their hearts softened and awakened to love God and other people more?
Dont ask yourself these questions:
Have I gotten anyone saved?
Has our church grown?
Does our church plant look more like "normal" church?
Did I remember to make my bed? (why make your bed if your going to sleep in it again the next night?!?)
As an outsider looking in, it seems you are positionally exactly where God would want you to be. All of your jobs are relational. You live close to each other. You are getting involved in each others lives. You are being friendly to the people you meet and work with. What I cant judge as an outsider is where your hearts are at. It is easy to get sucked into worrying about positional type things, but my encouragement and prayer for you is that God would give you rest from worrying about those type things and instead allow you to focus on what God is doing in your heart to refine you and help you to love Him and people better.
I love you guys and am inspired by your constant desire to do what God wants you to do. Thanks for letting me journey with you.

Love,
RD

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Oregon Facts:





Nothing profound here... just thought it was time to list these.
FACT:
-Eugene, Oregon was named the "greenest" city in America
-You can not pump your own gas in Oregon
-You can not buy hard liquor in a grocery store. beer and wine, however is everywhere and is refrigerated for you. you can buy alcohol on Sundays, but the liquor stores close at like 8.
-Recycling is way easier here
-Nutria will steal your bread, look'em up
-There are no tornadoes and lightening is rare. forest fires, however, are normal.
-Fall lasts about 9 months
-Beer is cheaper than pop
-There is no sales tax
-Drive thru coffee stands are in parking lots everywhere
-You may get killed for saying anything negative about the Ducks (football)
-Residents of Oregon are called "Oregonians"
-There are way too many spiders here and they bit me in my sleep
-The whole town shuts down for an inch of snow
-Oregon is the only state where assisted suicide is legal. You would think people would come here as they get older instead of Florida, but whatever.
-Snails come out in the rain and no matter how many I move off the sidewalk, my neighbors still step on them :(
-There are cougars, bears, and elk. oh. my.
-Oregon has a very high homeless population and a very high unemployment rate
-You can not drive anywhere during a ducks home game
-The local news team has trouble reading the teleprompter
-You can often get plane tickets to Portland for $200 during non-holiday time (hint hint)

-Cj