We're So Far Away

First off, my apologies to Paul for his hard work in looking for jobs for me. I did look in to them, this development with Mandi doing a Master's was quite a recent development. I think that from her thinking of it to being in the program, it was all of a week for the entire process. Probably the fastest application/acceptance/start of program sequence I can possibly think of.

Secondly, and speaking of Mandi's Master's program, if you could all pray for her, it would be much appreciated. I don't know how she's doing it, but she's working 10 hour days, driving back and forth from Nashville on weekends that she has class, reading about 300 pages in a book, writing a paper, and engaging in 2 hour debates online, all between yesterday and Thursday. So if you could keep her in prayer to just give her the energy and safety for travel and everything else, I'm sure it would be much appreciated.

Tomorrow, I get to go and pick up my diploma from UT that says I graduated from the program. Fairly exciting. In addition, I go back on Thursday to meet with some people that work there to discuss the possibilities of working with them. It's basically a meet and greet to be introduced to some people that have seen my resume, and to see if they might be interested in working with me, as well as whether I find what they do interesting myself. It's nice to have the help from a man at church that's getting me in contact with everyone. We'll have to see how it goes.

Something that we're discussing in church over the month of August has to do with outreach, and what ways one can go about reaching out to people in the community and those that we come in contact with. One thing that I've not really ever thought was that effective is the technique of door knocking. I don't know if that's just because I don't believe that would work for me to have random people coming to my door to talk to me without me wanting them to, or because I've heard that it's not that effective, but that was part of the talk this past Sunday. However, what they were door knocking for was presented as a survey for a school project, which then asked questions regarding religious beliefs. Some of the questions intrigued me, such as "What do you think the church needs to do better to meet the needs of the community?" and, "What would be a main reason to attend a church in your area?". The presenter didn't really have the time to give some of the responses to the questions that he asked (there was a total of about 18 questions), but I bet that there would be a number of answers that would be interesting to read in to. In general, it's just designed to highlight some of the reasons that people want to distance themselves from being part of a church, and what might be done on our part to help bridge that gap.

They are also going to be doing a spiritual gift assessment, which I think will be fairly cool. I've heard lots of talk about these kinds of things before, but I've never been able to do one myself. I'm looking forward to doing this, just to see what kinds of things it tells you. I hope that it's not simply one where it's comparing yourself to other possible likenesses, but that it's really a question-response based test that can be fairly streamlined based on the individual. I'll find out in a couple weeks, but I for one am looking forward to it.

Our preacher on Sunday mornings is also going to start talking about something that I find to be interesting, which is defining what is tradition in church versus what is actually biblically defined truth. There is some irony to me that a 60-70 year old man in a CoC is preaching about what is/isn't tradition, but I've always enjoyed listening to his lessons, and look forward to what things he brings forth in this debate. While I'm kind of hoping he might talk about things like instrumental music and women in the church, I doubt those will be the subject of our Sunday sermons. I guess I can always hope though. Who knows, maybe I'll be surprised.

Getting in shape update: Went swimming with Mandi on Sunday for about 30-40 minutes or so. I'm not the best of swimmers, but I was completely wore out over the course of that. And I won't lie, it wasn't continuous swimming either. But man, I bet that will get you in shape. I did manage running this morning as well, doing a 1 mile run, and then some sprints. Sadly, at the end of this, I was completely spent. Good thing I have a month to improve.