eventful weekend(?)

thursday...
as part of my journey towards ordination i met with the dallas-denton district committee on ordained ministry to be recommended to preparations & qualifications (fancy methodist-speak for taking the next step). i was recommended unanimously! so that means i get to write more papers, have another interview (this time with the conference board of ordained minstry), and sweat out another vote on my ministerial worthiness.

friday...
completed some chores around the house, made some calls that i needed to make, and took out my wife for an evening of shopping and dinner at steak & shake!

saturday...
woke up at 7:30, found out that deb had been up since 2am and was full of energy to clean the house and get ready for caitlyn's arrival. we spent the day moving furniture from one room of the apartment to another, cleaning out the kitchen so that caitlyn will have a dedicated area just for her stuff, and hanging pictures/rearranging knick-knacks/light cleaning. i can't believe that deb made it all the way till 6:30pm before she crashed, but she did! now i believe we are ready (at least space-wise) for caitlyn to come, but we are still working on the emotional level of being parents.

sunday...
this morning was "back in the saddle" day at trietsch (aka dean wears uncomfortable tight-fitting jeans, boots, and a cowboy hat because jim says to). by the end of the morning i was ready to get out of the jeans because they were just too uncomfortable, but i must say that i could get used to wearing the hat...it made me want to be friendlier to the people i met this morning.

i also finished reading donald miller's searching for god know's what this afternoon. i enjoyed this book more so than any other "theology" book that i have read in recent years. miller did a great job of presenting the gospel of jesus christ in a narrative format that makes it accessible for all readers - plus he tells funny stories that keep you laughing throughout the entire book. i wanted to share just a couple of quotes from the book that i thought were especially meaningful/thought-provoking.

"the gospel of jesus, i mean the essence of god's message to mankind, wasn't a bunch of hoops we needed to jump through to get saved, and it wasn't a series of ideas we had to agree with either; rather, it was an invitation, an invitation to know god." (14)

"i want to tell you without reservation that is there is any hope for you and me, for this planet set kilter in the fifteen-billion light-year expanse of endless mystery, the hope would have to be in this man who contends he is not of us, but with us, and simply is." (149)

"the greater trouble with [gospel tracts] is that modern evangelical culture is so accustomed to this summation that it is difficult for us to see the gospel as anything other than a list of true statements with which a person must agree...perhaps our reduction of these ideas [i.e. the gospel] has caused us to miss something." (153)

grace&peace