General Assembly is Like...

Hello from San Jose, CA! I'm spending the week at the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s biennial General Assembly and I've been thinking for a couple of days now of the best analogy for it. Many of you who know much about church in general is that the degrees of separation between churchfolk has got to be less than 10. I am convinced, however, that in the PC(U.S.A.) it's more like...two.

Along those lines, I've decided the most appropriate analogy for G.A. is a family reunion. This idea first came to me when I began running into friends, colleagues, and people I admire in the denomination that I haven't seen in a long while, most since the last assembly I attended in 2004. Yet the idea became even more clear when I ran into others, people with whom I have had, shall we say, "words," people with whom I do not see eye-to-eye with regards to diversity issues, theology, or any of the other multitude of issues that seem to divide us.

See, at your family reunion there are the long-lost cousins, aunts and uncles, and nieces and nephews. You hear about their achievements, their triumphs and losses through the grapevine. But when you finally see them, you celebrate in person, you hug and show your excitement to reconnect despite the distance and the time. But, at your family reunion, there is also the person with whom you disagree on nearly every issue and who takes the time to make that known. You avoid them when possible or appropriate, but at family reunions there is little room or time for that. Family reunions are where all our guts and passion and mistakes and love get strewn out across the table and we are called to defend them, sometimes vehemently and sometimes meekly. Family reunions are where fights happen, destructive, divisive fights. But, and this is so important to remember, family reunions are where healing can begin. They are where love can conquer when we take time to listen. See the word in there that's key: "reunion"?

Signing off for the night with a heart broken for the Church,

Megan

Fiascos, Felines, and Fresh Beginnings

Did that picture get you hooked or what?? =) Meet Chance. This is a very cute kitten my mom

found a week ago on the side of the road - we think he had been thrown out of a car - and brought home. We are working on bonding with him...not too hard, since he's very cute and likes to be held and cuddle. We're also trying to find him a good home, which I'm quite sad about.

Well, anyway, on to the real reason for a post. Any of you who have talked with me over the past 4 months or so will know that my summer plans have been kind of a fiasco from the beginning. I had hoped to work at Carp Community Church, but after 4 weeks of waiting finances ultimately derailed that plan. In the meantime, because I don't like to be without a plan, I had applied at a church in Fresno, CA (name witheld to protect the guilty) which would have been a great opportunity to grow in team ministry but turned out to have a very disappointing outlook on Princeton's theology and consequently felt the need to grill me for 2/3 of my interview to, what I presume was, "test my theology." At any rate, after agonizing about it (they offered me a position) for far too long I eventually told them no because I just had a feeling it wasn't where God was calling me. So, I put out some feelers...in May. After finals were over. A bit late to begin again in looking for a summer job.


But, when God provides, He really does. I contacted two churches, First Presbyterian Berkeley, and my home church, First Presbyterian, Visalia, hoping that one of them would have need of an intern, but not expecting too much. I suppose it's when you expect the least that God provides the most. Both churches responded with possibilities and I began pursuing an internship at my home church. I'll leave out all the nitty-gritty details, but I am proud and thankful to report I have a job for the summer!


So, what will I be doing? A little of this and a little of that...my main focus will be kick-starting the junior high group again and creating a program that will be sustainable into the fall as well as locating and training a junior high leader to pass the torch to after I leave. Youth group, a Bible study, "Coffee Hour with Megan," monthly events...so exciting!!! But I will also be...and this is the part I am most excited about...acting as the intern for the 210 center, a community center the church just opened a couple of months ago, helping with the college ministry, Elevate, which is 120 people strong, and helping run and coordinate the concert ministry at 210!


I'll definitely be picking up a second job, because you never do any ministry for the money...that's what Starbuck's is for! And I'll be taking a statistics class at the community college to cover one of my prereqs for my M.S.W. I think this is going to shape up to be a good summer! However, this post is getting a bit long, so I'll stop for now, but I'll be back in a couple of days to share about how 210 came into being!





"Gloria in excelsis Deo!"

10 Things...

...I did this past school year that surprised me.

1. I drove myself across the country...twice.
2. I learned that New Jersey is not all industrial and gross. There is a reason they call it the "Garden State."
3. I discovered a strange enjoyment of Malaysian food.
4. I enjoyed living in the snow. Really, it was the idea of four real seasons that made it.
5. I developed an intense and unexpected love for New York City and began acquiring "my favorite places" there.
6. I traveled...a lot. Daytona Beach, Florida; home for Thanksgiving and Christmas; Louisville, Kentucky twice in the first two months of 2008; NYC and the United Nations for four days; NYC and Boston with the girls for a week; Guatemala in April...and coming up later this month, San Jose, CA for the PC(USA) General Assembly. =)
7. I decided that Princeton is not as crazy-liberal as my previously all-West-coast mindset had told me.
8. I theologized systematically.
9. I grew to really enjoy Princeton, NJ and the east coast feel.
10. I turned down a job with money attached to it in favor of "The Great Unknown"...which will coincidentally be the topic of my next post.