I'm feeling the excitement

Classes were supposed to start today, but I got an extra day because the only two classes I have today were canceled. Dr. Linhart is out of town meeting with denominational leaders in the missionary church and he is the professor for both of the classes.

We had the back to school bash last night. Three people didn't recognize me. Two of the people were ones I lived with last year and one of them I go to house church with, so I had a lot of contact with all three of them last year. I didn't think my appearance had changed that much!

Ruth and I hung out a bit. Ruth graduated in '07, but still lives nearby, so it was easy to give her a call and be like "come see my house!" So she came over at 11pm and we spent an hour and a half talking about summer and I told her stories some of the amazing stories from this summer. She told me about her summer and her struggles to find a church that she likes (she tends to not like organized church structures anyway, and her work schedule makes it hard for her to attend anyway).

She said she wanted to be challenged and held accountable, so we decided that the two of us, and anyone who wants to get involved, will have church together on her days off. I'm really excited because it's going to be different even from the house church I go to. We will meet with one another, I don't know what we'll talk about or study yet, but we've also decided that it won't just be us (and whoever else comes) meeting within ourselves. We've decided that we are going to have times when we go out into the community and be Jesus to people. We haven't completely envisioned what that will look like yet, but we have a few ideas.

I've talked with several people now about The Tangible Kingdom and possibly starting a book study on it. A few people sounded interested, some had good ideas, and one pointed me to an option on how to get it started, so it might actually happen.

I am moving out of feeling apprehensive about this school year and starting to feel really excited about it. I think it's because I feel like a missionary who has been sent out. There are people at Bethel who are moving into viewing the world through kingdom lenses, and moving into the incarnational way of doing ministry, and I feel like this year is a great opportunity to encourage them as I continue my own learning in this area. But not only to encourage them, but also to help awaken the vision in others.

It's not what you get out of it, it's what you bring to it. I plan to bring it.