I did the unthinkable last night and took Carie to see “New Moon” for date night.

As you may or may not know, date night is a non-negotiable time set aside with my wife Carie that is anchored into our week so that, no matter how busy we get, nothing may remove date night out of the way without the express written consent of both of us and another date night scheduled to replace the first one.

As the evening was planned, I assumed based on something Carie had mentioned to me that she had bought the tickets for a theater about a half hour away.  Because of this, I plotted out too much time before the movie since we only live about 5 minutes from the theater to which we were actually driving.  After a bit of a debate on who was right and who was wrong, we decided to show up early for the movie and wait around the lobby area if we couldn’t get in the door.  But we found out there was no need to wait, for the place was in pandemonium when we arrived.

I took the above picture about 50 minutes before the movie started, and as you can see, the line already spread the full length of one of the theater’s long hallways twice over.  Which led me to process the enormous popularity of the Twilight series.  Jeff had some really interesting things to say on the topic, and while I don’t share his enthusiasm against America’s current most popular book/movie series, I certainly see some of the faulty philosophies within the group of novels/movies.

And I wonder how a group of books about vampires and werewolves and the girl who is torn between the two can captivate the hearts of a monstrous demographic.  Is it the idea of unconditional romantic love that is exhibited by Bella and Edward as they clearly have some sort of strong love bond between them?  Both the writing and the filming do a fine job of showing their respective audiences this.  As you might have guessed, about 85% of the audience that night were female, which leads me to believe that this kind of unconditionality is something sought after by a generation of females who have been mislead, manipulated, and manhandled by a generation of males who have neglected their responsibility to protect and care for the women in their life.

Or maybe it’s the intense “I’ll be there for you no matter what” attitude displayed by both main characters.  Typically women get the “I’ll be there for you, until something better comes along” attitude from their men, which because of the way the earth is created and evolving at the same time, means they will stop looking for protection and care from real guys.  Then they will seek after the same type of relationships from a) books and entertainment where they can dream about that real guy or b) a human being who is not male, yet can give them that dependability that all humans desire from their love relationships.

The deeper problem of course, lies in our understanding that no matter who we place our trust in, they will fail us.  But this is no excuse for men and women of all ages and generations to not be people of character as they move into relationships that literally must include two people of character to succeed.  In short, don’t get into a romantic relationship until you are ready, or as a wise man once said in Scripture…

“Do not arouse or awaken love until the time is right.”

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My wife Carie!

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Hanging out with Mike and Roo after an 18 hour drive

The times I remember the most are the ones I had to get off my duff and have.

The time Carie told me she’d never ever date me, then two weeks later, after she had time to reconsider, I remember watching the sun set on a Friday night (August 29, 2003, if you were wondering) listening to the reasons why she changed her mind.

Or the time I drove to Massachusetts in 1997 on about 2 hours notice because I had 5 days of nothingness.  The trip took 18 hours of driving solo.  Then after hanging out with my friends Ruben and Mike for 2.5 days, I headed back 18 hours to Atlanta.  Oh yeah, and I had just arrived into Atlanta from Tucson, AZ (35 hour drive) that evening.

Or the time Dave and I decided to gank a newspaper machine from out front a dollar store.

Or watching a play I wrote and directed be performed on Easter 2001 here at Fellowship Church.

Or taking pictures with the family in Mexico that our team had built a small house for.

Or the time last Saturday when I stood inside of a crowd of people, mostly younger, and jumped up and down to a few hard core Christian bands for the first time in more than 5 years.  I kept thinking to myself, I’m too old to be here.  But after reading Donald Miller’s newest work of art, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, I realized I was just creating another memorable scene in my life.  The kind of scene that I will look back and and be happy that God put me on this earth to live out an incredible story of memorable scenes.  Not necessarily a story (on this earth anyway) with an incredible climax where all my problems go away and my life eventually resolves itself, but one of fulfillment through Jesus and…

a whole lot more memorable scenes.

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I’m not very good at meeting new people.  Being an extrovert doesn’t always mean you just walk up to people and start sharing your life, does it?  But I’ve been working on this recently.  Somewhere along the way I started keeping to myself more than I wanted to meet new people.  This could be the “New England” effect happening to me, who knows?

All that being said, I’ve tried to think about some of my friends who are fabulous examples of meeting new people through spontaneity, and I wanted to share some of those examples.

* (Webster, Massachusetts) My friend, Ruben Cimbron passed out gospel tracts in 1998 to girls walking by our house by asking them, “How would you like to spend eternity with me in paradise?”

* (Somewhere on the road to Waterville Valley, NH) Angela Greene started up a conversation with a guy by asking him what the writing on his shirt was all about.

* Joe Shea starts up conversations all the time by finding the common ground between him and another person.

*Carie making a batch of cookies and taking them over to our neighbors for no reason at all than to say hello.

* (another Ruben example) Ruben and I used to start up conversation (and get free food) all the time in fast food restaurants by creating straw figures and giving them to people.

One common thread I find in each of these examples springs from the idea that each time one of these “extroverts” meets someone and connects, they highlight the well-being of the person they are connecting with.  In other words, they are not trying to sell something or get them to do something (with the possible exception of the first example, used more for comic purposes than anything else), but they are interested in what the other person they are meeting has to say.

And I want to be more like that.

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The following is a conversation between my wife Carie and I after we found out we forgot to buy pickles at the grocery store:

Marty:  What has gone wrong?! (expressive)
Carie:  Pickles weren’t on the list.
Marty:  I should have put them on the list.
Carie:  You didn’t make the list.  I did.
Marty:  I know, but I’m just taking the blame away from you and onto myself.

Now that  is good husbanding!

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On Sunday Fellowship Church in Holden celebrated my 10 years of being a pastor in their organization.  It was such a blast, and I felt so humbled to be able to work on a regular basis with people as wonderful as the people here in this church.  It’s been a crazy ten years, I have a lot more gray hair, but I love it today just as much and more as I loved it my first week here on May 30, 1999.

I began preaching on Sunday morning when Steve, our executive pastor interrupted me, and said that the team was hijacking the service and we had a new guest speaker, and as he said this, an SUV pulled up from the parking lot (it was an outdoor service) and in it was my dad, my sister, and her fiance rolling in.

For the next hour, people read letters and my dad preached and it was just an amazing service!  So I wanted to say thank you to the people of Fellowship Church over the last 10 years for being so incredible, for loving Carie and I, and for making it so wonderful and easy for me to love what I do.

Thank you for “making my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.

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I would just like to say that it’s only 5:45 pm.  I’m in meetings until 8:00 pm.  And I miss my wife, Carie,  already.  Like Solomon said, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing.” You know he believed that with his whole heart too because…

He had 700 of them.

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4 years ago today Carie and I became man and wife.  I can honestly say that I would not be half the man I am if it wasn’t for her.  She is an amazing woman, and I am one lucky dude.

Thank you God!

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Carie vs.

the Jerk

In order to understand this post, you really have to understand a bit about my wife.

Carie is exactly who she says she is.  She is the same person with me as she is with people as she is by herself.  There is no difference.  She is not pushy, but to people she has relationship with she will push them to be better people.  She hates the limelight, but when placed in the center of it, appears like she was born to be in it.  She does not talk bad about people, unless they are in the room and need to be “encouraged”.  She’s not even a big talker, but people who talk to her enjoy it way more than talking to me.  She didn’t go to Bible college wanting to marry a pastor, and the fact that I was one actually gave her cause to consider all the more whether or not she should say yes to me.

All that being said, when she came home yesterday, she was a bit discouraged.  There’s this guy that she’s worked with now for 3 years at her school.  He’s admittedly kind of a jerk (he has said this comparing himself to Carie) and cares very little for issues of faith, though Carie and Jerk teacher have shared conversations about faith before.  He actually majored in theology in college.

So last week jerk teacher was having a bit of a rough week, and Carie came home and asked me if she should invite him to church.  I asked, “How do you think he will react?”  She said, “I have no clue.”  I said, “As long as you do it on your own time, it’s probably fine.  Go for it!”

So on Friday, she sent jerk teacher an email inviting him to our service that weekend, and asking him to respond.  Now keep in mind this is not two people who have just met.  They have worked together for 3 years, and though it’s been rocky at times because of the whole “jerk” thing, Carie has been one of the few people to treat him well.  There is a good bit of gossip that goes on between the teachers in the particular department carie works in, and she has not participated in the fray.

Jerk teacher never responded, which was not a big deal, until Monday.  On Monday 3 times carie walks into the department room and 3 times she catches Jerk teacher talking about her invitation to other people, and 3 times as she enters, the conversation stops immediately.  I asked her if she thought because of the first time, she might have been paranoid about 1 or 2 of them (for those of you who are not married or have just been married for a short time, this is not a great question to ask at this point), and she said “no”.  One time she came in and the last thing she heard was, “All they want to do is divide and conquer”.

Clearly Carie was upset by the happenings here.  All she did was invite someone who she had relationship with to church, and evidently he scorned her for it.

I believe she handled it quite well, eventually telling me that Jerk teacher was probably just acting out in pain, and that talking about people was his way of dealing with it.  But the point of this post is not her feelings, but mine.  (hopefully this will save me from a backlash after she reads this)  You see, in an effort to try to be authentic, I’m going to share my feelings on this subject now.

Carie handled her situation wisely and is planning on talking to Jerk teacher, and as a follower of Christ, I know that’s the right thing for her to do.  And she’ll be successful how she handles it, because that’s who she is.  If it were me, I probably would have handled it the same way.  As Carie’s husband though…

I just want to punch Jerk teacher in the face.

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We tend to look at how successful something is or isn’t in the context of time.  How was your summer?  Your semester?  Your school year?  Your year?

One month of 2009 is now finished and we are into month number 2, typically known as February.  So I’ve begun to think of the first month of my 2009, and asked myself how my year is going?

Am I reaching my goals?  Building relationships?  Forming new ones?

I don’t want to waste a year of my life, and wonder what happened to it.  I want to live the way I’m called to live.  With a calling from God to connect and point people to God through Jesus!  I want to make the most of my time.  I want to fall more in love with Carie.    I want to love you as myself. I want to see the beauty of God’s creation, and see things through His eyes.  And…

I want to say “GO STEELERS!  World Champions baby!

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