The Office Curmudgeon

My wife got up early this morning to take her citizenship exam. She passed with flying colors and didn’t miss a question.

She has been a green card holder since we first met, being of Indonesian decent. She grew up in Jakarta, Indonesia until the age of 18, when she traveled to the US for college. We have been married since May 22, 2004. USCIS provides study materials, which we studied together for days before this morning, so she was uber-prepared. One only has to answer 6 questions correctly. If you haven’t seen the study materials, you should check them out. I was born and grown in the US, and when I first saw the questions I could only answer the first 10-15! It is true that most native born Americans could not pass the test out of the gate.

She was excited when she called and told me she passed, and I’m proud of her. She has been putting off citizenship for many years, and finally decided to do it this year. Go wife!

Catching up some reading, I came across Jim’s post about God leading him in his life right now. I decided to give my own advice on scoring the Church IT job:

1. Know what you’re getting into
2. Just be yourself through the entire process
3. Hand it over to God

Nearly 7 years ago from now, I was chosen for an entry level IT position at Church of the Resurrection. I was at the end of my rope. I was 2 weeks away from packing my vehicle and driving home to live in the parents basement because the .com bubble popped, the IT industry crashed, no one was hiring, and I had no money left.

I honestly walked into the interviews at Resurrection not caring what happened, or what they thought. I wasn’t going to try to wow them or try too hard, I had decided I was just going to be me and nothing else. That was either good enough, or it wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong though; I was in good spirits, and laughed and enjoyed the process. I did not sit there yawning and scratching my backside. I simply wasn’t concerned about whether I was the one or not, because I had already handed everything in my life over to God.

I was later told, after being hired, that I was by far the best interviewee of that position. …. I remember thinking, “That’s funny, because at that point I could not have cared less about that!” Simply stated, I attribute this to my second and third point above.

So FWIW, that’s my advice, good and bad. Point number one from above is important, and I listed it first because nearly 7 years ago … I wish I had been better informed. Hahah! I still would have taken the job, but it would have saved me from the great mental anguish of learning the hard way!

For some time now, my wife and I have been attending Living Water Christian Church, in Parkville, MO. (About a 40 min. drive for us. Ouch!) This week’s e-mail from pastor Laura held my attention pretty well. In it, she relayed a conversation with her son:

My son Rob had a conversation with me recently, in which he was bemoaning the state of “organized religion.” He said, “People in churches can’t be real, they have to pretend to be someone they’re not.” I stopped him before he could go any further and said, “Living Water may not be a perfect church, but we have lots of people who have been honest about who they are and what they struggle with. We have made it clear that we accept and welcome everyone because all of us have baggage.”

That spurred this post, which is somewhat my own response to the Robs of this world. I wholly agree with Laura about Living Water, though I know where Rob is coming from, even though my “old guy” years give me a different perspective. For what I would guess is the majority, there is the life we live outside of church, imperfect, flawed, sinful, and via the human condition we simply accept this, and just drudge forward. Rarely we change our ways, or even acknowledge our failures. Then there is the life we live at church, where we are baptized in Christ, eat the bread and drink the juice, act as a better Christian for an hour or two, and try to befriend people we don’t know and build a community.

So what’s with the double-agent lifestyle? Where is the accountability? Why can’t we be like Rob and others envision, where if we say we buy into it … we actually BUY into it? To err is human.

This made me recall a conversation I had with Chuck Russell regarding accountability groups. Essentially these are small groups where individuals hold each other accountable to a very high degree for living a good Christian life. Why are these groups not wildly popular in every church? I think it is because people don’t want that. It’s to effective! “I seriously have to give up my sinful ways behind closed doors and live *that* life? For the love of God that sounds boring!”

For the love of God, we turn away, and are loved regardless by His grace.

Our flaw may be small, only a seed, or it may be a full grown tree with deeply set roots. Christianity is a walk - not a switch that is turned on and off. We accept Christ as our savior, strive to overcome our weaknesses, but we do not change overnight.

How does today’s church affect our lives in practicality? It may start with that person in the mirror.

Well, I have to say I saw it coming. The Appian Way was slowly running its course, and I kept dreaming of one day setting up a blog of my own where I’m more apt, yet not guaranteed, to post my thoughts and musings on a more personal level. (We’ve yet to see if that’s really what this world needs.)

So here is the release of my very own blog! I have to say it was fun setting it up, and helping Clif get his set up in the process. I feel a sense of ownership with it now, which will hopefully make me a more prolific blogger.

Thanks to all those who have encouraged me to continue blogging.