1000 Page views!

I just realized that my page view counter is at 999. That’s awesome. That means that the very next person to read this thing is going to be the one-thousandth. Is it really that big a milestone on the internet? No. However, it’s the first time something of mine has hit it, so I’m excited. It would be really awesome if the first person to read this comments on it and says who they are. In case you’re wondering how to tell if you’re that person, if you see a comment when you read this, then you’re not the first. Even if you get on and see that my page views are at 1001 or something, go ahead and comment. It’ll mean that the actual thousandth person is a bum and a loser who skipped out and you’ll be the first COOL person to read it.

Project Impact: Catching Up Halfway Through, The Heart Attitudes

1) Put the goals and interests of others above your own.

2) Live an honest, open life before others.

3) Give and receive spiritual correction.

4) Clear up relationships.

5) Participate in the ministry.

6) Support the work financially.

7) Follow spiritual leadership within Scriptural limits.

I know that I’ve talked about and covered the heart attitudes (also called the “relational values”) before, but I’m going to talk about them again. The heart attitudes were developed by Harold Bullock and the other people that started Hope Community Church in the late 70s. Their goal was to find the things that makes churches fail. What they found were two things. The first was a series of things sometimes referred to as the “one anothers.” This list is found (basically) by doing a search through the Bible (mostly the New Testament) of that phrase. You end up with commandments and advice on how to interact with one another, as well as the consequences of NOT doing these things. The second thing they did was take a look at the early church and what things were considered of extreme importance to manage a church. Harold and the others sat down and processed this list and synthesized a list of seven values. The first four have to do with one’s relationship with other people. The last three deal with one’s relationship with the church. All seven are scripture-based. At churches where they are implemented, they are considered extremely important. When becoming an official member at Hope, for example, I had to enter into a covenant with the church where I agreed to follow these things in my life. They even had me sign my name to it. It is a HUGE deal.

All of this sounds a bit extreme, but these seven values have totally changed my life, even without my being aware. Looking back, I now know that my parents worked extremely hard to live up to these standards. I whole-heartedly believe that the heart attitudes are one of the primary reasons I have such a good relationship with the rest of my family. Time and again I have heard testimonies from people about how earth-shattering it has been in their lives when they really started living these things.

One of the things to remember is that the heart attitudes are not a list of seven actions you have to do. They are exactly what they say they are: heart attitudes. It’s more than behavior, it’s really changing the way your heart works and functions. For example, on number six, “support the work financially,” it isn’t about simply the act of tithing regularly. The idea behind the sixth heart attitude is making it an attitude to really understand why you are giving and to have an honest desire to worship God through it. I’ll get more into attitudes later.

As I’ve mentioned before, we’ve been spending a great deal of time studying them. Over the years, they have grown outside of Hope. I’ve found that I run into them everywhere. I can really see the difference in the way people treat each other at these churches as opposed to others I’ve been to. I’m not saying that these other places are bad. I’m just saying that there is a noticeable difference. At some point I am going to type out my notes and then talk about each one, though it may not be until the end of the summer.

Real quick, I want to share an example of a heart attitude in action. When we first got our notebooks, they were not in the best shape. Many were missing things and they were in terrible order. Some of the assignments were set for the wrong dates and all kinds of things were messed up. After about a week, Jon got everyone together and said that they were going to gather up all the notebooks from everyone and take them apart and really fix them and make them right. He said they they’re trying to teach us to live and to work with excellence, and that this was a bad example. What he said next was important. He and Erin  apologized to us and asked our forgiveness. This is from HA 4. It is just so important to clear up your relationships with people in any situation. They felt that they had done wrong by us and our forgiveness was needed, and so they asked it publicly of all of us. One of the things I’ve been learning is that it isn’t the big things, but the little things that are important. If you blow off the little things, then the enemy is able to creep into you slowly, like gradually dialing up the heat on a pot of water with your hand in it; by the time you notice the difference in heat, you’ve already been burned.

Project Impact: Catching Up Halfway Through, Weekly Schedule

I am bad at this. No, seriously. I’m really bad. I am determined to catch up on everything up to the present. Take a deep breath. Here we go, feet first.

Each week is broken down like so:

Monday is the leaders meeting, so we’re on our own that night. Tuesdays we meet with our “community group.” Since there are 2 guys groups and 2 girls groups, they have us split in two, one group of each gender with one of the opposite, and every Tuesday we have dinner together, alternating who cooks, and then have a small group meeting where we usually talk about our homework from the past week. After that we separate into our regular rooms and do “accountability time.” This is where we go review the verses for the week and do other accountability-related stuff.

Wednesdays we have a speaker come and talk on one of the seven heart attitudes. The first week was an overview and then each week we’ve covered one at a time in great detail. I’ve really enjoyed this part, in particular when Dr. Nathan Lewis came and spoke, but I’ll get into that later.

Thursday is “evangelism training.” We either have a guest speaker, or we’ve been watching a series of videos made by Bill Hybels, the pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago. One of the big things we’ve been focusing on is relational evangelism, which is evangelism through building relationships with people (as opposed to handing out fliers on street corners or holding huge outreach events). It has all been really, really interesting. One thing we’ve been hearing a lot is taking your own interests or hobbies and using them for evangelical purposes. An example for me would be to find a role-playing game group consisting of non-Christians, developing friendships and relationships with the people involved and trying to lead them to Christ. Some of the “techniques” we’ve been learning and honing are things like cutting the Christian jargon or giving your testimony.

Fridays and Saturdays are TBA, either being free nights or there might be some group activity. For example, we went out to the drive-in and saw Get Smart one week.

Sundays we have church, and then are typically free. Most of us sleep.

One of the big focuses has been learning life skills. It’s kind of like a boot camp for what life will be like after college. The idea is to learn to work 9-5 during the week and balance that with our personal ministries and with learning and all that good stuff.

Project Impact: Catching Up Halfway Through, The Notebook

At out very first gathering, the introductory barbecue, we were each given a notebook that had all kinds of wonderful stuff in it. For one thing, it had lots of miscellaneous stuff like contact sheets, schedules and calendars. There were some essays about evangelism and some outlines on various topics. Finally, the meat and potatoes, our weekly assignments.

Each week we have homework we have to get done by the following Tuesday night. First, we have a set of verses to memorize, two a week. One has to do with the heart attitude we’re studying that week, and the other one is just a good verse to know. Next, we’re working through a book called It Came From Within by Andy Stanley. I really love this book, but I’ll talk about it later. What I WILL say is that it’s been a matter of discipline for me to only read what I’m supposed to. I really love to read, and so I end to just sit down and knock out half a book in one sitting. Unfortunately, while this is a great habit for school, it’s terrible for any kind of self-help book, where it’s important to really digest a bit at a time. It’s been hard to only read one chapter at a time, but it’s something I’m trying to really work on.

The next thing we have to do is read the Bible. The first four weeks we read all of John. Now we’re working our way through Proverbs. Finally, we have a third book that we have several things to do it. It’s called A Call to Joy. It is a book for brand-spankin’-new Christians. It has three separate sections. First there is a section you’re supposed to do as part of a small group. Then there is a series on some basic tenets of a Christian life, such as the importance of having a quiet or scripture memory. Finally they have a set of thirty or so example quiet times to read though. This book seemed odd to me at first because everything in it is so basic. It covers things like, “how do I know I’m saved?” For a while I didn’t really understand why we were going through it, but then I realized one half of the answer and got the other half from Daniel. The reason is that A) it’s stuff you really needed to have worked out in your life and B) We need to have a firm understanding of these things before we try to teach them to someone else.

In addition to this stuff, we have some essays we have to read which are (mostly) included in the notebook. Finally, we have a stack of CDs that all have sermons and lectures we have to listen to. Many of the essays and the things on the CDs are optional, but a great many are not. Typically there is one essay and one or two lectures or sermons to listen to. Our assignments for each week are all arranged thematically, so that they largely coincide with the topics we discuss on Wednesday and Thursday nights.

Anger

I was going through some old pictures and I came across one of Jill I always really liked. All of a sudden I felt this wave of pure anger. For about a half of a second I was angrier than I have been at anyone or anything in a very long time. I don’t even know where it came from. It was shocking to me that I felt that way. As soon as I closed the window it went away. I prayed real quick for God to give me peace.

Project Awesome: Weeks 1-3: Employment

Wow. Ok, so I am wayyyy behind on writing. I’m going to try to get caught up before I fall asleep.

Monday through Friday of the first two weeks was spent job-searching. It has been extremely frustrating because apparently the economy really does truly suck right now. From what I have gathered, Projecters in previous years have not had the tremendous difficulty in finding jobs that we have. The Costa Mesa group did ok, but the Riverside economy is apparently suffering more than the rest of California. In particular I went to apply at Borders only to be basically laughed at. The guy there said that every Borders in Southern California is under a hiring freeze. When I heard that I officially knew it was serious.

I’m not going to go into tremendous detail about the job hunt. I will say that I personally probably filled out and dropped off somewhere in the range of 30-50 applications at basically every place of business I could find within a reasonable distance from CBU. These locals ran the gamut from fast food to clothing outlets of all kinds to retail of every imaginable sort to fine dining to grocery stores. We applied for every position imaginable at each place, including cashier, CSR, waiter, bagger and warehouse work. One thing that is difficult is that our schedule is limited. We can only work until 5 PM and we cannot work weekends. We are also only here until July 31st. There were a significant number of places that would be willing to work around two of those issues, but not all three. Still, I think everyone was surprised at how difficult it was to find work. We only have three people out of the eighteen of us that have regular, full-time jobs. Three girls actually were unable to find work at all, which technically meant they were supposed to have been sent home, but the Erin, John and Shane decided that volunteer work (like at a shelter or tutoring or something) could qualify as work. The reasoning behind this is that the purpose of us working is not to make money. The purpose is to learn to do things with excellence, balance our 9-5 job/school with our ministry and to have access to people we can develop relationships with for evangelism purposes. The one condition of this, however, is that anyone who does volunteer work in lieu of having an actual job is not allowed to say, “I can’t pay for that.” It’s an admission that you are “ok” financially and money isn’t an issue. This means things that are part of Project itself, like gas to get to an event or something. I talked to one guy who said he thinks they should be sent home. When I asked about it he said, “Well, I know it sounds cold-hearted, but maybe there is a reason God didn’t allow them to find a job. Maybe God has other plans for them this summer and they are supposed to be somewhere else.”

This was a compelling argument to me, since I had been thinking about that very thing before I left to come up here. I had started having doubts about whether this is where God wanted me to come here. Elise said, “Well, if He doesn’t want you there, you won’t find a job and you’ll get sent home.”

I told this guy the conditions behind them being allowed to stay, and that it wasn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card for them, which he said did change things somewhat.

Anyway, I did find a job… sort of. I found a Blockbuster in town that would be willing to take me and give me a couple shifts each week. Unfortunately, I still have not started working yet. I was supposed to start this past Friday, which was a long time to begin with. Unfortunately, we discovered that there were some financial things going on that weren’t going to work out quite right, so we had to go in and arrange my employment up here a different way in the computer. Basically, The way it was originally going to work was that I was going to be listed as “borrowable” from my home store in Fort Worth, where Bill is the manager. For all intents and purposes I was going to be “picking up a shift” but for two months. That was how it was going to work out in the computer. This is very nice because it means not only less, but no red tape in getting me working up here, as opposed to a full transfer. Well this past week the thought occurred to me that my pay in FW, $7.65/hour is 35 cents less than minimum wage in California, which is $8/hour. The way Blockbuster handles employees being borrowed at other stores is that their paycheck still goes through their home store, which means that a couple of things might happen. The first is that I would just get stuck with $7.65 while working in California, since, for tax reasons, I would be technically employed in Texas. The second is that
They would have to bump up my pay to at least minimum wage since it’s, well, minimum wage. If that were to be the case, then I would either have just gotten a ginormous raise for when I go back to Texas at the end of July, or they would have to drop my pay back again.

Well, I called Matt, the manager of the store here, and explained my revelation.

(That was kind of a funny story in and of itself. When I called the store, Summer, the ASM, was working. I asked to talk to Matt and she said that he was there, but that it was his day off and he wasn’t on the clock and that she could handle the problem. After explaining the whole situation there was a brief pause on the phone before she said, “I’ll go get Matt.”)

He said that it was indeed a very good question and that he was going to have to make some phone calls to figure it out. Flash forward to Friday when I show up to my first scheduled shift. Joe, who had given me a ride, dropped me off and I walked in the door. Summer sees me and says, “Oh. You.”

This is a bad sign already.

“Um. We weren’t able to get ahold of you because we couldn’t find your number, but you’re not going to be able to work today.”

Apparently, there was no easy answer to my dilemma and Matt’s bosses had said that would have to transfer up for the summer. Oh well. Unfortunately, This means even longer before I can work and start getting paychecks, which I desperately need. I’m pretty much broke at the moment and in fact am in debt up to my eyeballs.

So I was going to transfer. This was not as easy as I thought it was going to be. Corporate apparently just switched to a new company and system for handling intra-corporate employment… stuff. This change was just last week. One thing this change means is that anytime somebody moves to another store or get promoted to a new position, they have to fill out and put in an application online. No problem. I have filled out literally dozens of applications, both online and IRL, in the past few weeks, and one more isn’t going to hurt. I get onto the website and poke around through the menus. I find the correct store and position I’m “applying” for and begin the process. Sadly, it became evident that in the week since this new system had been implemented not all of the bugs had been worked out. Add to that the fact that there is no visible tech support number for the website and you get a recipe for disaster and much wasted time. It was not until today (Monday), actually, that I was able to get the application in. I’m currently waiting for Matt to call me and tell me it’s all processed and that I can start work.

A couple of the guys got jobs at a place called Vector Marketing. There, they will be selling Cutco knives. This is well and good (Cutco is a respected brand) except that three of the four do not have cars. As they are assigned appointments, they have to be able to drive around town all day. Supposedly they have it worked out to use other people’s cars, but I foresee a day when schedules will collide and somebody, somewhere, isn’t going to make it to work, whatever that may be. Chuck is excited, and he’ll probably do well as a salesperson, as will Joe and Marcel, but I’m concerned about Brad. It doesn’t really seem like his kind of things (though I could be wrong) and he certainly seems to want to be doing something else. He’s still hoping that another place he applied at will hire him.

At this point we are not supposed to be spending time looking for work. Whatever we’re doing, that’s what we’re doing. If we have a preexisting interview already scheduled, like I do, then that’s allowed, but job-searching is over.

If we are working less than 40 hours a week, then we have to make up the extra time serving somewhere. At both CIV and OCC they put notices in the weekly bulletins saying that if anyone has yard work, painting, babysitting or anything similar that needs done, to let us know. For example, I spent the morning today dealing with Blockbuster and then went and did some gardening/maintenance for a woman named Jill that goes to one of the churches. She’s injured and can’t bend over to do this stuff herself, and her homeowners association has been pestering her to get some of this stuff done. A couple of guys washed some cars last week, a few more did some clerical work for OCC and one guy babysat one of the pastor’s kids.

Beyond all of this, anything else is just details. I have an interview at California Pizza Kitchen tomorrow at 4PM. That’s actually really encouraging. When I talked to the guy there, he said, “well, we’re hiring, but it’s only for a limited time slot that probably wouldn’t help you much. We’re only looking for people for the day shift, till 5PM”

Hmm… you know, I think I just might be able to manage that.

Statement

I don’t know what is up with me and my attraction to impossible women.

Dream

Had the weirdest dream last night. I dreamed that Jill all of a sudden said she wanted to get back together. I recall that a lot happened, but I don’t know the details. I do recall being skeptical, though. There was also something where I was given some sort of ultimatum to decide or something. Tarren was involved for some odd reason. Don’t remember a whole lot.

I guess it’s not really that odd that I have this dream. I honestly haven’t thought about Jill much at all in the past month or two until the other day when she IMed me on yahoo. It’s just weird to me that it (meaning Jill) stuck with me so much this time. Enough to warrant a dream, anyway.

I do remember when I first got to California that she popped into my mind. I decided a while ago that if she ever decided she wanted to get back together (not that I think she would), she would have to do something drastic. We’re talking “Say Anything” kind of drastic. Literally. She would pretty much have to show up on my doorstep to convince me. Anyway, in the first couple days I was here, I at one point recall the thought popping into my head, “hm. I’m not so far away now.”

By no means am I expecting anything. I’m not even sure I want anything to happen.

It always kind of bothered me that I knew I could never have expected anything like that from Jill when we were dating, even when things were going their very best. I never wanted to admit it myself, but I think I knew in my heart that she would never do anything huge for me. I’m not saying she never did anything for me or just totally disregarded me. I’m just saying that I think I knew, without openly knowing, the limit of her love.

Girls Are Dumb #17

So Jill keeps doing this thing where she calls me or IMs me or emails me or something. We talk very briefly, say for a day or two, and then she splits. She reminds me of a timid little chipmunk that you’re trying give some granola. Or something. Anyway, she always ends with the statement, rephrased each time, but basically the same thing, which is, “this feels weird and it makes me feel uncomfortable and/or guilty.” It’s become a regular enough thing that I don’t really even register it anymore. It’s, “oh look, Jill said hi” and then “oh look, Jill is gone again.”

This most recent time was just a few days ago. What bothered me this time, though, was that she said she was feeling guilty like it was my fault. Um… ok. Yeah Jill. It’s totally my fault that you cheated on me and slept with this other guy and then left it up to him to break up with me for her via vague threats over the internet. RIght. Totally my fault. I have done my best to not even mention any of that for fear of scaring her off prematurely. That part is interesting because it means that she starts thinking about it all on her own, without prompting from me. Honestly, I’m over it. It just frustrates me that problems in our relationship (a relationship which is supposedly non-existent, yet still keeps bubbling up) are always my fault and never hers. Personally, I would love to talk to her because she was one of my best friends for a long, long time and I miss her, but I’m not going to involve myself in her life emotionally, even as a friend, until she decides to take it seriously.

It also frustrates me to watch her flop around like a fish out of water. If she would only take a step back from her own life (which I admit is difficult for anyone) and get some perspective. Time and again I see her talking about her frustrations with life and with her beau, and none of it is her fault. I’m not saying everything is, but even statistically, somethings are going to be your own doing, no matter who you are. She is stuck knee-deep in muck and it’s so sad to watch, especially when it’s someone you care about. She can’t even decide what she wants, whether to climb out or sit down and accept her fate. She seems perpetually like she’s going to just keep sinking, inch by inch. People would help her if she’d let them.

Project Awesome: Glossary

(note: may be occasionally updated with new information)

These are the people and the small groups of Project Impact ‘08: RIverside

Leaders: Erin Gillum and Jonathan (Jon) Ricert

Oh Yeah!: Daniel Funderburk (leader), John Mark Anderson, Brad Meinen, myself.

The Dark Side: Marcel Ficklin (leader), Joe Kelly, Charles Lewis

The Morning Glories: Tie Sharber (leader), Chelsea Enochs, Tane’ Miller, Danielle Johnson

_____: Valerie Rangel (leader), Patricia White, Abigail Blackford, Amanda Lambert, Valerie Hall

Terms and Acronyms:

CIV – Church in the Valley, Randy Lanthripe pastor, a plant of Hope Church, started just over 20 years ago.

OCC – Orange Crest Church,  Josh De La Rosa pastor, a plant of CIV, started in February.

Projecters – what I will refer to the members and participants of Project Impact ‘08 as.

CBU – California Baptist University, where we are living, in on-campus apartments.