What is Church?

Here I go thinking again? We have been studying as a church this Treasures of the Transformed Life study thing. It has been pretty good. This week we were looking at "presence" - the 2nd of 4 commitments people make when they join a United Methodist Church. (Prayers, Presence, Gifts, and Service). Also (thanks to Joey Koskie :) ) I have a new book by Alexander Schmemann I started reading (this may end up on my of top 4 books to read)So now I find myself tonight asking questions....
What is church? What is it really supposed to look like? I spend a great deal of my time creating and developing media that is intended to help connect people with the Gospel of Christ in worship. We have this huge awesome facility that we worship in and have sunday school and small groups in. We do these great studies as a church, we have a bunch of things going on. We support a bunch of great causes. Start and do a bunch of programs. I think of the family of God in the old testament following God in the pillar of fire and smoke. I think of the disciples having meals together with Jesus and feeding 5k people, and teaching them. I think of the Acts 2 church praying, eating, studying and serving together and taking care of each other's needs. I think of the needs of the world, I think of the deep needs of this Ruston community of which I belong. I think of the deep needs within this church family of which I belong. Are we really being Christ to this world or even to each other?
I don't want to start sounding like I want to be some typical Gen X kid (is 33 years old still considered a kid?) that wants to rebel against the systems in place. Or sounding like I think that the church in general (or my church specific for that matter) is a miserable failure. I see great things that God is doing and has done. I see how I wouldn't be living the life I have if it weren't for the followers of Christ before me and with me paving the way. I don't want to undermine what God is doing either.
I just can't help catching these visions of life being more than going to worship on Sundays and reading my bible during the week. I keep catching this vision of the church really being a people that love each other. Radically trying to take care of each other and meet each others real needs. Which frees us all up to be more effective at meeting the deep needs of others. Not that we aren't doing this at all, I just see it being possible on a completely larger scale. I feel we have the power granted to us through Christ to dramatically change the world around us. To impact the lives around us in ways that would change everything. Are these visions of grandeur, or delusion, or of some mystic utopia? I just keep feeling like we are just experiencing one minuscule bit of what "church" is supposed to be. It seems sometimes we have a church that people come to, and then they go back to their lives. I by no means would want to have everyone at the church all the time, but why does there seem to be such a separation of our "sacred" life and our "real" life?
I am stopping here because this is becoming increasingly more of a collection of rambling thoughts than I should probably allow myself to post here, but since I started it, I figured I would just let it be.

HELP WANTED: Reading List

I am doing that Life Development Plan. See my earlier post.
One of my goals I have set is for my "Intellectual life"
Read 4 (new to me) spiritually challenging books by October 2008.

I want and need your help. Would you suggest 4 challenging books that you think would be essential to my spiritual journey? So what would be the top 4 books you would suggest to take me deeper in my understanding. Who is God? What is the Church? Who am I? I want to read books that try to answer the hard questions.

Please leave your comments with your top 4 books and why you think they would be essential reading.

Sports weekend for the Kids

Ethan had his first Soccer game. They tied 3 to 3. Caleb had his Cross Country meet.
They both did really good.


Ethan's Soccer Game Pics


Caleb's Cross Country

Chazown!

http://ldp.lifechurch.tv/jsp/main.jsp

I recently went back to this site that I had been using regularly, but hadn't been to in a while. If you hadn't seen it, I think it is really worth a look. You sign up, there is a spiritual gifts inventory you can take, identify you core values, make a vision statement, work on goals for your life, and a place to do a prayer journal.
It was refreshing to see what goals I have made progress on and the ones I haven't. So here is a glimpse at me and what I have come up with from this website. If for no other reason than to encourage you to try the site.
My top 4 core values:Creativity, Dedication, Encouragement, and Enthusiasm
My top 3 spiritual Gifts:Exhortation(the site describes this as the gift of counseling and encouraging others to become all that God wants them to be), Hospitality and Shepherding
Here is my Vision statement: To be a Christ following/honoring husband and father that uses media and art to communicate the truths of Christ to the World and to my neighbors.
Here are some of my dreams: Go to Italy, Grand Canyon, see shuttle launch(at the rate I am going it may not be the shuttle, but the next generation of manned space vehicles), Be a Bicycling Family that enjoys biking at different places all over the world.Die Old with my wife serving Christ until there is no more life in my body. See both my boys living lives pursuing hard after the will of God. Loving God with all of their heart soul mind and strength. Retire Wealthy so we can LIVE and GIVE!
Here are 2 of my goals I had written: Read Through the Bible in 1 year
Ride my bike regularly setting up times to ride with friends.

Hope you find your Chazown!

Muddin

The boys (Caleb, Ethan, Reed, Trevor, and today Garrett Decuir was visiting) wanted to go to the woods and play. Of course it would be Caleb and Ethan that didn't want to leave any of the mud in the woods. So they did their best to bring as much back. The other boys somehow magically came back relatively clean compared to Ethan and Caleb. Trevor was a close third, but couldn't compare to the mud brothers.

Ethan's first book

(if the video doesn't work, click here)

Ethan 'wrote' this book, and every time he 'reads' it to us it is a different story. So I pulled out my cell phone and recorded him reading it, scanned the pictures and here you go. Ethan's first book is now 'published' to the web.

hope you enjoy.

Fun with a scanner

Ethan and I were playing around with the scanner tonight, and I thought I would share the results. Click the pic to see the rest.

Caleb's Got Runnin' skills

Caleb had his 2nd Cross Country meet today. He came in 12th. I had to help make sure the kids didn't take the wrong path, so I got to see Caleb around halfway through his race. His flat feet are hurting him, so we will be talking to some doctors to find out what to do. Jill said Caleb was saying "ouch" as he cross the finish.
I am so proud of Caleb running so hard, even when it hurt.

(If the video doesn't work, click here)

Convertin'

Alright, so I recorded some audio of Ethan making up a story. The problem was I used my cell phone to record the audio. I wanted to do some simple editing and when I pulled up the file on my computer I discovered it was recorded in this .qcp file format (totally new to me) and my audio software didn't recognize this at all. Well with a few seconds on google I found this site.
http://media-convert.com/
I was very leary at first, but it is an ad supported website and it simply converted my files for me. Very simple. Just thought I needed to share.

So stay tuned for, you may get to hear Ethan read his story to you.

Ethan is trying out Soccer

Check out Ethan and his soccer skills, and Jill helping out Coach James.