Without slamming well intentions but terribly misguided brothers and sisters. This is what we are dealing with in the Bay Area. In my opinion we not only have the most secular minds in the entire country, but we also have some very simple minded in the Christian Community. No we did not partake in this event that is described at the following link, and when I read the material they made it sound like our church would burn down if we didn't show up. Jokes on them we don't even meet at a church...we meet at a synagogue. Please take a moment to look, my last comment is it doesn't look like we are being known by our love.


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/03/25/MNG6OHU6RR1.DTL

Learning to be a minister in Oakland...that is a very compound statement so let me break it down. Learning to be a minister. And learning to be a minister in Oakland. are both very interesting experiences. Today I feel I am was at an event that I am learning more of the second. Every two weeks a group called Oakland Pastors get together at a prominate African-American Church in east Oakland. The racial breakdown of the group is great. A few hispanic ministers, one asian, three white, and all the rest are African American Pastors. Young and old are there alike, though mostly old, and all of us seem to be fighting in our understanding of how God is at work in our city and what are part is in it all.

This week the mayor was supposed to show up and follow up on a talk he had with the pastors regarding violence in our city. Just this year alone we have already had 31 deaths, for a city of about on half million that number is staggering. That is why Oakland has been one of the leaders in deaths per capita for cities in the United States. As you can imagine the mayor not showing up to such an event was an extreme smack in the face. The person I felt the worst for was his press secretary who came without knowing the mayor was expected. Boy did it get wild. Those who seem to already have a disposition to throw fire especially on political situations threw fire, and needless to say as a stick in the mud Presbyterian I felt uncomfortable, not to mention that I am white. So I sat and prayed. And prayed. Eventually wise, cooler heads prevailed. These pastors love their city, they hate seeing young people, especially young african american men die for no good reason. There is an incredible amount of passion for this city. I feel it and I have only lived here three years. I have only been ministering that long. Many of these men have been born here and have struggled for the sake of the gospel for years. I don't have a bow to wrap all of this up in. I don't know what it means to be a minister..much less one in Oakland. The problems that we are facing are daunting for anyone. that is why I am led to pray. And I wish I did that better.

Carnage in the blogging world I guess is not uncommon. I remember soon after I started writing in my blog I mentioned a conversation that I had with someone on a fundraising trip. The person read my blog, lovingly confronted me, and I eventually removed the entry because it was hurtful. So I am not saying that I am beyond doing this.

It made me really sad, hurt, and is hard for me not to dwell on it (hence why I am writing out my thoughts as a way of getting it down and continuing on) when someone who my family has attempted, perhaps poorly at times, to love wrote unloving things about us on a blog. This person I thought very wonderfully confronted us and let us know how we had failed. We apologized, heard no response, and then got categorized as stupid Christians on our blog. This I guess is what people do to each other in a fallen world.

A part of me was tempted to post the email that I wrote asking forgiveness (excluding names and important details of course), another part wants to protect my wife and get mad for I know her heart and she never meant harm, me on the other hand I am a mess and need to be confronted on how I love people. But instead of any of that I am just writing a blog. Hopefully not doing what I feel was done to me, but since this friend is one of the two people that read my blog I do it with the awareness that she might read it.

Karin had some amazing words for me last week. It was wild. At the beginning of the week the back bounced a check that shouldn't have been bounce. By Wed. I was sick. Thursday my laptop died, and Friday our car broke down. I told one friend on Friday that if I had a dog someone would be over our house kicking it. And these are just the things that we are able to share that happened.

At some point on Friday Karin said to me words I did not want to hear, couldn't even take in at the moment they were said, yet God allowed them to sink deeply to my heart. Karin simply said, "Perhaps you are to be glorifying God through your suffering right now." On Saturday our lacrosse team, that I coach, lost three games. The last one was by over twenty goals. The wheels had come off and yet Karins words were in my ears and heart. That night I was able to write a sermon that I desperately needed to hear. God is good, all the time, not just when things are going right.

There are simply not enough hours in a day. There are things swimming around in my head that I have to express. There have been a recent number of people being affected by what they post on the internet. Some college students have been kick out of school, some high school students were denied admission after writing bad things about a college they applied to. Often I think that my posts are only read by the two friends that I have, yet just the other day a kid on my lacrosse team told me that he googled me!?! Very interesting huh, that all of our lives are out there for any person to be checking out. One again as followers of Jesus we must be sure to live unto him in every area of my life. I cannot seperate my personal opinions expressed on my blog from my ministry as a pastor. Hopefully if there seems to be any disconnect for people it would lead them into further conversation with me. I would imagine that they issues and thoughts I would have as a pastor in Oakland would be significantly different then someone in other parts of the country yet at the same time I am working to apply the Gospel the same.

Anyway I don't know if this makes any sense at all, but I am fighting off a virus that really has beaten me up.

Transgender Person Arrested Over Restroom

Check out the link here, http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/03/01/D8G2PLHO0.html

Recently I have had to think through many issues related to transgender folks. Both as a part of doing ministry in a general way in the Bay Area, but also specifically within the life of our church. And while I understand there are 'laws' or sometimes even rules that shape our public life that need to be upheld, can you imagine what it must be like to have to think through something as simple as where you are going to go to the bathroom in a day? And honestly while this is difficult this issue is one of the least harmful for those in the transgender community. All over the country and even here in the Bay Area transgender people are killed.

I know some will read this and think, well that's what you get when you 'choose' to live that way. For one lets pray about that, talk about that, and leave it to science and faith to wrestle through the legitimacy of choice in regard to sexual identity and gender. What I am emphasizing is dignity of life. It amazes me that some can so easily use that saying in regards to an unborn fetus and yet when it comes to an adult, who may be making things more difficult for themselves in your view, you throw out the fact that they should be treated with dignity. Wow, do churches need to be the first place where gender specific bathrooms are done away with? That may sound stupid or Alley McBealish, but just make them private rooms, rather than fecal troughs. (Really I just thought that was a fun image and fun way to describe most of our current bathrooms:)

What does it mean for us to empathize with those who are the most on the outskirts of our communities? For some reading this you may never meet a transgender person, and that is okay. Today I want you just to think about what it would be like for you if you had to think through where you were going to go to the bathroom today, and while in the bathroom what it would be like to fear that someone would shame, harm or even kill you just because you were there.