A Pleasant Epiphany

This is something that has been on my mind for a while and I had not realized that it was there until I read Drake's blog. He talked about reaching out to the people around you and how we cannot forget about these people. I am actually extremely happy right now! I am happy because I am submerged in a completely secular environment. At least 90% of the people I work with get drunk or high or are sleeping around and at first that bothered me. Now it doesn't I love hanging out with these people they are my friends. I know that you have to be careful when you are hanging out in that environment and I am not going to lie there are times that I stumbled but there isn't any other place I would want to be right now. It's not that my faith is tested every day but I love that I am not inside a safe little bubble. I just like hanging out with real people and I find that there are a lot of fake people out there. Especially the ones that are trapped inside the christian bubbles. I don't know who said it but one of the most real quotes I have ever heard is "there is no growth in comfort and no comfort in growth" I am happy I am not comfortable right now. I think that the church nowadays (not all but a lot) need to pull there heads out of their butts and realize what Jesus was about. A lot of people that are in the church need to get more uncomfortable and take risks and just do as Jesus did. At first I thought that I was really falling away from my faith hanging out with these people in bars and clubs afterwork but now I have a lot of close friends who I can share more and more with. I dunno if any of this makes sense but I really do think the christians in general need to get more uncomfortable.

One more thing I would really like to give thanks to God for coming through for me tonight. For the first time ever I had a few minutes before the rush hit. I prayed and asked for strength and speed and boy was I moving. I encourage you to remember that he will grant us the desires of our hearts and let me tell you I have never moved like that before in my life. This is Andrew "The Blur" Newman signing off.

"All that we call human history--money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery--[is] the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy."
CS Lewis - Mere Christianity

As Iron

I am writing tonight out of frustration yet again. I do not know why I am so frusterated but I am. The major part of it is financial frusteration. Everytime it seems that I am in the clear and will barely have enough money for school my knees of confidence are taken out from under me. I think that it is God trying to make me stronger and trust in him more but I am still having a difficult time deciding where he wants me to work for the next six months so I need your guys prayer. I also want to thank and praise God for these trials. Without him we are nothing and I believe that we have to be constantly reminding ourselves of that. I also may be going offline in order to save more money. In addition, I am pleased to say that I will soon be finished my first painting which I am going to go and work on right now. So good night and godspeed my brothers and sisters.

Decisions and Motivation

I have been meaning to blog for a while but I could not quite grasp what I wanted to blog about. With the help of my good friend Anton I have had an epiphany but with that epiphany comes frustration. This frustration rears its ugly head in my decision making and daily motivation.

I admit it...I had stopped going to church again. I realize now that it was the wrong choice but I did not want to be at Central Baptist any more. What had initially attracted me to the church was removed when I returned in the fall. Therefore, I hate to be all consumer's about it but I just did not want to be there. I chose to work on Sundays instead. Of course I still was a small group leader so I kind of had church on Wednesday nights. Now I realize that I also need church for myself on Sundays.

The epiphany came when Anton and I finally had a chance to hang out. It had taken us 3 months to finally hook up again since Peru but I finally had a Saturday night off so we went out for some drinks and food and I got to meet some of his friends. The best part was that he invited me to his church the next morning and I thought why the heck not. It would be nice to check his church out just to see what was happening.

I am not going to lie...It was a little awkward at first; however, I do strive off awkward. It was mildly awkward because for the first time in my life I was a cultural minority. When Anton introduced me to the only other white guy there I was surprised to find out that it was their pastor Rick. Long story short, I have been going there for 2 weeks and I am loving every minute of it. It is the first church that I have been to where the people are actually interested in you. There are an extremely welcoming family of God and they have set the bar for what other churchs should strive for. The other pro about this church is that the service starts at 9:30 so that means I can go and play hockey with the guys from work at 12. THANK YOU GOD!!!

The other thing that I love about the church is that God is using the pastor to hit me right where I need to be hit. God is just using him to tell me how to live out this phase in my life and I love him for that. However, this is where the frustration comes into play.

Whats frustrating about decision making is what to choose. I am not talking about little things like what to have for dinner I am talking about big things like where does God want me too work in order to save the money for Capernwray or what does God want me to do with my life after Capernwray? (I've been watching a lot of Scrubs and a doctor would be cool!) There is the stuff that I know I want to do but because I am not totally close to God right now I do not know if those are the decisions that he wants for me.

The other thing in my life that is really frustrating me right now is self motivation. How do people do it? I have a big list if things that I want to accomplish that day before work but instead I sleep in then get up and watch like 5 episodes of Scrubs or Arrested Development(I love Bittorrent) and before you know it it's time to go to work. Then I feel like a retard and completely useless. A lot of the things on the list are things that I want to do too like paint or learn guitar but instead I just sit my fat ass down in front of the computer.

Pastor Rick was talking about miracles and how to prepare for them. I am starting to prepare myself for a couple miracles and I was wondering if you guys could pray for them too. One is that God will provide me with the money that I need for Capernwray without having to go to a place like Fort Mac to cook at a camp. Second is that he gives me the strength and energy to motivate myself to be more useful in the kingdom of God. And finally that I do not drift away from him again because he is the best friend anyone could ever have.

Thanks for listening to me blab. You guys have to check out this Chinese church though its super cool I love it. And you will have to come play some ice hockey sometime. Oh and if any of the Scheinbiens are reading this...DAVE AND JOHN NEED TO MOVE TO EDMONTON!!! Kyle is moving out on Saturday in case you guys were wondering...yippeee!...jk...