well, here i am, sitting on my bed in atlanta, taking a look at the world from my latest vantage point. it still all feels a little surreal. i mean, only two weeks ago did i leave birmingham after youthworks debrief. which means that only two & a half weeks ago i was still a fully functional site director--hosting a group of 70 in Hyde County. experiencing a new level of sleep deprivation, living in a middle school, and interacting 24/7 with my amazing friends & fellow staff. and now i'm here. in a house in atlanta that is my own. today i went to the first day of grad school orientation. yesterday i had an interview for a job here (which actually helped me process a bit more through the YouthWorks experience--they kept asking me questions on it & I sure had plenty to say!). tomorrow we'll have to fight the Atlanta morning commute. next week--class begins! really, really am I back in school? i'm still not sure. i bet when i sit down with my first mound of reading--then perhaps it will feel real!
i cannot fully express how thankful i am that i participated in the leadership candler event back in the spring. from that experience, i have a great roommate (arden, for future reference). last night we went out to dinner with a group of 8 of us. today at orientation, i saw familiar faces again & again. it is so comforting to have a bit of built-in community here in this new place. it's so scary to pick up & try to dive into life in a new city because, more often than not, you're completely alone. making friends is possible, but it takes time. here, i've got a core group of friends from the get-go. maybe we'll be tight all three years at Candler, maybe we'll all find our own niche & group of friends elsewhere. but for now, at least, it is the hugest blessing to have friendly faces.
and let's see--the house! it's pretty amazing. i am mostly settled into my new room and it's nice to have a new environment. i also like moving in that it helps you downsize in some ways. right now, i know exactly where everything is & know that it's only stuff that i need (well, mostly). we have an amazing front porch, extremely well-furnished and well-decorated common areas, a kitchen with every gadget known to man (including a dishwasher that achieves such heat levels that it melted my youthworks water bottle :( not okay!!). we're in a cute neighborhood that is green & hilly & full of beautiful & eclectic homes. it feels so good to be in a house. and our third roommate/landlord, Courtney, seems really great. She's about 3 years older than me, and works in the area. She is super friendly & clean & organized I went to church with her on Sunday morning. She's quite the social butterfly, so it's almost the best of both worlds--we'll get to spend time with her around the house & when we plan little house dates, but it's also nice that we don't all 3 have to always be in each other's hair & spending every waking moment together. i'm sure it will eventually be nice to have someone outside of our Candler bubble to talk to about it all. i think things are really going to work out great.
speaking of church, the place i visited on sunday with Courtney is called Buckhead and it probably falls on the mega-church end of the spectrum. It is a satellite/daughter church/church plant of Andy Stanley's main campus in Alpharetta. The santuary space is the huge auditorium--no crosses or artwork of any kind, just a very neutral space. The worship band was amazing but we only sang two songs & it felt a little too rigid for me. In the past, when I have experienced this "rock band", super loud style of worship, there has been a feeling of complete abandoment among the worshippers. I didn't really feel that in this space (not a judgement & certainly not necessarily accurate of how anyone else was feeling) & it was just cut a little too short as well. There followed an amazing baptism ceremony of a 30-something couple, and a great sermon by Andy Stanley himself. Come to find out, however, that though he was slated to preach that day, he was broadcasted in. And they didn't just play a video up on the screens--they had a life-size version of the recording projected onto the stage space...almost as if it was supposed to look like he was really there. Weird. BUT nonetheless it was an amazing message. They're currently doing a series called "Losing Your Religion" and he preached on Acts 17, where Paul gives his famous Mars Hill discourse. Beautiful stuff. And I loved how he gave a great exegetical sermon--very tuned into the word itself, and referencing the Greek all over the place (quite inspirational for an incoming seminarian). His main point was that Paul was making it clear that Jesus did not come down to be another option on the list of religions or idols. Religion is man's way of seeking the divine, reaching out for the unknown--manifested in all the ways we see today, and in Paul's time, in all the temples and different gods that covered every base, so to speak. Yet God chose to end the process of man seeking the unknown through religion (since so much was off the mark) and came down to us, in the person of Jesus--God in the flesh, emmanuel.
So--GREAT teaching, but still a lot to figure out. One advantage of such a huge church is the amazing things they're able to do with community ministry. There is a (groan) "singles" ministry that actually seems pretty cool. You sign up & they intentionally stick you in a group with people you're likely to connect with. Then you just have several Sunday evening gatherings where the point is simply to meet & mingle. Christian speed dating? Perhaps--but a great way to meet people in a relatively safe way. There is also the opportunity to get plugged into more traditional small groups. So I'm sure I will visit there another couple of Sundays & possibly get hooked into those ministries. Depending on how I'm feeling, I've considered going to multiple churches on one Sunday (several I've looked at have night service anyway) so this "shopping" (another groan) process can go a little faster. But I suppose trusting in the Lord to lead me into the right place is the best option. I know that there is a community of faith here that I can belong to (the nice thing is I've already got one at Candler!)
Final updates:
-I really may have a touch of bronchitis--my whooping cough is quite fierce & wheezy. Nonetheless, I'm auditioning for the choir here next Tuesday. So excited!
-My dad got me a new computer for school as an early birthday present. It really is great & I can already see how much better & faster it works than the old one. But...I miss the old one. A familiar story: missing what is comfortable & familiar when CHANGE happens to bring along something new. It's just that all my favorite websites are preset over there, and my pictures are on the screen saver, and don't even get me started about trying to switch my iTunes library over.
-It feels a little weird to shower every day...without shower shoes on. But I think I'm slowly & surely acclimating back to real life post-YouthWorks.
I apologize that this is not a terribly poetic or thoughtful post--just a few updates on my new life here. Call me anytime to hear more--there is plenty more going on!
LORD, you have assigned me my portion & my cup;
you have made my lot secure.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.
I will praise the LORD, who counsels me.
Psalm 16:5-7
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