Mudshot Eyes

We’ve been back in the states now for about a week, and have just begun to feel like we are catching up from being gone for two weeks in England and Estonia. However, the trip was worth every second of jet lag! The first portion of our trip was in England, with Krista’s parents. We then travelled to Estonia, where we enjoyed a few days with Brian and Renee Alex.

Below are two galleries of pictures from our trip. The first is all England, and the second is all Estonia. For more on our trip, go through the pictures and read the descriptions.

Once you’ve viewed the England pictures, click HERE to get to the Estonia pics.

Once you’ve viewed all pics, you can go home here.

ADDENDUM: The slideshow feature isn’t working. To view all the pictures, click on the England or Estonia gallery, and then click the first thumbnail. This will bring up a larger view.

England

Our time in England was spent with Krista's parents, who helped us see plently of the sights, including Oxford University, Windsor Castle, Blenheim Palace, Stonehenge, and London.

20 Photos

Estonia

These pictures are from the part of the trip where we visited our friends Brian and Renee Alex in Estonia. They and their two girls are there as missionaries, but will be coming back to the US for missionary training in July. We had a wonderful time with them and loved seeing Estonia.

16 Photos

If you’ve been unsuccessful in reaching us lately, it’s because Krista and I have been two weeks in Europe, half of which was a mission trip to Estonia where our friends Brian and Renee Alex are serving. I’ll write more about that in the next few days.

For now I want to update you about a decision Krista and I have made recently. Starting next Sunday, June 8, we will begin leading worship together at Emmaus Church in Nashville. Both of us are excited and feel strongly that God is leading us to join with them.

The church was started by a Michael Reddish, a friend of mine at work. Emmaus is reaching out to the atypical church crowd: cynics, homosexuals, church dropouts/rejects, strippers, drag kings/queens, along with a few regular folk that don’t fit in. It’s the most unlikely of churches, with a most unconventional approach to a lot of things. I would even say that anyone walking in with regular church expectations has about an 84.5% chance of leaving bewildered or possibly offended in some way. (So if you are looking to visit, there is your official heads-up).

If you know Krista and me at all, you know that we enjoy traveling off of the beaten path, and Emmaus certainly qualifies. However, our attraction is based more upon the people who gather each week and our opportunity to serve in a way that uses both of our gifts. Along with leading worship, I will also have the occasional teaching opportunities. If you want to know a little more about the church, here is their website.

Each week Emmaus’ worship is shared by anywhere between 10-20 people, depending on what week it is. So while our faith adventure intersects with this small band of Christ-followers in downtown Nashville, we ask for your prayers for us and for the church.

You may have been to one before: a men’s retreat. They exist only for one purpose and that is to make sure we never attend another one.

That’s what I thought, anyway. My church recently claimed that theirs was a men’s retreat for men who didn’t like men’s retreats. They had my number. I’ve never actually been to a men’s retreat, but my experience had me convinced that these were for high-end extroverts and the cheer-led crowd. I have been to a couple of Promise Maker rallies, where we are encouraged to commit to something besides football, beer, and sex. These rallies are usually highly motivational, full of chants and cheers, and peppered with big name speakers. Personally, I appreciated about 20% of the two Promise Keeper events I attended. I figured a men’s retreat would be about the same.

I have to admit that I was wrong on this one. It didn’t carry the kind of life-changing impact that a visit with the apostle Paul might produce, but from the start it was unassuming and humble. The message I got from the beginning was that we were there to hear from God and his Word by taking time to listen on our own, with the group and in worship. I was glad for the intentional times of retreat-within-the-retreat which allowed me to turn off the noise and listen. This is one aspect of our church which I am grateful for. When we show up for Sunday mornings, a retreat, or any other gathering, I know that we won’t be bombarded with noise, heavy church marketing, or flashy presentations.

Christian events are often planned with non-stop activity, with no time and space for quiet and solitude. I spent four days this past week at the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta, GA. Catalyst is one of the leading training and motivational events for leaders in their 20s and 30s.

The event was full of top notch speakers, powerful videos, and lighthearted fun. I realize that an event of this size would probably not attract as many participants with this approach, but I still wonder what it would look like to send 10,000 leaders into an extended time of quiet for reflection and prayer. This may or may not be a good idea for an event of this size, but I can’t help but think that we emphasize noise over quiet in many of our gatherings.

Why can’t the church take five minutes in a service for some intentional quiet? Are we competing for the short attention spans of people who are conditioned to a noise-saturated culture? Are we afraid that people won’t have anything to pray about and think about if we are not talking or singing into the microphones?

Consider how a Sunday morning would feel if we took five minutes out of seventy to simply be still, without any music or talking. It would probably feel awkward at first, but that kind of environment would eventually give our ears and our souls the space we need for listening to One worth hearing.