I have been so busy! oh wow...  I realized its been a couple weeks since I've written in here... so I guess it's time for an update.

1. God is so good. I'm still kinda freaking out about the whole grad school thing... but God is in control. :) I had an interview on Monday with the library for an SPP graduate position, and I'm meeting with someone from the education department tomorrow (and that one sounds REALLY promising... pray for me around 10 AM... it's doing tech stuff, so I'm hopeful...)

2. Financially... I'm home free for August and Nationals. I need September stuff... but if I get this job, then I'll be good. Wow. God really saw me through all of that... and that makes me want to cry in thankfulness.

3. Chambersburg Project. HOLY CRAP! Talk about God moving.

One of the most heartbreaking moments of the week was going to this house. It was huge... this husband and wife had started rebuilding it... it was from the 1750's. They found half cents while replacing the windows. Her husband passed away about 6 months ago from a brain tumor... and she has lyme disease. They were finishing the deck on the house... so as I was standing there... I took in the sheer beauty of the house... and how big the deck was... and the fact that there were students doing it (with adults supervising). People think so little of teenagers... and these teens were taking time out of their lives to serve in their community for a week. There were almost 200 kids and 50-some adults serving... fixing roofs... building decks... doing yardwork, painting, building fences. I got to drive from place to place and watch these students work. And when all was done... I cried. My heart was broken and I cried.

I have a missions-based heart... and it's funny. I'll send people to do global missions (they say everyone has a part in global missions- I'm a sender), but if I have the choice... I'll do stuff locally. Why? Because I believe that where you are is your mission field. God calls us to reach out to our local community, where we're at. Because of this... the Cburg project is something i can and will put a lot of time and energy into.

4. Regionals- oh wow was this special. It was the best Northeast Regional tournament that I've been to... ever. We had so much fun, even though I was totally and completely exhausted. I didn't play well (I won 2 games all weekend- ouch!) but I still had a ball. I always crack up at tournaments like these... that's just how I roll. But my Redemption family means the world to me... and they are friends I hope to have for a long, long time.

5. 720 Gathering. OH WOW! This was amazing... we got to stay for all 4 hours... and the Spirit of God was moving hardcore. It was so exciting, and I really enjoyed it. I got to spend some more time with my kids (not like I hadn't been with them for a whole week before lol) and it was great.

I'll have pics from everything at some point. :) I'm working on an entry about Christian Cliche's that I hope to have up within the next week. I leave for SoulFest on Tuesday morning till Sunday the 3rd, then I leave for Nats on Wednesday the 6th... I am SOOO excited! So I may or may not be on a lot... after that... 2 more weeks till grad school!

In His Love and For His Glory,
Marti

I feel like I want to start singing the song from The Sound of Music...

Anyway, I don't answer featured questions very often, but this one caught my attention... cause I have lots of favorite things... (in no specific order)

1. Board and Card games:
I LOVE board and card games. I find hours of enjoyment playing them in real life and playing them online. They are so much fun. I would love to open a game store someday (thinking about it while I work on my Master's Degree). I have all the ideas and stuff.

2. REDEMPTION! 
I was going to call this 1a, cause it is technically a card game... but I call it its own thing because it is more than a card game. I've found some of my best friends in the world because of this game... most of them being guys... then you have Gretchen, who I also found cause of it... and has become one of my best friends... and then Gretel and Brad are going to get MARRIED cause of it. Oh wow. It's a community, and a HUGE part of my life. :) And, of course, it's centered on the Word of God! :)

3. Jesus
Jesus is number 1, of course. He has done SO much for me and is just plain awesome :).

4. Teenagers
Talk about awesome. As most of you know, I work with teenagers, and they are some of the most awesome people I have ever met. We don't give teens enough credit sometimes, whch saddens me, because their intelligence and understanding is so much deeper than we think it is. I don't know what my life would be like without my teenagers.

5. My Church
I think I've mentioned it before, but King Street Church is such a blessing to me. I love it there...II go there to HANG OUT! lol. The Spirit of God totally moves there... the staff is great... the volunteers are great. It's just an awesome place to be. Like Redemption, a lot of my dearest friends come from there. That's where my teenagers are too :) Happy happy.

6. Spaghetti and Meatballs and food in general
I love food. It is so yummy. LOL. Anyway, I like to cook (thank you Rachel Ray and Iron Chef and all yous on Food Network!) and I like to eat. A lot. LOL.

I can't think of anything else right now. But yeah.

In His Love and For His Glory,
Marti

I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

First- I apologize. I have been getting a lot of comments and compliments about my entries lately... I think my writing juices are flowing again... which is super exciting, cause sometimes I have a heck of a time with them. Summers usually do this to me. Anyway, here's a question that was posted on Revelife.

For those of you who didn't grow up in a Christian home, how did you come to believe in something that sounds so illogical by the world's standards? Regardless of whether you grew up a Christian or not, do you ever wonder about why you even believe in the Gospels?

Firstly, some Christians would really get ticked off by this question, wonder why someone would even question their faith. "I just believe... and that's enough for me."
No offense.. ok maybe some, but you're an idiot.
I got offended not by the fact that someone would ask this, but by calling my faith illogical... cause that's... well... not true.

There is a certain amount of faith that goes into Christianity, yes, absolutely, I'd be the idiot if I denied that. It takes faith to believe in Divine Creator. It takes faith to believe that a guy rose from the dead. It takes faith to believe that He was the Son of God... But, it's a perfectly logical religion... even by the world's standards... it's just that very few Christians actually can argue why they believe what they believe.

And some of you that don't know me as well are sitting there thinking, "Now she's just going to list all this emotional stuff... and say that's logical." Or "It's just because she's been a Christian her whole life..."

No. Don't EVEN go there.

I was an agnostic through middle and high school. I thought that a higher power existed, maybe even the God of Judeo-Christian belief, but especially because of the liberal-minded, old fashioned (not that all old-fashioned churches are bad, this church it just added to the distance I felt), church I went to, I was shown a picture of God that was distant and that we had to beg in order to get any semblence of a relationship with it. I went to church alone, and I went cause it was a safe place, I wasn't forced to believe anything, I wasn't harrassed by my peers (as often- some of the younger kids harrassed me hardcore) and  I wasn't forced to be vulnerable. I was good at acting and being fake.

But over the years that I was at this church, I did what I always did with new things... I learned and learned. I read the Bible. I read other books to compliment the Bible, to see things.

When I hit college, there was a speaker at our Christian group on campus (I was involved because a friend was, and it was, once again, a safe place), and he talked about the difference between head knowledge and heart knowledge. It finally clicked... this "religion" that I had studied and made a project... was finally penetrating my heart. It finally clicked... and it's because it all made sense.

I joke about being dumb sometimes.. but I'm really not *sighs*  I hate to admit that, because I feel like I get a whole nother set of expectations that come along with being "intelligent." But, if you talk to me, especially about religion and faith, you will find out that I know a lot about it... and not just Christianity. I have my bachelor in arts (BA) in sociology, and my primary concentration was religion. I talked about religion ALL of the time, in everything I did. Why? Because it's something we need to be knowledged about. People make fun of us when we have an unknowledged faith (ok, people make fun of us ANYWAY, but that makes a lot of it worse).

I explored other religions too, before I came to the knowledge that Christianity was the One True Way. I explored Mormonism, while its very nice in it's packaging, is quite illogical in many of its beliefs that distinguish it from Christianity (own planet, anyone?).  I explored Islam (only a little... I didn't know anyone personally), Buddhism, Wicca (was in it for about 2 years, but nothing hardcore), etc etc etc. Yep. I dipped here and there and my conclusion:

Christianity is the only way to God.

Go ahead. Flag me, yell at me, tell me how stupid I am. Deal with it.

Here's some of the big arguments that made me finally conclude that Christianity is the one true way to God.

Millions of Years vs. Thousands of Years:  Did you know that one of the processes used in "dating" objects (radiometric) is so messed up, that someone tried to date a rock that was created by volcanic lava the day before, and it came up as .27 to 3.5 million years old? (If you want to read more about this, go to http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/does-radiometric-dating-prove)

Jesus fufilling prophecies: There was a historically proven 500 to 700 year gap between the end of the minor prophets (Malachi) and the birth of Jesus. So, some of those books were written almost a thousand years earlier... there are over 300 prophecies in the Bible about the Messiah. Every single solitary one of them were fulfilled by Jesus... and even though some of them could be manipulated (being hung on a tree, etc) others couldn't. “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me the one . . . whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting” (Micah 5:2). Could Jesus really manipulate where He was born... I think not. Did you know that the probability of Jesus fufilling 8 of those prophecies was one in over 1 million? Imagine a stack of quarters two inches thick. Cover the whole state of Texas with stacks of these quarters. One of them is marked with an "X." Find it on your first try. And that was 8... and he fufilled over 300!! Not one stone was left unturned.

Jesus was a real person... Even SECULAR History says so!

Jesus died on a cross... there were secular accounts of this as well. I learned it in history.. and I went to a public school. And a lot of people try to deny this and say that He wasn't totally dead. The Roman Soliders did not break His legs (which was a fufillment of prophecy that He would never break a bone), but instead stuck a sword in His side... and it spilt out water and blood. This is a bodily process that only occurs after death.

Jesus rose: Hundreds of people can't be delirious all at the same time. There is a rare form of brainwashing that can cause some people to hallucinate, but so many people saw Him, and ate with Him at different times.

There's probably a ton more stuff that I could talk about... but that's what has come to mind first.

There is an emotional dimension to my faith... and I will not deny it. I have the spiritual gift of discernment, which leads to me being SUPER sensitive to spiritual things, whether good or evil. If I just based my faith on the knowledge I have... it wouldn't be faith. It would be a religion, and frankly, I hate that word. My faith is no religion. A well known speaker (well I guess not too well known, I forgot his name) once said "Religion is man trying to reach God. Christianity is God becoming man, walking among us, and dying for us, in order to try and reach us." It sometimes becomes really cliche': "Christianity is relationship, not religion." But darn it, that's what I believe!

Think about it! How many religions try to appease their 'gods,' and only to run the risk of their offering not being "good enough," and getting punished anyway. Or having your "god" be yourself... dang that's a CRAPPY existance. I know that I used to live like that when I was an agnostic. I was my own god... and my life was a mess.

I had to realize that I wasn't good enough, and that on my own, I couldn't be good enough. Jesus DID die for my sins. Jesus was a real man, but He was God... He came on this earth WHEN HE DIDN'T EVEN HAVE TO and DIED for me and every other person on this earth. He created humans because He is love... even though He knew we were going to royally screw up and He was going to need to come to earth and die a painful horrible death on a cross, the worst form of death EVER, but He did it anyway.

And putting the facts with my realization that I couldn't live a double life anymore, that I was a sinful being, and realizing that God was real..

And most of all that God loved me...

Brought me to the faith I know today. it's not a faith that I built on what my friends said, what my family said (especially bc they aren't Christians), or what my church says.

It's a faith that I found on my own, hunted for the facts, struggled with everything that I learned, and made my own.

And that's what God calls each one of us to do. As most of you know, I encourage my students to ask questions like crazy. My mantra is " never be afraid to ask questions." God is bigger than our doubt, if we truly are seeking, He will reveal Himself in a way that you will know it is Him, and that He is real. God isn't afraid for us to ask the hard questions.

Wow... that turned into a ramble.. but I hope it made sense. Please, feel free to question and comment. :)

In His Love and For His Glory,
Marti

I got comments on my last entry (I cross posted to MySpace and Facebook) and one of them talked about how I really didn't talk about worship. This is kind of like a series... it will come to a conclusion, which, as you can see from my the name of the last exerpt of this series, is that it is a lifestyle. Music is the most frequent way that we use the word worship, and for the purposes of these first couple of entries that is what I am referring to, because I believe music is the root of a lot of things.

Let me tell you about my church. I go to King Street United Brethren in Christ Church in Chambersburg PA. I love my church to death. If you have read any of my other entries, I am highly involved in the worship ministry at my church as the adult in charge of our youth technology ministry (and I help with our music ministry) and I also run Power Point at our Saturday night service. We have four services every weekend that minister to about 2000 people between the four services. Our four services are Saturday night at 6, and Sunday morning at 8:30, 9:45, and 11 am.

I am beyond blessed to go to a church that challenges me and that I can thrive and serve God in. The cool thing is that our church has something for EVERYONE. The services are even different enough for whoever wants to go wherever.

One of my biggest problems that I had when I first started going to King Street in summer of 2005 was that I felt like I was lost in the crowd. Wouldn't you? With 5-6 hundred people at each service, it's easy to get lost. But, the best thing about that time was, even though I felt a little out of place, was that I learned how to worship God with all of my heart. I learned to get into it. Why? Because who was I there to impress? God and God alone.

I went to the 11 o'clock service (which was blended) for a long time.... in the summers, I actually had the ambition to go to the 9:45. Last summer I started working with the youth ministry, and because of my commitment changes (including teaching Sunday School), we (Gretel and I) decided to stay at the 9:45 service permanently. Connections began to be made, not only with students, but families. I can tell you who at least 75 to 100 people are in that service... for me, that's a big deal. Just over a year ago, I could only tell you about 15 people and I didn't even know them that well.

A lot of things are different between the 9:45 and the 11. The 11 is blended, with a combo of contemporary and traditional music. The 9:45, on the other hand, is contemporary all the way. Dan, the worship leader at the 9:45 service, rocks out on his electric guitar. It's rock and roll. The 11 is in our sanctuary, whereas the 9:45 is in the Baker Center, which is, essentially, our gym.

There is a point to this.

The people were also different, as was the amount of people. Like I said... I now know around 100 people in the 9:45 service... what happened to my earlier point of impressing God and God alone?

Worship is such a delicate thing. Ever hear of the five love languages? (If not, google it, you'll find a good explanation on the web) My primary love language is physical touch, and worshipping God through music totally does that for me.

I was SO embarrassed at first to be as enthusastic in worship as I am now. Especially after I started working with the student ministry. But God really REALLY pushed on my heart hardcore. Why was I all of a sudden ashamed to lift my hands? To sway? To sing my heart out to God?

Because I lost my focus.

See, what happened after I switched services was this: instead of having this private time with me and God... I was now worried about others around me. I sit with a bunch of the students during church on Sundays... and at first man, I didn't know what to do. I knew their parents were in the congregation. I knew they knew I was an adult. What kind of example was I setting? Was I some sort of a holy roller? Who was this weirdo who hung out with their kids? Would they see me as sincere?

After a couple weeks, I realized that I wasn't enjoying worship as I had been. I wasn't getting excited.... and the students were acting just like I had before I'd taken my focus off.

How often do we do that? I'm using music as an example, but think about your primary form of worship?

~What happens when your service goes from serving God to serving for recognition?
~What happens when your writing becomes dry because it's how you make a buck instead of writing to glorify God?

It becomes dry... it becomes dead.

Because it becomes all about me and not about Him..

Focus is so important to our Christian walk. Sometimes, I feel like I have A.D.D... but it's just a side effect of my anxiety. One of my biggest problems is my inability to focus on one thing at a time. My attention span is low, I have to multi task constantly in order to be able to get anything done, and sometimes it really stinks. One time, I was in the middle of a Redemption game (it's a Christian based card game that I play) and I sat there for a minute. My opponent looked at me. She finally got my attention and I seriously asked "what am I doing?" I was in the middle of a tournament!?!?! I had started thinking about my drive home and what I was going to eat for dinner... and had forgotten about my main purpose.

Ever have those times where you're in the middle of church, you're singing or listening to the sermon, you're serving a meal, you're writing an entry, or whatever you do that is your form of worship, and all of a sudden, you start to think about something else? Where are we going for lunch? What needs done before the weekend is over? I haven't seen so and so in a couple weeks, I wonder where s/he is. Oh crap, it's so and so's birthday. Did I lock the door? I could go on and on about EVERYTHING I have EVER thought in the middle of worship. And vroom, there it goes, a distraction.

I think this is based in our individualism, hardcore. Human nature after the fall is egocentric, that is, all about me me me. That really stinks... society tells us that its about me me me... and when we try to make it about God... Satan strives to side track me with more stuff about me... which makes our worship empty.

So...

1) We lose our focus when we worry too much about what those think around us
2) We lose our focus when we worry too much about ourselves

So... what do we do?

I'm not going to say it's easy. Like I said, my anxiety affects EVERY aspect of my life. Multitasking helps me get things done... my mind races constantly. But I have learned to train myself... that God's time is GOD'S time, not mine.

Some suggestions as to what to do to eliminate distractions during worship (no matter what form)

1. Give yourself TIME. If I feel rushed coming into church, I feel stressed and rushed through the whole service. I usually arrive 15-20 minutes early so I can chill and get settled in. I'm picky about punctuality, so this takes away that stress for me.
2. Make sure that your heart is right. Am I doing this because I'm supposed to, or because I want to?
3. Have paper (or your bulletin) and a pen handy. If you start getting distracted because of your to-do list or grocery list, write whatever is stuck in your head down.
4. Keep moving. I clap, or sway, or whatever (according to what is appropriate to the music), and that helps me to stay focused to.
5. Close your eyes and/or just enjoy God's company. Take a minute and just breathe in the moment.

I hope that this made some more sense... I know it was my typical "my brain is all over about this," but now you understand why.

I'm leaving for Creation in a few hours... so I won't return until Sunday. I may pulse throughout the week, but that's it. Next week, expect my next entry: I'll become more undignified than this. Also: I realize I NEVER talked about the Summer Sneak a couple weeks ago... I will do an entry on that as well.

In His Love and For His Glory,
Marti :)

Faithful.

My freshman year of college, I had 2 Bible study leaders that I really connected with and who really loved me. The one wrote me a letter at the end of the year, and the thing that she said was "The one word I will always remember you by is faithful."

I hope people remember me to be a faithful friend- someone who would stand by them no matter what. Someone who was honest and true and loved with abandon.

I hope people remember me to be faithful to what I started- whether it be a project, or school, or to a trip or a cause.

Most importantly, I hope that people remember me to be faithful to God. To be faithful to what I believe, even to the point of death if that's what I was called to do. Past harassment, losing things, and whatever. I just want to be faithful to God.

Wish I had something more pensive to say, but I'm tired... but I did want to answer this question. :)

In His Love and For His Glory,
Marti

   

I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!