Update: Libbon

As with all of these not really sure where to begin. I will say that I enjoy reading the updates and that I really do value and am encouraged by this band of comrades. Here's the abriviated update from team Libbon...

• Abbie's one year old which is mind blowing. She'll be baptized this Sunday at 9am if you're around the internets and would like to see it'll be webcasted at http://live.chriswheat.com check in then. Lots have changed for me this year and I wish i could say it's been all roses. Really the addition of a child has been the second hardest thing I've ever done. The first being marriage. It's caused me to grow in ways i've never dreamed of, caused me to run on so little sleep that i never dreamed possible, caused me to worship in ways I've never conceived of, taught me the meaning of sovereignty, and has had a horribly wonderful galvanizing affect on my marriage. I say that because being a parent had really drudged up some toxic junk in mine and Lisa's life that we thought was locked up. However now more than ever I'm convinced that God has providentially moved me and my family to Charleston to be part of this community not to have an wonderfully successful youth ministry (whatever that means) but to deal with specific issues in our past. It's like hernia surgery. It hurts like hell sometimes but in the end it's health.
•  My job at St. Andrews is going well. The team I lead is wonderful. The ministry has seen much fruit and it's share of challenges. One aspect on this front is that our church has completed a discernment process and parish wide vote to leave the Episcopal Church and realign ourselves with the newly formed Anglican Provence of North America. That's big for the biggest church in the Diocese of SC to take a stand. It's been interesting to see some of the cracks others have lobed at this church. I won't get started but let's just say it's been a time of full contact communication which has resulted in undercover police in our services now. 
• Personally Lisa and I have joined a small group about a year and a half ago it's been so vital for us in this time to be surrounded by community. The group actually has birthed another group a few weeks ago because we were getting to large for a living room. It's been fascinating to be part of that kind of a process. Usually groups split due to life change or division but this one did because of a earnest desire to share the gospel with our neighbors. We'll meet as a big group once a month but then three times as smaller ones. It's always been a dream of mine to see this process up close and not just hear about it. 
• There's a ton of other stories I'd love to share with you. I've been using my own blog more lately for a bunch of stuff...www.davesdeal.blogspot.com one thing is for some income. There's some new adds that have been added every time you click on them it generates some change into an account for me. When it reaches a limit Google sends me a check. So help a brother out and check out the blog when your done go crazy clicking adds and picture me feeding my family. just kidding but really every bit helps as I'm sure you know. Speaking of blogs one of my kids has started blogging so show her some love too. http://emilyguerry.blogspot.com/ 
•  This is youth group last week...
  

Just kidding




Well that's it and so much more. We've set up skype a while ago and would love to catch up with you all if you've got a moment. Look us up. 


You all are dear to me.

Update: Chris Martin

Hey everybody. Been talking to Goebel online a bit more lately while we're both at work, and the other day he asked me, "Chris, what are your goals? What do you see yourself doing in five or ten years?" And I said, "Chris, my boss just walked into the office so I should probably not be chatting on gmail, but I'll post on the blog."

Then, Dave sent me an email a few days ago asking how things were going with wedding planning and the rest of life. And I didn't respond because when I don't have time to give a good answer I usually just ignore the question and then the longer I go without answering the question the worse I feel about how long it's been since the question was asked and then it gets harder to write/call back and catch up.

But I'm nipping this one in the bud. So here's my update blog post. Hopefully some of yours will follow soon after.

Things are going pretty well in my life right now. Not necessarily fun and exciting but in the grand scheme of things, I have nothing to complain about. I think most of y'all know that starting in September I was working as a temp at the school district that I live in. I don't know how many of you know that I was hired as a full time employee there at the end of December. I am now the official administrative assistant/bookkeeper for the before and afterschool care program in the School District of Cheltenham Township. It's a great job. Not exactly what I want to be doing, but I get paid more than I deserve and my boss is a nice middle-aged Christian lady who's easy to get along with. My main duties are to take payments from parents, talk to them about our program, schedule staffing, and make sure that our program is meeting all of the requirements set by the three or four oversight agencies that give us money. If I thought I'd be doing the job for the rest of my life, I might dislike it a little bit more, but as it is, I enjoy having something to do and there are usually one or two moments each day that I feel like I'm doing something that matters to someone besides the bureaucrats in the school district. And that's a nice feeling.

The day before New Year's Eve Lexie's mother was diagnosed with aggressive stage two breast cancer. Her doctors have told her that they don't think it's spread beyond her right breast so that's a huge blessing in this situation. She's having a lumpectomy on Monday, Feb 1. Lexie has taken it pretty hard. I think the main thing that gets her is the knowledge that her mom is scared and depressed about the situation. Lexie already has a lot on her plate with wedding planning and classes and this has just adding one more thing that is on her mind when she has some rare down time. We could really use your prayers for 1) healing for Lexie's mom (Debbie) whether it's miraculous or otherwise 2) perspective and faith for all of us as she starts treatment and 3) peace for Lexie and some sort of God-given distraction from worrying about this all of the time.

Wedding planning has been going well lately. We've got just about everything set up for the wedding and the reception. The only things left are to nail down the photographer, pick out suits for me and the groomsmen to wear, and think of all the little things like favors to give out, where to get whatever it is people throw at you when you leave, etc. I'm getting excited about the wedding although I don't think about it all that much on a day-to-day basis. I'm just ready to not have to drive/walk home at night, to not have to think about find new roommates at the end of each year, to be able to feel like I've really got a home with someone, and of course, to have more time to spend with Lexie since we'll be going to sleep and waking up beside each other every day. I am feeling so fortunate and blessed to be able to marry her, and I realize the extent of God's blessing more every day. It's going to be awesome to be married to her.

On a quick marriage note: we've been reading through a book that I think is the best marriage book I've ever heard of and certainly the best one of I've read. It's called "As For Me and My House" by Walter Wangerin, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. It's more of a narrative type of book than a topical book. The author goes through his relationship with his wife from courtship to marriage and beyond while making observations and making important points about what makes marriage a unique relationship and what can make it or break it. I seriously have not read a more helpful non-fiction Christian book in my life (Chronicles of Narnia will probably always be my go to books for inspiration and faith boost). Lexie and I have been reading it together either out loud to each other and stopping to talk about things that are interesting or reading chapters separately and getting together to talk about it. It seems like the type of book that would be helpful and interesting even if you're already married so for those of you who are in the trenches already, give it a go. You will not regret the $12 you'll spend on this book.

So, on to Goebel's question. What are my goals and what do I see myself doing in the future? That's a tough one. In the immediate future my plan is to keep working my job at the school district until Lexie graduates next May with her degree in biblical counseling. After that, we haven't quite figure it out. Actually, the other night she and I talked about our goals and ideal futures (premarital counseling homework) and I guess I'll just stick with what I said to her. Before I start, though, a disclaimer. It's always been a little hard for me to think of what my goals and hopes are for the future in the abstract. More than anything else, I enjoy being around my friends and family. Really, if I have friends around me and working with me, it's easy to imagine doing just about anything. For most of my life I've been able to pick up just about anything I put my mind to, so lots of times when I think about my future, I think about it in terms of who I'd really like to be around and then I think that I could just find something to do wherever that might take me.

Having said that, here's my current future plan. Lexie graduates next May and then we'd take off and go up to Vermont to this school to learn some skills and get out of our normal schedules for a little while. I think I'd like to learn woodworking and furniture-making. I'm probably romanticizing it a bit, but I think that my anal-retentive attention to detail and appreciation of design would go well into working with wood and making furniture in the same way that it goes well into doing web design. So, we'd go up there for a month or so. I'd take woodworking classes and Lexie would probably take some classes on gardening/farming. After that we'd move somewhere down south. Maybe South Carolina. Maybe North Carolina. I think it'd be great to move back to Columbia and buy a house, but Lexie doesn't quite like the idea of going back to a place where I already have so much history. She's worried that she'd just become an add-on to my old life instead of us creating a new life together. So I'm not totally sure where we'll settle. Wherever it is, we want to be able to have at least a large yard and maybe even enough land for a small farm. We'll have to find a place where Lexie can be a counselor. Ideally that would be in a church (I'm looking at you, Dave; go ahead and start greasing the wheels), but if she needed to join a counseling firm/group she'd do that too; it would just take longer because of all of the certification processes. Once we found a place to settle down, I'd love to be able to make a good chunk of my income from doing web design or media design. I don't have much of a portfolio at all right now and I've still got a lot to learn, but we're talking in "ideally"s here so it's okay if I shoot for the stars a bit. On the side, I'd love to get some shop equipment and be able to maybe do some furniture-making to supplement our incomes.

I'd love to live in a college town where Lexie and I could work with college students in our church and act as a home-away-from-home for people who are new to the area and looking for community. I'd love to live near at least a couple of you guys so we could hang out more often.

So that's my ideal. Obviously some of that may never happen, and some of it may only happen after several years, but its the ideal.

It's taken me a long time to write this and now I've got to get ready to go over to Lexie's for lunch and then church this afternoon. I've been thinking about y'all a lot lately and how much I enjoyed those summers and breaks when we'd have man night. I'd love to hear how y'all are doing. What are your updates? Where are you now? Where do you want to be in the future?

Final note:

Reading: Inspiration and Incarnation, As for me and my house, Mouse Guard
Listening to: The Avett Brothers, Vampire Weekend, NPR investigative report on the bail industry and American prisons (Pt 1, Pt 2, Pt 3)

Checking In

I have been thinking about you guys lately. It's pretty amazing to think about all that has happened and all that God has done in all our lives since we used to chill on the patio behind Dave's or my house years ago. Heck, a lot has happened since we convened Man Night Reunion in Charleston last January. Since a fall trip didn't work out, what about another reunion in the quiet period just after the holidays? Does anyone have an opening?

1. Biggest thing that's happened in your life over the past 3 months?

Since April, Meg and I have wrestling with a sense that God is awakening (or re-awakening)some type of calling on our lives. This would be something to talk about in person (and I would love to talk about with you guys). Suffice it to say now, that we could use prayer.

2. Most challenging thing that's going on right now in your world?

Well, #1 would qualify. Also, parenting a two-year old. I'm also trying to take charge of my schedule. Between the busy-ness of family, church and work, as well as my general laziness and procrastination I think I lost control of my time. I end up not doing things that I should do/want to do (like entries on this blog, or calling Dave back).I am trying to take it back. That has been a challenge.

3. Best meal you've eat'n (because who doesn't love food)

I definitely love me some food. It's hard to point to one meal. But, Meg made me a hamburger three weeks ago that was simply amazing. The beef was good quality and perfectly cooked and all the toppings just blended together perfectly. She also made a blueberry cobbler back around June with a creme anglaise poured over it that was one of the best things I have ever eaten. Jeremy can attest to the cobbler.

4. Spiritually what are you wrestling with or learning right now?

See #1 and #2. Also, lust. Man, it just doesn't die.

5. Reading anything?

I've been reading a lot of stuff on the Holy Spirit over the past two months. It was for a study we've been doing on Sunday mornings. But, I'm just studying it for myself now. I'm reading an abridgment of Owen's work on the Holy Spririt, Francis Chan's new book "The Forgotten God", as well as Martyn Lloyd Jones' lectures on Revival. I feel my spiritual hunger and sensitivity has been raised as I have been studying the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

My b

Hey guys. It's been too long since I've posted here.

My b.

Been thinking about y'all a lot lately as I take a look at the future and where Lexie and I will eventually settle after she finishes school next December. It's intimidating to say the least, and my one hope for wherever we end up is that it'll either be near (same town, maybe?) some of you guys or that I'll be able to find a community of friends as good as y'all have been.

And now for the 5 questions:

1. Biggest thing in my life - Well, as you can probably guess, my engagement is the biggest thing that's happened to me lately. Our relationship has been getting deeper and deeper since then, and it's just made me even more sure of my decision to marry Lexie. We've been talking more honestly with each other, and I've seen huge positive changes in myself and in Lexie as we strengthen our communication. It's been great.

2. Most challenging thing: I've got a job right now that's pretty great (admin asst for an after-school program), but it keeps me from seeing Lexie much until the weekend. Since it's college football season, most Saturdays I just want to sit at home and watch college football either by myself or with a couple other guys. So the challenging part is just learning how to best use my time now that I'm not the only one who cares about how I spend my time. It's been a tough thing ever since Lexie and I have been dating, but it's definitely intensified since we've been engaged.

3. Best meal: The night of our engagement we went to a restaurant downtown called Vetri. It was and will continue to be the best food I've ever tasted. I never knew food could taste as good as the nine courses they put in front of us that night. Any description wouldn't do it justice.

4. Spiritual challenges: The most challenging thing that I've been working through has been trying to confess and repent more often. I've still been going to a counselor to talk about some Christianity-related doubts and frustrations I've been having for a long time, and one of the things we've been talking about is my conception of sin and my guilt before God. Bottom line is that I typically do think of myself as sinful and guilty, but I don't usually think it's that big of a deal since it's pretty much par for the course as a human. So to help me think more about my relationship to God, I'm trying to repent as soon as I catch myself sinning. My hope is that it'll help me think more about my sin vertically instead of just horizontally.

5. Reading: Lexie's uncle is this brilliant guy who's a professor of history and religious studies at Yale, and he wrote a good book on the Civil War that I've been reading. I've also been reading a book about interpretation and epistemology that I heard about while I was at l'Abri. As for Scripture, I've been reading John and going through NT Wright's book on that.

Gotta run now and get ready for a hot date tonight to celebrate my one year anniversary with Lexie. We're eating Vietnamese food and going to see Zombieland. Yeah. I hit the jackpot.

Update: Team Libbon

So here's the update ...

Fatherhood continues to be one of the hardest things i've ever ventured to do. Right when I thought I had the whole husband thing figured out all the rules change. How I love lisa, how i love abbie. That being said it's also the most blessed i've ever felt in my life. A blessing through exhaustion (We are up at 3 AM and 6:30 Am most every day. ) Abbie has taught me more about Jesus then I would ever have imagined someone so little to be capeable of.

Ministry is a roller coaster this time of year. Spring is always a strange time in the lives of families so that gets translated into the times we minister to them. A great victory is that we've seen this years confirmation class really own the transformational nature of Jesus. Not only for themselves but for their friends and families as well. To get students to turn the corner form consumer to minister is big and rarely happens. So in short things are good and the gospel is being preached.

Personally I'm in a weird place. The rest of life seems to be settling down as I adjust to the newest member of team libbon but spiritually things are hard. I've found that areas i once had nailed down seem to have vanished in the last 8 weeks. My prayer life has become difficult, probably a direct link to my dwindling and groping time with the lord. I had a discipline that 6:30-7:30 was time i devoted to scripture now it's devoted to diapers. So the restructuring of my disciplines is going to be seminal in, as John Piper puts it, my "fight for joy" these days. Again it's Jesus letting me know through Abbie that it's his hand that sustains me not my ability hold all the proper actions.

That's me, who's next on the update?

Paedobaptism

After the baptism talk we had at our last gathering, I've heard more and more stuff relating to baptism. I haven't gone out of my way very much to read things about it since the topic really doesn't have much bearing on my life right now, but I still have some questions about paedobaptism that I'm hoping some of you who understand it can answer.

The other day in a class at WTS, a professor made a side comment where he said he had a hard time with Presbyterians' view on paedobaptism because it's supposedly welcoming the infant into the covenant family and yet the child cannot come to the family table (communion) until he becomes a member of the church. I had never realized that that was the case in Presbyterian churches. In the Methodist church I grew up in we were always allowed to take communion even before we went through confirmation and joined, and in the Anglican church I went to in Columbia children were allowed to take communion if they were with their parents.

So what's the deal? How can we call what we're doing baptism if it doesn't result in the child having the benefits (I would say communion is one of the most important benefits) of being a member of the covenant family. I'm sure that this incongruity hasn't gone unanswered by Presbyterians, so does anyone know the answer?

Looking forward to hearing from y'all. And also, where are these updates I've been asking for for the last month or two? I want to hear how y'all are doing.

Anyone alive in here?

Hello???? Hellooooooooooooooo....

Got accepted to Princeton Seminary today. I was one of two applicants from WTS that got accepted (out of around 10) so that's encouraging. Still pretty sure I'm not going to go there, but I'll be praying about it and considering it more over the next couple of weeks.

Hope to hear from the rest of y'all on here soon. It's been far too long.

I'm still alive

I can hear the crickets chirping in here.

Sorry for not posting much over the last month or so...maybe longer. But here's my update:

Still at WTS, but I've dropped a couple of classes this semester in anticipation of leaving after this year. Very long story very short, the administration here keeps making decisions that I don't agree with theologically and they're making them in ways such that it's become obvious that the school isn't going to be a welcoming place for anyone except for the most conservative Reformed types. A couple more professors are leaving, and because of the newly-articulated theological stances of the school, the prospects of them bringing in profs of equal stature are slim.

So I've been trying to figure out what I'm going to do next year. By the time I decided that I couldn't justify staying here after this year, it was too late to apply to Duke Divinity which would probably be my top choice. I've applied to Regent (Vancouver) and Princeton Seminary, but I'm not quite sure if I'd really want to go to either of those places. Honestly, the thing I'm struggling with most right now is wanting to do much of anything. I kind of feel like I'm just drifting and directionless. This whole experience at WTS has made me a little fed up with the idea of seminary, but I'm just not sure what else I would do. I know that I don't want to waste money on a degree that I'm not serious about, so I've thought about taking a year off to work until next academic year when I could apply to Duke.

The whole situation has brought a lot of anxiety into my life which has, in turn, brought up some other issues (apathy, laziness, depression). So I've started going to see a Christian counsellor up here which has been immensely helpful. It's nice to have some sort of outside opinion about what's going on in my brain from someone who's heard a lot of stuff from a lot of people.

I'm still dating Lexie and that's going really really well. She's probably the best girlfriend I could imagine. She's been great throughout all of this and has been patient with everything I've been thinking about. It's pretty tough to imagine leaving WTS and being away from her, but I just can't justify spending $12k a year on classes I don't like just to stay around my friends and girlfriend. Lexie's obviously not too thrilled about the prospect of me leaving, but she's been completely understanding and supportive while I've been making these decisions.

My battery's about dead so I've got to wrap this up. I'll try to post more often in the next week or so. What's going on in y'all's lives? Let's get this blog populated again.

Update- Christmas Version

I know that one of the points of this blog originally was just to keep up to date/ in touch, so having just mouthed off on Sewell's post, I thought I would come back with something a little more grounded.

My house is down to two occupants at this point in time. Tim moved back to New Jersey to fight the good fight re: Cron's Disease a few months ago, and Alex moved out last week and is living in a hotel for a week looking for places to stay. He's very much a bootstraps kind of guy in that regard.

While trying to pay off my debts and live off of an absurdly low amount of money (I'm into my roomate/landlord for significant cash, at least for me) I've been playing the new edition of Dungeons & Dragons with some friends around here. It has been crazy fun! Everyone except for myself and Kris (who just became fully vested as an Episcopal priest last weekend) have never ever played a tabletop roleplaying game before, and the amount of emotional buy-in has been pretty astonishing. Nothing scary from a wellness/spirituality standpoint, just a surprising amount of enthusiasm. It is pretty sweet to be a part of something people actively want to do, rather than feel that they should do. Refreshing!

I'm looking forward to being 'off' from work this week, the quotes around off coming from the fact that I'm temping and I'm just sort of assuming that after my current job I won't get any calls until next week. That's not necessarily true though. I'm considering looking up a method I heard about to eat for less than a dollar a day to quicker erase my debt to the Bank of Shane, but I've heard that it is stunningly un-nutritious and makes the people who go on it somewhat ill. I will keep you updated!

Getting kind of crazy

Hey guys. It's been really good to hear from everybody. Thanks for all the updates.

If y'all think about it, I could use some prayer over the next week or two as the semester winds down. Things are getting pretty crazy up here with the amount of school work I have to do and I'm at the threshold of apathy right now so I'm really having to fight to not just give up on the work. It's not that I'm not interested. It's just that there's so much work that my reaction is just to sink under it all and wait for it to pass.

Also, has anyone talked to Randy lately? I've tried every method of communication (calling him out on the blog, Facebook, email, and phone call) and haven't gotten a response from him. I'm not sure if anything's wrong, but it just makes me worried that he hasn't gotten back to me yet.

Finally, as for the Man Night Reunion, it looks like the best time for me to do that would be sometime after Christmas. I've got to be back in Philly on Jan 6, but I probably won't leave to come back up here until the 5th so anytime before that is fine with me. What dates between Dec 26 and Jan 4th work for y'all?

Hello?

Well, Dave says he's going to give us an update sometime soon, but what about the rest of you guys? Is anyone reading this thing anymore?

Sup erbody

I haven't posted (nor has anyone else) on here for awhile so this might be kind of long. Or it could be short. I haven't thought through what I'll actually type yet so who knows...

First, thanks for your prayers for my family. Things went exceedingly well down in Atlanta with the memorial service for my grandfather. It was a time that I think will affect everyone in our family for the rest of our lives because of the realization of how blessed we are by our grandfather/father/husband's example of a life lived loving God and loving others. Fortunately every single person on that side of the family was able to make it to Atlanta for the service which was amazing considering there are 30 of us total. The fact that my grandfather was a believer and that most of the family are believers changed the whole atmosphere considerably. It's hard for me to describe how drastically different it would have been if it weren't for the hope we have in Christ and also the joy and pride we have in seeing a life well lived. To give you an example of the kind of impact my grandfather had on those around him: we went to scatter his ashes at a golf course where he played gold 4 days a week for the last 20 years, and half of the maintenance crew (including a guy who no longer works there but came back just for this) was there to say a last goodbye. They were there because every day my grandfather played golf there, he would arrive an hour before his tee time and bring all the maintenance guys and cart guys a box or two of Krispy Kreme donuts and shoot the breeze with them before he went out to play his round. Another example: my mom was given the job of going to the grocery store where he shopped each week and telling the deli workers that he had passed away and when she did, they all stopped what they were doing and actually teared up out of sadness for our loss, again because he would go in and make sure he had enough time to sit and ask the workers there how their families were and what was going on in their lives. We heard so many stories like that while we were down there, and it was amazing to see the reality of how a godly example of marriage and respect for others has impacted our entire family, all the way down to the grandkids. We're a big family, and very diverse, but every time we all get together there's never any stress or drama. Everyone has a good time; everyone respects everyone else. And after hearing more and more about my granddad's life, I realize that we have him to thank for that.

Enough sappy stuff. Last night I got to go to a debate on our campus between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson. It was okay. Not great but not a waste of time. Here's a blog post that a friend wrote about the debate. I disagreed with some of his conclusions and so I posted a pretty lengthy comment that you can read to get my take on the debate.

What else...I'm dating someone, which is nice. She's from Richmond, VA. She went to William and Mary and then interned with RUF at Stanford for the past two years. She's at WTS to get an MDiv in counseling. It's been great so far. Really laid back but intentional at the same time. Low stress, which is great considering my previous relationship and also the amount of school-induced stress I've got going on right now.

Speaking of school, I still haven't heard back from Princeton, but I've made up my mind to stay here at Westminster either way. I've found a group of guys that are in the same place that I am theologically and I'm really enjoying learning and discussing what we're learning with them. I'm not sure that I would find as many people with theological similarities at Princeton as I have here considering the type of people the school seems to attract (very very liberal) so the idea of leaving this behind is tough. I've started to interact more with the profs here and that's been really fruitful as well. There's a lot we don't agree on, but one of the benefits of coming in right after the controversy of last year is that the whole faculty is on high alert for student dissatisfaction so they're all going out of their way to meet with students and discuss issues, which is great.

I miss you guys. We'll have to find sometime to get together when I'm back in SC over Christmas break (Dec 12-Jan 3). What are you guys up to now? Let's get a roll call here. Post what's going on in your life and give us an update. Not in the comments section of this post, but on your own post. It doesn't have to be long.