Random Thoughts

So, winter quarter is officially over, and I'm back in Seattle for the next week enjoying Spring break--and after the last 2 weeks of finals chaos, craziness, and stress I am very much enjoying being here with no agenda, and nothing to do but spending time with some amazing people! :)

The past two months feel a little like a blur, it was an insane quarter academically but it was also full of some incredible lessons learned and memories made with new friends. I headed back to LA in January and started a crazy set of classes--the second quarter of Greek, Systematic Theology 2 (Christology & Soteriology), Foundations for Ministry 2, and Intro to Family Ministry. The first 3 classes were fine, nothing too exciting, a ton of work, but just kind of normal classes...but intro to family ministry was AMAZING. It was taught by Chap Clark, a professor who has done a ton of research & work with youth and families, and his class, the reading, and our final project were probably the most fun I have had in grad school so far. He forced us and really pushed us to think through what our concept of family ministry is--what our theological definition of "family" is (did you know that there is no word in either the Greek or Hebrew scripture for "family" as we define it today? Instead the words used describe entire households or clans and would often include 50-100 people--our concept of the nuclear family comes from the Victorian era). Thus, Chap pushed us to really think through what it means to do ministry with families--if our theological definition of family needs to be broader than our American understanding of the nuclear family, then it should radically alter the way that we do ministry to families. Family ministry cannot be simply a set of programs, instead it needs to be an entire shift in our mindset of families and the churches' role as being a Family of Families. Our final project was to create an entire family ministry program for a church--we basically had 20 pages to design my dream job as a family minister--the context, the programs, the way we care for and educate our nuclear families, and the way that we incorporate those who don't fit into traditional families into the church family. It was amazing and I spent all quarter thinking "this is exactly what i want to do with my life, this is what I really care about." So it was wonderful in the midst of Systematics and Greek to have a class that made me SO excited (often overwhelmed and terrified too!) about going into ministry.

This quarter was also our Presbyterian Retreat which was a wonderful time of resting, relaxing, having extended jam sessions of old random camp songs, and great times of worship and teaching up in beautiful Big Bear. So here are several random pictures from that weekend...

Sunset over the lake--the Pirate Ship is rumored to be the one they used in Goonies according to everyone we talked to--you'll have to decide for yourself, but it was pretty cool!

Look out! Denise is driving!

A wonderful group of girls (starting in the back) Becca, Julie, me, Steffi, Jenn (Pocket), Sophie, Denise and Jenn H.Friday night's Jam session with Luke, Rebecca, Ben and Dave

Reese, Paul, Pocket, Sarah & Ryan

Ryan and ISophie & I--aren't we cute?! :)

Jaden Arnod (Jen and Jeff's daughter) joined us for the weekend and it was so much fun to have a little one with us--we all enjoyed spending time with her! Here she is helping Ryan with his Greek homework--she was a huge help I am sure!