Grand Rapids, Michigan, evening picture of the day - Friday, January 30, 2015

Dear Family, Friends, and Gentle Readers,

I am in a cold part of the country for a few days. Here's what it looked like thsi evening about 4 PM:

This is the Calvin College campus, toward day's end.

Even though the sun came out in the afternoon, it is SO unpleasant here for an Angeleno boy like myself.

Ambient temperatures were in the high 20s and I learned what wind chill 5 means. It means your face hurts if you catch a breeze walking from one heated space to another. If you're prone to sticky-eyes like I am, this cold air hardens it in your eyes and your vision goes randomly into a blur.

I've told some of you I've toyed with the idea of moving to New Hampshire to help them forge a majority Libertarian state, ... but I dunno. This is my first long experience with being in snow country.

One of four major meeting areas for conducting worship.

In case you're wondering why I"m here, I'm attending a symposium on
Christian worship. It's kind of like being in church and church development classes for about a 12 hour stretch, both Friday and Thursday. There's another shorter session tomorrow.

Basically, it's all about how to run and/or improve your protestant worship service. I'm here because they focus a lot of seminars on how to utilize the arts in worship.

I was hopeful that I'd hear something substantive about operating a multicultural ministry, but it turned out I knew more about it than the presenter. We learned a good circle stunt to end a meeting in a heartwarming way, but that's about it.

Man! This is one smart crowd here, and cosmopolitan. Everybody sits down next to each other, introduces themselves and you trade elevator speeches about why you're there and where you are from.Most everybody is either a pastor or a worship leader or church musician as you would imagine. I have talked to people from Kenya, Nigeria,, China, South Korea, Egypt, Nepal, Germany, the  Navajo Nation, and Canada, as well as a pastor of a Cantonese mega-church in Ontario, and a pastor of  a Korean church in China, And the women I've met here talk about ideas, not material things, events, or family.

Just before returning to the hotel, I attended the evening worship service. It was amazing. I was such putty in their hands. The service took me into such deep grief about personal sin and oppression of others that I trembled from crying deep inside such that my face was wet, and then they brought me out into the spiritual light. It worked even though I thought I would sit there and thought I was going to objectively deconstruct their technique. Uh uh. The Holy Spirit had other ideas for me. She thought I needed a plunge into the Christian mystery pool. She  was right.



I snapped a selfie of me with the Calvin signage as you walk up to the campus to register . It was warm enough that day (freezing 32) to sustain the 30-minute walk from my hotel on Weds. I didn't realize I looked so grumpy! I must have felt oppressed by the cold.  It's only gotten colder.

Time to rest up. May you have a encounter with the divine sometime soon yourself.

Love,
Pops