Ken Martin’s Blog

Found rooting through a trash bag by my side door when I got home. I was about six feet from this guy before he slowly eased back to hide under the picnic table.

We’re considering a change in our church that would change our church government to an “elder-based” system. The Bible doesn’t say a whole lot about how to organize a local church, but it seem pretty plain that elders were the group saddled with leadership. We currently have a fairly common set-up where leadership authority and responsibility are split between three “branches”.

We’ve been looking at this topic for a couple of years. A vote was planned for next Sunday. We had “one last” Question-Answer meeting last night. It was interesting.

Because of newly raised questions and concerns, we began the meeting noting that there would actually be no vote next Sunday. That was to me a sad way to start the meeting, but there we were.

The really valuable thing which came from the meeting was the clear message that the message hasn’t been clear enough. People want to know how moving to an elder-based system would be different. Much of what was being asked has already been worked through, but no materials reflecting that were provided, so I think it’s fair and right that folks want to “hold the horses” until they see some of the details and goals better.

But there were parts of the meeting that - I’m not sure how to say it - grieved me.

There were folks that don’t want to change things, which isn’t surprising or even bad. What was surprising were some of the reasons and arguments. No one had a Biblical challenge to the idea, such as saying they don’t believe it’s correct to pursue an elder-based system based on this or that Scriptural concept or passage.

The “arguments” offered stuck me as being exactly the kinds of things that an individual might express if they were presented the idea that they may not be following Scripture. (For those friends of mine who read this and are not Christian, this may all seem very odd, but there’s just a basic idea that if you’re a Christian, you generally give ascent to the concept that the Bible is authoritative and applicable.) Here is some of what I heard (paraphrased the best I can remember), and thoughts I had afterwards, or that I thought it would not be kind or appropriate to express at the moment. I’d already spoken far more in that meeting than I’d wanted to. Also, these are solely my thoughts, not representing anyone else. And I might be too grumpy. You are forewarned.

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That’s what I wondered yesterday morning when I opened the my car door and was greeted by the above. I was already running late and not feeling great. It had snowed, so I had to clear that. And now this. This was a dreadful start to the day. My inner Eeyore was in full swing.

But nothing looked damaged or missing.

Then I thought, “William.” It would be a perfect little three-year-old thing to climb into Papa’s car and patiently, proudly fill it with scoop after scoop of dirty snow. Great.

Then I saw it. Inside the console was a Diet Dr. Pepper with the top blown clean off. I hadn’t been in that car for days, and apparently I’d left a little treat for myself. And after a few days of below freezing weather… boom!

The console was, as far as I can remember, closed. It must have been quite the event.

The gospel of Mark has an interesting little structure. A whole bunch of the verses start with και, which is often translated “and” but can be, and often is, left untranslated since it’s just there to keep the story going from point to point. So, it’s something like “…and then they did this, and then they did that, and then they did the next thing…” Occasionally you’ll see και ευθεως, which is “and immediately”. Overall, in Mark you get the sense of a very fast moving narrative.

Well, I thought I’d give my week’s highlights in Markian prose:

Last week I went out of town
και I needed to get back for a funeral
και the winds were high so taking a small plane back began to look iffy
και ευθεως we decided I should fly commercial
και there was a flurry activity getting me on the flight
και I got back that evening
και I showed up at church in the nick of time to set up for the funeral
και I went home and slept
και ευθεως in the morning I was back at church doing sound checks
και the funeral was lovely
και so was the rest of the afternoon
και we were all getting hungry so we grabbed a bite to eat
και, despite reassurances, my Spidey-Sense noted peanut oil, so I didn’t eat the fried food
και we took the kids to get our Christmas tree (a week later than usual)
και I lost my company iPhone somewhere
και ευθεως we called the restaurant and they found nothing
και ευθεως I searched in the dark tree lot and I found nothing
και I reconciled myself to buying a replacement
και we left the tree lot
και we realized that in our distraction we’d not paid for our Christmas tree
και ευθεως we went back to the tree farm
και taking one more look for my iPhone, a teen came up and asked “Is this yours?”
και I could tell it pained him to return it
και ευθεως we went home
και after a jam-packed Friday at work, the weekend came
και we awoke to snow
και the yard wasn’t ready for snow, so I got the yard ready
και one then another kid got something like the stomach flu
και ευθεως I did, too
και I spent 18 hours in bed
και I missed church (which is rare)
και Helen got it later on Sunday
και I’m tired

It’s been a fast moving narrative.

I sat with family at a wonderful Thanksgiving.

I sat late at night reading to an aged, dying family member. She passed twelve hours later.

I sat at the wedding of a couple from church.

I hardly know what to say.

Halloween was fun this year. We did our usual run up to Vadnais Heights, where the fire department has food and treats and clowns (not every day… just Halloween), and then we go through one of the neighborhoods there. Anna was a princess. Kenny was columbian coffee. Henry and Will were bears monkeys. But Jack, well, he stole the show as Groucho Marx’s Professor Wagstaff from Horse Feathers.

No, it’s not a real cigar. It’s a cinnamon stick.

Yes, that’s Jack making the clown laugh.

Snapshots never really do justice to how pretty something like this is. Tiny whispers of snow which soon emboldened themselves into big fluffy flakes. Peaceful and dreamy. Twenty minutes later it was bright and sunny. I love having an office window. :)

Beautiful Lord of the Rings characters each made with only one sheet of uncut paper. Wow.

http://ericjoisel.com/Site/barbarians.html

Apropos the “season,” I donned a hideous monster face last Friday evening. I regret that I didn’t have a camera.

I didn’t do it on purpose. I was just eating dinner. But it turned out that the meatballs contained something which caused one of my legendary allergic reactions. There was nothing on the ingredient list which appeared dangerous, but there was something in there. I’m suspecting cottonseed oil, but I have a hard time believing that considering the metric tons of potato chips I eat.

A couple of hours later my hands started to tingle and feel hot. Then my face began to swell and turn red. Within an hour or so I looked quite hideous. The kids stared at me with a quiet, cautious, wondering smile.

A friend drove me to the local ER because even though I was having no difficulty breathing, if I began to I wanted to be near help. (That’s when my allergies can be truly dangerous.) I went through triage, then I sat in the waiting room and watched part of an entirely unedifying movie. About an hour and a half later, I decided to go home. I was still puffy, but the redness was gone. The reaction was fading before I’d ever made it into a room.

I was exhausted the entire weekend. I’m just starting to feel back on my game today.

So there, I broke my blogging silence. Thrilling, eh?

It came as a shock to me, too. But can a 1957 Johnny Dollar be wrong? (31 second audio clip)