One of my favorite profs from TFC emailed a couple of weeks ago, so today after weeks of procrastinating I decided to respond. After writing the email I thought I'd turn it into a blog. So below is my email with my commentary in ( ).
Phil
I was waiting till I could sit down and write you a deeply reflective response, sharing how life, marriage and ministry have been going, but I realized this morning if I didn’t jump on this it’d sit here for another two weeks and then a year later after you had completely forgotten who Matt Parks is receive this short novel of an email, meaning nothing to you. (Yeah so, how many of us simply let an email sit in our inbox for months, meaning to respond to it, but never touch it? I do it, and I also do it with cell phone calls. So if you call or email me and I never respond, it's probably because I'm waiting for a year to pass so I can respond)
I must admit, I’m jealous that Don Miller came to crossroads (Phil’s church) this last weekend. How was he? Did he preach, talk, sign books, kiss babies? I’m reading his book “Through Painted Deserts.”” and would love to hear what he’s got to say.
(for all the Don Miller fans out there, I must agree with you, he rocks! And for everyone asking, "who is Don Miller" you must pick up "Blue like Jazz" or "Through Painted Deserts" these are both must reads. Don invites us into his life journey and the conversations he has along the way, these conversations are great mental stimulus to spur thoughts.)
So sr. comps have started and you guys are already looking at the second half of the semester. I hope things go wonderfully and that you get to really drill the mess out of some seniors. I can say that now that I’m not sitting in their chair.
(Sr. Comps are 4 hours of torture, where professors drill you trying to see what you remember from 4 years of education, 4 years; I have trouble remembering last much less remembering 4 years.)
Life for Pearl and I is going well. I’m very thankful to be at LCBC and to be under the leadership I am and involved with the teams here. I could hear you asking “what are you learning right now,” so to answer your question I would have to say, southerns where never met to ski, which is one of the dumbest ideas I’ve encountered up here, “hey, lets strap planks of wood to our feet and fall off the face of this mountain, and to stop do a snow plow, a what? Hit a snow plow?””
(Yeah, with that said, skiing is not good, Jason Keener, Saturate's worship leader, tried skiing yesterday and broke his leg in 3 places, and Chad tried yesterday as well, and said he knocked 80% of the oxygen out of his body on his second run down the hill) on a more serous note (cause we must be serous every now and then) I’m learning the value of saying no and being committed to staying within my assigned work hours. At the start of the year we launched a young adult gathering, very similar to 7:22 (7:22 is Northpoints young adult gathering in Atlanta, it’s a small Bible study of about 3,000). I’m on the leadership team and could easy allow this to take up 40+ hours of my week and totally forget about my comment to Middle and High school ministries. If I allow myself to work 50-70 hour weeks I’m forced to cheat other areas of my life, so I cheat either my sleep, my personal renewal, and sad to say I’ve cheated Pearl (word of advice, don't cheat your wife, life's not good when the wife is not happy, don't cheat the ladies!). So, LCBC Leadership and I are working hard on keeping my responsibilities to the level of my hours and to stop cheating other areas. This forced focusing was hard to take, cause I was really loving the things I had to give up (I really do love what I do, all of it, almost all of it), but after a weekend of reflecting and gut checks I’m glad I’m at a place that forces me to address bad habits and establish a healthier lifestyle. (Really, I'm glad, cause I've got a friend who just got married, just had a baby, and his church pushes him to average 80 hour weeks, and he topped out one week at 120 hours, A 120 HOURS that's crazy, that only leaves 48 hours in the week, that's averaging 6.8 hours of sleep a night, too much, way too much!)
Well, now that I have written my short novel, I really need to get some work done. Oh, Please read this email to one of your classes, and make me look like some super wise human. I always wanted to be one of your class emails. I think I’d fit well into “Leadership development.” (I have set high ambitions in my life, to be the email in the class, oh to be that email, please)
Phil, thanks again for your huge investment into Pearl and I, you hold a dear place in our hearts and I consider you a great friend (he did our premarital counseling and did a great job), look forward to seeing you sometime in the future. Oh, I started a blog spot, it’s ponderingloadly@blogspot.com (we need all graduating seniors to have these, one big huge conversation, plus it’d keep us from falling off the face of the planet)
One last thing, Jason and Jenny had their baby last Sunday (the 19th) at 11:57 pm, she weighted in at 8 pounds 3 ounces, 20 some odd inches, and was named Sienna Raye Mitchell.
Later,
Matt
(So to all the blog readers who actually finished this, please get a life or you’re an amazingly fast reader, or your just really bored, thanks for reading)
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