Happy second-year-a-versary to Matt and Jeni Price!!!!

Hope both of you are doing well.

Sorry I'm a little late, our interweb has been down for the day.

If you don't know Matt and Jeni are in Scotland while Jeni is at vet school, you can follow their adventures at the scotvet blog.

Matt+Price Jeni+Price anniversary 2+years

pt 1
as always click for larger image
here are some photos from Jacob's bachelor party, these have been balanced a little and some of them have been cropped
most of them were taken by me, but some of them were taken by Travis, Ben, Jacob and Keith





























Andrew+Seely personal reflection vacation Spokane,WA Jacob+Spaun bachelor+party marriage pictures

Well today is my last day of vacation. Later today I'll be traveling from Seattle to LA and finally be home.

I did wake up this morning at 4:30a to get my sister from the hotel to the airport. From there my mom and I drove down to where she was going to catch her train later. Since it was still only about 6a when we found the train station and she didn't need to be there until around 8:30a we decided to get some breakfast.

The only problem being, when in a city that you are not familiar with, finding somewhere like a Denny's proves far more difficult than imagined.

Long story short we ended up driving around for about an hour, which we had the time to do and gave us a kinda nice driving tour of some of the city, then we finally found an IHOP and ate there.

I dropped my mom off at the train station and found a nice quiet street to take a nap on. Finally I'm here at a Tully's coffee, where they have free wi-fi, bless their souls, and this one is actually right next door to the corporate offices.

At this point I really wish I had booked an earlier flight. I was hoping to hang out with some people today, but for a few different reasons it didn't work out. So now I'm kinda stranded until around 3 when I need to take the rental car (actually crappy mini-van) back and then get to the airport for my flight.

We'll see how much of a relaxing day I can have. Something just tells me I'm going to be fairly bored and there's only so much reading you can do. At least I do have with me my copy of Season 8 of the simpsons (which just won another Emmy) to watch while I sit around the airport.

It's been a great week, and I'm definitely more tired than when I left. Let me just tell you that it was the greatest honor to be in Jacob's wedding. Everything that happened this week was great, from the time watching Jacob run around looking like his head was cut off, to the bachelor party, the rehearsal dinner and the actual wedding were amazing.

I can't tell you all who don't know Jacob, how much of an awesome guy he is and how lucky Krista is to have married him. He's the kind of friend that you wouldn't know what or where your life would be if he wasn't your friend. My mom told me something that either Jacob's mom or dad told her. They said, Andrew and Jacob are so different, yet they work so well together, you can really tell they were meant to be friends.

I can't agree more. If you lined us up on paper, there's probably no way that you would peg us to be friends, but even though we hadn't physically seen each other in over 2 years, it was like we never missed a beat.

I guess that's it for now. I'll be trying to finish a few books today while I'm sitting around and then hopefully sometime this week I'll FINALLY make it to see SNAKES ON A PLANE!!!

I don't care what the reviews and the critics and the box-office numbers are saying, I'm sure I'll enjoy it, especially since I expect nothing out of it other than it to be so bad, that it's good.

In theological matters, I'm trying to process some thoughts for you all to digest, but they may be a few days away at this point, so really don't hold your breath.

---------
update 11:00p

I'm home and full of In-N-Out.

Andrew+Seely personal vacation Seattle,WA Los+Angeles,CA travel

Jacob and Krista are getting married today!!!!

We are just about to leave the hotel to head to the church.

Fun and exciting!!!

God's sweet blessings fall on them.

Andrew+Seely personal reflection vacation Jacob+Spaun Krista+Shrader marriage wedding

As much as I'm bummed about missing the premiere of Snakes On A Plane. There's no way I would have missed out on the rehearsal and the great dinner put on by Jacob's dad, Frank.

It was a great evening and one that will certainly not be forgotten quickly.

Plus Ben, Sara and Dani and I had a great time working on our TOP SECRET project that will be revealed soon.

Snakes, I will see you soon I promise.

Andrew+Seely personal reflection vacation Jacob+Spaun marriage wedding rehearsal

Today's adventure:
Spokane to Seattle

A great short ride with Jacob and his brother Ben.

Later tonight we dress like penguins, just to test out the water.


---------
update 4:02p
We're here in the hotel. We made it in a while ago, and now Jacob's off doing wedding stuff and Ben and I are trying to relax and recoup. I think I'm off to the pool and spa for a while. Oh yeah!!!

Andrew+Seely personal vacation Spokane,WA Seattle,WA travel

Well we just got home from the bachelor party for Jacob.

It went off well. He was in the dark for most of the night, literally at times, when he was wearing the blindfold.

Here's the re-cap:

We started off by blind-folding him and taking him on a car ride to disorient him to where we were headed for the first thing of the night. The only problem is I got us genuinely lost. I meant to head here and go up and back down, but there's a lot of new construction up there and I got totally turned around and couldn't find our way off of the plateau, and ended up having to come back down the same way we came up which served its purpose by disorienting him, but it cost us about 20 min of driving instead of the 5 that it should have taken.

We finally ended up at Whitworth College (our alma mater and Jacob's work), to his surprise where we were going to play frisbee golf. We then proceeded to make him put on a shirt that said "I'm getting married. Treat me special!", which he had to wear for the evening. I then passed out the personalized frisbees that I had bought and made today for each on the groomsmen, that said "Jacob's Bachelor Party 8-16-06 and _______ (name)". So Ben, Keith, Travis and I all got red Whitworth Frisbees and Jacob got a glow in the dark one.

After a great game of frisbee golf, with the scores being Keith +3, Jacob +6, Ben +8, me +10, and Travis was +1 (but that's because he was late and only played one hole).

We took some pictures and blindfolded Jacob up again. After driving in circles here (notice the small triangle in the center of the map) about 6 or 7 times (all right hand turns), we proceeded to head to the place where we were going to eat. Ben at one point accidentally called out the name of a coffee stand, called Bean Me Up, which was a mistake because it's only like 4 blocks from Jacob's house and he drives past it everyday on his way to work, I had to do some quick maneuvering to throw him off again. We finally ended up at one of Jacob's favorite restaurants, Tomato Street for dinner. We stuffed our faces with good Italian food and celebrated communion with each other.

After only being able to eat about 1/5 of each of our portions (they are HUGE, especially their calzones which Ben, Keith and Travis all got) we headed towards our final destination for the evening.

Downtown Spokane has really become a cool place. The city has worked hard to make it a place that is alive with culture and things to do. One of my favorite places is FarWest Billiards. And luckily Jacob likes it too. Since there wasn't a pool table available when we first got there, we put our names on a list and entertained ourselves with some darts. Cricket to be exact (that is we played no slop, where you must go in order 20-15 and there are no points kept). It was an amazingly close game. Keith took and early lead, but Jacob came back and took over the lead. With everyone close in tail. I, myself ended up being the first one to reach the bullseye stage, quickly getting 1 of 3 points. It took me a while and everyone caught up to me, with Jacob being the first one to get one point on the bullseye. A few turns later I closed out the game, with an outer ring shot (worth 1) and then missing the 2nd dart, with the winning shot, a shot where I would have to arch the last dart above the 2 other darts which were protecting the bullseye. Somehow I managed to pull it off and win. It was a great match.

We then moved on to pool.

With the 5 of us we wanted to make sure everyone was playing, which meant that we played cutthroat (with 5 players each having 3 balls as their own).

Keith definitely was the pool shark among us winning more than anyone else. It was a fun way to end the evening. And to top all things off the last game came down to Keith and Travis. Keith had one of Travis' balls to make to take him out and win. Keith with all of his gusto, pummeled the cue ball sending Travis' last 6 ball off the table. Which allowed Travis a chance to win the game. Both of Keith's balls were at the far end of the table close to each other and Travis' ball on the marker for where the balls start. Travis knew that he really couldn't make either one of Keith's balls and if he left the cue ball anywhere other than right smack against a rail or behind Keith's balls then Keith would have a huge shot towards Travis' last ball. In a moment of genius, Travis decided to nudge his ball from the center of the table as to make the shot harder for Keith. The best part was as soon as the cue ball came off of the cue and hit the 6 ball, it went directly into the corner pocket giving Keith the win. What a way to end the night. We all had a great laugh, finished up the film we had been shooting (a disposable B&W camera) and all headed home, only to know that we would see each other tomorrow as we continued to celebrate Jacob and Krista's wedding.

I myself look forward to what is to come in the next few days. I am keenly aware of God's presence and blessing on this whole experience. And I am more than honored to be Jacob's best man and to have the responsibility of being able to plan his bachelor party.

May God keep us and give us peace as the time draws near to the moment when man and woman become one.

Andrew+Seely personal reflection vacation Spokane,WA Jacob+Spaun bachelor+party marriage

Reflecting on being back in Spokane has been a little surreal.

Everything is very familiar, from the streets and the places to the faces I see.

Yet I feel completely disconnected from everything. As if I am a ghost observing everything happening around me.

I used to belong but now no longer fit into the larger picture.

I'm not quite sure how to explain it all. It's kinda like the first time you come home from college and all the people are the same, but time has changed things and you're not sure how to reconcile the gap in time.

There are things I miss, but I am definitely "just visiting".

It was nice to catch up with a few people today and there are plenty of people to see tomorrow and am looking forward to that.

In other news, I finished a book on the plane and finished another one today.

Both great. So if it interests you, Letters to New Pastors by Michael Jinkins (which I mentioned here) and God at the Mall by Pete Ward were the two books I finished.

I have 2 more with me and we'll see if I can get through them here on this vacation trip.

I think the song quote that best sums up what I'm feeling would be from the Counting Crows - "If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts"

Andrew+Seely personal reflection vacation Spokane,WA

The title stands for My Best Friend's Wedding.

And no I'm not talking about the movie with Julia Roberts.

In a few minutes I'm headed to the airport to get on a plane to Spokane,WA. There I'll be staying with Jacob who's getting married this weekend (see previous post here). I get the incredible honor of being his best man, so scheduled this week aside from personal vacation time, is some good catch up time since I haven't been to Spokane in over 2 years, these (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ) are the entries from the last time I was in Spokane. As well as bachelor debauchery, driving over to Seattle for various wedding planning things then the big thing on Sat.

I'll probably be blogging this week so keep watch. Other than that I'll be enjoying my vacation time and also catching up with some old and good friends.

Jacob+Spaun wedding vacation Spokane,WA

If you haven't heard there's a new on-line bible site. It's called ebible.com

It's a lot like biblegateway.com but definitely more web 2.0.

It's still in beta right now and the only way you can access it is to either be invited to be a tester or know someone who is a tester.

Lucky for you I was asked to be a part of the testing group.

I've used it a few times and it has some cool features such as tags, bookmarks, and even some pretty smooth search features. The only thing that I wished it had a few more versions of the bible like the NIV and the NRSV, but since it is beta who knows if it may get added at some point.

So if you are interested in getting an account please indicate so in the comments. And make sure you fill in the email section so I can send an invite to that address.

I have 20 of them so act now. Or check out the blog for ebible.com

ebible.com bible online web+2.0

In season 4 of the show 24 we finally see an exterior shot of the front of the CTU building.

This is where I live.

I recognized the building as this intersection. I drive past this intersection on my way to work.

This is how far I am away from there.

Pretty cool.

or lame...depends on your opinion.

tv show 24 location my+house

Season 4 of the show 24 here I come. Disk 1 started!!

tv show 24 DVD

Screw the Tour De France
check this out

bike crazy

Don't forget in one week Simpsons season 8 comes out on DVD.

simpsons season+8 DVD

I've started a new book last week. Letters to New Pastors by Michael Jinkins.

I found on page one of the book something that stood out to me.

(this is the letter writer talking to a new pastor, remembering when the pastor first started seminary

Just before you drove off I said that if there is anything else in the world that God will let you do instead of ordained ministry - anything at all - then you should do it. You looked at me like I had lost my mind.

This passage stands out to me in so many different ways.

First of all it is not the first time I have heard this said to me or read it somewhere.

It only reaffirms the fact that being in ministry is NOT a job, nor a career or even a vocation. It is a calling and God is the one who does the calling. We have nothing to do with it. It is not our choice and if we think it has something to do with what we want then, I think we have to do some serious thinking about what it means to be a part of ministry.

Questioning one's call is a healthy thing. Many of us hear a statement like the one above and instantly start to doubt our position.

This has been extremely true for me.

When things get hard, or circumstances arise, one is often left in the pit of questioning and doubt. We wonder if God has really called us to be in ministry. Because if he has, then shouldn't things be good, and prosperous? Shouldn't we feel validated and wanted. Where are the affirmations and praises?

The thing to remember, which is not always easy, is that God never said a calling to ministry would be easy, let alone make us happy all the time.

As many times as I've wanted to throw in the towel or take a very long break and find so pencil pusher job out there. Even in the times where I've had to do those jobs between working in ministry, there is nothing more satisfying than being in the service of God.

Even on the days when students drive me crazy and I can't hear another story about who knows what, and the days when it seems like no one at my church even cares about living out the call of Jesus and the days when I feel completely alone and depressed, those days can't deter me from knowing that being in ministry is where I am supposed to be.

I think sometimes, people (lay people that is) don't fully understand what it means to be in ministry full time. Maybe this is a skewed perspective, but I think that people see the things we do, which usually pail in compare to the things we do which they do not see. What a life, they must think, you get to hang out with people, you get to study and read you get to show up on sundays and do your thing.

But what I think people don't always realize that this is a calling where we are deeply involved with people. Broken, needy, hurt, depressed, lonely, dysfunctional, beautiful people. This takes far more than anyone who isn't in ministry can know.

I am completely thankful for the days when God smiles on me and I am feeling loved by God and the people around me. The fact that I know that God looks on the work that I do and is hopefully saying "Good job, faithful one!", is a fact that makes it all worth it.

There are days that I wish there was something, anything, else that I'd rather do, but there is not, and this is where God has called me.

Thank you God, I will give you my all and feel free to tell me when I slack off.

ministry pastors church calling

Ok folks, I've talked about this movie before here, and today I found this.

Basically I'm starting almost a month late and we have until Aug 27th to make me the winner. I NEED YOUR HELP and your commitment. Basically I need everyone to vote once a day for the next 25 days. On top of that I really need you to tell EVERYONE you know.

This would be one of the coolest things ever if I could win.

Track my progress here.

VOTE HERE

or



I'm begging here people, please vote EVERYDAY and please tell ALL of your friends. I want to see this on everyone's blog!!!

snakes+on+a+plane movie contest

I've been waiting for this and since the official announcement hasn't been made, I wasn't sure when it was going to happen. But thanks to DJ Chaung, I now know that the NEW emergent village site is up and running.

You can find it at http://www.emergentvillage.us

Which is different than the old http://emergentvillage.com

So please check it out. It was something that we talked about during our time in Minnesota at the Coordinating group meeting, but I knew it wasn't going live for some time, but you heard it here first (or maybe 2nd or even 3rd) anyways it's still new news.

In case you wanted to know there are now lists of the leadership for Emergent Village you can find the Board of Directors and the Coordinating Group (which I'm on).

new emergent+village website launch emerging+church