The Monday brief

February 16th, 2009 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (2) |

Highlight of the week: The highlight was definitely not when the database that holds all of JakeBouma.com’s content mysteriously disappeared. The support people were able to confirm that a) they didn’t delete it and b) I didn’t delete it, by accident or otherwise, and I had pretty much resigned to starting over agian; I even put up a splash page during the downtime. Anyway, I got an email from support saying “the issue has been resolved,” with no further explanation… so apparently the found the misplaced server. Whatever. At least it wasn’t my fault like this time or this time.

The real highlight of my week was probably listening to Brandon Mick repeatedly butcher the introduction to the St. Mark podcast (link opens in iTunes). Luckily for you, a recording of the whole escapade is available; just click the play button below.

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Book(s) I’m reading: I’m currently in the middle of three books: How to Think Theologically by Howard Stone and James Duke, which is a bit of “research material” for a project I’m working on; The Future of Christology by Roger Haight, for the Tranforming Theology Theo-Blogger Consortium; and The Fidelity of Betrayal by Peter Rollins, which I’ve been reading in bed the past few nights.

Music I’m digging: The Fray’s new self-titled album is incredible… I can’t get enough of it (You might remember that back in 2005 I said, “They are totally on the verge of becoming huge.”). Also, I’m really digging One Last Century by The Damnwells, which you can download for free here.

Something(s) that blew my mind: How about the fact that last week it was 60+ degrees midweek and it snowed 7 inches on Friday? Welcome to Iowa.

Ministry update: The last couple of weeks have been pretty crazy for me. I’ve had the biggest “pastoral care” issues with parents/students that I’ve dealt with up to this point in my (admittedly short) youth ministry career, and it’s been scary, humbling, draining, while at the same time, beautiful, life-giving, and affirming. And through it all, God has been speaking to me in profound ways (which is something I have said with any confidence very few times).

In other ministry news, one of my students who is in college called me tonight and told me he’s feeling called to youth ministry. We had a really long and productive conversation about it… it was awesome.

Seminary/ordination update: A strategic phone call has been made.

Looking forward to: I am both excited and not excited about turning 25 this Sunday. Excited because birthdays are generally a good time and not excited because 25 is halfway between 20 and 30. Ugh.

That’s it for the Monday brief. Feel free to leave a comment, and if you’re feeling extra frisky, check out the Monday brief archives.