A Week of Explaining Myself

I was at a conference last week called Catalyst. It was a 2 day ordeal in Atlanta where some great speakers came and took us on this journey of where the church is headed and just how it's leaders should handle it. When I say the church, i mean the church in general more like Christianity. Some great stuff was said and I still haven't finished learning from what I heard. I had this great week planned tho! I was getting fall break Monday and Tuesday so I thought Wednesday through Friday I would go to my conference and then Friday through Tuesday I would head to Jackson Mississippi with my buddy Brennen straight from the conference to meet our Team for a mission project. But something happened after the conference. We had only begun to leave for Jackson and got into a truck wreck. Everyone was fine but the truck was damaged to badly to drive the rest of the way. We had to make a decision fast, so we chose to come back home to Nashville with some friends that were also in Atlanta for the Conference. This is when the weekend took an unexpected turn. The ride back started out alright, Chad gave me a recap of Andy Stanley's Last session at the conference. Chris was in the back seat and in a bad mood. He just wanted to get home, Annie called and said hey can we stop at Cracker Barrel and eat some dinner together? This car seemed to be ready to get home so they were like "umm naw we will grab fast food and head back". Luckily I got dropped off and was able to eat with the other car full of people. Annie, Diana, Sarah, Jenn and Brennen were in this car. We had a great conversation at dinner and had so much fun together. On the ride home we also started trying to see how many songs that came on the radio could be turned into worship songs and that was a blast. It was good to be able to hang out with those guys because honestly we have gone to church together for years but never just spend time being friends with each other. We got to the church and Sarah gave me a ride home and we had a great conversation too. "Shout out to random actor guy from last Wednesday's chapel service." When I get to Trevecca my Fiancee is there to pick me up and take me to my mom's house. I was so happy I got to see her. I thought we wouldn't get to see each other for an entire week. Oh by the way I should mention I lost my license so I had no way to drive myself around. I found this out when we got into the wreck. Luckily I wasn't driving at the time. Not having my License prompted me to ask my mom if she would come to church with me on Sunday. My fiancee already had made plans to leave town because I wasn't supposed to be there anyways. My mom said yes. The night before church I added a bunch of people from Catalyst to my twitter following and made a few new really cool friends that way. At church the next morning I brought my mom in and it started getting weird. I didn't expect much else but this was such an awkward weird experience. She didn't know anyone and really was willing to go meet new people so she decided she would stay with me during Sunday School. Now get this tho I am in a class with 7-12th graders and my mom is joining me. Was very odd. Once service started we sat down and listened to the Preacher Man Alan Clark!! His series was called Framed and he preached about trusting God with all you have, specifically finances. He even challenged our teens to give away as much as they could because they were trying to raise 1k$ before next summer. He also mentioned that only 30% of our church tithes which is important because it seemed to stick in my mothers mind. Unfortunately we went through the entire church experience without any new people speaking to my mother other than my teenagers. That coupled with an interesting sermon gave me and my mother alot to talk about after church. She took me to a Chinese Buffet! My favorite! and we had about an hour and a half talk about church and why she was skeptical and about how I few the world. At some point the movie the matrix was brought up? weird I know! I get home time for some football! The titans had a late game which was interrupted by the cat getting caught in the neighbors fox trap. This was not good because my mom and my aunt happen to be cat people and happen to both be there. This is a very small piece of land in the suburbs of Antioch Tennessee mind you. Absolutely no need for fox traps. After 5 hours of dealing with my enraged mother and the police I finally get to sleep. The next day I head to Grandma's house where I undergo a great amount of pressure to get a job. Although these are the strongest Christians in my family they don't seem to understand my calling into full time ministry or as I like to call it a life of ministry. I had to explain that the whole reason I don't spend all of my time trying to make money is that I have been called to tell people that money is not the center of all life and that we are supposed to rely on God to provide and not this system where happiness only comes from success in the business world. Any how I got my license yesterday and had a fun church service with the teens at Brentwood. Today has been very relaxed I went to missions class where I signed up to preach a Sunday service at a local Nazarene church. I also got a tad bit of work done on next Wednesday service. I seriously am done explaining tho..... with tons of love  -Just_Jon