...AND THE VERDICT IS...

After three days of listening to testimony and lawyers fight it out, we finally got to deliberate over the evidence on Friday afternoon. The trial was about an auto accident where one driver had pulled in front of the other and in doing so injured his back and foot. The one driver had already been found to be at fault and our job was to determine the monetary damages that were due to the one injured. We came to the conclusion that the defense did a terrible job and that the injuries were the result of the accident. We were now stuck with how do we put a dollar amount on a persons life. How do you put a dollar amount on a person's hobbies and free time that he can no longer do like he did? How much money is pain worth? Well, after two and a half hours of deliberations we settled on...Get this...$300,000. Yeah, you read that right. The lawyers were asking for $375,000, but I and a few others couldn't go that high. It sounds like a lot, which it is, but once you remove the lawyers 30%+ - (around $100,000) the medical bills ($125,000) that leaves only about $75,000 for all the injuries that will last the rest of his life. It's a crazy process that, at times, was extremly boring, but it was pretty cool to be a part of. That's it for now, I just thought I'd catch you up.

OK, OK, OK!

I've been selected to be on the jury for a trial today. It's the first time that I've ever been on a jury and so far, I'm not real impressed. It's soooooooo boring. I can't really talk about it much, but maybe after it's done I can tell more about it. They say that It'll probably last until Friday. Hopefully, that's all since it's taking me away from working on the house I bought a week ago Thursday.

On another note: I have recently received news about a youth pastor that I know that has resigned from his postition because of a couple of different reasons. The first is because of the direction that God is calling him and his family and the exciting new ministry opportunities that are before them and second because the finances of the church have crashed over the summer due to several different reasons including but not limited to the huge mortgage they have on the gym they built several years ago. I bring this up, not to embarass him, but to relate this story to some of my previous posts about how money rules the church. God has truly moved in this situation for this friend of mine, but this example is played out over and over throughout North America every year as churches get caught up in this mentality of what's important, buildings or ministries and the casualties just add up. I'm truly thankful for is new opportunity for my friend as I believe this is God's timing for him, but I wonder how many times it's not God's timing though.

St. Louis

Well, I've spent the night trying to catch up on all the blogs and comments that have been made this past week. I took a trip to St. Louis on Sunday and stayed there until Wednesday. NYI was putting on what they call DLC (District Leadership Conference) there and as the CO-District President for NYI I was able to attend with some other leaders from around the district here. They had it in ol St. Louis because that is where NYC is happening next year and we were toured around a little and updated about what is happening for that week. It was a good trip, but I didn't get to go up into the arch this year. Last year we did that as we met there. I did, however, get to go to the City Museum and play there a little. That is one of the most incredible places in the world to play. The place is absolutely amazing. There are tunnels, caves and all kinds of crazy stuff including a 5 STORY SLIDE! Everything is made out of things from other building and recycled stuff. It's just nuts!

Anyway, that's where I've been lately and I catch up a little more this weekend if I have time.

Rob Bell Question Follow-up

Per the question that I posed in the earlier posts, I have had some good response. Joyce summed up most of the discussion:

"Just a thought...does the community need to be upset if the church doors close. What if their needs are still being met by the people who were meeting their needs...the church doors were not what was important to them. "

And, I would have to agree with this sentiment. However, the questions that this begs are 1) Are the needs being met through the people in the church? and 2) If we are, then why do we need the church? Now, I think the answer to #2 is an obvious answer. Ben mentioned some of the reasons in his response, but question #1 is a little more difficult to decipher. First, we must begin to understand what the church is. Is the church the building that we associate ourselves with? Is the church the body of believers that we associate ourselves with? Or, is it the Body of Christ? If we try and answer Rob's question with any of these questions then we are in a position of defending those postions. If I say that the church is the building down on Main St. then what impact is that building having on the community? If I say that the church is the body of believer's who meet together at the building on Main St. then what impact is that group having on the community? If the church is the Body of Christ in general, then what impact is the Body of Christ having in the community? Next, the delimma. We, I believe, are called first of all to The Body of Christ throughout the world. As a part of that body, we are are typically called to a local body of belivers, who in turn meet together, usually in a building and call themselves a church. It's the Church Universal and the local church. So, the question breaks down into three levels of "Your Church". If "Your Church" were to close down, what impact would it have on your community? If the church building truly has a representation of the Body of Believers and thus the Body of Christ, then if it were to close it's doors, I think there should be an outcry. Not that the building is all that important, but simply because it should be an extention of the other two. It's really a catch-22. If the church were to close it's doors, that could likely mean that the people are not meeting the needs. If the people are not meeting the needs then the doors could possibly close. The difference, however, is that most likely the church (building) would not close it's doors because those who are attending it will support it. They do this because they typically want to keep it open so that they can come and they can do that even if they don't meet anybody else's needs in the community. I know that I may have gotten a little deep here but, in my mind, the question still stands. If your church were to close it's doors would those outside of those attending be upset? I asked my pastor this question and he said about our church "No, I don't think there's a church in town that people would be upset about closing down." He backed down and recanted a little bit, but still felt pretty strong about his statement. I said I agreed. How sad............ :(