Countdown to Tübingen

pictured (left to right): me, chandler

Good guy friends are hard to find. Great guy friends especially so.

History and popular culture are riddled with the names of guy friends that have really clicked: Tango and Cash, The Green Hornet and Kato, Lawler and Beirnes, Paul and Silas, FDR and Churchill… the list goes on. To the degree that the rules and customs of relationships between men is unwritten, it sure seems that the guys who do manage to build said relationships go much further as a duo than they could have gone alone. Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell are largely underwhelming by themselves, but when a sneaky L.A. narcotics dealer frames them both for a crime they did not commit, they are forced to work together to make an altogether average movie. That is the power of testosterone squared.

Imagine what that power can do when harnessed for campus ministry – rather than for your stereotypical late-80′s action movie. Two single guys without attachment (at least inside the country) are a driving force in building a ministry (see: Globalscope Spain). We stay out later. We work longer. We play harder. All because we don’t have wives to report to to keep things reasonable. It’s kind of like penguins pushing each other closer and closer to the edge of the iceberg towards the murky water below.

Lucky for Unterwegs, we will soon have just such an irresponsibly awesome duo: Chandler and Me. Yes, we come from two incredibly different backgrounds… Chandler is a football athlete who likes hunting and trucks; I am a soccer athlete who likes lattes and hybrid cars. But if Ray Tango and Gabriel Cash can work together to bust the biggest L.A. drug deal of the decade, Creel and Crawford can help build a campus ministry in Tübingen, Germany.

Help make it happen.

the seasons have changed, but my parking spot remains the same

It’s a soggy day in Georgia… sort of the unsung, unwritten sequel to the Brook Benton song, which is acceptable, since it’s not the kind of day that people are normally inspired to write songs about. Gray, overcast, and damp… this must be what Seattle feels like all the time. It’s the kind of weather that has led many to lead more caffeinated lives, others to start giant software companies, and still others to don flannel shirts and create alternative genres of music.

It may interest you to know that Tübingen is the second sunniest spot in Germany, according to some statistics. Even so, German weather is so gray and drizzled that weather-related superlatives for German cities really don’t mean much… Imagine your pet turtle winning first place in the annual Blue Ridge (Georgia, of course) Turtle Race. Now imagine how much your pet turtle cares about that trophy. That is how Germans feel about sunshine.

So what other bright spots are there in our little university town?

• There are now seven new shining faces living in the student dormitories of Eberhard-Karls university, and those faces belong to our exchange students. They are there for the semester to work, to play, and the meet students and build relationships, knitting the fabric of our ministry’s community.
• Our team leader, Beth, got married this past weekend to fiancee Daniel. The only downside to their happy marriage that I can think of is that teammate Chandler will be the only single teammate on the field, a fifth wheel, if you will. But not for long…
• ‘Cause in May, I’m going to go join the team. Don’t worry, Chandler. We can take our two extra wheels and make a bicycle. Or, if you’re not comfortable with that, two unicycles.

See you soon.

missions quarterly, designed by missionary perpetuum

Every child is given a box of crayons in Kindergarten. Some children create Crayola masterpieces that grace the permanent collection at the kitchen fridge for years. Other children eat their crayons. Either way, those delicious creative implements are given out with less and less frequency as every child grows older… By fifth grade, “Art” is a one-hour class you attend once a week. By high school, “Art” is an elective for the few creative elites and – more commonly – the students who thought it an easier dump class than playing the Sousaphone or learning to type at 60 WPM. By college, whatever creative ambition remains is buried in a secret mass graveyard underneath the Georgia Tech College of Computing, sucked out of students and replaced by a robotic passion for flipping tiny 1′s and 0′s back and forth.

And so it was with me, seven years since the last time I really exerted myself artistically, and I now find myself called back into creative combat. It is amazing how many guises raising support can take when it goes on for long enough… One minute you are pastor-in-training doing the childrens’ sermon, the next minute you are IT, the next you are typographer, the next you are software R&D, the next you are an online entrepreneur, the next you are running your own editorial design firm. As of late, many of those hats that I wear (metaphorically, I’m not a hat person) are requiring me to start working out with those creative muscles that have long laid dormant. It’s kind of a rush – I went into Computer Science at Tech because I loved computer animation, and raising support, of all things, has allowed me to do just that.

So, if you are in need of creative services, logo design, editorial layout, body paint, font selection, or whatever… Consider using that money to support a certain campus minister build a certain ministry in Germany in exchange for whatever “Art” you may require.

the typical bipolar georgia winter: snow on sunday, shorts on friday.

The city of Atlanta is closed today due to heavy snow and ice conditions. Churches, schools, offices, families, and whoever else doesn’t belong to any one of those kinds of groups collectively decided upon hearing that there would be a chance of ice today that it would be better if everyone just stayed in bed. It’s a proud tradition we have here in the South: saying the words “icy roads” or “snowfall” down here is like yelling “fire” in a crowded theater. People run panicked to buy milk, eggs, and bread (because nothing passes the time frozen inside your house like making French toast, I guess); all the metro area schools close (except Georgia Tech, who may surpass the Post Office in ignoring inclement weather conditions); and everyone buckles down for what may be the worst storm we’ve had since ’93 (which we still proudly boast about surviving).

This is not the case in Germany. Snow is not an unusual event – it’s every Monday – and it will certainly not stop the life functions of any German city or Dorf. Schools don’t close no matter how cold it is. Panic is not something Germans do, and even if they did, it certainly would not be in reaction to something as tame as golf ball-sized hail or extreme sub-zero temperatures. Bitte.

Our ministry is made to match. We will operate in all weather conditions, at any elevation (seriously, check out our back yard). Snow is not a hindrance – it is water in it’s most German form. Why face into the freezing wind with big grins on our faces? Why go on living life like normal when the air is so cold it evokes tears that freeze to your cheeks? Because our ministry is German, and that is what Germans do.

That’s reliability that’s worth investing in.