School Breaks, Teaching Kids, Jealousy, the Beach, Night to Remember, Jeremy

Every time I have a school break, I always dive into projects that have been on the back burner (apex stuff, stuff around the house, figuring out what kind of lawyer to be someday, etc.). To make a long story short, I always end up staying busy even during the non-busy weeks. Weird.

Thing that makes me nervous: teaching & managing a room of 11 kids at house church (I'll be doing that one today). I don't get that nervous about speaking to a room of 1,000 adults, but 11 kids -- that's scary.

Darren Relyea called me yesterday from Wrigley Field where he was watching a Cubs game. Gotta admit, I was jealous.

Looks like Rebekah, the kids, & I are going to spend a few days in southern Cal. before school starts up again. The beach is always very good for my soul.

I'm going to take some time to teach Tori this coming week. Rebekah has been the primary home-school teacher so far. I'm going to give it a week to help gauge how it's going. (Remember my comment about always taking on new projects during the non-busy weeks?).

Wedenesday night there was a huge gathering of apexers at the Stokes' home. Five of our kids were baptized by their dads out in the pool. Very cool. I loved the way it all happened. The Stokes envisioned the thing, invited us all to hang out for a few Wednesday nights for discussions, and the it all climaxed with a night of swimming, baptizing, and feasting (even a cake with the names of all the kids who took the plunge). It was the way it is supposed to be. So simple, yet so meaningful.

Jeremy Ohl was there. He's worked at Canyon Ridge since last fall after several years of working for Apex. I thought his comment to me was profound: "Apex is not really a church, it is more like a monastic community." I think by the common understanding of those terms, he is exactly right. I guess I just have come to understand "church" to really mean what most people think of by "monastic community." Or something like that. The thing that is commonly referred to as "church" in our culture is not a bad thing, but theologically speaking, it aint "church." Or something like that. At any rate, Jeremy's comment was helpful to me and very insightful I thought. I love my "monastic community" in spite of her faults.