our hope-filled odyssey

Ok, not sure where all this will go....

Sometime in 2002 the Lord really pressed on my heart to come into a deeper relationship with him and also to see that there were many lives not being reached by my expression of what a Christian is and the Church as a whole in my experience. “What Is Jesus Doing?” I realized was a better question to be asking.

I was attending the American Baptist church that I grew up in. I began getting more involved with Bible study groups and even tried my hand at teaching the senior high youth class. Which Scotty is just not equipped to do when it comes to teacher up here - student down there settings. I didn’t like it that way. Thought it needed to be more leveled out as just a conversation. Blah blah blah.

Word of my passion for those who don’t know Christ reached the mission committee. So, I was on the committee for a bit....yuk!....I got out of there ASAP! It makes me sad thinking about how missions is looked at. What it is viewed as being.

At the beginning of 2003 I began looking to see what Scotty wanted to be when he grew up. I’ve got a little family now ya know? In a search via the internet one evening a want add or something came up for a position with some mission sending agency. After a few links I ended up at the IMB website and somewhere in there was this page with a picture on it where a family was all seated on a couch in a living room. The page was for something about some form of training for cross cultural missions. I remember crying and trying to tell Heather that night about how I just knew that somehow and some way the Lord was going to use us in ‘missions‘. In fulltime ministry....

Began searching for what I might want to go to school for that could be of use in the ‘mission field’ somewhere....

The war was beginning in Iraq. I found a link to Salam Pax’s blog via Yahoo news. After a couple of days of clicking links it occurred to me that this blog thing would be a wonderful outlet for ministry. As Christians putting ourselves out there openly and honestly about our life - our journey. I did a search for Christian bloggers and...hmm (shaking my head and smiling)...the very first blog I clicked on was Tallskinnykiwi. :^)

I think it was March 27th. There was a picture of Bea at the Peach with red hair. I began emailing Andrew almost immediately. It wasn’t long before he was telling me I needed to get my own blog. LOL! I think I was clogging his email box with questions. :^) Even before I began blogging and on into it I was emailing other bloggers with my thoughts and questions and worries and more and more questions.

At some point we were invited down to Dallas by Josh and Kristen Rudd. Then we were invited to move down. The three Rudds, by the way, are the coolest little fam! Josh and Kristen are both the same age as me, but I have OH so much that could be learned from them. There was a long period where Heather and I were sure that was going to be where we were in the very short future. The Lord has other plans as far as we can tell. We’ve been down to Dallas though. The Thames at LGBC are...(sniff sniff)...the most loving people. Amazing! Everyone we met down there...man. (shaking my head) If we don’t ever move down there, at least somewhere close, Heather and I will be greatly disappointed. And we got to meet Shannon and Brad! I don’t even know where to begin with them....I just want to say that...I don’t know. You guyz rock so incredibly much! (and we are really sorry we missed Jessica by something like a week) You are all family.

We experienced a loss this year. (sigh) I’m glad we were in Dallas with all of them when this happened. I know that sounds weird that we were more comfortable there with people we were just getting to know than folks here, but we were so loved by all of them. (Heather really wanted her Mommy though) Dawn....you are an amazing individual!

We are pregnant again! And as Brad would say, “Harooh! Hoorah! Hooray!”

I wont go on to speaking about our worries because I just want ya’ll to know we feel blessed. We struggled, more this year than any other, but we are truly blessed.

Mikah’s almost in school and Kiara is talking like crazy. They amaze me everyday with who they are. I smile to think that they were made in the image of our God.

And Heather....(moment to reflect and wipe a tear)...Good golly! She is the nuts and the bolts the Lord uses to keep this little fam together. The one that grounds me. She kicks me in the rump when I’m being a fool. She is beautiful and by far the most amazing person I have ever met. I have seen Christ’s work in her like I have seen in no other. She is so not the same girl I began dating almost six years ago. The person she has become in and through Christ is so amazing to me. Man! I would truly be lost without her. She is my best friend.

We have taken a step back from our church experience and asked, ”what are we doing here?” and “what are we supposed to be doing?”. Not just “what are the Millers doing?”, but we have really asked this year for the first time and are continuing to discover ourselves along the way by asking, “what is church?” I really needed to take a step out of the boat and look at who and what we are in Christ.

We haven’t been to First Baptist in a few weeks. It makes me sad, but I suppose it’s kinda like leaving home for the first time. We need real, face-to-face, relationships though.

That is what I want for us in 2004. God has blessed us with all of you. We’ve discovered we are Not Alone. Now the Millers need to get on living our life ‘with’ some of you. Some of you we may only be able to make pilgrimages once a year to see. For others we will most likely be moving a little closer to get to journey together with you for a while....

Of course it is going to be everyday kinda stuff we are going to experience together. Well, at least everyday kinda stuff in the Kingdom. Regular human and relational issues being dealt with. I think that’s where relevance is seen by the rest of the world. That’s why I’ve learned that ‘relevance’ isn’t an important issue. If we are living it, together, the way we should....the rest of the world will see Christ in each of us. As we are living together - seeing Christ ALIVE in each of us.

I look forward to seeing the “world in new and wonderful ways, filled with hope.”

I look forward to the adventures we will have on this odyssey.

May you all be blessed in 2004.

*(ps - i still don't know what I want to be when i grow up, but i think i'm just going to go about it searching for 'how' to be)

"'emerging' into what?"

I think that is a better question to be asking ourselves.

In Alan’s post on Dec. 26 he addresses talk “about the term ‘emerging,’ referring to the emerging church.”

A few quotes:

“trying to get to the heart of the matter - what IS the church? Why is it here? All the answers we have EVER been given are on the chopping block - they won't do simply because they are there. So, we lay them all down and we pick them up one by one and ask, "why is this here?" - "is this legitimate?" - "does this harm or help?" - and the big one - ‘does this or that help to effectively form me and those whom I am bound together with into the image of Jesus Christ?’”

“I am not talking about one model over another. I am not advocating ‘house church’ over ‘cell church’ or whatever. The only reason I would ever suggest anyone look at any model whatsoever is if I thought somehow, part of that model caught a glimpse of the core of the matter better than another perhaps - so look at that - please! But don't just look to find things that seem cool and copy them - damn! Jump off the cliff and hit the freakin' rocks below and die a bloody death to everything before! Do it now!!! If you do not, you will never ever know if any of it is good and healthy and formational or not. ”

“If you die that death, allow God to slowly resurrect you, and then end up with a building - awesome!! But DO NOT simply refuse to question whether or not it is legitimate to have a building as a "church"! Don't do that. Don't simply refuse to question paid staff ministry because "that's all I was ever trained to do" and you're afraid you won't be able to support your family - DON'T do that! Wow! We can't get past the front door to see the street! It's NOT about models or labels or styles of worship - crap, crap! It's about busting it all down because it really, really has not worked very well - a good deal of it - and allowing God to rebuild it - ALL of it - for us, through us, in us. So, doing it the same old way with new garb on is not going to cut it. Not allowing yourself to question pretty much everything because of fear will not get it done. This is it. This is what is ‘emerging.’ I'm sure other things are too, but this is what I'm seeing and hearing and doing - trying to do.”

And in the conversation in the comments for that post Alan says, “So, our answers are not in essay form but in the form of action. These aren't generally seen so it's understandable that many would think we have none. None of that was meant to be a ‘how to’ for this new journey. There is no ‘how to.’ We just keep searching, praying, listening and doing.”

My thoughts:

“We just keep searching, praying, listening and doing.” ‘We’….that is much of what Church is. Isn’t it? It is a living, breathing organism that is prone to ‘growth’ and change. The Church has emerged. It is emerging. And it will continue to do so as long as there are people who think for themselves and continue “searching, praying, listening and doing.” It is the ever-emergent Church.

(chopping Alan's post up does not do it justice - click over to his blog and peruse it yourself) - I knew I would be able to use the word 'peruse' sometime today.

The humble and edifying confession of one who refuses to die a rock-star’s death

Before I begin I want to make clear that drinking alcohol is not something that I have allowed myself to do often as to not make a bad habit of something that could have been enjoyed.

But, alas, I must confess. The first hour I was awake this morning I was crying like crazy. I awoke, thank God, to find that I had vomited in my sleep. Heather said she could not get me to wake up. She stayed up half the night watching over her fool of a husband.

I’m not sure how much I drank. I’m sure it was not as much as you are probably thinking, but being that I do not drink often or much when I do it didn’t have to be a whole lot. It was too much though. I remember playing cards and then.......nothing. Just waking up this morning to the scary realization of the filth that alcohol brings out of me.

My head is hung in shame today (partly because of the headache, but mostly shame). I have found it hard to look at anyone. As many of you know for a few years of my life I lived on drugs and alcohol. How foolish of me to think it safe to stroll on that cliff edge.

From this day forward I will no longer be drinking. So if I am in your home and you ask me to sit and have a drink with you, which I pray you would not do after reading this, do not be offended when I decline. I just want to be alive to enjoy your company another day. Besides I have not sold any hit records yet and therefore I do not think it fitting that I die a rock star’s death.

It is so not ok that I let this happen. I am so hesitant to post this, but I am having a really hard time forgiving myself. I know by making this confession I am open to judgment and condemnation, but no one could condemn me more harshly than I am right now.

It is my intent to serve our God alongside each of you and I am in no position to be doing that if I am not wise enough to learn from this and move on.

As tears begin to well up I want to beg of you not to hate me for this or look on me as one who is unable to serve. Please forgive me. I am not prone to drunkenness. Only prone to be a half-wit.

I’m really sorry. I really disappoint myself sometimes.

Again, I am SO not ok with this.

a heart for the least of these

Please go and read Asa's blog post for December 26. It is the voice of a compassionate and loving heart that hurts.

proud/blessed to be in the family

Heather and I are so blessed by my grandparents and their family. We gathered for Christmas yesterday at their home and had Church. It is so wonderful to be part of a family who celebrates the Emanuel (God with us).

We all gathered in the living room. Grandpa read the Christmas story from his Bible and afterward we all sang silent night. Before we proceeded to the gift giving my aunt Nina stood up. She had a bag filled with misc. Celtic styled crosses. Each of the couples were to reach in to the bag and grab a cross. After we picked out the cross we told what we were going to give to Christ for his birthday in the coming year. There was much weeping and lots of tissues. Then my Grandfather felt pressed to give his observation of what he had heard from all of us. He said that he heard all of us struggling with the separation of the secular and religious parts of our lives and our need to realize that they are not separate. He pointed out that each of us were so obviously, from the depths of us, trying to find or hear what God would have us be and do with our lives as gifts to Him in response to His gift to us. Grandpa beamed as he said that he believed that the coming year would be a revival, if you will, in our family and would be the catalyst to many revivals to come.

My thoughts…my Grandparent’s home was Church to their family. Their children were discipled in their home and lives from childhood. Because my grandparents struggled to press on in their journey as they have I am at where I am in my journey. I am grateful for that gift.

I had a thought last night that many people like those in my family do not realize that after they go home from Church ’service’ on Sunday mornings they go home to Church. Many others in our churches don’t go home to that and therefore are not raised up as some are privileged to be. I pray that those who are privileged to go home to be ’raised up’ will realize that blessing and pass it on to those who are not….

May we realize it is our job as parents, brothers and sister in Christ to disciple those we are in relationship with. May we not leave it to anyone else.

exeGeses

Ok. Numerous books on Christian subjects were given to my grandfolks and I was told to look through them and take what I wanted. One of my family members told me that I should grab the "exeGeses parallel Bible". So, I picked it up and brought it home.....I need some help here. It seems to me that what it has done is taken the KJV, translated and transliterated some words they didn't find were translated and transliterated correctly and have, what they claim to be, a presentation "written with awe and reverence in the classic contemporary language of today."

I mean I like the 'exegeses' in there. It's good info, that I assume to be accurate being uneducated, but the rest of it.....I don't know.

What is it that is to be translated? The exact letter or the message/story? Is this really helpful to the common person? I thought that an "exegesis is the careful, systematic study of the Scripture to discover the original, intended meaning." The everyday-non-expert person, like myself (who does desire to be discipled) is not always trained the best at this.

What is it that is not to be added to or taken away from? The message or each individual letter? Is a literal transliteration necessary? Is this really a literal translation and transliteration? Is the 'exegesis' in the left column even accurate?

It is something new I have never come across before and I am leery of it.

Thoughts? Advice? Comments?

I've also picked up "The Training of the Twelve" by A. B. Bruce. Have any of you read this?

Beginning Again or 'There and Back Again'

I can not sleep.

Talk about wanting to run forward and not being content with where we are on the journey...thoughts about what God has me right here-right now for. Where it is he’s leading us and....incomplete thoughts.

If you’ve been coming here and reading my blog for even a short time you will have noticed much frustration. Lot’s of questions. Confusion. Much going in circles. Searching.

I am thankful my heart is wrestles with want to serve, but I realize in my coming from much discontentment in my church life a year ago and discovering this ’conversation’ within the ’emergent’ Church I was awakened to potentials of life and love and service that I have only ever hungered for, but never seen realized in my own setting.

I’ve grown to know and love many of you.

I have been very discontent the past few months. Discontent to the point of tears...anger...at times almost depression.

What is it Scott? Hmm? What are you looking for on this journey?

jour·ney 1. The act of traveling from one place to another; a trip. 2. A process or course likened to traveling; a passage: the journey of life.

What is that ‘other place‘? Hmm...it is a journey to a place I don’t believe will be seen in this life. Or is that the right way to look at it?

In Philippians 3:14 Paul says, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” -nas

The Message says, “I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back.”

When we pray, “on earth as it is in Heaven” we mean that don’t we? Don’t you Scotty?

I am very much aware that I will be “pressing on” all the days of this life, but why the discontentment that has brought anger and almost depression?

I am pretty sure at this moment (3:03am 12/24/03) that it is because I have lost sight of “the goal”. At some point I was just running in circles like a chicken with it’s head cut off. (you can imagine the chicken’s frustration) I took my focus off of Christ. I slowly moved further and further away from my relationship and worship of Him till all that I was left doing was asking questions and running in circles and not getting the direction I needed because my eyes were on that head that I had cut off myself.

Obviously my Christ is still with me or I would not have found my way to here.

So, I go to him on my knees and begin to move forward from there.

I don’t know where He will lead this little family and I. I have thought and spoke and typed so much about wanting to be raised up to be a leader in His ever-emerging Church, but I just want to live to be who he says that I am. I hope that each day I have a chance to serve. I look at the lives of people like Andrew, Brad, Shannon, the Stuarts and so many others and I desire to be of as much help to people as they are, but I can not plan that life. I feel like school of some form is in my future....that scares me. I was never good at school even when I showed up. But I don’t know what I am to do besides continue working whatever job the Lord blesses me with and loving my family, you and of course loving our God along the way. Serving in whatever context I can for today. If at some point, by some miracle, I am being a good enough example to be considered a leader at that moment for that person or peoples....cool, but I’ll let the byproducts of my life lived in Him come as they will.

Before I stop....Riley is right. I am thankful for the birth of Jesus. I am thankful for his death and resurrection. But may we remember this Christmas is just the beginning....

me wife...

....always has a way of letting me know when i am being a fool.

I am blessed and grateful for the gift that is Heather. She is my best friend.

the Fleadom

I want to introduce everyone to my cousin Asa(and also the Best Man @ my wedding). He is now blogging from Bogata, Colombia. He went there earlier this month to work at an orphanage that is positioned very much in the thick of it there.

A sample of his blog:

Yesterday I saw an old man robbed at gunpoint, thirty feet from the children´s home front door. A couple hours later we took food up the mountain to the refugees displaced by the druglords. There was at least 2000 people there. We only had 400 bags of groceries. Pray that the Lord multiplies our tiny offering.

Please be praying for Asa and the children there.

The gift, gifts and giving

"Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
Not so much to be understood as to understand;
Not so much to be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying that we are born to eternal life."

- St. Francis of Assisi

"You know of Jesus of Nazareth ....... how He went about doing good and healing ....... for God was with Him. - Acts 10:38

breathe in....

"If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don't fuss about what's on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body.

Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.

"Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch?

All this time and money wasted on fashion - do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop,

but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them.

"If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers - most of which are never even seen - don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you?

What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving.

People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works.

Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.

"Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.

The Message Matthew 6:25 - 34

....breathe out

i'm sorry I don't go to my knees more

Oh....please pray for me folks. I’ve worked general labor jobs since high school and at the present time there is just not a lot of those right in front of me. I’ve been applying for everything under the sun and it is just a little frustrating when you can’t get hardly any interviews because of the holidays....(sigh)

I hate that I have let it get to this point. I had been working a seasonal job and should have been looking for future work a long time ago. And now with another little one on the way....

I start to ask God if he is sure he knows what he is doing by putting these lives in my hands, but....I realize that they are never out of his.

Please pray. I really need work. Pray for this growing little family....that their daddy would grow as he needs to, to care for them as he is called.

May we continue to put our hope in the Lord and may our children learn from this.

the fam

You've gotta see pics of my wonderful kids over @ Heather's blog.