What is church? And where does "church" happen?

The church I work at challenges and excites me and my view of "church". I got visit a different church today that is scrapping the glitz and the glam and scaling back to fit things like VBS into neighborhoods filled with kids and their parents that would never step inside a church building.

Sometimes I feel a little defensive about church as a whole, probably because I work at one, and because I see and understand its purpose.  And occasionally I think, dang, is this all I believe it is? So its exciting to see what God is doing all over. To see and hear and understand that the Holy Spirit is moving and changing people all over the place. To see churches being stretched and challenged and successful at reaching their communities.

We are not alone. We are not as cutting edge as we might have thought. And we do not have to do the same thing we have always done. God is living and active all over the place.

This weekend was good, but not restful:
Friday: played rockband and ate guacamole.
Saturday: Target, Trader Joes, Growers Direct, helped Tom's friend move, made dinner for everyone involved with the move, played and lost Setters of Catan.
Sunday: Worked until 1pm, ate a burrito, tried to relax by watching a movie, folded all the laundry in the world, did years worth of dishes and walked the dog, church, sushi with arkansans, went to bed too late for my own good.

See?

I always thought having a pantry would be as fun as eating icecream. Now I finally have a cupboard that pretends its  a pantry and every time I open it a new exciting kind of bug is playing house in it.

I love silverfish. They are my new best friends. All bajillion of them that live with us here.

How do you feel about prank wars? Frankly I hate them. They get in the way of everything else thats way more fun. Like getting to know people and laughing at till soda burns the insides of our noses. I think, "Oh, staff retreat is going to be so fun this year. I love everyone on staff." Then I get 20 emails about boxes of crickets, nair, and the price of mice at petco and I think, "Oh, maybe I should come down with pneumonia really quick."

Does anyone in orange county have pneumonia? Want to share a slurpy?

So today is cinco de mayo. To celebrate the holiday that's just the date said in spanish I am making tacos. I thought about making mini-quesadillas to bring some cuteness to the day were we celebrate the date said in spanish. I might still. Cute holiday food es muy bien.

my parents came for a visit. very fun. I love my parents. sadly it was a little chilly and sometimes cloudy. lame. but we did disneyland and it was awesome. ate breakfast on the beach. ate dinner with chopsticks. and they came to RH. and they liked it, which I was a little nervous about it since its nothing like their church except for the loving Jesus part. (although that is most important part, imo)

work is busy, but I have a 2 week sabbatical coming quickly. I can't even imagine what that will be like.

oh, and my great aunt mary called me up for a hollar. she thought maybe I had sent her an article about japanese herbal medicine. i did not. but it was still fun yelling with her. old people rock.

oh oh, and we were those people who decide to ride splash mountain right before dusk. I sat in the very front and was shocked I didnt ruin my cell phone. instead of $40 sweatpants we opted for drying my pants out with the car heater. did I mention it was chilly?

Night owls have no idea what they are missing out on.

Even though it was so late into the night, when our friends left we were sad because we love them all so much.