chrispritchett.net

justice

Presbyterian Church of the Master has invited me back to preach again! This Sunday will be my third time preaching here, and I'm looking forward to it. We are beginning a four-week emphasis on justice in our worship services, highlighting different ministries/organizations each week for a moment of justice. The Christian Education department will be teaching about biblical justice at every age level and we're hosting a 40k meal packaging event on Wednesday night for children suffering from malnutrition in Uganda. I'm kicking the series off this Sunday. My text is Amos 5:18-24 (which is fitting since I've been taking an exegetical course on Amos this quarter...I worked it out that way!), and the title of the sermon is "Let Justice Roll Down." Should be fun...hopefully my suit won't be covered with vegetables and eggs by the end of it.

widows

...not the kind that have lost their husbands, but the kind that have eight legs and contain poisonous venom. Apparently our yard, front and back, is infested with them. Both black ones and brown ones. I didn't even know there were such a thing as brown widows, until Devon told me she has been spotting them. I never see spiders around the house, but Devon has a peculiar fascination with them. Several times per week she goes on hunt around the outside of the house for widows, usually with a camera (the picture in this post is one she took at our house), and sometimes with a can of Raid and a pack of matches. She often makes me look at the pictures and generally I haven't been interested, but now, after so much of this, I've become intrigued...not with spiders, but with Devon. I've asked her why she's so fascinated with widows and her usual response has been for the safety of our girls. She has to go on these hunts and find spiders in crevasses in order to kill them before they attack our girls. That may be true in part. But the widow fetish is really more of an odd kind of addiction than anything else. Addictive substances continue bringing people back to the substance for the release of endorphins, and the adrenaline rush. This is exactly what happens with Devon and spiders. Every time she finds one, she acts like she's seen a horror film, especially if she finds a widow in a high travel area, like a walkway, or on a chair. I could never tell if she liked spiders or if she hated them. She's freaked out by them, but yet she keeps going back. Or maybe that's precisely why she keeps going back. She took a picture of a brown widow today nesting on a chair that my mom was sitting in yesterday. She says they're everywhere, especially at this time a year, when it's getting warm outside. My philosophy has been, if I don't see it, it's not really there. Devon's philosophy is, they're everywhere, even if you can't see them, so find and kill or be killed. I'm fascinated by Devon's fascination.

I'm 2!!

Happy Birthday to Hannah Joy Pritchett. She's a whopping 2 with more life than we can handle!

fire

I'm on campus at Fuller in Pasadena this morning and for most of the day, and we're just a few miles away from the Sierra Madre fire. I went to sit outside by the coffee shop for a few minutes before my 8am class, and when I noticed ashes landing on the lenses of my glasses, I thought it might be better to find a spot indoors. I decided to drive this morning instead of taking the train (no real reason...I just felt like driving). The flames are quite visible from the 210, climbing up the hills. The freeway was extra packed this morning. So Cal fires...please go away!

run

Today I ran the longest run ever for me. 8.7 miles. To some, it's chump change. To others, it's ridiculous. To me, it was just hot and miserable at times. I thought the sun was going to melt me. There were some tough hills, but the good side of a long early hill is that you get to run down it toward the end. I'm glad I did the run. It feels great now. The girls are gone in Visalia so I figured, hey, I just got some new running shoes after two years that need to be broken in, the girls are gone, I'm goin' for it! Turns out, Devon did a super long run this morning too in Visalia. We think alike. Here's a map of where I went.

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Earth Day

. Today is Earth Day. I've been hearing stories about people doing some great things around here. Laguna Woods is handing out something like 2,000 compact fluorescent light bulbs, there are festivals going on in L.A. and elsewhere. Here's a good site to visit. There are probably lots of them. Devon and I said we wouldn't drive anywhere today, which is more of a luxury for us than a good deed. Devon had to go to the Dr.'s office which happens to be right across the street from my work, so we had a wonderful walk together as a family. It's only about 2.5 miles from our house. The funny thing is that I woke up this morning forgetting that I was going to walk to work, and I immediately thought about all the things I have to do today, and how busy I am, blah blah blah, and then I remembered that I had to walk to work. I was forced to give up my task-oriented goals for the day (of course I'll still do all I can, just with a different attitude), and the stress of those goals went with them. So we walked and we had great conversation and I began my day with a sense of peace. And I thought I was participating in a good cause...yeah, my soul. It's interesting how things are connected.

Phil Harnsberger

One of my closest friends, Phil Harnsberger, lives like Jekyll and Hyde. His regular demeanor is seen as a quiet and peaceful numerical genius, an introvert, who then paddles out on his bodyboard and thrashes waves like a lumber jack with an axe and a few hundred trees. Check out his video here and vote on it.

forty years

This Sunday, our church, Presbyterian Church of the Master, will be celebrating its forty year anniversary from when the church chartered (the actual date was March 24, 1968). Yesterday, April 4, marked the forty year anniversary of when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. The chartering of the church came about one week before Dr. King was murdered. As I sat in my office yesterday looking forward to celebrating the church's anniversary, and at the same time remembering Dr. King's ministry during the civil rights movement, I couldn't help but wonder about the implications of Dr. King's assassination on the beginnings of a new church. Since I wasn't yet in the world at the time, looking at portraits and video clips pertaining to Dr. King's life and assassination helped me to imagine the context of when PCOM was born. I wonder what it would have been like participating in a new movement of ministry right at the time Dr. King's life came to an end. I wonder if his death provoked any fear in the young congregation. I imagine the few founding members of the church praying for Dr. King's family, for forgiveness for the murderer, for racial reconciliation in our nation, and perhaps even a continuance of Dr. King's ministry within the congregation. I wonder if Dr. King's message of reconciliation, hope, and peace was even yet appreciated or were its implications not realized until years later. Regardless of whether the church set out intentionally to carry on Dr. King's legacy, I would like to believe that God has been carrying on Dr. King's legacy in the life and ministry of our church over last forty years. Surely, there is more reconciliation and justice efforts to be done, but the church's partnership with ministries such as South County Outreach, Habitat for Humanity, Alternative Christmas Market, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, Harambee, African Enterprise, Children of the Nations, and International Justice Mission, gives me joy in knowing that God has been and continues to be working among us to bring hope, justice, peace, and reconciliation to a broken world.

Stuff White People Like

This is a hilarious website my friend Jeff showed me. It has a list of all sorts of things that "white people like" in satirical form. Here's one called "Religions their parents don't belong to." (Don't read too into it...it's funny.)

White people will often say they are “spiritual” but not religious. Which usually means that they will believe any religion that doesn’t involve Jesus.

Popular choices include Buddhism, Hinduism, Kabbalah and, to a lesser extent, Scientology. A few even dip into Islam, but it’s much more rare since you have to give stuff up and actually go to Mosque.

Mostly they are into religion that fits really well into their homes or wardrobe and doesn’t require them to do very much.

Springtime Greentime

I love springtime in Southern California. I think it's springtime now. Seasons are a bit more difficult to distinguish here. But the flowers are beginning to bloom. It stays light later. It's vegetable garden time. Because of my unusual schedule this year, my dad planted the entire vegetable garden at our house while my mom took double-duty with the childcare responsibilities. They watch the girls twice a week and sometimes they come to our house. I got to help only with the sprinkler system this year, and now it will be my job to tend the garden. Hope it stays alive! Springtime is also a time when appreciation for nature comes easily. On our few days away last week, Devon read Serve God Save the Planet. It's a great book about environmental stewardship. Check it out! Her reading sparked lots of conversation and excitement about how we, as a family, can make a greater effort in responding to God's call to care for the earth. The little decisions we make about stuff we buy, stuff we waste, food we eat, and how we conserve, can be worshipful decisions.

For the month of April, we're starting a new series of Wednesday night lessons for the high school group called, "April is Green: learning to be stewards of creation." We'll have Bible lessons, group activities, a video to watch called The Story of Stuff, practical things we will do together as a group and practical suggestions we can do on our own to participate God's work of taking care of the earth. I hope the series will be fun, informative, insightful, and empowering. This is the focus for each week:

Week One: Genesis 1. Introduction to why it is important for Christians to be stewards of creation.
Week Two: Psalm 24. God loves the earth.
Week Three: James 2. Believing and doing.
Week Four: Luke 18:18-25. The Freedom of Simplicity (and its environmental benefits)
Week Five: Exodus 35:2. Psalm 46:10. Worship and Reflection.