what I learned this summer

It’s been a great summer—I vacationed in Martha’s Vineyard, planted my first garden and started several interesting work projects.


I also learned several things. For instance:

There was no need to plant that much cucumber.

Just because he kisses you doesn’t mean he wants to date you. (Yes, every other girl learned this when she was 15.)

Just because he says he wants to date you doesn’t mean he wants to date you. (This is the advanced version.)

It’s nerve-wracking to give announcements in front of 4,000 people at the NACC.

I have many talents, but playing kickball is not one of them.

11 email accounts is too many.

Maybe I don’t want to have kids, after all.

Very few things people call “epic” actually are.




We move in the direction of the questions we ask.

Working in the garden for two hours in 100 degrees gives you a headache that will not go away for two days.

I have an amazing, amazingly fun family. (I already knew that, but this summer’s been a nice reminder.)

There is never enough time for all the books I want to read.

The Artist is Present.

I’m unable to stop eating guacamole once I start.

I like not traveling all the time even more than I thought I would.

If you’re going to set off illegal fireworks and you’re not sure what they do, maybe don’t do it in your driveway.

INTJs are only 1-4% of the population. No wonder the rest of you don’t make any sense.


What did you learn this summer?

new to you friday–men, man up

A few weeks ago, a guy I’m friends with said two things that made me smile.

The first—“I thought about dating you, but decided it wouldn’t work because I’ve been reading your blog and you’re too Christian”—because that deserves a trophy for Back-handed Compliment Of The Year.

And the second—“You need a strong guy, and there aren’t many strong Christian guys”—because it made me think of this post.




Let’s make up a statistic and see if we can get it to go viral. How about, “If you are a single Christian woman over 30, you are 64% more likely to get hit by a bus than to get married.”

Look both ways, ladies.

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At dinner with some friends this weekend, one of them described the guy she’d just started dating. He was raised in a Christian home but no longer attends church or “practices” any faith. My friend likes him and plans to see him again but she’s also approaching it casually; she realizes his lack of faith is a major issue.

Whether or not she should date a non-Christian at all is a whole other discussion. In his book How to Get a Date Worth Keeping, Henry Cloud asserts that dating unbelievers is fine if you approach it as a way to make new friends, have fun, and grow as a person. As someone who dated and subsequently did the love and loss routine with an atheist, I would argue the opposite point of view.

But wherever you land on that, the point is she’s dating this guy (let’s call him Jack) because even though she knows dozens of Christian men her age at our church, not one has ever asked her out. And before you ask—yes, she is smart, attractive, outgoing, and generally “together.” So are my other single friends, many of whom struggle with the same situation. Why the dating drought when it comes to Christian men?


I obviously can’t speak for the men, but based on the statistics I’ve read it doesn’t seem they lack interest in marriage and family. The majority of single men—believers and otherwise—say they hope to marry and raise children.

Yet many Christian guys don’t date—they lead Bible studies and singles events, they pray for a wife, they attend group activities for years on end, but they rarely exert a little energy or spend a little money to know any woman individually.

Nothing’s wrong with groups, but Jack didn’t wait for verification from five buddies as to whether my friend might be interested in him. He initiated conversation with her, expressed his interest, and took a risk.


God created men to be initiators, so this kind of assertiveness gets our attention. My friends and I are strong women, but we refuse to usurp that role and act as the pursuer. If our Christian brothers won’t, either, what’s the new strategy? My friend summed it up well as we finished our coffee. “I don’t know what will happen with Jack, but it’s frustrating to have few alternatives. I guess we’re just supposed to be ‘waiting on the Lord.’ Okay. We’re waiting……”

I’m really not trying to be down on men here. I know it’s hard to take those kinds of risks, and I know women can be confusing and contradictory. But I do believe that, despite the difficulties, God created men to step up and take action in every area of their lives—which includes “finding a wife” (Proverbs 18:22).


Guys, we don’t expect you to quote poetry or be able to benchpress your car. We just wish you’d spend a little less time reading Wild at Heart and a little more time living it.

church fatigue, part 2

Last week’s post, in which I confessed my boredom with attending church services, hit a nerve.

People re-posted it on their Facebook pages, linked to it on Twitter, and left dozens of comments expressing both anger and agreement with my thoughts. A few, including Skye Jethani, even wrote blog posts of their own in response.


Every blogger, if she’s honest, loves finding a topic that generates discussion (and page views). But I’m sad it was this one, because it means many of you share my “church fatigue.”


There was the anonymous pastor who confessed his own boredom with the services he himself plans and leads, a 70-something Christian who admits to being bored in church for most of his life, and a 40-something who’s resigned himself to it but wonders why it’s so hard to have this discussion and why his church’s answer is to volunteer more.

I wish these readers, and the many others who shared their stories, had said my perspective was incomprehensible. Unfortunately, the numbers who resonated with my confession point to some larger problems in the way we “do church.”


Here are my thoughts after a week:

—Skye nailed it with his observation that we are longing for “the transcendent” in our worship. “This is likely what’s behind, in part, the movement of many evangelicals toward high-church traditions and liturgy,” he writes. “They’re hungry for something beyond culturally-familiar or Christianized versions of pop trends.”

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard leaders proclaim the need for church to be “relevant” to our culture. They mean well, but relevance is not to be found in a music style or a sermon series playing off the name of a popular TV show. It comes from Jesus, the Jesus who hung out with broken people, the Teacher who modeled a new way to live in relationship with God, the Redeemer who lived among us and still meets us at the Communion table. Jesus is never irrelevant, never boring. Why is our worship?

—I don’t think our preachers and worship leaders are responsible for me having that transcendent experience every week. For one thing, we all define that differently. Recently I’ve experienced God by listening to music and watching a purple sunset, by crying with a dear friend who lost her husband to a heart attack, by reading and thinking about good books, and by exchanging ideas with perceptive mentors. Other people will have very different lists and no one weekly experience is going to speak to each of us equally. (Nor is the emotional impact of that experience the correct measurement.)  Seeing a worship leader as responsible for my relationship with God ignores biblical teaching and guarantees these pastors will feel a burden to, as one commenter put it, get it right at the front of the room. “I know I carry that burden,” he said. “And it’s wearing me out.”

—That being said, if going to church matters, then it matters what we do, and someone has to lead it. But must that look the way it does?

I like what Jeremy said in response to Skye’s blog:

“….many passages in the Epistles make me wonder if the traditional American church organization really is (or contains) a Biblical church.

I Corinthians 14 speaks to it most directly. “When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. … Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. If a revelation is made to someone else sitting nearby, let the first person be silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged.”

We pride ourselves on restoring New Testament Christianity, but I’ve never been to a service like this. Why not?

—Have we simply over-elevated the importance of one weekly service (and our expectations of it)? Dan Kimball’s books remind us we’ve made weekly worship the entrance point for seekers and the “if you do nothing else, do this” baseline of our faith.

According to Alan Hirsch and Tim Stevens, that’s only effective for a shrinking minority. Instead, what if consistent participation in service to others and personal worship were the true indicators of a person’s Christianity, and corporate worship was less about the seeker and more about equipping the disciple to live this sacrificial lifestyle?

Of course, that would require a congregation full of growing Christians, all serving and praying and forgiving and submitting and leading from their gifts. That’s messy and difficult. It’s hard to manage and requires many, many leaders each discipling a handful of others over time. It’s no wonder we’ve defaulted to a Sunday routine. But if God intended the church to be more than this, it’s also no wonder we’re bored.


I don’t think I get to complain about something if I’m not willing to be part of the solution. But I’m still not sure what that means. How do you think weekly church needs to change? Is going micro the solution? What can we do individually to make the corporate experience more meaningful, for us and the others who attend?

new to you friday–on the money

Some things have changed since I first posted this.

Louie the cat has gone to the great mouse hunting grounds in the sky, I’ve stopped with the meat completely, and I purchased (terrible, covers-nothing) health insurance. I still sponsor Eko through Compassion and I added a boy named Kelvin, who just turned five and sends me pictures of cows and has trouble writing the N in his name.


But other things remain the same. (Believe me, the mid-30s are no time to start skimping on moisturizer.)

How about you? What do you spend money on, and what does that say (good or otherwise) about your priorities?

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This past week I not only paid my 2006 federal and state taxes, but also paid the first quarterly installment of my self-employment taxes for 2007. I’d known since last winter that this April was coming and had been saving accordingly, so it was okay to write the checks. (Well, as okay as it can be when one’s money is going for this.)

But it got me thinking about how I spend my money, and wondering how it compares to other people. Obviously it’s a personal issue, and it varies considerably depending on one’s age, health, marital status, number of kids, interests, etc.


Other than taxes and giving to your local church—both of which I hope are part of your regular routine—how else do you allocate your funds? What are you willing to spend money on and what aren’t you?

And when I say “spend money on,” I mean where do you a) invest in necessities at a higher price or (presumably) better quality or b) budget for and purchase non-necessities and splurges?


I’ll start.

I spend money on antioxidants and endorphins: organic food, yoga classes, and good moisturizers. Ironically I don’t spend money (right now) for health insurance.

I spend money to sponsor a boy named Eko in Indonesia through Compassion International but I don’t buy fund-raising products from kids selling them door to door.

I spend money on plane tickets and travel but not day-to-day transportation; I expect my cars to last at least a few years after they’re paid off and I drove the last one until the engine threatened to fall out the bottom and lay smoking on Highway 5 in San Diego.

I don’t spend money on jewelry (that’s for a nice boy to do someday) or jeans (hello, Goodwill) but I’ve been known to spend money on other things to wear. I spend money on coffee beans and the occasional nice meal out. I don’t spend money on paper towels, cleaning products, or dry cleaning. (Vinegar and water cleans everything, and if I can’t machine wash it I don’t need it. If I could find a way to dryclean things with vinegar, I’d be in heaven.)

I don’t spend money on meat for me (I don’t like it) or high-quality food for my cat (who’s going to throw it up on my carpet later anyway).

I spend money on a carpet cleaner.

I spend money on DVD rentals but not cable. I spend money on haircuts but not shampoo. I love live music, but I never spend money on concerts, and I’m not sure why.

I suspect your buying patterns are the same combination of intentional and completely contradictory. What do you spend money on?

church fatigue

I have a confession to make.

I’m tired of going to church.


After 34 years of weekly attendance I’m bored, bored with long sermons and the two uptempo/one slow song liturgy of our megachurch worship. I’m bored with gymnatoriums and rambling communion meditations and the tasteless cardboard bread pellets that follow. I’m bored with announcement times for ladies luncheons and small groups and choir sign-ups. I’m bored with the same cliched phrases in the same spoken prayers offered at the same routine times.

I’m bored.

I know all the reasons to attend church services. But honestly, most Sundays at noon I think about other ways I could have spent the morning. Reading the New York Times with a pot of coffee, or hiking through the woods, or enjoying restorative sleep, or putzing around my kitchen trying a new recipe—these all seem more fun, productive, and restful than spending several hours at church.


It’s not about being entertained. As Brett McCracken wrote in his great Wall Street Journal article last week, 70% of adults 18-22 aren’t leaving church because it’s not “cool” enough.

“As a twentysomething, I can say with confidence that when it comes to church, we don’t want cool as much as we want real,” he writes. “If we are interested in Christianity in any sort of serious way, it is not because it’s easy or trendy or popular. It’s because Jesus himself is appealing and what he says rings true.”

So I’m not looking for a slicker sermon series or a faux-hawked worship leader or designer coffee in the back lobby. And for those of you who are my parents (hi guys!), I’m not pulling an Anne Rice and rejecting the Church universal or leaving the faith. I’m not even having a crisis of faith.


I’m just bored.


Because I also believe you make a commitment to one local church and invest in community with those believers long-term, I’m not going to start shopping for a new church. Besides, all those churches would also have long sermons and rambling prayers and worship leaders in skinny jeans. That’s the problem.

I also believe the writer of Hebrews was wise when he cautioned, “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another.” I just don’t find weekly church attendance that encouraging anymore. In addition to its predictability, I have plenty of friends who also attend church each weekend and then get drunk, live with their boyfriends, or swear the air blue. In the south, church attendance is traditional. It is a habit, and one that doesn’t in itself produce life change.


So I’m sincerely unsure of the solution. Church, with two songs/greeting/awkward handshakes/one song/communion/offering/sermon/two songs/dismissal, is how our culture does Christianity. And I’m ready for something else.

Can you relate? How do you deal with “church fatigue”?

new to you friday–breaking news

It’s that time of year again, when I take a vacation from the blog (unless I’m inspired by videos like last year). Try to muddle through, and I’ll see you in a week.

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Yesterday at lunch a friend and I were discussing the relativism of money. I remember feeling adamant, as a know-it-all, black-and-white teenager, that “real” Christians would not be wealthy because they would give the extra away. Of course, as an adult I realize defining “extra” is part of the problem; if someone I considered rich lived a comfortable middle-class existence and donated the rest, he (and I) would still be wealthier than most of the world.

I’m more comfortable with the grey area these days, and I’m very comfortable paying a few hundred bucks for a week at the beach with friends and family. So I’ll be taking a little blogging break, returning next weekend a little tanner, a little calmer….and a little poorer.

not kidding

During the last few weeks I’ve spent time with many of my closest friends and their kids.

There’s Avery, who begs me for gum and attention, and big sister Katie who always offers me hello and goodbye hugs—high compliments from a child with Asperger syndrome who dislikes physical contact. Tyler Jean is nine but almost my height, which surprises no one except midget me. Claire’s quiet, smiling spirit is as sweet as her china doll skin and curly black hair. Ruby, 14 months, delights in systematically removing every item from my purse and Seth, 9 months, throws big grins my way when not practicing his new skill of blowing spit bubbles.

I adore these little people. But I’m starting to think I don’t want any of my own.


For one thing, I don’t like gaining weight, vomit, whining, iCarly, crumbs, tantrums, car seats, “time outs,” or stickiness of unknown origin. I do like reading for hours, road trips, sleeping, relaxed late dinners, extra money, a clean house, setting my own schedule, and the occasional late night with my kickball team.

As a parent, I would have all of the former and none of the latter. But as beloved Aunt Jen I get the best of both worlds: plenty of opportunities to color pictures, attend dance recitals, and read picture books before returning home to Tivo and quiet and a glass of wine.


Am I being selfish? Perhaps, but no more selfish than the people who have kids because their own parents expect it, or because they’re afraid of being alone when they’re old, or because they “like babies.”

And for the first time in a long time, I’m really enjoying my life. I’m traveling less to Kansas and less in general. When I do get on a plane it often includes time with my family or with dear friends (who are a second family). My garden is growing (would you like some cucumbers? please?), a small frog named Earnest has taken up residence on my front porch, and nothing in my new house has broken yet. I can jog half of my daily two miles. Work opportunities continue to multiply. Every once in a while I win at Facebook Scrabble.

So maybe I (selfishly) just don’t want to rock the boat. But maybe I (scarily) really don’t know myself as well as I thought. For years I longed to be a wife and mom more than anything else. I’d still like to marry a great guy, and maybe I’ll change my mind when I do. But these days I’m more interested in using our combined income to visit Paris than to save for our 2.0 version to attend college.

If I can change my mind about something so big, that I thought I wanted so much, what else do I need to learn? I’m not sure, but remaining childless will give me the chance to figure it out.