kenny

So I go after work to get the car home & try to fix it.

The muffler pipe on our sweet ride fell down yesterday while E was driving to work.

So, the car is in Boro Park which is one of the weirdest sections of Brooklyn. Taking the D train there, it actually felt a bit like London with the elevated train & the way the station looks. Kind of like a Lock, Stock & Smoking Barrel type scene. I was kicking myself that I didn't have a camera.



I start to walk down 45 Street. All the hasidic kids running around... the boys with their shaved heads & long curley cues. Everyone there is jewish. And very jewish. It really doesn't feel like NY. If feels like some European ghetto spot.

I find the car, right in front of a Yeshiva...and as the voice echos from the minivan across 12 Ave ("...all your Yom Kippur needs, we're open 9-6 blah, blah, blah..."), I take my sweator off and lay on the street to see whats happening under the car.

Sure enough the pipe that goes from the muffler into the rest of the car is dangling.
My Bright Idea: I'll get some wire and tie it up!



So my journey continues to find some wire. I'm tempted to take some rope that people have used to tie up boxes, but then realize... they'res alot more of them (& they stick together) than there are of me. They'd easily kill me or put me to work....

So I walk....

I finally find a tool rental place a couple blocks away. I walk in. Theres 4 black guys from the islands. I understand every 4th word they say. They give me a whole roll of greasy wire and ask if I should pay. The main guy says "run wit it". No problem mate, I'm outta here!

I finally get back to the car & can't actually get the wire to hold the damn muffler pipe up. Finally I have another bright idea: I'll just pull the whole muffler and pipe out of the car. So I loosen what I can and try (with 4 hasdic teenagers watching me & asking questions). That doesn't work.

Finally I decide to shove the pipe in there & hope for the best, drive home in ghetto style with the sweet Celebrity purrring like a ravenous lion. I do. No problems. Some wicked cool attention as I drive through Sunset Park, no muffler.

I love NYC. Its neighborhoods like these that can be unmatched.

Had a mind-challenging weekend, after a practical-handson intensive week of dealing with the ups & downs of being a leader...this week: having to say and do hard things for the ultimate benefit of all involved.

Saturday I started the first set of gatherings for 'Pastor Factory'... a thing we at the NYC Vineyard are doing with other younger leaders from various vineyard churches around our area. We're working through Alexander Ventor's book Doing Church... which is pretty much Wimber's notes & thoughts on building the church from the bottom up in book form. Such depth in the stuff. It's the kind of stuff that makes total sense, but I've never been able to put actual words on.

The main thing that I've been thinking about (and actually applying in the situation I had during the week) was the Social Set Theory that vineyard buys into. The idea of us being Centered Set, as opposed to Fuzzy or Bounded set.

The premise of the Centered Set approach is that there is a well defined set of values that we're all shooting for. Anyone also moving towards those values is 'in'.
It defines why & how we do church the way we do. & it seems to be also Jesus' method. What has struck me as so interesting (yet not surprizing) is that most 'proper christians' I know find this approach to be sort of half-assed. The truth is, though, that it's the opposite. We're like full-on, and have a completely different dynamic in that we're about people. As Keck commented in the post below ..."you guys are a sending ground and a place where people can come... hangout and be sent". There is something profoundly right about that in our community. Perhaps its a sovereign thing that God has set us up to be, or maybe its a universal Kingdom characteristic.

I also had a wicked time thinking 'church' through a bit with some of the leaders of the Submerge-Midtown congregation. These guys are faced with the challenge of rethinking/repackaging church for their people in NYC. I'm psyched to be here to help them do that. Its going to be cool to see what happens in the next 2 years.

Its time for sleep...and starting another work week. I'm so not into my work. It seems so menial compared everything else that happens around me. & tomorrow AM I have to write goals for the next 6months, year, & 5 years. How about...do the same amount of work...and get paid way more?

The 'ebb and flow' of people in NYC is very interesting. I was in Pearl Art on Canal St today picking up some supplies for E, and just noticed the massive amount of students that flock here in Sept. Its almost like we need to base our calendar on it.

A bit more perplexing is the oddity that is the ebb & flow of people in our church here. I mean, its a constant, which is fine once you get used to it. Some situations are that people move on (like the Kecks & Matt&BeccaT) but it can be frustrating when I feel like I'm like watching people suffering for whatever reason & it pulls them away from us. I suppose its healthy in some respect, MikeT (probably stealing from wimber) does say that we have a big front door and an even larger backdoor....not so that people can just leave, but that we're not going to try to manipulate or control people into staying some place they don't want.

Its weird. I am learning to trust that God will take care of us, though. Especially in this case b/c it is His church, so we'll let Him shuffle the deck... I just hope he doesn't decide to play 52-pickup.

...that may have been a thought that I should have kept in my head...but whats a blog for if you can rant about stupid, perflexing stuff thats stewing in your mind?

Went to Coney Island this past weekend with E's little sister. I'd never been there besides just for dinner (sorry exuse for a Brooklyn-ite, eh?)... it was so wicked cool.

Rode the Cyclone which is amazing. The thing is made of WOOD. Thats partly why I rode on it... b/c I could picture like next week someone dying b/c it failed, and then I have to go through the rest of my life hanging my head in shame that I never rode the Cyclone.

amazing how a place that is so un-glamourous, un-sleek or un-beautiful can flip the idea of beauty around to embody a whole culture. I mean, everyone (everyone cool atleast) wants to be hanging out at Coney Island.

In other news...

Got my COMMENTS up and running.

Got my Wireless network up and running.

Using FireFox to browse the web at the moment.

The blogsphere is rocking again (atleast from the NYC side of things)....
MatT is back online remotely from Bristol, UK...
MikeT may start again soon...
Mungmung is still plugging away (can you believe the dedication of this guy?)...
I may persuade Eavis to start again...
Luke is blogging about us NYers...

& I'm getting back into the swing ~

In the latest news, NYC was shut down by a rain of terror on Wednesday & a puppy shot a murderer, saving himself and his siblings. This IS the real news.

Hey everyone. Really long time, no blog.
You can thank Luke Stevens for this blog, as he's been pushing me to do it. (Thanks mate!)

I've been doing alot of web design / freelance work lately... so I'll get my comments up and running asap.

Just watched Dubya give his speech. Politicians are all like clowns. I'll vote for him, though... only b/c he's got a set. He seems to do what he says, even if he's wrong-ish.

Peace out, I'll be back blogging soon.