tammymelchien.com

Teaching

Had the opportunity to be the Teaching Pastor at our Montgomery and Romeoville Campuses this past weekend.  It was my first time getting to teach at these two sites and it was a blast! 

Often people ask me if I get nervous when I get up to speak in front of a couple hundred people.  I really don't.  I might get a tad nervous as I'm sitting in the audience waiting for my cue to go on stage, but as soon as I'm up there I feel something totally different than nerves.  I feel alive.  Alive in a way that I don't really experience in any other undertaking.  I feel like something or Someone just takes over and I buzz through the next 20 or 25 minutes.

The nerves part for me is in the preparation.  I remember when I was at  Campus House spending hours and hours agonizing over where a talk was going or whether or not it made sense or whether it had any potential to affect life change.  I think that's what makes teaching here at CCC pure joy.  The message creation is a collaboration process among a handful of teaching pastors on our staff and across the country at our affiliate churches.  They craft a manuscript that gets handed off to people like me.  From there I just need to edit it and tweak it and make it my own.  You feel confident that the talk "works" because you know how many gifted people have played a part in putting it together.  Everyone can be a teaching pastor with this great material! :)

So this past weekend I got to play...and I had so much fun.  I admire the people who do this every weekend.  I'm not sure I'd ever have the energy to put my heart and soul into it every weekend.  But as long as I get to play a few times each year, I'll be happy.

Stuffed Animal Heaven

Here's what a newly stocked crane game and $1.50 can get you at Friendly's Restaurant in Fairlawn, Ohio.

How Can You Not Love This?

Intentional Minutes

I arrived in Ohio this afternoon to spend several days at home for the Thanksgiving holiday.  I'm really glad to be here but as this first day ticks away I'm already feeling the shortness of time.  There is so much I need to get to in the next 90 hours.

I need to get my Christmas shopping done.  My pattern over the past 5 years or so is to get all my shopping done over the Thanksgiving holiday.  The month of December gets too crazy.  Plus, this way I won't have to figure out how to carry things here on an airplane. 

I need to get a package off to the child I support in Haiti.  His name is John Woodley.  I've supported him since he was a 1st grader and now he's in high school.  I've actually had the privilege of meeting him several times on my trips to Sonlight Academy.  And I almost forgot to send him something for Christmas this year.  The missionaries told me if I get a package to Miama ASAP it still has a chance of arriving in time for the holiday.  This will be my priority tomorrow.

I need to prepare for the coming weekend.  For the 1st time I'm going to get to teach at our Montgomery and Romeoville campuses.  Romeoville is my home campus and I'm so excited about getting to teach there.  But I'm feeling the pressure too.  The manuscript needs a lot of revision.  And then there's the practice.  I really want to do a good job.

I feel the need to plan for the immediate future.  When I return to Chicago I'm going to walk into some things at work that will require the best of me.  I feel like I need to be on my game and hit the ground running.  My head is full of things to think through.

But in the middle of all of this, what I really want to do is spend intentional time with my family.  I don't get to see them very often.  Only 4 times this year...which is not a lot when you are single and don't have a family of your own.  I want to make the most of this time I have to be with them.

So right now I'm just going to concentrate on living intentional minutes.  I don't want to waste time or not be fully present.  Hopefully I'll be able to string together a lot of intentional minutes to make this a great week. 

Highlights of the Past 24 Hours

1. Finally went to the doctor and discovered I have an advanced sinus infection and ear infection.  Lovely.  Finally on some meds.  Hopefully I'll start feeling better.
2. Kids' City raised $1350 by selling birdhouses at CCC's World Bazaar.  The money will be used to build a home for a family in Rwanda.
3. Bridget, the girl who's going to live with me for a few months which will help me meet my NEXT pledge, moved in.
4. Ohio State beat Michigan.  Go Bucks!
5. Got the e-mail in my inbox down to 19.
6. Talked myself out of panicking over all the stuff I didn't get done this past week.

A Chance to Play

Had a meeting tonight that reminded me how much I love what I get to do and where I get to do it.  I love being part of a church culture where people jump at the chance to play.

I'm working on a project to create a Bible study journal for kids and I'd asked Carolyn if she'd help me.  I don't really know her.  In fact, I only really met her once at a Kids' City party out at our Montgomery Campus.  During that brief conversation over fajitas, I learned that she is a graphic artist by trade.  And so a month later when I began thinking about this project I thought of Carolyn.  I wondered if she might be willing to lend some of her time, energy, and expertise to help design the journal.  And so tonight we met to discuss the project.  I'm sure this is going to take hours and hours of her time, but you would have thought I was doing her a favor by asking her to work on it.  She knows that her efforts are going to have an impact.  At the end of our meeting she said, "This is great because I'm part of Kids' City and now I get to do this!"  How can you not love that?

And then there's Angi.  She loves to create.  She's an artist at heart.  I can't tell you the number of times we've dialed Angi's number asking for a sign for this event or a cartoon drawing for this small group activity or a decoration for this conference.  Every time she says, "Yes," (which is all the time) my heart is encouraged knowing here is someone who always goes the extra mile for the love of the mission and the thrill of getting to use the gifts God's given her to bring a piece of beauty and creativity to our corner of the world.  Tomorrow she will drop off another of her creations at my desk.  Angi loves to play.

It's now been 5 years since the mysterious hand of God began leading me to a place I'd never heard of...Community Christian Church in Naperville, IL.  I don't know if I'll ever get over it.  I love having the chance to play here with people like Angi and Carolyn.  The word "job" just doesn't fit here.  Like one of my co-workers says, "It's more like recess."

New Browser

One thing being sick provides...time to mess around on the computer checking out things people have recommended that didn't make the priority list before.  My friend Kerry will be happy to know I signed up for on-line bill pay through my bank today.  She's given me a glowing testimony several times about the ease and practicality of using this method to pay my monthly bills.  It still freaks me out to trust someone else to maintain my good credit, but I'll give it a try.

The other thing I did today was download the new version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer.  Every time I talk to my sister she asks me if I have it yet.  And I have to admit, I think it really is an improvement.  You can set multiple home pages that all open when you open the browser (you navigate between them using tabs at the top of the page).  You can open tons of pages within one browser window instead of having multiple windows open at the same time.  The tool bar takes up so little of the screen freeing most of it up to display web pages.

So since there's a lot of this flu going around, I thought I might recommend downloading the new browser.  Without a fever, I wouldn't have it.

Sick

I honestly can't remember the last time I was sick.  I think it's been at least 4 years since I was the "in bed" kind of sick.  But my 101 degree temperature is keeping me here. However, being sick is making me really thankful for 2 things.

Wireless Internet.  The last time I was sick I had a desktop and a dial-up connection.  Now I can lie in bed and when I feel up to it jump on this laptop.  I've even been able to get a bit of work done today which has made me feel less sick (or does that make me a different kind of sick?).

Community.  About 2 hours ago there was a honk in my driveway as Kerry delivered bagels, oranges, and bananas to my front door.  Nothing is worse when you live alone than being sick and having to go to the store yourself.  I remember times when I lived in Charleston when I had to drag my shivering, feverish self to the Super-Walmart.  God has provided such an amazing group of loving, supportive, fun, bagel-delivering friends in my life here.

So I'm sick, but grateful.

Sometimes it Pays to be an Idiot

This drives me crazy.  I realized this morning that I'd forgotten to pay my credit card bill this month.  It came to me when I logged into my bank's website and saw the $29 late fee posted to my account.  This is the first time in my life that I've done that.  In fact, I think I've only let a balance on a credit card roll over to the next month once.  I figured my good behavior and a little sweet talk could get me out of having to pay the late fee.

So I called the credit card company.  I spoke my 16 digit credit card number into the phone and was given a menu of options.  I pushed 4.  Then 3.  None of the options offered met my need.  So I pressed 0 even though it wasn't an option but it didn't do anything.  Then * to return to the main menu.  Then 4 again.  Then 1.  Then I waited while I was given more options.  And waited.  And waited as she repeated the options.  Then got kicked back to the main menu.  I pressed 1 and started getting an irrelevant list of options.  Then I pressed 0 and told my choice was invalid.  After about 8 more options of this loop to no where I hung up.

I called back and decided I was just going to be an idiot.  When asked to say my credit card number I just sat there.  Twice.  It spoke to me in Spanish.  Next an appeal came for me to enter it on the keypad.  I didn't flinch.  It repeated the plea.  I wouldn't give in.  After several more seconds of silence I was directed right to a customer service agent who was able to answer my question and help me with the fee.

That's going to be my new strategy with automatic voice systems.  Just act like an idiot and do nothing until you get a live person.  It gets things done.

NEXT

A couple weeks ago I made a pledge to my church's new capital campaign.  The name of the campaign is "NEXT" and it will last for a year.  NEXT is not just about a building program; it's about the next 5000 people finding their way back to God at our next 7 locations.  Pretty exciting stuff.

God and I wrestled for several weeks before I made my pledge.  Funny how even when you think you are being generous you can find that there is still a good dose of greed, selfishness, and worry in your heart.  After all my logic and reasoning fell away, I sensed God prompting me with a number.  I knew how I could come up with about half of that number...a tax return, a health club reimbursement.  But the other half ?  No clue.  Still, I knew that was the number I needed to write down on my pledge card.  By the time I did, I was excited.  I have always given, even beyond a tithe, but this was the first time I was really giving in faith.  Before I'd always had a plan.  I always knew where the money would come from.  This time I knew I was called to trust.

So I pledged the number and asked God to show up during this next year to help me meet it.  He only made me wait 5 days.

I ran into Bridget at the gym last week.  I'd heard she'd started as a personal trainer a few weeks ago, but I hadn't seen her.  Actually, I didn't even know what she looked like.  She is a recent alum of the campus ministry I used to serve.  She was a freshman during my last year at EIU...but we didn't know each other.  Long story short, Bridget needs a place to live for a few months until she figures out what she's going to do permanently in this area.  I knew right away God was showing up to meet my NEXT prayer.  So this weekend Bridget will be moving into my guestroom and contributing to my mortgage which over the course of 3 months will amount to the other half of my NEXT pledge.

So God showed up in an immediate way.  And the bonus is I think I might really enjoy having Bridget around.

"I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move."  Matthew 17:20