Bumping into a Sliver of Church History

This past weekend, we had the great pleasure of joining family and friends – new and old – at the wedding of my niece Leah and her fiancé (now husband) Perek.

It was a joyous, festive ceremony in Decorah, Iowa, at a lovely little Lutheran country church just outside of town. But, of the many great memories that I know I’ll cherish, one that was entirely unexpected was from the informal, noon-time lunch preceding the wedding.

As it turns out, we were joined by the church’s Pastor and, in conversation, he began telling us the story of the church’s unique relationship with a 19^th century artist, Herbjorn Gausta.

Before we knew it, we were on brief field trip to the parsonage where the Pastor said he had something special to show us, concerning an extended stay-over by Gausta in the early days of the church. Up to the second floor our wide-eyed guest party climbed, making our way to the guest room of the parsonage where the artist had stayed over 100 years ago.

As it turns out, Gausta had used the original plaster walls of the room as his personal study canvas in preparation for a major work. These original drawings were on all four walls of the tiny room and had been covered up by at least four layers of wallpaper, through the years. It wasn’t until the parsonage received a major remodeling job in recent years that the Gausta sketches, long since forgotten, were discovered in the guest room.

As we all slowly circled the room, there was something of an aura of calm and timelessness. Standing within inches of these drawings, it was easy to imagine the artist alone in the room at the turn of the last century. You could feel his spirit…creating, dreaming, meditating on the serene pastureland he would have seen then, just as we did now, rolling for miles outside the second-story window.

It was a real treat and ever a reminder to keep one’s self open to life’s little surprises each and every day!

Using Current Culture for Faith

I had a visit yesterday with one of the Austin representatives of Priority Associates. They and Search Ministries put together a great breakfast meeting a couple of weeks ago – over 230 men before 8:00 am in the morning – to hear an inspiring talk by Dr. David Cook, a professional sports psychologist, talk about his practice with famous pro athletes and his personal mission to spread the faith.

Part of this personal mission for Dr. Cook involves his current quest to bring to life a major motion picture, Links of Utopia. One of the things we’re encouraged by is the increasing sophistication of believers like him to use the culture to witness the good news.

George Barna was among the first during the current internet age to research and document the critical importance of employing music, movies, games, the internet, and other modern media to reach children and young adults, where they spend an increasing majority of their waking time.

We couldn’t agree more. That’s our journey here at Faithkeepers – to equip you with inspiration, recommendations, and resources to give your kids (as well as family, friends and colleagues) a chance to add healthy culture to their lives. It’s no different than adding healthy foods to your daily diet.

Speaking of daily diet, we hope you enjoy another in our series of faith stories, this one shot at an Austin Tex-Mex favorite, Maudie’s with a long-time friend, Susan Scrupski.

In her “day job,” Susan is the founder and chief analyst for the 2.0 Adoption Council. There are few positions that one could have more prominent than Susan’s to put you at the pulse of how companies are using the most ground-breaking technologies to make the products and services that shape our culture.

But, Susan is also a mother, community volunteer, passionate advocate for those things she cares about, with a deep spiritual core that she shares in her story. You can get to know her better at her personal website, “Taking it Personal.”   We hope you are inspired by her thoughtful comments, perhap hearing some situations that are familiar to your own life.  Share it with others and, as  always, let us hear from you!

Your kids are listening (they just may not want to hear it from you)

Thank you to everyone who provided encouraging feedback for the “Where I’m At” faith story that we debuted last week with Jeff Collier. This week, we are sharing a “Where I’m At” video shot with Michael Watt.

Whereas Jeff is an ambassador for the Net Generation, Michael is an ambassador for the Baby Boomers. He has a son in college and a daughter in high school and, although a native of California, has lived the last decade-plus in Texas.

Michael is a successful technology industry financial executive, having served in positions at HP, Toshiba American and Dell, where he served as president of Dell Financial Services, among others. One of the things that we encourage you to do with the videos of Michael and Jeff, especially with your older children – tweens and above – is suggest that they spend 5-10 minutes watching one of these video segments.

Then, afterwards, perhaps you can ask them what they thought about it the next time you have dinner or are out grabbing a sandwich together. Our hope is that watching these stories from other younger and older voices will help your kiddo hear something that strikes at their faith in a new and deep way.

Because, anyone with tweens knows that it is often the time when children start to think mom and dad are “dumb” or get embarrassed by things you say and do. (Comics from the Archies  to Zits have been chronicling it for generations!) And, admittedly, we older adults have been known to do some embarrassing things. Come on…you remember something your parents did when you were that age!

But, this period of mild (or great) rebellion is a stage that we all go through as we start sorting out our identity, what we believe, and who we will become, as an ultimately independent young adult.

Over the next several weeks, we’ll continue to share these “Where I’m At” stories from Faithkeepers, aiming for an initial video – one each – from a member of each of the generations: traditionalists, baby boomers, gen x’rs, net generation, and the so-called “re-generation,” i.e., members of the youngest generation, who are the prodigy of the Gen X’rs.

As always, let us hear your ideas and what has worked for you in having faith discussions with your family and friends.