I realize I've committed to putting down a few pithy thoughts about this third Lakewood-iversary. And yet, I'm a bit bogged down from a long day of work with a lot on the workload in front of me. Seems about par for the course this year and I can name about a million worse problems to have. So, at three, it stands to be a good time to consider the changes on display at both Lakewood, myself, and maybe even this little blog. Technically, the blogiversary around here is in two months, though. So I'll try and keep it light there.

In a way, I find it a bit odd that, despite Joel preaching some time ago on the need to place reminders of milestones so that accomplishments aren't forgotten, that Lakewood doesn't really give any overt mention of this particular moment. I fully realize the fact that I do so because it coincides with my own personal Lakewood-iversary on Grand Opening Sunday around this time in 2005. "Give us a year of your life and you'll never be the same" we're told. I'll second that and add that three is even better.

I think that it may be time to just admit to being something between change-resistant and change-embracing for my sake. Maybe "change-dysfunctional." On the one hand, looking and thinking back at services from years ago, there's an aspect of them that seems almost antiquated ... while still recognizing what it was that I loved so much about it at the time. Dakri high-jumping around stage, a rotation of special performances that seemed limited to just Aimee, Carrie & the occasional Jemine, listening to Cindy sing on Wednesdays, a pacing of Joel's sermons that I had down pat - to the point I could set my watch. Maybe the last one hasn't changed, but the trappings around that seem to have done so. And the change has been for the good.

We get to see more of the kids; there's more talent rotating through the ensembles - both on Wednesday and the weekend; there's a few more recorded projects from Lakewood folks in the pipeline. All good things.

As for me, I'm at a point where I'm happy with the volunteer gig and I think I've managed to deal with the sense of being rushed on Saturdays that I once had a bit of an issue with. And still, while the Koinonia gang adds and subtracts it's own over the span of time, I get the sense that I have the mutual feeling of being both an old-timer who knows everyone as well as the more isolated feeling of hanging out in the AV booth most of the time, with many of the newer people probably thinking I work for Lakewood.

Ultimately, with me, things tend to evolve to a more intellectual point over time. So the still-growing list of podcasts is something that I only see getting worse. Unless I learn to just do away with any TV time, scale down the work hours, and maybe cut into the time needed to get my music fix. It just strikes me as odd that within the range of relatively conservative theological terrain, there's not as much effort made to develop the intellectual/academic side of that view of God. And as grateful as I am to people such as Greg Boyd, Rob Bell, NT Wright, and others for filling that void - seeing the reaction they get by some within evangelical circles takes a bit off the encouragement that's derived from them. A part of that quest is what led to this fair blog, of course. And that continues unabated, with no end in sight.

One bit of Greg-trivia for those keeping score at home. I keep an old-fashioned wire-bound notebook handy for central storage of any sermon notes or whatever thoughts come to mind from what I'm reading. Inevitably, the notebook has the shelf-life of a New Years resolution. Before the calendar year starts, I'm shopping for whatever notebook that makes the best possible statement I care to make.

In year one, it was a run-of-the-mill, basic 70-page spiral notebook. The lowest common denominator of all notebooks. The reasoning for this is that I didn't want something so fancy that I would be cautious with what I wrote. I got a stack of 10 of 'em just in case. Went through almost all of them. On a good day, I can probably even locate a few around the house. Almost everything was just from Lakewood sermons and Bible study. The routine wasn't as great as it should have been. Sometimes weeks would go by with nothing. Sometimes I'd lose a notebook. Sometimes I couldn't find the one I was working with at the time and just grabbed another blank one.

Year two, I took it up a notch and got a nicer, bigger notebook. Thinking I had this down, I felt it was worthwhile to get some tools of the trade that reflected a bit more of the pride that went into the endeavor. And about halfway through the year, it really struck me as a pain to lug a big notebook around like that. So I went to a smaller, but still nice notebook. but by that time, the routine wasn't there. And reading things on the smaller pages didn't really look all that impressive to me.

So this past year, I've been working from a larger, yet basic spiral notebook. Figured I'd need more pages to cover the greater amount of content I was wanting to keep tabs on. And still, about halfway through the year, I'm about two weeks behind. Several weeks just have a listing of the podcasts from that week and little else.

It strikes me as simple that there exists this wonderful thing called blog technology that might alleviate this challenge, but I guess I'm old school enough that I still appreciate the actual practice of writing something out, seeing it in my own handwritten form, and thinking about whatever it was that compelled me to write such a thing down. I remember during my college years that after slaving away taking copious notes - handwritten and even typed - that once written, I rarely had to refer to them for studying. Once it was written, it was pretty much committed to memory.

I typically start the year writing out, in full, Isaiah 55. Easily my favorite Old Testament chapter. I didn't do this for the more recent notebook, thinking I'd want to hunt around for something else to translate in my own handwriting. So as I hit that half-year mark, I think I'm just going to do that as my half-year resolution. As soon as I find that notebook.