Today's College Student

Trying to understand today's college student is not an easy task. The Social Science Research Center just came out with a study and group of essay's about today's college student. Overall there is a tone of encouragement from these reports. My only question is how do these finding compare fit in with the recent studies from the recent Barna research group report on twenty-somethings which almost indicate the opposite?

Here's some of the more interesting quotes:

Religious institutions now enroll one in ten college students; since 1990, enrollment has increased at 102 evangelical colleges by 70% (from 135,000 to 230,000 total) compared to 28% at private institutions and 13% at public ones. -Keeping the Faith

An article in the Los Angeles Times Magazine describes this generation of evangelicals as one that “reconciles science and the Bible, body and soul; opposes both war and abortion;…and leapfrogs the two-party political divide. All the while refusing to renounce its conservative-evangelical tag.” -Student Commitments

To read more from these articles, go here.

race to approval

Well folks, it's looks like California, Wisconsin and Illinois are now the only states in America who have not been able to pass a state budget for the year yet. Can I just say I'm proud of the fact that I have strong connections to two of these wonderfully, governmentally ineffective states? (sarcasm intended). I'd actually put money on California getting their budget act together before Wisconsin! Never thought I'd say that.

Inspiration

Last weekend I (Sarah) got to go to a quilt expo here in town. It was crazy. People out here are crazy quilters and have way to much time on their hands. But it was fun looking at how different each quilt was as well as all the hundreds of vendors and their fabrics. Definitely not good for the pocket book.

However I'm now inspired to finish up my current projects so I can start on some new ones and try to incorporate some new ideas and techniques into the piece! Maybe someday I can figure out how to do something like the one pictured that received best in show...but again I think I might be aiming to high.

In other news, Matt travels again this weekend to Rhode Island. He's excited about going but still a bit tired from his last trip...so any prayers would be welcomed.

Loving Work?

My boss who lives in Colorado is currently in town for a few days. As I am still fairly new to my job, I still don't know a whole lot about him. However I have been amazed at how much my boss absolutely loves his job! I've never heard him complain about what he does and there is almost always a glimmer of joy in his eyes as we talk details about different projects.

It's gotten me thinking about how much our work is really a gift from God and just as one can get excited and joyful over a birthday gift, we can get excited about the gift of work that God has given us. I don't often think of my job as a gift from God. But in many ways it really is.

I guess the challenge for me is that as I settle more and more into the routine of the job, I try to cling to the idea that my job is a gift and it's ok to be excited and find joy in it. It's a weird idea though because I don't think I've ever met to many people who really find joy in their jobs. In many ways I feel like you're looked upon as a freak if you do find some sort of satisfaction in your work. But I think it's something to strive for as well.

Friendship Bread

Mom H. this is for you. ("Pass it On".)
Ahhhh...it brings back memories of that one summer when all we ate was this friendship bread stuff. Even after reading the article, I'm still not sure if I understand fully the point of the bread. But now that it's been a few years since I've eaten any, I might actually give it a try again. No worries though, I don't think I'll try and seed any of the starter to you in the mail. :)

Hot sticky and Sexy Pizza?

I got back from Texas this last week from shooting a Documentary there for InterVarsity. We followed around a staff worker (Nick, second photo above) for a week as he advertised InterVarsity; they gave out free burgers, free popsicles, free tacos, and held a discussion about sex and pizza. It was this last event, titled "Sexy Pizza" that made the paper, along with a photo that happens to contain me. Check it out here. If you actually read the article, keep in mind that both Nick and Carlos (first picture above and in the article) were misquoted. [Nick didn’t give bible verses for every question but facilitated a discussion about biblical principlesand Carlos didn’t say anything about loosing people since last year.]

Anyway, it was a lot of fun, it was really HOT and sticky (in the 100’s plus extreme humidity!!) and we shot a lot of film (over 24 hours for a 4 minute video.) I learned a lot about how to shoot better documentaries while seenig the fun and difficulties of starting an InterVarsity Chapter. I saw the groups faithfulness in spite of adversary and then saw God come through because of prayer. I saw the fruit of InterVarsity on campus, both in creating Christ followers as well as contributing to campus culture. After most interviews we conducted with video I snuck in some portraits shown above.
Thanks for your prayers.
Matt

Preservationism vs. Conservationism

Yesterday on PBS (I know we are dorks), there was this really interested documentary on the National Forest Service called "The Greater Good". I mainly highlighted the creation of the National Forest Service and many of the conflicts and scandal's involved with it's evolution.

The most interesting conflict in my opinion centered around whether the Forest Service would be about preservation or conservation. I don't think I have ever considered the slight but significant difference between those two words. To "preserve" an area of land, the resources of that land can not be used for profit. However according to "conservationism", you carefully steward the land so that you can use/harvest/take particular renewable resources and then replenish them to ensure that resource will be around in the future. So in reality it comes down to whether we or humans can touch a piece of land or resource for our own profit.

Anyways, I always thought those two things meant the same thing. And while the show didn't really address this, I think it's interesting how both preservation and conservation are needed in different circumstances. For example, if many of our nation's watershed's wern't turned into preservations, there is a good chance many of those watersheds would have become poluted or destroyed. Yet in the case of many national forests, it's important that they are conserved (stratigic logging/clearing/replanting) so that fire danger remains lower.

Watching shows like these remind me how complicated a world we live in and reveals just how enourmous and serious the task of being stewards of the earth is that God has entrusted us with. It seems such a big task that it's easier to keep living life as is and not think about what it means to both conseve and preserve the nature that is around us. But listening to people's stories and the battles fought around the forest service, it makes me wonder how much more exciting and fulfilling life might be if we really understood and took action on God's desire for us to be good stewards of the earth.

Anyways, I might just have to join the forest service now. It seem like a cool job.

Quote of the Day

"The Church is too much like a football game where 22 professionals are on field in the heat of the battle desperately in need of rest while 100,000 spectotors are in the stands cheering and desperately in need of exercise." -E. Trueblood

Sunset Boulevard

We have some friends that are currently going through the top 100 movies of all time. I'm not sure where they are on the list, but this last week we joined them for Sunset Boulevard.

If you like dead monkey's, suger mommas, and Hollywood writers, this is definately a movie for you. It's actually a pretty funny yet very creapy movie. And even though it's from the 50's, it's very well done.

One thing that surprised me though was the content of the movie. It's was surprisingly dark and messed up. I'd almost expect it to be a story line from a current movie. I guess it just goes to show that even in the 50's, there was an attraction to the weird, bizzare and humanness of man.

It's well worth watching if you want a laugh and some bizzare dreams at night.