La District Elections

For those interested in UPCI matters, the Louisiana District held elections at their District Conference today. This was of interest to many people because Bro. T. F. Tenney has held the office of District Superintendent for many years and has been an influential figure across the organization. The results:

Superintendent - Rev. Kevin Cox (currently serving as district secretary)
Secretary - Rev. Randy Harper (pastor in Hicks/Leesville, LA)

I'll pass on more details as I get them.

Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail me!

The Real Blogger

A few years ago, Kent Curry arranged a great April Fool's joke for all 90&9 readers, composing an entire site (including Gabby's column) as if it had been hacked by a 12-year-old boy. I felt it only fair that I include him on a small April Fool's prank, which I attempted to do in my first blog.

I am Josh Lewis, copy editor here at 90&9. Let me dispel any misconceptions you may have devoloped from my initial blog:

• I am a Southerner, but I don't consider myself a "hidebound traditionalist"
• My views, both political and theological, range from conservative to liberal (I guess that makes me a moderate)
• 90&9 continues to focus on our core mission--victorious Christian living, not standards or doctrinal issues

With that behind us, let me give you a quick bio of myself. I am a 4th-generation Apostolic, as well as a PK and former MK. I was born in Louisiana, spent some time in Africa, graduated from high school in West Texas, graduated from college in East Texas. After teaching in a Christian school for one year, I joined the Air Force. I've been stationed in Colorado and the Azores (Portugal) and currently live in Bossier City, Louisiana. I am married and have a 11-week old son, about whom you'll hear more as the month goes on.

I intend to focus this month on Christian living--being genuine and practical without neglecting the spiritual. I see two faces of Christianity around me. On one side, you have the mainline denominational Christians who are active in politics and the community, but have lost the spark in their churches. On the other side are the charismatics and Pentecostals. They focus on being led and used by the Holy Spirit, but too often forget to smile at their neighbor or help the homeless. I believe true Christianity incorporates both facets. I like how the Apostle James says, Anyone who sets himself up as "religious" by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world ( James 1:26-27, MSG).

I want to be a real Christian!

Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail me!

Welcome to April

Welcome to April and a brand new blogger! I'm Victor Montgomery, and I'll be bringing a fresh, liberal perspective to this bastion of conservative thinking. For those who don't know, 90&9 was created with the 21st-century Apostolic in mind. Brave, open-minded individuals from Nashville developed a site where opinions about organizational authority and holiness standards could be freely expressed. Word of this proposed site quickly spread to the Hazelwood hideout, however, and they successfully lobbied to have one of their "young" prodigies, Kent Curry, accepted into the group leadership.

Having achieved this, Curry quietly brought in other hidebound Southern traditionalists, such as Shirley McDonald and Josh Lewis, to support his neocon theme. These allegedly unpaid staff members (rumors have surfaced about the shadowy "90&9 Booster Club" and Curry's new house in a ritzy Missouri neighborhood) helped move the site to the extreme right. For example, thought-provoking Big Questions such as "What is the one superficial thing you would change about your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or wife?" are no longer allowed. Future music reviews will be restricted to Southern Gospel quartets, avoiding controversial groups like PLAN:BE.

Although I may represent only a token nod by 90&9 to the Liberal Left, a demographic that obviously comprises most of today's young Apostolics, I intend to let my voice be heard this month. I'll give my thoughts on the role of TV and movie theaters in church evangelism, cufflinks on preachers, use of the archaic King James Version in Bible quizzing, and serving grape juice in communion services.

Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail me!

And now it's time . . .

. . . to say goodbye. It's been fun doing this blog, and I'll miss doing it, but most of all, I'll miss seeing your comments and receiving your emails.

Just as a final update, Olivia only cried for 20 seconds today when she was dropped off at day care, so it looks like she's starting to settle in.

Jonny has started a new exercise program; on Tuesday morning he got up early and jogged from our house to the donut shop and back. No kidding! I thought it was hilarious, but I definitely enjoyed the donuts.

Jonny and I have had a wild and crazy idea to sell our house in the suburbs and move to an apartment in downtown, where I'd be within walking distance to work and to Olivia's day care. We could get rid of one of our cars and cut down tremendously on expenses, which as many of you know is very crucial when one of the household residents is a college student. Who knows if we'll actually do it.

Work is going good but has been very crazy this week. We usually have 5 prosecutors to cover 5 courts, but this week there have been only 2 1/2 of us doing the job (the 1/2 is one who is sick, but dragging himself to work since we're already down 2 people). Then to top it all off, last night I dreamed about work all night, which made me feel like I had been at work for 20 hours rather than just the 12 I was actually there. Don't you hate that?!

We start our HomeBuilders group this Saturday, and I'm really looking forward to it. Pray that God uses it to bless everyone involved and that all of our marriages will be strengthened because of it.

Well, kids, it's time to say goodbye. Thanks to the staff at ninetyandnine.com, especially Kent Curry, for letting me do this blog for a month. It's been great!

Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail me!

I received a nice email from Crystal in Louisiana and she asked: "I thought I would ask for your perspective on juggling being a Christian lawyer, wife, and mother. Does the lawyer part take too much time away from the rest or put too much stress on the rest?"

It's a great question and I thought I'd post my answer on the blog. Here it is.

Crystal:

Thank you for writing! The short answer to your question is that it completely depends on what you do with your law degree. The Lord has blessed me by giving me a legal job where I rarely have to work more than 40 hours per week, so being a lawyer for me isn't much different than being a full-time worker at McDonalds.

But be aware that legal jobs where you work such low hours are few and far between. And in exchange for working so few hours, the salary is much lower than I would make many other places. And most firms require a huge time commitment from their attorneys.

In reality, being an attorney is not much different from any other profession for women. When a professional woman has children, she either (a) preserves her career by continuing at the same pace she was working previously and spends limited time with her children; (b) finds a balance by working fewer hours and allowing her career to not advance in the same way it was before, but therefore getting more time with her children; or (c) she stops working, puts her children as her priority and puts her career on hold until some time in the future.

Some women only get to choose between option (a) and (b) due to financial situations that require them to work to support their families, which is my situation. As I said, God has blessed me by allowing me to help to support my family without me having to spend all my daughter's waking hours at work.

The difficulty for me has not been in juggling everything so much as it is that I mourn the fact that I can't be a stay-at-home mom and spend all my time with my daughter. If you don't ensure that you at least have a chance to choose option (c) later down the road, you may find yourself in the same position I am.

In the end, the bottom line for you is to seek God's will. Although it's been very hard for me to get over having to be a working mother, I never doubt for a minute that God called me to be an attorney. If you follow His will, the peace you receive from knowing you did follow Him will carry you through times when you feel frustrated or burned out.

I hope this rambling email has helped you at least a little. Good luck with your endeavor!

Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail me!

Day Care Adjustment

If you remember, my daughter Olivia started a new day care two weeks ago. The Tuesday after she started, she came down with a stomach virus and has been sick off and on ever since. As a result, she hasn't been going every day to day care, so we've gotten off to a very rocky start. She cries and cries when she sees where we are, and clings to either me or my husband (whoever is dropping her off) like we're sending her to a concentration camp. It rips our heart out. We've started standing outside her class to see how long she cries, which so far the record has been three minutes (usually shorter), after which she starts playing happily. She cries for 3 minutes and then gets to play, while we're miserable for 10 hours.

Today, Jonny (my husband) got some encouragement from a couple of strangers at the day care. As he was walking in, Olivia was sobbing and clinging to him, and a woman was there dropping off her child who said, "It DOES get better." He told her he hoped so. Then, after he dropped Olivia off in her class, he was standing outside watching his watch to time how long she cried, and a different woman walked by and stopped, gave him a smile and said, "I used to do the exact same thing. I would stand outside and time how long she cried. But it gets much better." He replied that he certainly hoped so because it's been very hard on all of us to go through this. She said it takes a little while, but it gets better.

I'm ready for it to be better now.

Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail me!

Easter Musings

My Easter was a wonderful day. This was Olivia's first Easter to be aware of what's going on. It was so exciting to get her dressed in her pretty new dress, give her the Easter basket I had put together, watch her try to figure out what the big deal is about these eggs we were all telling her to put in her basket and then try to keep her from eating too much candy that her two grandmothers gave her. She ate more candy in one day yesterday than she has in the rest of her entire short life.

Then, today as I was walking to work, I passed the Catholic cathedral that I have to walk past to get from where I park to the building where I work. Very often when I pass that cathedral on my three block walk into work, it reminds me to make a quick connection with God before I start my day, if I haven't already. This morning, the cathedral reminded me that with all the excitement of seeing Olivia at her first "real" Easter, I hadn't stopped to make a true heartfelt expression of thanks to Jesus for what He did for us on Good Friday. The guilt hit hard: How horrible of me!

If you're a church-going parent of a toddler, or if you have ever been such a parent, you know that often times you don't get a lot out of the service; you're entire time is spent corralling your child and trying to keep them from distracting every single person in the sanctuary. (My goal is to just distract the twenty or so people who sit near us. I consider that a good Sunday.) That's what my day was like yesterday at church, so even during service I didn't really connect spiritually with what Easter really is.

So on my walk into work this morning, I prayed a short but sincere prayer. Thank you, Jesus, for what you did. Thank you for taking on my sins. Thank you for the suffering you endured on my behalf. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And I'm sorry for being so wrapped up in Olivia's reaction to some stupid Easter eggs that I didn't stop to say this before. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail me!