The Church of Christ and Where I Am

For most of my life, my home church has had the words "Church of Christ" in the title. I have many fond memories of Churches of Christ: several have employed me, I graduated from a university affiliated with the CoC, and a Church of Christ even served as my home for a semester.

During my life, I have tried to do my best to notice the positive aspects and encourage them within my stream of faith. On the other hand, I have often noticed what I consider discrepancies between what I believe and how the Church of Christ functions as a body. For the most part, I have quietly continued to work within the church structures that I call "home," seeking one-on-one or small group discussions, rather than confrontation. This was always a difficult choice, because my desire to be a voice pushing for positive change is and must always be tempered by my desire for unity.

With that said, my church situation has changed, and with it my situation. My time as Youth Intern for Buffalo Gap Church of Christ ended amicably this month as I transitioned into a new job. Amanda and I were brought to the front and prayed over as we begin a new phase of our lives. For the first time in my life, I am not affiliated by membership or employment to a Church of Christ, though I will certainly be visiting many of the local congregations.

As you might have read on facebook or in the last blog post, I was recently hired as a Community Coordinator for Connecting Caring Communities, a local, Christian nonprofit. While there are many facets of my position, one of the tasks I was most excited about was visiting churches in the neighborhoods I serve. This allows me to meet many different people and participate in a myriad of different worship styles.

What does this all mean?

Well, for starters, here's what it doesn't mean. It does not mean that I am exempt from promoting unity within the body. It does not mean that I will start popping off about what frustrates me most about the Church of Christ. It doesn't mean that I love my brothers and sisters who live and love in the Church of Christ any less.

What this does mean is that I can now gently and thoughtfully push for more conversation and consideration on issues that I think are important. This means that I can do so without fear that my views will be mistaken for the views of the elders or ministers who lovingly serve at a church I attend. It means that my words can be my own, and I can harbor less fear of them causing disunity.

This newly found freedom is a blessing I do not take lightly. I hope to use this freedom to spark authentic conversation. I hope that conversation blesses those who participate, myself included. With that said, I'm excited to see where this takes us.

Blessings, friends!

Connecting Caring Communities

It took eight years to finally get a degree in something I cared about. Last May, I was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ACU graduate, happy to be holding a diploma that indicated that I was trained in Sociology and Christian Ministry. It was good times to be sure, and even in a struggling economy, I believed that my degree, combined with my skill set and experience, would help me land the job of my dreams.

Unfortunately, I didn't actually know what that job was yet.

After my final summer at Camp of the Hills, I was no closer to finding a full-time ministry or nonprofit job. Things were not quite as rosy as they were in May. I set out to find a job to pay the bills while my sweet wife went back to school. As we tried to not only make ends meet, but begin working towards buying a house, I knew that I had to find a full-time job, even if it wasn't what I wanted to do long term. Delivery Driver for Office depot fit the part.

Truth be told, I did not enjoy my job at the Depot. Being a people person, I was not well suited to driving around alone all day. As someone much more attuned to relationships than details, I wasn't very effective in certain aspects of the job. If it weren't for kind supervisors and fellow employees, I would not have lasted. I will forever be grateful to them for believing in me and giving me chance after chance.

As the calendar flipped to 2013, I was faced with a dilemma: I desperately wanted a job that maximized my gifts/minimized my weaknesses, but could not afford to lose my job at Office Depot that was enabling our family to stay afloat. Thankfully, I had stayed in contact with Lori Thornton at Connecting Caring Communities since my final semester at ACU. Though she did not have any openings in the spring of 2012, she encouraged me to keep in touch with her and to apply when/if a position opened up.

I can earnestly say that I have never been more excited to interview for a position than I was in February as I sought the Community Coordinator job. Lori called me at the end of a ten hour day of deliveries as I was unloading extremely heavy office furniture. After hearing that I had the job and accepting it, I felt like I had the weight of the world lifted from my shoulders. And the weight of the world is even harder to carry in bulky boxes of copy paper.

For the past two months, I have done my best to learn the ropes around CCC, and I have to say, it is a joy. Though I will describe my job in more detail in later posts, let it suffice to say that when people ask me what I do for a living, my simple response is, "I get to know people."

Life is good, friends. Life is good.

Setting Down Roots

In case you were anxiously anticipating big family news from the Bowens, I'd like to make an announcement. After years of praying about where and to what God was calling us, after months of intense negotiations, near misses, and heartbreaks, and after we had given up hope as to how we would be able to make it happen without an intervening miracle from God, it happened.

Less than an hour ago, Amanda and I closed on a house in the College Heights neighborhood of Abilene, Texas.

After struggling with the idea of setting down roots in Abilene for a long time, God made the path clear for us to become a part of a long-term ministry with and among our new neighbors. We haven't gotten everything figured out yet. We're not sure exactly what the ministry will look like in the coming years. But we are at peace knowing that our passion for this community is one shared with God.

We look forward to sharing more on this big news in the future, but for now, we look to celebrate what God is doing in this city, in this neighborhood, and in our hearts!

Oh SNAP! (31 Days of Eating on Food Stamps) - Prologue

David Smith is a good man. In addition to being a much more regular blogger over at preachersmith.com than I am here, David also presided over the wedding of Amanda and myself. (The wedding probably deserves some retelling here on the blog, so maybe around our anniversary I'll retell some of the best stories from the experience.)

So when David Smith messaged me a link to his recent blog post, I immediately decided that it was a terrible/wonderful idea. As with almost all ideas that fit into that category, I ran it past Amanda before officially signing up. Thankfully for my hopes of joining in this grand social experiment, my wife shares my love of people in poverty and enthusiastically agreed to join.

As someone who professes to care about the poor, I'm looking forward to experiencing a little sliver of what it's like to try to plan a month of meals as if we only had SNAP (aka food stamps) benefits. I'm going to miss those Taco Bell Cantina Burritos something fierce, that's for sure. As a person called to love the people Jesus calls "the least of these," I hope this experience helps me grow in empathy for those living in poverty.

We're still working out a few of the nuances. For example, we won't be doing it for just January, since we'll be visiting family in Abu Dhabi for the first few days of the year, so we'll spill over into a bit of February. I'm already excited about this adventure, and the new perspective it will bring. I'll be doing my best to chronicle my thoughts and experiences here, so get excited about reading along, and feel free to try it out! I'd love to hear from more people

Additionally, be on the lookout for some exciting news next week! We're still waiting for final confirmation, but it looks like Amanda and I will have something really cool to share with y'all Monday. (Note: Before people start jumping to conclusions, no, this is not a kids type of news item. Seriously, people.)

Bowen News Update

The hiatus is over, at least for now.

A little more than a month ago, Amanda and I walked into the Office Depot on the south side of Abilene. She had been given a bunch of looseleaf papers for her job at the Alliance for Women and Children, (She works with one of their after-school care programs) and want to get the papers bound into a spiral. As soon as we stepped through the sliding front doors, we were greeted by a friendly gentleman in his fifties wearing a bright red shirt and a name tag indicating his name was Steve.

"Well hello there, folks, how can I help you?"

We told him about our quest for binding, and he pointed us in the direction of the printing center. But as my wife stepped towards her goal, I tarried behind. I caught Steve's eye and asked, "Y'all wouldn't happen to be hiring, would you?"

His eyes lit up. He informed me that indeed they were short on staff at the moment. He wasn't sure if he could swing a full-time position, but since I was already considering doubling up on part-time work, I went for it. I applied that night from the Kirby's house, and anxiously awaited an answer. Within a few days, I had an interview.

I met back with Steve for the interview, and apparently he liked me, because a few days later I was called in by the big boss, Jake. After a few quick minutes of talking, he offered me the position of delivery driver, and I most graciously accepted.

That was just about a month ago. Since then I've been working 40-50 hours per week, delivering office supplies to Abilene and the surrounding towns. Sometimes my day is simple, mostly in-town deliveries. Other days I spent most of my day traversing the long and semi-scenic roads of West Texas. Either way, I'm employed full-time now, which is a blessing.

I have plenty more updates to come, and I can write them for the blog now that we've got internet at our  house. For now, know that God has been good to our little family, and that we're excited about a new phase of our lives!

The End and the Beginning

I just quit my dream job.

Well, maybe it's not quite that simple.

August 4th, 2012 was my final day as Camp Director of Camp of the Hills. To be fair, I let my boss know that I was going to be ready to move on by the end of the 2012 summer sometime in the spring of 2011, so to characterize yesterday as "quitting" might be a tad dramatic. I had been planning how to transition from my time as Camp Director to my successor ever since I first got the job, since that change-over was less than ideal. When I felt like the end of my time was coming, I started preparing the next person's place.

What I didn't realize was that I was not as prepared for my next steps as I believed myself to be. I had believed that with my extensive experience working in ministry and non-profit settings, that I would have a position waiting lined up for after my last summer at camp. I thought that I would have an apartment set up in Abilene, or maybe even a house and a mortgage to which my wife and I would return.

Yet plans have a funny way of falling through sometimes. The non-profits and churches I talked to are not hiring. Amanda and I let our old apartment go at the end of the spring, since we had lodging for the summer at Camp of the Hills and desired to move into a low-income neighborhood in Abilene. After  some disappointments in trying to buy a house and touring a few undesirable apartments, she and I are still without a permanent place to live. We've planned ahead enough to have some financial cushion while I continue the job hunt and our dear friends the Kirbys have offered us room in their house until we find somewhere more permanent, but my life is certainly not what I expected it to be a few short months ago.

And so, here I sit. Typing on the floor, back to a couch in the Kirby's living room. The thirteen years spent at Camp of the Hills are now in the rear view mirror, as are the thirteen before camp. I can clearly see so much that lies behind me, sprawled out over more than a quarter century. Yet the future is unclear. Where will I go? What will I do? What challenges await? How will the ways I've been shaped by my experiences dictate how I meet the future?

More than anything, I look forward to new stories. I live for stories. Stories of what God has done, is doing, or will do. Stories of friends, family, and people I wish I knew. Stories that spark conversation. Stories that matter. My life has been marked with a plethora of great stories; stories that I need to and want to tell. I should get started.