Every new day seems so new…

It is so wonderful to be in classes that use scripture… My Philosophy of Ministry class starts every day with a devotional and uses scripture for almost everything! It’s so great! It’s not like high school where you get hit with a baseball bat for tying to back up your claims with the Bible.

Today we talked about denominations in the church, and went on a tangent about house churches. I was surprised to find that most people didn’t have any idea what they were about. My teacher made some really good points, in that while house churches can be wonderful, you have to be extra careful with watching over them. It’s extremely easy for churches without a governing system to come up with some really bad theology on their journey to having “freedom in theology.” Overall it was a great discussion. It made me happy that Mosaic is what it is. A lot of house churches out there are all about being anti-big-church. And while it may have started for whatever reasons it did, I don’t really see it there anymore. It’s a pretty great community…I miss it.

In other news, being able to type and see my screen clearly again is wonderful. It took me about four hours to get used to Macs, but I think I’m getting the hang of things. Now that I have a Mac, I’m really happy I bought one. Once you get the hang of it, they are so easy to use, and just, make sense. I don’t know that I like them any more or less than PCs, but the both for sure have major selling points. AND, hooray for Reaper BETA coming out for Mac! Now I don’t even need to get Parallels! Right now I have Reaper, Audacity, Garage Band, and ProTools on my laptop… I’m pretty sure I have enough to get the job done.

I went to Mars Hill for church on Sunday. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, it is the church started by Rob Bell in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Rob was speaking on Matthew 7, which if you know me well, you know how much I love that portion of scripture! My experience of Mars Hill was quite positive. At times it felt like I was watching a NOOMA video, which was a little weird. They have some pretty rockin’ musicians up there, but I’m glad to say that Spring Arbor’s worship team is honestly better! (and believe me, that is saying something). The worship was good, the song choices were pretty awesome, and the message was alright. I always love to hear what Robell has to say, but I think I’ve heard the Sermon on the Mount from him a few times, and I felt as if I didn’t really learn a lot of new perspective on it. The one thing I did not like was the size. As you probably know, I am NOT a fan of giant churches, and being surrounded by 5,000 people is a bit outside my comfort zone. Big churches….great for gathering money….not so great for building community. I do have to say, out of any giant church, Mars Hill is probably the best I’ve seen, or will ever see. As Robell said “We’re always trying to make this big church smaller.” Overall, I’m glad I went. If I was closer to it, I would probably go back more often.

Spring Break is getting closer and closer every day (I know, way to be obvious), which means Boston is beginning to be more of a reality. For those of you who don’t know, I’m going to Boston over Spring Break with David and 5 other people, 2 from Woodstock, and 3 from here. It’s going to be a wonderful trip, and we’re going to get to see Thomas Johnson, which will be great! I’m more excited because I have only been outside of the midwest a handful of times. I was in DC once for a field trip in 8th grade, and I’ve been to a mission’s trip in PN and TN. So other than that, this is my first experience outside the midwest! We were going to see Dropkick Murphey’s but they thought it was a good idea to charge $40 for their shows… Stupid home town bands.

That is all I have for right now… Have wonderful mornings, days, and nights.
Peace be with you!

Mike Killam

Day #1

Today was my first actual day of being a college kid at Spring Arbor. This was quite possibly one of the coolest days I’ve had in a very long long time.

THINGS TO MENTION:
-Rooming w/ David is awesome.
-Already making good friendships
-New computer and recording equipment on the way!
-CORE
-Schedule

The best thing so far has been CORE. COR100 is my Intro. to Liberal Arts class, and it’s essentially a ‘welcome to our school’ type of deal. I’m in the class with about 25 other girls and guys that all transferred in this semester. I’ve taken these classes before, and they’re usually pretty lame, but in this case, I’m really happy it exists. First of all, everyone else has already had a semester (or a few years) to get to know other people and form social groups. We’re all coming in the Spring, meaning we don’t know anybody. So it’s really awesome that the school goes out of its way to make sure we at least know a few people to get our connections going. The three upper-classmen in charge are really cool and extremely friendly and helpful. Today they organized a BroomBall game for us. Afterwards we went over to Steven’s house (the guy upper-classmen) and bonded through random games and such. It was really cool. Because of this I have met Luke and Caleb, who are the two I’ve been hanging out with the majority of my time. I don’t have a ton in common w/ Luke, but he’s still pretty cool. Caleb is awesome. We’re for sure going to be making lots of awesome music this semester. I might see what he thinks about rooming together next semester if things go well. So yeah, the CORE thing is pretty cool. Hoping to get to know people from my floor tomorrow.

It’s super easy rooming with somebody you’re already familiar rooming with, by the way. We’re both pretty considerate of each other so far, which is awesome. Both of us are pretty open to compromises in the room, which is vital.

My class schedule is a really good set-up. Monday I only have one class, so I have deemed that my all-homework day. Wednesday I have three classes, and a worship/fellowship-type group called DEEPER that I want to be a part of, so I have deemed that my no-homework day. I have two classes the other three days, so I’ll be dividing up my time with one class of homework on each of those days, and finish up whatever is left on Saturday. I’m really big into the idea of keeping Sunday as a day of rest. No homework. Go to church, fellowship, etc. Cool down on Sundays. Which works really well, because if I don’t finish it all on Saturday, I still have Monday as my all-homework day. I have a good set-up.

You can reach David and I any time on our dorm phone, at 517-750-5492. If we dont’ answer, you MUST leave a message so we can call on our cell phones. We can’t make outgoing calls with the dorm phone (it’s a little selfish. get it? not outgoing… It’s all about incoming…selfish..get it?)

My new computer along with my new recording equipment will be arriving tomorrow, Saturday, and Monday. I don’t need all of it immediately, but with the deals going on, I looked a few years into the future and got higher quality equipment. I’m excited about this. Not only am I finally in a real school, but I’ll have all the things I need to start practicing and slowly building experience in the direction I want to go with my life. I don’t have to sit here thinking how cool it will be to start helping people record music in four or five years… Caleb wants me to record his stuff, so I can get practice and experience and he can get recordings. Again, I’m really excited for what’s going on.

Well, I’m off to bed. Everybody should keep in touch and let me know what’s going on in their lives, and I’ll do my best to respond in kind. Thanks for everybody’s support!

Mike

Turning Up the Light

“Why blame the dark for being dark? It is far more helpful to ask why the light isn’t as bright as it could be.”
-Rob Bell

I gave my last talk at Holy Apostles this Sunday night, and the topic was Being Christ, Being Unlimited. Now, at the time I didn’t label it with such a trendy, self-explaining title, but that’s essentially what it was about. A few people told me it was great, most told me it was good, and one even said it was beautiful. Now, I say this not to boast, but to reflect. I don’t know how it was actually received, or how many people took what I had to heart, but at least I got to say what I’ve been wanting to say for a good while now. In case you missed it, here’s a recap:

For thousands of years religious people had to be told how to live by their leaders and by their holy texts, which the majority of people couldn’t actually read for themselves. After sending “His” people signs, miracles, leaders, kings, and prophets to tell them the way, God sent “His” son to SHOW us the way. Now, 2000 years later we don’t have Christ around to show us how to live. Or do we? Christ did not just come to live and great life and to die and save us… He also came to SHOW us how to live, and inform us that it is our responsibility to BE him when he leaves. And so, all these years later we’re supposed to be able to see Christ, because we’re supposed to BE Christ. We have to be, so that when 100,000+ people die in an earthquake in Haiti, the world can still see Christ. When a church becomes corrupt and leads thousands of people to believe that you can buy your way to heaven, the world can still see Christ. If you can’t see Christ, you need only to turn up the brightness in your own life. And lastly, if we are Christ, than we are not limited. We are not too young, too old, too conservative or liberal, too anything… We are Christ, and we are unlimited. So go change the world.

That was the basic gist of what I presented to about 40 youth this week. I hope somebody took it in and will use it. But sometimes it takes hearing something 20 times to actually become effective. WHICH, is sorta my point. It only takes seeing something once or twice to learn from it. It takes hearing something 20 times… Which is why Christ did a whole lot more showing than he did telling. Christianity is not a game of show-and-tell. It’s show…and tell if you must.

Turn up the light.