Explination and car rides

Well let’s get down to explaining the title of this Blog.

Once again apologies for my bad grammar.

In my hometown there is a massive lack of variety for radio stations meaning if you don't like rock, country, or whatever the current pop culture craze is you better invents in a decent selection of Cd's tapes 8-tracks or iPod songs whatever your fancy is.
While driving home from a new student orientation session at college and about an hour from my home destination I started feeling really distressed and just not comfortable, which is unusual because I love car rides and driving. To try and ease some stress I started flipping through radio stations just clicking one of my buttons and just searching from there *Static* press the button *country* press the button *something I didn't know* press the button *something else I didn't know* I just so happened to let this station stay for a second. I listened for a little bit and figured out it was a contemporary Christian station. Now normally figuring that out I would have quickly changed the station again but, something that day compelled me to stay on it.

As I listened to the song I don't specifically know which song but everything seemed to open up to me. In my head I had been rejecting this contemporary style of worship partially because of my old standings in Buddhism and another way because it seemed in a sense "inferior". The idea opened up to me that what makes my style of worship any better? How can I as Christian be willing to share the message if I can't even dare to venture out of my own comfort zone a little bit? I'm sure there was more that crossed my mind but those are some of the biggest aspects. Needles to say it was a very eye opening moment to where I almost had to pull off to the side of the road and just reflect.

Now the name as you probably assumed is the station I stopped on 88.5 the one contemporary station in my area. This station isn't perfect the advertisements are absolutely ridiculous, and it only comes in clear in my home town on those rare magical days where everything is going right for radio waves. But even with these imperfections for what I've gotten out of it station 88.5 will always receive a spot on my radio hot spot.

Now for my second thought for the night I enjoy car rides. Being that I live a good three hours away from my college and am in attendance at events there throughout the summer, also just getting back from a road trip to Texas I have gotten plenty of time to cruise the highway 35 in all of its glory.

what I think I really enjoy about the driving isn't the driving part but more so the alone time I get when I drive it really gives me a chance to think about things in depth, being who I am it’s really hard for me to try and get complete alone time without the stress of having to do something else, Driving just seems like the perfect situation "Well its 35 so there isn't anything interesting but, yet I'm on the way to being productive" so I guess it’s my way of getting the alone time I need, and let’s face it when the next thing to look at is at least 1/2 an hour away you need to fill the time. This has probably really jump started me on my quest to change the way I look at worship.

Well this seems like long enough of a random assortment of thoughts put together into a post so since I arrived home at 5:30 A.M. July 5th from my trip and little sleep from before I left to now I am going to cut it here and sleep. Good Night, Good Morning, Good Afternoon, or Good Evening depending on when you read this.

“The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.”
Nathaniel Branden

The obligatory Introduction

*Warning this is a LONG POST and any bad grammar or non complete paragraphs I apologize*

Well it's the start of a blog like millions of other people I'm going to write my thoughts down for a vast number of people to see. sooooo lets get this excitement started.

Hi I'm Austin and I'm a very traditional Lutheran I start with this because it is really the whole purpose behind this blog. But more on that latter we need to lay down some background first.

My junior year and a good chunk of my Senior Year of high school I grew tired of the flash appeal of churches and the ideas of most religions in my area. So being the teenager I was I decided to change religions and find something different? This led me to picking up Buddhism as my main source of spiritual guidance for the time being. I was enthralled at the time by the laying down of important things and a focus on meditation, but as time went on I knew it wasn't really what was meant for me and made my transition back to the LCMS.

I give this story because my experience in Buddhism strongly affected my preferences of worship as a Lutheran. I really really love the deep reflective styles of worship and get extremely uncomfortable in the jump up and down rocking services. Going from a meditative reflective solo style of worship In Buddhism to a more open group oriented worship style has been a transition I am slowly working on.

If you know me then you probably know of my lack of favor with the contemporary services. I was raised in a small town and we used the traditional book, it was really all I knew. We sang hymns and if you wanted to spice things up a little bit MAYBE the choir or bell ensemble would play, but a guitar in our church let alone a drum set or bass just wouldn't happen.

So now we come to the point of this blog. This is hopefully going to be a place where I can go through in typing my stepping into the unfamiliar ground of Contemporary Worship. I'm sure it isn't the most interesting topic but writing things down will give me a way to keep track of myself, and not lose myself on my goal.

So if you do read this that's awesome and I'm glad you can help me find and experience something completely outside of my comfort zone.

The reasoning behind the title of this blog will come latter.