Marshawn "Pinch"

The Seattle Aquarium came up with a fun 'stop' in their facility recently.  As the Seahawks kept winning football games and whispers of the SuperBowl grew, they added this little critter to their already-great display of Pacific Northwest marine life:

His name is Marshawn Pinch.  He's a hermit crab who, as you can tell from the photo, has made his home in a miniature Seahawks football helmet.  He's named after Marshawn Lynch, the force-of-nature running back who is a key player in the unheralded Seattle offense.  The Aquarium had to move the display featuring Marshawn Pinch to the front area of their facility to accommodate the demands of hundreds of kids who want to see him daily.  Marshawn "Pinch" is one of those great sports stories which comes about when teams really are doing what they're supposed to do: capture people's hearts and imaginations under the unifying movement that sports, in its best form, should always be about.

It's pretty fun to be a part of two big movements in sports right now: the rise of the Seattle Seahawks to national prominence, and the return of a great football program like the Broncos to the top spot in their conference.  Both teams have taken very different approaches to building their rosters and coaching staffs, and without a doubt, this Sunday's game will be a lot of fun to watch.

Ten years ago, one of my closest friends and I managed to convince a security guard to let us in to the  SuperBowl when it was held in Houston.  We got to watch the entire second half of a great game between the Panthers and the Patriots, and I can't describe how overwhelming it was to be sitting in the center of the sporting world for just a couple of hours.  I still have the ticket stub framed in my office.  We watched a great game together ten years ago.  Here's hoping that this year's game is just as good and fun.

Shalom,

Travis

PS - Check out this great blog post (unabashedly pro-Seahawks) from a professor and theologian at Fuller Seminary: http://bodysoulspiritlife.com/2014/01/07/the-seahawks-finding-christ-in-football-culture/

42 Minutes

42 minutes – that’s how long I would commute from the front door of our little upstairs apartment in Tacoma, WA to the front door of Fuller Seminary Northwest, right by Lake Union in Seattle.  42 minutes – long enough to catch at least one or two innings of a ballgame, or to talk on the phone, or to check-in with one of my carpool buddies about their life and ministry.  I drove the same stretch of Insterstate 5, from Pierce to King County, at least 2 days a week for 4 years, 42 minutes each way.

Taking the long view of history, 42 minutes isn’t that long at all, although for some of my classes (particularly the biblical languages), 42 minutes seemed awfully long.  Now I’m grateful for a 7-minute commute from my house to church. :)

 

I considered seminary to be a privilege, and I still think about my role here at First Pres. the same way.  Even with things that could be easy to gripe about – like a 42-minute commute to go to evening classes after a long day of work and study – I considered myself very fortunate and blessed to go to graduate school, and to now be a pastor at a great church.  

Next week, I get to go back to my old commute for a couple of days.  Tom, Kelsie, DeAnna and I are going to a conference at a great church in Seattle, and we’ll be staying with family and friends from my former church in Tacoma.  Thankfully, we won’t have to commute up to Seattle during rush hour, and I think those 42 minutes will be uneventful (and rainy) each way.  

The city of Seattle is an incredible place to think and learn about ministry, and the conference we’ll be attending will gather together some of the best Christian minds in the region about the topic of worship and transformation.  I’m grateful for the opportunity to travel with our staff, to show them our old home, and to be in the presence of so many great leaders and servants of Christ at this conference.  Please pray for a safe journey for us, and thank you for supporting us as we grow as leaders in Christ.

Blessings,

Travis Fletcher