Archive | September, 2007

My Brain Feels Mushy

27 Sep

Last weekend I got a really bad cold from my son, Judah.  I was thrown for a loop.  And I don’t know what it is but my brain still feels mushy.  I think it’s a combination of things, being really busy over the past few months with working from home, watching Judah and not really having a break.

So I am really looking forward to a week from today when I will be in Disneyland with my wonderful wife Kathy, and two of our friends, Scott and Alyssa.  No kids, no work, no real agenda of any sort.  Just a time to rest and recharge.

As a church we have been going through some really stressful times, and we are about to engage in another season of battle against the enemy who wants to shut us down.  But we need to just keep on going.  We have a lot of things that we are rocking and rolling.  We are starting a mid-week program for the whole church.  We are looking at the holidays and starting to plan what we are going to do there.  And my prayer is that Jesus will be made big in our Church, and that we would not get discouraged or frustrated by our circumstances.

So this vacation falls right in the beginning of all of this and I know that it’s going to be a great season of ministry, and I am really looking forward to see what God does.  I am praying that this time away will help Kathy and I fall more and more in love and I hope that I can recharge my batteries so that I can give everything in me to the mission that God has called me to.

When I return from Disneyland we are going to be talking about authenticity at our >>beyond>> gatherings.  So I’m really looking forward to that.  I am praying that Jesus will really start to do a work on our hearts and help us to be real with him and with each other.

Peace!

David Crowder Band – Remedy – review

27 Sep

This week I promptly picked up the latest offering for David Crowder Band – Remedy. I’ve spend a few days listening to it, and I like it. This is a much more straightforward album than A Collission. The theme of Remedy seems to be saying that Jesus wants to heal us and the world around us. I don’t have a favorite song just yet, but it is good, and I would recommend you go pick it up.

Surfing the Edge of Chaos – Quote

20 Sep

Surfing the Edge of Chaos is my latest discovery from the library. I’ve only read two chapters but so far I am really loving this book. The second chapter title is worth the price of admission – “Equilibrium is Death.” This book looks at evolution theory and applies it to organizations. Now I am a pastor and I am in no way consenting to darwinian teachings for the origins of life. That being said, the applications that the authors have made based on those teachings are fascinating.

Particularly the concept that Equilibrium is Death. Wow, how many times have I heard in church that we should strive for equilibrium? A lot. I’ve seen it on the cover of programs, sermon titles, all over the place. And the thought that the church is trying to communicate is that Balance is important. So true. But when an organism or organiztion reaches perfect equilibrium it’s dead.

The authors of this book are trying to get the readers to see that Organizations need to be constantly exploring risky ventures. They need to be trying new things, going after new ideas and taking risks or else they will die. How many churches refuse to change because, “We’ve never done it that way before”?

Our church has gone through quite an emotional and painful journey over the past 15 or so years. I haven’t been there for all of them but I wonder if the level of pain was not high enough to try to change? I wonder what would have happened if we had sold our building sooner? What would have happened if we would have developed our current model of ministry sooner? What would have happened if we had developed an internet presence sooner? All of these are speculative, but they all require change and risk and I think we were pretty risk averse, because we were trying to maintain equilibrium. We were just trying to hold on.

Jesus didn’t call us to just hold on. Jesus told us to charge the gates of hell. And if we are going to charge the gates of hell then we are going to have to be willing to let go of the things that are anchoring us to the present and run towards the future that God has in store for us. Wow I think I’m ready to testify!

Anyway, I came across this quite in Surfing the Edge of Chaos and I thought I would share it because I think it’s where our church is at:

Leaders are to a social system what a properly shaped lens is to light. They focus intention and do so for better or for worse. If Adaptive intention is required, the social system must be disturbed in a profound and prolonged fashion. Magnifying a threat or utilizing organizational devices to propagate “genetic diversity” then becomes important. Adaptive leaders don’t move on an issue too quickly or reach for a quick fix. Rather (taking actions quite to opposite of social engineering), they emphasize mobilizing followers deep within the ranks to help find the way forward. This is achieved by (1)communicate in the urgency of the adaptive challenge (i.e. the threat of death), (2) Establishing a broad understanding of the circumstances creating the problem, to clarify why traditional solutions won’t work (i.e. sustaining disequilibrium), and (3) holding the stress in play until guerrilla leaders come forward with solutions (i.e. making room for genetic diversity).

We are seeing the rise of Genetic Diversity and Guerilla Leaders coming forward in several areas. Particularly with the launch Ethos.


My prayer is that we can continue to see leaders rise up to the challenge and bring new fresh ideas on how we can be a thriving, innovative church.

(i think this may be my longest post ever)

Seven Woes

19 Sep

Rob Bell at Mars Hill in Grand Rapids is currently going through the seven woes from Jesus. Last week (September 9th) particularly encouraged me. Great Stuff from Rob as always.

You can download it here.

Planning ahead for October.

19 Sep

I just started prepping the first sermon for our series in October.  the series is called masks.  The whole point is to try to take off our masks and live authentic Christ honoring lives.

As I was writing my heart broke as I was listing out some reasons that people wear masks.  I think the ultimate reason that we are not authentic is because of pain.  Past pain, present pain, future pain.  We don’t want to deal with the pain in our lives so we cover it up.

There is so much hurt in the world, and Jesus’ heart breaks with that pain.  And whenever I feel just a fraction of that hurt, it totally messes me up and reminds me that I’m in ministry to help heal.  To bring life to the dead places in the world.  And it’s such a big task.  Only with the partnership of Jesus can we really bring any life into this dead world.

I haven’t touched my myspace in a while.  It’s such a huge time waster that I have to really monitor myself.  But today I had a few friend requests that I checked on and then I decided to send some messages and comments while I was there.  But every time I get on myspace it just reminds me of the pains and struggles of high school and middle school.  And I want so badly to help students deal with these things.  I am really hoping and praying that our series in October will be a source of encouragement.

I know what I’m going to be praying about!

Brilliant

18 Sep

So my last post mentions commoncraft.com

I had never heard of them before reading about them, but I checked them out and they are really cool.

 This one is about using RSS to subscribe to feeds.  What did I just say?  Well watch the video and you can see for yourself.  This is a great time saver, instead of going to TerryStorch.com to see if he has any cool church-tech stuff posted, I can wait for him to send it to me.  Pretty cool.

Plugs or Cables

18 Sep

I Saw this post from the 37Signals blog and it got me thinking.

Showing the plug, not the cable

By Matt

Why do so many companies selling cables show you this bird’s eye view…

buy cables

usbfirewire

…when what you really want is this view of the ends:

nti

It’s not the cable that people care about. It’s the plug. The real question that needs to be answered: “Will this fit where I need it to fit?”

Makes you wonder how often web apps miss the point and show people the cable instead of the plug: Showing a list of features when people want benefits. Telling facts when people want stories. Showing screenshots when people want explanations.

Related: We were recently discussing Common Craft’s neat video tutorials that explain complicated concepts in “plain English.” Lots of sites try (and fail) to clearly explain social bookmarking or RSS. But Common Craft nails it.

The videos aren’t fancy. They’re not techy. They don’t show off interface widgets. But they succeed where it counts: They show how these tools fit into people’s lives. They show the plug, not the cable.

I thought this was a great point about keeping information practical.  I can’t tell you how many times I have gone to bestbuy.com or whatever and asked the question, is that the plug that I actually need?

In our churches and ministries, are we giving a birds eye-view of what we are about, or are we getting into the actual practicality of  the gospel.

Good Day To You!

17 Sep

Today is Monday, and I am tired.  Yesterday was a whirlwind day.  Creekside had our church picnic but since it rained (it is Seattle after all) we held the picnic in the Gym.  Which was cool.  It was fun hanging out and meeting some new folks.

Then I rocked the podcast out to the masses and watched the Seahawks Game.  Sorrow fell on my house as the Hawks lost due to a fumble in the last minute of the game.  the final score was 23-20 with arizona winning.  Grr.

Then >>beyond>> was at my house at 6 and that was good times, afterwards people played football, then some Wii, then a few of us played ligretto.  It was a long day, but lots of fun was had.

Time Saving Football Advice

13 Sep

Tim Sanders who wrote Love is the Killer App (check it out here).  Has written a timely and time saving post on a great way to watch football on Sundays.  Personally I don’t know how I would live a life outside of my house without TiVo.  It’s one of those inventions that you don’t really realize you love until you have one, much like an iPod.

Sundays are one of the busiest days ever for me, with church in the morning, youth group in the evening, lunch at the in-laws house in between.  It seems like a go-go-go day.  And now with TiVo I have the option of recording the game and working on something else, or recording the game and napping with the rest of my family.  TiVo truly is a great way to not be held by the networks demands for my attention.  If I want to watch Heroes, but I have a meeting on a monday night, no worries, TiVo’s got my back.

I think there should be some kind of financial pay-back from my friends at TiVo for talking up their product, but I doubt that will ever come and I don’t expect payment from my friends.  Well Except for John, but he’s got issues.  :o )

Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins – Review

12 Sep

I just finished whoever makes the most mistakes wins (You can get it here).  Wow, what a great read.  The simple and clear principles are great reminders that success isn’t what we think it is.

I have felt like the most important thing in life is succeeding and I have also felt the other end of the pendulum where the most important thing is not failing and thereby not looking like a fool.  But this book really tries to show that failure can bring out some of our best successes.  And in fact failure can push us forward, to keep trying newer and scarier ideas.

True innovators are not success driven, nor are they fear avoidant.  They have a healthy balance of success as a by product for great work, but failure as just one more thing that they had to learn the hard way.

this truly is a great book.  Read it.  Enjoy it.  Then take a risk and do something.

← Older Entries

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 380 other followers