Mowing the Lawn and Clearing My Head

I mowed my lawn today.  It was awesome.  It looks awesome.  Kathy and I are fortunate because we have a large yard, we love having the space to let Judah Play, we love the possibilities that our lot provides.  And in a region where yards are going away quickly with each new house crammed right next to the other one we are blessed.

The down side of such a large yard is that it has to be mowed regularly.  And sometimes it’s just hard to get out there and make it happen.  Sometimes I want to mow it and weather or schedule prevent it.  It’s a challenge.  But the longer and taller the grass gets the harder it gets for me to want to mow it down.

But once I get it handled I get a very relaxed feeling, like everything is right in the world once again.

It’s the same way with ministry I think.  There are so many things that have to get done and we know they need to get done, but we can’t get them done for various reasons.  But once they are done . . . ahh, what a relief.

I’ve been learning to start taking my projects and things that I’m working on piece by piece, that helps to keep me from getting overwhelmed by how tall the weeds are getting.  And I’m also learning how important it is to write all my stuff down, and get it out of my head.

If you haven’t read Getting Things Done by David Allen I would really recommend it.  Even if you never get all the way GTD, there is a ton of little things that can help to ease the mental pressure that you’re carrying around.  I’m currently reading Ready for Anything by David Allen.  It’s a little New Age-y but ultimately it’s a book about productivity.  And it’s a great resource and reminder for why I need to get things out of my brain and focus on just one thing at a time.

Back to my Lawn.  I was able to mow my lawn and not worry about all the stuff that I needed to do, because all the stuff that I needed to do was out of my head.  My Lawn really looks great, and I enjoyed mowing it because I had peace knowing what I wasn’t doing and knowing that I would be able to get to it when it was appropriate.

This may be my last blog post for a while, I am going to be out of town next week and I don’t know if I’ll be able to post from my iPhone, I’m going to be out in the boonies. But I’ll be back and ready to rock next week I’m sure.

Monday, Monday, So Good To Me

I’m processing some video and podcast stuff from this weekend, and listening to Ben Harper.  Holy Hot Dogs, where have I been?  Ben Harper is an amazing musician.  If it weren’t for the Public Library I never would have tried to find this music.  It’s really, really good.

By the way.  Even though I have mocked it, and I’m not sure if I love or hate it.  I’ve started twittering.  It’s kind of fun, and it is also one way to help me keep track of my day.  You can see my twitter feed at twitter.com/jdeuman.

have a good day.

Youth Integration is Key

Great post from Tim Schmoyer today. Read the Whole thing.

“. . . our fundamental approach to giving students ownership must change nevertheless. Otherwise, we die and pass on a church system that is incredibly broken, disconnected and outdated.”

I love youth worship, I love youth group, but in the end, I think we too often create a youth ghetto. I’ve had many parents ask me to start a middle school program for their students on Sunday morning. We have 1 service. To do that I would just be isolating students again. And I don’t think that’s the best answer.

We need to integrate our students into the church system as a whole, or we will just continue to see people spin out after high school. So how do we connect students in the life of the church?

Here are some ideas.

  1. Stop isolating them
  2. Stop calling the the church of tomorrow
  3. Get students involved in sunday morning ministries like ushering, greeting, worship team. (I need to do this)
  4. Talk to students on sunday mornings – address their issues, their concerns, speak in their language.
  5. If the church’s progression is to community groups, what if students were allowed to lead community groups?

There are more but this is just a start.

Our church went through this thing called CoHorts, lots of brilliant stuff that we picked up from there. But something that kind of stuck in my craw was that Adults, Youth and Kids all had to have their own model operating independently of each other.  So Kids and Students need their own worship, outreach, community, ministry, serving, and spiritual growth programs.  So instead of our church doing 6 things, we are actually doing 18.  That seems a bit excessive.

At what point do we stop and say, that’s too much?  Reading Simple Church, I began to wonder, why can our model’s overlap?  Why can’t we share the big things as a church, like outreach and worship?  Why do we need a Youth Worship Band, when in reality we have a system that is working every Sunday morning, and we can integrate students into that system.  Why do we need to have a youth serving program, wouldn’t it be better to have students and parents serving side by side?

These are some thoughts and I would love to hear your thoughts.  These are just my thoughts.  Perhaps I’m way out in left field on this one.  But maybe I’m not.

Realationships are Key

Great post from Church Communications Pro.  Read it.

Realationships are the key – because they tell the story.  People can ignore all kinds of things, with on-demand entertainment, web browsing by RSS, keeping your recycling bin right by your mail box.  People ignore advertising.  It Doesn’t work.

People cannot ignore relationships, and they cannot ignore their friends stories.  Our churches cannot grow with out authentic stories.  Our churches cannot grow by just sending out mail, or email and hoping people will respond.  But if we can create an avenue for people to tell authentic stories then we have a chance.  Just a thought.

I Feel Loved

On April 5th I was invited to facilitate a break out session of EVOKE 08.

As a thank you, last week I received a Barnes & Noble gift card.  I feel very loved.

these are the books I purchased

The Reason for God – Tim Keller

Ready for Anything – David Allen

Jesus for President – Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw

I’ve started ready for anything and I’m totally diggin’ it.  I picked it first because it’s the shortest, and that means, easiest :o)