Life's Mirror

End of the Line(s)

2010-01-14T09:04:00.007-05:00

Dear Friends,

This post marks the end of the Life's Mirror blog. On January 2, 2010 I stepped down as Senior Pastor of NewSong Community Church. While I retain my ordination through NewSong and will miss the people terribly, the time has come for a change in pastoral leadership there. I leave the church in extremely capable hands and look forward to all the great things God is going to do through this amazing congregation and its wonderful, gifted people.

I do intend to continue blogging - probably sporadically at first - and I have set up a new blog under my new moniker with gmail: doctorstevej. My new blog is called "All the Good" and is located here: http://allthegooducan.blogspot.com/

God bless you as you continue the journey!

- Doctor Steve

Christmas Movies

2009-12-21T12:46:00.013-05:00

Christmas would not be complete at the Jackson manse without a few “Christmas movie nights” where we change into our most comfortable clothes and settle down to watch Christmas movies together. Our three favorites are White Christmas, Christmas Vacation, and Home Alone. Like all good movies, these films evoke laughter as well as tears as we watch them. They also do something else – they remind us of deeper truths.

White Christmas was mainly written as a vehicle to accommodate Irving Berlin’s song by the same title. And yet, as we watch the story unfold with its forgotten General, broken dreams, and balmy temperatures in Pine Tree, Vermont at Christmas – we are reminded that while things have been, and currently are rough – better days are coming. It won’t always be like this. One day by the grace of God what has been lost will be restored. In fact, before God is finished, “we will be changed,” the Bible says. What we’re experiencing now is not how it will always be. Alzheimer’s will not have the last word. Cancer cannot win in the end. Brokenness will be restored, and sin defeated. The good guy will get the girl, the old General will be remembered, and the snow will come. In the memorable finale to this movie, General Waverly is again honored by his troops, Bob and Betty declare their love, and the background of the set is removed to show the falling snow. Everyone raises a glass, toasting as they sing, "May your days be merry and bright; and may all your Christmases be white."

The star of Christmas Vacation, of course, is none other than Clark W. Griswold. All Griswold wants is to give his family “the most fun-filled old-fashioned family Christmas ever." But everything goes wrong. First Clark can’t get the Christmas lights to come on; then Cousin Eddie shows up. Next the turkey explodes and Uncle Louis burns down the tree. To cap things off, Clark discovers that his Christmas bonus consists of an enrollment into the Jelly of the Month club. The classic line in this movie, for me anyway, is when Clark’s wife Ellen tells her daughter to stop complaining: “It’s Christmas Audrey…we’re all miserable.” In the end the Griswolds survive a holiday season that would try Job's patience, but it’s one that many of us can relate to. And yet Clark's faith never falters through it all. This avowed family man continues to count his blessings and in the end, all is well. This movie reminds us that even though our families often drive us nuts, there are few things in life that are more important than those whom God has put us together with. After all, the first Christmas was about a family too: Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus. This Christmas as you gather with your family, lighten up; laugh a little. Be present in the moment.

Home Alone is about an 8 year-old boy named Kevin McCallister who gets accidentally left at home when his family forgets him on a Christmas vacation they take. At first Kevin is thrilled to have full run of the house. He eats forbidden junk food, watches forbidden movies, sleeps wherever he wants for as long as he wants to, and even raids his older brother’s room. But after a conversation with an elderly neighbor who is estranged from his family, Kevin realizes how lonely he really is. Being alone isn’t nearly as wonderful as he thought it would be. This movie reminds us how we often think we’d be happier if we didn’t have to answer to God – if we could do whatever we want to do. For a while we would probably revel in our newfound freedom. But in time we would begin to feel the emptiness and loneliness that comes from being isolated and at odds with God. Like Kevin, we’d eventually get homesick, even though we were still at home. Christmas is about Immanuel – “God with us.” We might think we’d like it better without his watchful eye upon us, but we really wouldn’t. The wonderful news of Christmas is that we haven’t been forgotten. We are not abandoned. We will never be “home alone” because God is with us forever.

Micah's Gift

2009-12-14T12:04:00.005-05:00

One of the clearest prophecies of the Messiah’s birth is given to us in Micah, one of the Minor Prophets. Micah’s contribution to the Christmas story is often overlooked in favor of the more familiar New Testament passages we love to hear this time of year. The prophet writes, "But you, Bethlehem in the land of Judah, although you are small, out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.” Micah 5:2

It was Micah’s prophecy that the chief priests and teachers of the law turned to when Herod asked them where the Messiah was to be born (Matt. 2:3-8). But aside from being referred to then, and in the beautiful Christmas Carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” which is based on this passage, Micah’s words barely come up at Christmas. And yet what he said raises several questions.

For instance, why was Bethlehem chosen to be Jesus’ birthplace? Why not the much larger, significant capital city of Jerusalem, only six miles away? Why did God choose to honor Bethlehem in spite of its insignificant size and lack of importance?

And why did God choose Mary and Joseph to be Jesus’ parents? They certainly were not chosen because of their great achievements or because of the opportunities they could afford Jesus.

And why were the shepherds chosen to receive the angelic announcement of Jesus’ birth? Was it because they were super-spiritual, or men of unquestionable moral fiber? No. Shepherds in Jesus’ day had the reputation of being a little “rough around the edges.”

So why did God choose these insignificant people and places as key players in the Christmas story? One possibility could be that since he was a rural man from a tiny village himself, Micah knew what it was like to be overlooked in favor of more spectacular, significant people and places. Perhaps because of this his prophecies tend to point to a different reality, one that stresses that with God, hope can often be found in unexpected places. Micah reminds us that with God, it is common to encounter the unexpected and the paradoxical – often in unexpected reversals of circumstances. Hope arises from devastation; suffering embodies salvation; life emerges from death. Thus, when it comes to the nativity – the birth of the Messiah – Micah sees a coming ruler who, in keeping with a sense of divine irony, will arise from one of the least of the clans of Judah.

Micah’s contribution to the Christmas story is a reminder with God, hope and salvation will come from places and people that are seen as insignificant in the eyes of the world. Paul agrees in 1 Cor. 1:28 where he writes, “God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are.” Part of the paradox of God’s action in the world is that what is of no account in the eyes of most people is often held closest to the heart of God.

This Christmas let’s direct our attention to the amazing Christmas star, the majestic angel choirs singing in the skies, and the three kings who came to honor the newborn king. But let's also notice the lowly, the least, and the unexpected and their contribution to the story. Those to whom a Savior born in a cattle trough seems most predisposed to relate to. This year let’s make part of our Christmas preparation be to remind ourselves to look for the divine where we would least expect Him to be. That’s Micah’s gift to us this Christmas.

Failure? Accident?

2009-12-08T15:20:00.005-05:00

Each year as Christmas rolls around you start hearing about the “must have” Christmas gift for that year. Best sellers of Christmases past include toys like Tickle Me Elmo, Razor scooters, Pokemon, Furbies, Nintendo Wii, Beanie Babies, X Box 360, Rubik’s Cube and Cabbage Patch dolls. Remember those? This year’s top-sellers are expected to be Zhu Zhu Pets, which are essentially mechanical hamsters, and Mattel’s MindFlex game. Getting one of the season’s most popular toys often becomes a mania bordering on the absurd. It also creates a secondary market for the toys where the elusive, often inexpensive toys can become, well, expensive toys. Zhu Zhu pets cost $8 at Wal-Mart, but can run as high as $60 or more on sites like eBay. Getting these toys also becomes a huge time consumer for parents, grand-parents, aunts and uncles in their single-minded quest which won’t be satisfied until they have one of the coveted toys wrapped and under the tree.

Toys weren’t nearly as complicated or as difficult to find when I was a kid. The most popular toys when I was a kid (back in the dark ages) were toys like the Slinky, Silly Putty and Play-Doh. Like today’s top sellers, many of them have interesting stories behind them.

Back in 1943 a naval engineer was trying to develop springs that could support and stabilize sensitive instruments aboard ships in rough seas. The engineer accidentally knocked one of the springs from a shelf, and watched as it stepped in a series of arcs from the shelf, to a stack of books, to a tabletop, to the floor, where it re-coiled itself and stood upright. He told his wife he thought he could make a toy of it, took out a $500 loan and had 400 Slinky units made by a local machine shop, and in no time the toy became a huge seller. In fact it became so famous that in 1999, the United States Postal Service even issued a Slinky postage stamp.

Silly Putty was also created by accident. Scientists were doing research into potential rubber substitutes for use by the United States in World War II. Rubber was vital for the production of war material and with no artificial substitute, rubber products were rationed in the US. Meanwhile, the government funded research into synthetic rubber compounds to attempt to solve this shortage. One of the many “failures” in this research was Silly Putty, originally called "Nutty Putty," which toy makers recognized would be a hit with kids.

Play-Doh was actually first manufactured as a wallpaper cleaner in the 1930s. When a classroom of children began using the wallpaper cleaner as a modeling compound, someone got the idea to rework the product and market it to schools and the rest, as they say, is history. Before long the non-toxic, mess-free compound became a best-selling Christmas gift and is currently ranked number 4 on the “Toys of the Century” list for the twentieth century.

As Christmas approaches this year, perhaps someone reading this feels like they are an accident or a failure, but as the story of the best-selling Christmas gifts above show us, it could simply be that your highest and best use may not have been discovered yet. One thing I do know – God never makes a mistake, and so you can be confident he created you for something spectacular – something great. So let me encourage you this Christmas to hang in there; to persevere. Who knows, one day you may topple off a shelf right into the history books – just like a Slinky…

A Great Life

2009-12-01T10:49:00.013-05:00

What constitutes a great life? This question has been asked by humankind since the very beginning. Ancient Greek philosophers asked the question and sought to work out the answer. These wise men of old decided a great life is built upon such things as pleasure and freedom from pain, freedom from poverty, education and leading an “examined life,” freedom from fear, the contemplation of God, honorable behavior (virtue), doing things in the right proportion, fulfilling your political and social obligations, friendship and security. Over the years others have tried to enlighten us about what makes a life great. Politicians have offered their two cents worth; poets, artists and musicians have offered up their ideas, and of course prophets and priests have chimed in as well.

The question is an important one. Having been around a few deathbeds in my days as a pastor, I am convinced that whether we admit it or not, one of the greatest fears many of us have, is that despite all our effort and striving, we will discover at the very end that we have wasted our life. No one wants to squander their life; life is too precious. And that begs the question, “How then, shall we live?”

The easy answer for us as Christians, of course, would be to simply say, “Look in the Bible, for there you will see how to live.” But honestly, it’s not that simple because of the unfortunate tendency we have of finding exactly what we’re looking for in the Bible. We read things into it that were never intended. Apartheid in South Africa was supported by the Dutch Boers because their theologians found exactly what they were looking for in the Bible. The same goes for slavery in America – we excused it by calling it “Ham’s curse” and thus made it "biblical." For centuries Jewish people were persecuted, oppressed and even murdered, on the pretext of truth sought and found in the Bible – New Testament texts that were interpreted to blame the Jews for the crucifixion of Jesus. Everyone finds in the Bible exactly what he/she seeks.

So what can we do? What makes up a great life? I am still working on a more complete answer, but my short answer to the question would be that a great life consists of the accumulation of grace-filled days, one day at a time. It has to do with living our lives in what author Spencer Johnson in his delightful parable calls the “precious present.” We can’t do much about our yesterdays, and worry over tomorrow is a waste of time. Today is what matters. The recovering alcoholic knows this – he or she makes a daily commitment to be sober for the day ahead – one day at a time. The same is true for all of us. The new person we want to be – the life we want to live, the things we want to start doing and the things we want to stop doing can only be accomplished today, and they only be accomplished by God’s grace.

I believe that’s what Joshua meant when he said, “Choose THIS DAY whom you will serve…” in Joshua 24:15. Living a great life is a daily choice, and since we are not God it definitely involves serving someone or something. Joshua says it is literally the choice between life and death.

As we move into the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, keep this in mind. Each morning as your feet hit the floor commit your life anew to Christ and ask Him to help you be grace-filled that day and to be a grace-bearer to others. Then, no matter what happens, or where you find yourself, you will be living a great life.

Tanenbaum 2009

2009-11-30T22:44:00.001-05:00

This is the 2009 Jackson Family Christmas Tree. We think it is our best tree ever! Of course - we say that every year. - We hope your Thanksgiving went well and you are as excited as we are about Christmas this year. If you are in the Cumming area over the holidays, be sure to join us for a service at NewSong Church.

Surprised By Joy

2009-11-16T14:27:00.013-05:00

This Sunday is November 22nd. Ask almost anyone you meet who died on that day and they’ll correctly answer John F. Kennedy (on November 22, 1963). But someone else died that same exact day; someone who I believe was greater in God’s eyes than the “Prince of Camelot.” His name was Clive Staples Lewis, better known as C.S. Lewis, or simply “Jack” to his family and closest friends. In a scenario eerily similar to Farah Fawcett’s death earlier this year, which was totally overshadowed Michael Jackson’s passing on the same day, Lewis’ death went virtually unnoticed as the world was stunned by the assassination of our thirty-fifth president.

Even though his death went largely unnoticed by the public, death has been no hindrance to C. S. Lewis' career. His fame continues to grow as new generations of skeptics and believers alike are introduced to his clear and convincing arguments for Christianity (Mere Christianity), his humorous but insightful narratives (Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, A Grief Observed), and, most recently, moviegoers have been introduced to Lewis’ work through the Chronicles of Narnia movies. I recently reread all seven of the short Narnia books and was again thrilled by the ways Lewis reveals deep spiritual truths in engaging stories reminiscent of J.R.R. Tolkien’s work.

The similarities with Tolkien’s work are not coincidental. Lewis was a contemporary of Tolkien and the two were actually close friends. In fact, it was a conversation with Tolkien that helped Lewis move a little further along the way in his journey from atheism to faith.

Lewis was raised an Anglican, but was only nine years old when his mother died of cancer. Shortly after her death, Lewis' father sent him and his brother Warren off to boarding school. It was during this time that Lewis decided he wanted nothing to do with a God who could be so cruel as to take his “mum.” Lewis, an extremely intelligent man, became an atheist and eventually an Oxford Don (professor) teaching English literature.

So how did this philosopher-cum-intellectual, this man who wrote over fifty books, some of which were penned as a youthful atheist, become a Christian? Lewis describes his journey of conversion in his spiritual autobiography Surprised by Joy. Lewis claims that at the time of his conversion he was "the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England." He describes his passage from atheist to Christian in words and images that are familiar to many of us: The joy of childhood which gave way to the harsh realities of the adult world, followed by a rigorous and intense investigation of competing truth claims, followed by being Surprised by Joy with a child-like faith again.

There’s a lesson for those of us who are too educated or too modern to accept the claims of Christianity. As an atheist, Lewis was unafraid to ask the difficult questions. Lewis’ conversion process was a long road that involved lots of reading and thinking (and eventually praying), meeting and talking with mentors, and gathering data from a variety of sources. Finally, on September 28, 1931, at age thirty-two, Lewis was… “riding to the Whipsnade Zoo in the sidecar of Warren’s motorcycle. When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did." Like John Wesley's heart which was "strangely warmed," something happened on that 40 mile motorcycle ride, and Lewis simply knew he now believed.

Today God is still using this reluctant convert’s legacy to populate the Kingdom of God. Lewis’ faith journey and conversion are certainly unusual, but it also contains echoes that I’m guessing are familiar to some of us. What happened on that motorcycle ride to the Whipsnade Zoo? I’m not sure, but my guess is it has something to do with a conversation Jesus had with another smart man one night when he said, “Just as you can hear the wind and can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit (John 3:8). Where are you on your spiritual journey? Can you feel the gentle winds of the Spirit blowing? Don’t be afraid of the questions. Don’t be afraid of the journey. Just know that the destination is sure; and enjoy the ride…

Hope

2009-11-09T15:33:00.008-05:00

There’s a great line in the classic Christmas movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life” where Clarence the angel is summoned to help a troubled human. “Is he sick?” Clarence asks. “No, it’s worse than being sick,” the head angel replies, “he’s discouraged.” My guess is some of you reading this today are discouraged so I thought I would write about the antidote to discouragement, which is hope.

What is hope? Where does it come from? How do you get it? Turns out the word has quite a storied history. In Greek mythology, hope was personified as Elpis, the spirit (daimona) of hope. She along with the other daimones were trapped in a jar by Zeus and entrusted to the care of Pandora, the first woman. When Pandora opened the jar all of the spirits escaped except for Elpis. Without hope to accompany all their troubles, humanity was soon filled with despair. It was a great relief when Pandora returned to her jar and let out hope as well. Elpis was usually depicted as a young woman carrying flowers in her arms. Her opposite was Moros, spirit of hopelessness and doom (where we get our English word, “morose”).

The nineteenth century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche had a more cynical take on this Greek legend, complaining that Zeus “did not want man to throw his life away, no matter how much the other evils might torment him, but rather to go on letting himself be tormented anew. To that end, he [Zeus] gives man hope. In truth, it is the most evil of evils because it prolongs man's torment.”

Like the word we’ve been studying so much these “Forty Days,” “love,” the term “hope” has been cheapened by the ways we use it so loosely. We say things like, “I hope it doesn’t rain today,” or “I hope my car starts this morning,” or “I hope the Falcons win on Sunday.” “I hope. I hope. I hope.”

The dictionary defines hope several ways, the most common of which is that hope is “the feeling that something good will happen.” The act of hoping is to, “wish for something with the desire that the wish will be fulfilled.” The words “feeling” and “wish” are indefinite and vague words, but this definition of “hope” exemplifies the understanding most people have of hope as “wishful thinking.”

Thankfully, the Bible puts “hope” in a totally different light. Far from being something we “wish for,” biblical hope is a “confident expectation of something good in the future.” Hope, then, is not simply an emotion, attitude, or a feeling. It is a confidence that literally defines us. Biblical hope not only desires something good for the future; it expects it to happen. And it not only expects it to happen; it is confident that it will happen. There is a moral certainty that the good we expect and desire will occur. And that moral certainty leads us to action and, in time, to faith.

Secular hope is often passive in the sense of being a wish; often against rational belief that the thing wished for will actually occur. Biblical hope, on the other hand, is active as a plan or idea, and is usually accompanied by persistent, personal action to execute the plan or prove the idea. Consider a prisoner of war who never gives up hope for escape and, against the odds, plans and accomplishes that very thing. By contrast, consider another prisoner who simply wishes for freedom, but without any genuine hope it will ever occur. Planning and action are useless. In time this prisoner will eventually give up all hope of freedom (if they, in fact, had “hope” to begin with).

The New Testament declares “hope” to be an absolute, a guarantee without a doubt meaning, “to expect or anticipate with pleasure.” For instance in Romans 5:2 Paul writes, “By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” We rejoice in the glory of God, not with uncertainty but with joyful anticipation — guaranteed. Or consider Colossians 1:5: “For the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth the gospel.” The Hope of Heaven is not a maybe — but an absolute and definite guarantee by the Word of the Truth of the Gospel.

Now that we’ve defined hope, where does it come from? By now you’ve probably figured out that hope like this can only come from God. God is the source and the object of our hope. Without God we have no hope and life is meaningless, a “chasing after the wind” to use the immortal words of Solomon.

How do you get this hope? Perhaps that is not quite as clear. My personal belief is that the answer about how to appropriate the hope God makes available to us is simply this: Focus your thoughts on God, and not on your problems. As has been pointed out several times in our current series, we have a tendency to turn into that which we focus on the most. If we stare at our problems, our disappointments, and our defeats all the time, they will quickly overwhelm us. If, on the other hand, we focus on God, our mountains will soon turn into molehills. Don’t focus on your need. Don’t focus on your lack. Don’t focus on your problem. Focus on God. Where does your hope come from? Hope comes from Him. Be encouraged today. Let hope be reborn in your heart; hope has a name: Jesus Christ. Ask Him to come into your life anew today (or for the first time!) and hope will be born in you!

God-Cam

2009-11-02T12:09:00.011-05:00

Last Sunday I watched the Vikings-Packers game and Brett Favre's highly-anticipated return to Lambeau Field in Green Bay, WI. The hoopla surrounding Favre’s ‘homecoming’ to the field where he won so many games was incredible. Recognizing this, FOX television had a special camera dubbed the “Favre-Cam” trained on the 40 year-old quarterback from the second he took the field against his former team until the moment he ran back into the locker room after the game. This constant video feed was available to fans by logging on FOXSports.com. It was actually pretty cool; even during commercials you could look on your PC and there was Brett; Brett looking at press box photos of the Packers defense, Brett chatting with his receivers, Brett on the phone to his coaches upstairs, Brett blowing his nose, Brett ribbing a referee, Brett grinning, Brett frowning, and so on.

While I admit it was pretty cool to watch, it was also just a little creepy. It reminded me of the Truman Show – that movie where Truman’s (“True Man?”) every move was watched over by Christof (‘Christ?”) and caught on camera and televised to the whole world. It was almost that bad; I halfway expected the camera and live feed to never shut off. Imagine that; Favre snapping towels in the locker room, Favre in the shower; Favre stuck in traffic; Favre arriving at home….

I remember when I was a little child I imagined God had a camera trained on me all the time. I guess I got the idea from the old Christmas song, remember? “He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake.” Like Santa Claus, I figured God was watching me 24/7 so I’d better behave. There were times when this thought was comforting; I figured I could always call out to God and he’d rescue me if I got in a really tight spot (perhaps if I was, say, drowning). But as I grew older, more often than not, the thought that God was always watching made me very uncomfortable.

God does see, you know. Job 28:24 says, “God views the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens.” Yes, he is watching. Yes, he does know. And yes, like Santa, God loves us. He wants to see us happy. He gives us many of the things we ask for. But, also like Santa, God can be very stern, and he doesn’t hesitate to punish (see the Old Testament).

Is it fair to lump God and Santa Claus together like this? Is it fair to perceive of God as a great cosmic Santa watching, or perhaps even worse, 'directing' every move we make? Is God really an adult version of Santa as this might lead us to believe? If not, then how can we move toward a better understanding of God than the one many of us presently have? Speaking for myself, I must admit I have some work to do here. Watching the “Favre-Cam” last Sunday afternoon made me realize that.

Passion

2009-10-26T22:50:00.017-04:00

Growing up in the sixties one of my television heroes was Mr. Spock, of Star Trek Fame. Spock rocked my world – a world filled with cowboy shoot-em-up shows (Rawhide, Gunsmoke, etc…) and war shows (Combat! 12 O’clock High, etc…). The Vulcan’s rational detachment and lack of ego seemed to usher in a new era and gave me something different to think about. Of course on the show Spock’s passionless behavior was always juxtaposed against the fiery demeanor and “shoot first, ask questions later” ways of Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy's considerate ways. Spock was dispassionate, Kirk was passionate, and Dr. McCoy rounded out the trinity by being compassionate.

These three are engaging examples of that somewhat mysterious word, ‘passion.’ Passion has multiple meanings and is defined as: a) strong feelings or emotions; b) something that is desired intensely as in, "His passion for fame destroyed him;" c) mania: an irrational but irresistible motive for a belief or action as in, “It was a crime of passion;” d) feelings of strong sexual desire; and e) the suffering of Jesus at the Crucifixion. Wow, talk about a wide variety of meaning!

Our English word ‘passion’ comes from the Greek word pathos, which, like the English word, has more than one meaning. It can mean something that happens to you that is either good or bad, but it usually means something bad; something that happens to make you suffer. It can also be something that you suffer for, such as a passionate desire. Pathos is where our English word pathology comes from, which is the study of disease; what went wrong. It’s also where we get our word pathetic, which means pitiful. Pathos in literature and art is what arouses feelings of pity or sorrow. Any way you turn it, the word is associated with feelings.

The question remains though; is passion a good thing, or a bad thing? Passion causes us to do stupid things, but it also beckons us onward and upward to our greatest achievements. Perhaps that’s why passion has remained “front and center” in matters of faith. In Christianity there was the Passion of Christ, which was a good thing, then along came the monastic fathers, who urged believers to check their passions, then came the religious awakening in the 18th century where Christians once again proved that passion has its place in Christianity. In Buddhism passion is what leads you astray and is a problem to be overcome through renunciation.

Personally, I believe passion has its place in Christianity and is almost always a good thing. Yes, we need to logically think through our doctrine and beliefs, but eventually a leap of faith is called for – a passionate leap to breathe life into our stale dogmas. Something that causes the heart to beat faster, tears to flow, and a lump to form in the throat. Something you can feel.

To return to my opening words about the Star Trek trinity; perhaps what we need most today is an amalgam of the three: The cool calculating Spock, the heat-bringing zest of Kirk, and the kind and caring doctor, McCoy. Each needs the other to be whole; each is less without the other. So are we; the same could be said for our faith.

I’ve always felt it takes a combination all three of these to make a good sermon too. Hopefully you’ll experience that this week when I preach. If not – if my ears get a little pointy, or if my finger itches to pull the trigger, or if I get too mushy, give me a sign, will you? Meanwhile, live long and prosper.

Windows 7 Released Today

2009-10-22T07:53:00.004-04:00

Today is a big day in the computing world as the latest operating system from Windows, Windows 7, is being released. This event will cause nary a ripple in the life of 99% of the world’s population (including, for instance, my wife Donna’s world), but here I am sitting at my laptop typing using the “old” Vista operating system and suddenly I feel totally outdated. Why is that? I wasn’t outdated yesterday. Why do I feel that way today? What kind of hold do technology vendors like software companies, television makers (HD, 3D, 780p, 1080i, etc….) and telephone makers (Iphone I, II, III, etc..) have on me? What kind of power do they have over my mind that they can suddenly make me feel old fashioned with the release of the latest, greatest device or program that will instantly change my life?

The truth is, it’s impossible to stay updated with technology unless you are Warren Buffett, and he doesn’t appear to care about technology. And so I sit and wonder; should I spring for the $119 upgrade to Windows 7? Should I trade in my old-fashioned Blackberry for a sleek new Iphone?

Naah…the best things are the oldest. Give me a good old book – the paper and ink kind, not a Kindle. Give me a telephone that makes calls and doesn’t do everything else in the world. Give me Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Most of all, give me Jesus. He alone can satisfy that emptiness that makes me think I need to update my PC or buy a new television.

It does occur to me that the church has something to learn here however. Imagine if we could create the kind of thirst for God and the things of God that technology companies do for their products. Imagine driving up to your church on Sunday morning and seeing the line to get in going around the block like you see whenever the latest Iphone is released? Wouldn’t that be awesome? What can we learn from them? Food for thought….

And the Winner Is....

2009-10-20T09:30:00.006-04:00

This past weekend was one of those rare weekends when all the “good guys” won. On Friday night all four of our county high school teams won their games, Georgia and Georgia Tech won on Saturday, and the Falcons won a thriller on Sunday night to finish the hat trick. That’s pretty amazing; in fact I don’t remember a time when it has ever happened before.

Let’s face it, winning feels good, doesn’t it? For some reason, when “our team” wins, we feel better about life; everyone loves a winner. We especially love those improbable wins; those times when the underdog wins over a highly favored opponent. Thinking about that this weekend it occurred to me that we have a God who specializes in just that kind of victory. We have a “David over Goliath” kind of God; a God who took a weak and defenseless group of slaves and liberated them from Egypt – the most powerful nation in the world at the time. A God who told Gideon to leave all but 300 of his 22,000 soldiers behind before going into battle to defeat a highly favored enemy. Clearly God’s choice is to pick those whom the world sees as “losers” to win. Our God is a God who “chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise,” and the “lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are” (1 Cor. 1:27).

I am convinced that our desire to associate with winners is, at least in part, the reason many people are so enamored with mega-churches. Don’t get me wrong; I’ve got nothing against mega-churches, but I honestly believe that the reason some people attend them is to associate with a “winner.” That says a couple of things to me. First, it indicates that there is definitely something to be said for at least having the appearance of a winner; people are attracted and the message gets out, which is a good thing. But second, it speaks to our need (in the church) to make sure the world’s definition of success hasn’t become our definition. Our definition of success is not the same as the world’s definition. Full pews, overflowing parking lots, and tons of programs do not necessarily indicate a healthy, successful church. Nor do full bank accounts or even the absence of conflict within a church.

If you turn to Scripture you find a different indicator of success. Success in the church equals one thing: disciples of Jesus Christ are being made. Success is not just great worship or evangelism or social action. All of these are wonderful, but they are not the main thing. The main thing is to help people grow into fully committed Jesus-followers who, in turn, win and disciple others. Everything the church does should point people to Jesus and help them grow in their relationship with him. According to the Bible, a church doing that is successful - it is a winner – in God’s eyes. Doing anything less is not worthy of Jesus and the sacrifice He made for us.

That said; ask yourself this: “Is my church successful? Is my church a “winner?” I hope you can answer that question in the affirmative.

A New Bible

2009-10-16T21:20:00.008-04:00

I have a confession to make. I am obsessed with Bibles. I love Bibles; all kinds of Bibles – big ones, little ones, leather ones, paperback ones, old ones, new ones, - all different versions and translations – you name it, I’d like to have it, I love Bibles. I probably own over fifty Bibles; I’ve never actually counted but I’m sure it would be close to that.

Truth be told, I love books in general. I am what the dictionary calls a bibliophile. In Greek, “biblio” means book and “philo” means love, so a bibliophile is a book-lover; someone one who loves to read, admire and collect books. Bibliophilia is not to be confused with bibliomania, which is an obsessive-compulsive disorder involving the collecting of books to the point where one’s social relations or health is endangered. I remember loving books even when I was a child. I loved it in elementary school when you got that handout from the Scholastic Book Club and you got to order a few new books. They were cheap paperback versions of books, often abridged classics, but I can still remember the difficulty I had selecting which titles to order and the smell of the ink on the pages when the books finally arrived in the classroom in a big box and the teacher handed them out. I Googled this memory and discovered times have certainly changed. Now you place your Scholastic Book Club orders online through your teacher’s web portal: that makes me feel really old and outdated. But I am digressing badly here – back to Bibles.

My story is I bought another Bible this week. I have decided I want a smaller Bible to use when I am preaching, but it can’t be too small because then I can’t see the print to read it. I needed just the right one. I checked with Barnes & Noble and Amazon, to no avail. Then I went to a couple of Christian bookstore websites (CBD and Cokesbury). Finally on Thursday I made a quick run down to my local Lifeway store (Northpoint Mall) and there, right inside the door to the store was a display with the exact Bible I wanted. Best of all, it was on sale for only ten bucks! It is a Zondervan Compact Thinline Bible. The photo above is the Bible. It has a “simulated leather” cover with an embossed cross on the front. It’s really nice. It is a “trim, go-anywhere pocket Bible that contains the entire Old and New Testaments plus many features usually found only in full-size Bibles” according to the advert for the Bible (read more here).

At any rate, I’m excited to try it out on Sunday. Meanwhile, I don’t understand the obsession I have with Bibles. Maybe it’s because I love Scripture so much. Or maybe it’s because I’m hoping someday I will find the perfect Bible; one where I hear God speaking to me every time I crack it open. I don’t know, we’ll see. Meanwhile, I’ve got my eye on a nice, used, leather-bound Living Bible I saw at Goodwill today… maybe next week!

Influences

2009-10-13T09:42:00.010-04:00

Donna recently told me the story of meeting a teacher at her new school. In an attempt to see if they had any friends in common Donna mentioned a good friend of hers who teaches the same subject. When she mentioned the name, the other teacher exclaimed, “She is why I went into teaching! She inspired me to become a teacher.” This young teacher went on to explain that from the time she had this teacher back in middle school she knew she wanted to be a teacher.

That story got me thinking about influence; especially about those who have influenced me the most. Think for a moment; who has influenced your life the most? Who are the top five most influential people in your life right now?

Many of us would list our parents, grandparents, siblings, spouse, or other family members. Others might include a teacher from their school days, a sports coach, college roommate, or perhaps a mentor from their vocation in their top five. Some might include a pastor or best friend.

The people who influenced me most, especially in my early years, were my parents. They gave me a solid foundation and a great start to life. I can also still feel the imprint of high school teachers and coaches, seminary professors, and colleagues in ministry. Many of my influences lived hundreds of years ago, because I have been influenced by their writings. Some of my influences are still alive but I’ve never met them, again because I have read their stories, heard them speak, and read their books. The greatest influence in my life today is my wife; if I could be more like any person – living or dead – it would be her.

Who are your top influences? As you think about this, keep in mind that not all those who influence us do so positively; some people influence us in ways that are to our detriment. With some people we say, “I’d like to be just like him/her.” With others we say, “I hope I am never like that.” Some people draw us higher with their influence; others bring us down.

Now that you are thinking about this; you may want to take it a step further. Ask yourself why that person has been such an influence on your life. Ask yourself if you have lived up to the expectation they set in your life. You might even want to ask yourself if their influence on your life was even warranted.

Finally, if one of your “top five” is still around, you might want to take the time to express your appreciation to them. Call them, write them, email them, or go see them. They may not even know they have been an inspiration to you in your life. Every influencer deserves that.

Catalyst 2009

2009-10-12T21:23:00.010-04:00

Last Week I attended the 2009 version of the Catalyst Conference along with some of our staff and Elders. Catalyst is an outstanding Christian leadership conference and this was their tenth anniversary. I have attended three or four of the ten. This year's edition had some great speakers including Andy Stanley, Rob Bell, Chuck Swindol, Malcolm Gladwell, Tony Dungy, Matt Chandler, Priscilla Shirer, Dave Ramsey, Louie Giglio, Francis Chan, and others.

A few people have asked me what my biggest "takeaway" from the conference was. That's tough to say because there were so many excellent speakers and I learned so much. I guess if I had to narrow it all down it would that I heard a clear word to return to my first love: Jesus Christ. At last year's conference it seemed like I heard more about things in our church that need fixing. This year's conference seemed to be more about things in me that need fixing.

We all have things going on in our churches. Some of them are good; and some are bad. In the end, however, we all have the same goal: to stand before Jesus and hear him say, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

It was Louie Giglio who pointed out that many of us are standing on our marks, ready to run the race, but we need to ask ourselves where are we headed. We need to settle the destination of our journey. Why is that so important? Because of the ways in which our destination impacts the journey along the way. Giglio shared a quote from Thomas Merton who once said, "Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire."

I left Catalyst wondering, what is it I desire? What is the destination of my journey? How does that destination shape my day-to-day life and ministry? As Giglio pointed out as he concluded his talk, "When the world says, 'I found God on your face,' that is leadership." That's what it is all about.

What am I going to do about this? Simple: In order to reflect Jesus' face I'm going to need to spend a lot more face time with Him myself. That's my biggest takeaway. Lord, help me to do just that... Amen.

Words to Live On

2009-10-12T12:39:00.010-04:00

Today's New Testament passage in my dail Bible reading spoke to me in a powerful way. Great words for us all from the Apostle Paul from First Thessalonians chapter 5 verses 12-22.

Words to honor your pastor and other spiritual leaders (v. 12-13):
"Now we ask you brothers, to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest respect in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other.

Words to those who are pastors and spiritual leaders (v. 14-15):
And we urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Make sure that nobody repays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kinds to each other and to everyone else.

Words to us all (v. 16-22):
Be joyful always; pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not put out the Spirit's fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.

Lost in Cyberspace

2009-10-07T23:43:00.007-04:00

I just had a weird experience with email. One of my accounts is with AT&T (formerly BellSouth) and apparently AT&T is currently migrating all their mail to Yahoo. Somehow in the process 458 of my emails got temporarily "lost." At least I would call them lost - lost in cyberspace. But AT&T claims they never were really lost; my overly polite and courteous customer service agent told me tonight that AT&T knew where my emails were all the time. They just didn't get them to me.

Long story short...I was sitting at my laptop with Outlook open when suddenly emails started flying into my inbox, one right after another. I knew something was going on. I called and spoke with AT&T and they apologized, but still, I've got a mess to clean up.

It turns out that of the 458 emails only about 20 of them were anything even remotely approaching what you would call "important." Not a single one reached the "crucial" level. Still, it's scary to think people emailed me three weeks ago about something and I didn't get their email until tonight (I have already apologized to everyone who did). I suppose I rely too much on email; the failure to receive one, or worse, to respond to one can cause a lot of unnecessary grief and pain. Who wants a pastor who you can email, but who is apparently choosing to ignore you?

I am sure there is some deep philosophical, theological, or homiletical gem in this snafu somewhere, but for the life of me, I can't think of it tonight. Maybe I should just turn off my laptop and turn in. Yes...that's exactly what I'll do. Good night.

PS - if you ever email me and don't hear back within three weeks, please call.

2009-10-05T14:04:00.011-04:00

FORTY DAYS OF LOVE
The time period of forty days appears to be important in Scripture. Over and over again this particular period of time is mentioned. Here are a few examples:

It rained for 40 days and 40 nights when God wanted to cleanse the world and start over (Gen 7:12) and then Noah waited another 40 days after it rained before he opened a window in the Ark (Gen 8:6). Moses was on the mountain with God for 40 days – twice (Exodus 24:18, 34:28-29 and Deut. 10:10). It took the spies 40 days to search out the Promised Land (Num. 13:25). For 40 days, twice a day, morning and evening, Goliath the Philistine giant strutted in front of the Israelite army and taunted them before he was finally killed by David (1 Sam 17:16). Elijah strengthened by one angelic meal was on the lamb for 40 days ending up on Mount Horeb where the Lord passed by and he heard the still, small voice of God (1 Kings 19:8). Righteous Ezekiel was punished for Judah’s sin for 40 days (Ezek. 4:6). Jonah warned the City of Nineveh they had 40 days until God would overthrow the city. The people repented in those 40 days and God spared the city (Jonah 3:4, 10). Jesus fasted for 40 days in the wilderness (Mat 3:17) and was seen on the earth 40 days after His crucifixion (Acts 1:3).

Obviously, 40 days is a symbolic time. We believe 40 days are significant at NewSong as well. A few years ago we observed a 40 day season as we went through the Purpose Driven Life book as a congregation, focusing on personal renewal. We believe only changed people can change the world; renewal must start there. The foundation for everything in life begins with getting to know and love God and then to begin growing in him and serving. But we were never meant to live our lives in isolation. We need others, and they need us. There is a second kind of renewal needed – relational renewal. That’s what the 40 day season we are about to begin is all about. We must not only learn to love God with all our heart (personal renewal); we must also learn to love our neighbor as ourselves (relational renewal).

Relational renewal is so important we are going to spend 40 days – six weeks - learning how to add depth and health to our marriages, families, and friendships. We will be studying love and practicing love as we explore and implement the relationship principles the Bible teaches. Our goal in the end is to be more loving and to be better equipped with insights and a practical path for fulfilling God’s intention for all our relationships – even the difficult ones.

What does this mean for you? You have several options depending on how deep you’d like to go. You can come to worship for the next six weeks and listen as I preach on love and how to build stronger relationships (you can also listen to, or read, the sermons online, or request a CD or DVD of each message). A second option would be to hear the sermons and enroll in a small group to meet with others to go deeper. To go even deeper you can listen to the sermons, join a small group and then use the book the series is based on, The Relationship Principles of Jesus by Tom Holladay as your daily devotional guide for the 40 Days. This book is available at Barnes and Noble, on Amazon.com and at most other bookstores.

I’m very excited to see what God is going to do through this campaign as we learn how to build healthier relationships in all aspects of our lives. It will be great to all be all doing this together as well.

Stuck in the Past

2009-09-17T10:53:00.003-04:00

I’ve been doing a lot of introspective thinking lately (too much, if the truth be told). Doing so has made it clear to me that I have become stuck in my thinking. Furthermore, my being stuck revolves mostly around the past – nursing and licking old wounds that should have been healed long ago and holding on to old hurts and bad habits that should have been jettisoned before now. Meanwhile, God says in the Bible: "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.” (Isaiah 43:18-19). God has new things in store for us; he wants to give us new ideas and take us to new places; he wants us to do new things and meet new people. Meanwhile we remain stuck in the old. Why? Mainly because we choose to be stuck. Paul makes that clear when he talks about choosing to press into the future and not be stuck: “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3:12-14).

I realize not everyone is stuck in their thinking right now like I am, but there is a pretty good chance that someone reading this post is. If so, put those bad experiences behind you. Forgive those who have wronged you. Let go of the past – move on! God says he is “making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.” In that dry barren place you are in right now God is showing you a path to get on – a new way to proceed and he’s bringing refreshing streams of water to quench your thirst. God has new goals for you, new things for you to do, and you won’t be able to do a single one of them if you remain stuck in the past. What’s written below is found all over the Internet and commonly attributed to T.D. Jakes. I’m not sure if Jakes said it or not, but it is a powerful message – one that bears repeating here.

LET IT GO by T. D. Jakes

There are people who can walk away from you. And hear me when I tell you this. When people can walk away from you, let them walk.

I don't want you to try to talk another person into staying with you, loving you, calling you, caring about you, coming to see you, staying attached to you. I mean hang up the phone.

When people can walk away from you let them walk. Your destiny is never tied to anybody that left. The bible says that, “They came out from us that it might be made manifest that they were not for us. For had they been of us, no doubt they would have continued with us." (1 John 2:19)

People leave you because they are not joined to you. And if they are not joined to you, you can't make them stay. Let them go. And it doesn't mean that they are a bad person it just means that their part in the story is over. And you've got to know when a person's part in your story is over so that you don't keep trying to raise the dead. You've got to know when it's dead.

You've got to know when it's over. Let me tell you something. I've got the gift of good-bye. It's the tenth spiritual gift, I believe in good-bye. It's not that I'm hateful, it's that I'm faithful, and I know whatever God means for me to have He'll give it to me. And if it takes too much sweat I don't need it.

Stop begging people to stay...LET THEM GO!!!

If you are holding on to something that doesn't belong to you and was never intended for your life, then you need to...LET IT GO!!!

If you are holding on to past hurts and pains...LET IT GO!!!

If someone can't treat you right, love you back, and see your worth...LET IT GO!!!

If someone has angered you...LET IT GO!!!

If you are holding on to some thoughts of evil and revenge...LET IT GO!!!

If you are involved in a wrong relationship or addiction...LET IT GO!!!

If you are holding on to a job that no longer meets your needs or talents...LET IT GO!!!

If you have a bad attitude...LET IT GO!!!

If you keep judging others to make yourself feel better...LET IT GO!!!

If you're stuck in the past and God is trying to take you to a new level in Him...LET IT GO!!!

If you are struggling with the healing of a broken relationship...LET IT GO!!!

If you keep trying to help someone who won't even try to help themselves...LET IT GO!!!

If you're feeling depressed and stressed ...LET IT GO!!!

If there is a particular situation that you are so used to handling yourself and God is saying, "Take your hands off of it," then you need to...LET IT GO!!!

Let the past be the past. Forget the former things. GOD is doing a new thing and it's time to release and let go of the old...LET IT GO!!!

Get Right or Get Left...think about it, and then LET IT GO!!!

If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.
Happy moments, praise God. Difficult moments, seek God. Quiet moments, worship God. Painful moments, trust God. Every moment, thank God.

Missed It!

2009-09-11T11:17:00.004-04:00

Okay, so last night I decided to watch a little of the Steelers-Titans game after I got home from a meeting. I got all comfy on my sofa and watched the game from half-time on. Near the end of the game I began to feel a little sleepy. The game was great though; it was a tough toe-to-toe battle and the score was knotted at 10-10.

The game goes into overtime. I get sleepier. So sleepy that I get up and go get something to eat (that's my excuse anyway). I get back from the fridge just in time to watch the Steelers win the toss for the sudden-death OT period. I watch the kick-off. Then I wake up and the news is on.

I didn't find out who won until I turned on my computer this morning. What's with that? How could I sit there for two hours and then miss the most important 2 minutes of the game simply because I nodded off?

I suppose that happens to many of us. We are vigilant; we persevere; and then we falter at the crucial moment all because the "spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." Perhaps that's what is happening on Sunday mornings when I see folks nodding off while I'm preaching. Maybe next time I should go get something to eat sooner when I'm watching a good game. Maybe I should make sure my parishioners get fed something more spiritually nourishing on Sunday mornings. Perhaps I have put you to sleep reading this. Zzzzzzzzzzz

Yikes! Giant Spiders!

2009-09-09T21:10:00.004-04:00

So much for blogging regularly (see my August 17 post). At any rate – I just got back from a dove-hunting trip to one of my favorite places in the world, my cousin’s farm in Bassfield, MS. Actually I spent most of my time down there bush-hogging, which is one of my favorite farming duties. I must have cut 25 acres of grass!

The hunting wasn’t bad either. I only got in one day of hunting because the season opened the day before I returned home. The hunting was poor in the morning, but we did pretty well in the afternoon hunt. The birds weren't flying in our field, but a friendly neighbor allowed us to come and shoot with them. I got 5 birds using 37 shells which is not too bad when it comes to hitting those little gray rockets.

The real excitement on the trip was my encounter with several really scary-looking spiders found in the Mississippi woods. I have been there several times but I had never seen one of these monsters before this trip. My cousin’s property is laced with wonderful lanes that run through pine thickets. We use them for driving four-wheelers and golf carts through the woods. On Friday morning I decided to take a walk using these lanes as my walking track. Sounds peaceful and scenic, doesn’t it? Well it was until I happened upon what South Mississippians call a “Banana Spider.” The spider’s real name is the golden silk orb-weaver spider (genus nephila). Apparently they are found throughout the world in temperate climates. And believe me, they are huge! I saw several that were as big as my hand (honest!). They also weave impressive webs that completely spanned the 6-8 foot lanes I was walking down. What's more, the webs were often head-high; perfect for catching an unsuspecting human. Well... actually they use their beautiful webs to capture all kinds of bugs and insects. An unsuspecting victim flies down the only path available to it, down the lane, and straight into a camouflaged death trap. Scary stuff. In fact, after I almost walked into two or three of the webs I finally turned around and headed back out of the woods the same way I came in.

According to some research I did on the web (pun intended), the spiders I encountered are not particularly poisonous but they do have a nasty South American cousin that is highly lethal. They also did not seem very aggressive. But let me be perfectly honest with you; I didn’t actually get close enough to tell if they were poisonous or aggressive. All I can say about them is they were huge and I would not want to walk into one of their webs, especially at night.

Discipline and Committment

2009-08-25T19:46:00.010-04:00

I recently was reading Ed Stetzer's blog (EdStetzer.com) and ran across a post on a new book by Steve Addison called "Movements that Change the World." This book is about church movements and how they have changed the world. In the book Addison identifies what he calls the top five characteristics of dynamic movements, one of which is what he calls, "commitment to a cause."

I loved Addison's description of this particular characteristic. He points out how for good or for evil, history is made by people committed to a common purpose. Nothing changes unless people care deeply and are willing take action. The prime example of this, of course is Jesus himself. Jesus had high expectations of his followers. So high, that some of them walked away.

Addison tells an anecdote about one of my heroes of the faith, John Wesley, who founded the Methodist movement. It seems that after Wesley visited Bristol, one of his "Societies" was started there. By the time Wesley returned to Bristol months later the Society had grown to 900 people. But by the time he left 143 of them had been removed for various reasons: among them wife-beating, smuggling, and drunkenness. Addison's point: Wesley led a disciplined movement; one that changed the world and quite possibly helped avoid a bloody revolution in England like the one they had in France.

Without discipline there is no church. As much as I hate to talk about discipline, and enforce it, and sometimes even tip-toe around it, there can be no church without the boundary of church discipline. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. had this to say about church discipline: "No longer concerned with maintaining purity of confession or lifestyle, the contemporary church sees itself as a voluntary association of autonomous members, with minimal moral accountability to God, much less to each other." Mohler, who is President of Southern Baptist Seminary, goes on to say, "Put simply, the abandonment of church discipline is linked to American Christianity’s creeping accommodation to American culture." It seems the main concern today is not to offend. If we raise the bar of commitment, or if, heaven forbid, we ask people to actually live their lives differently from their non-believing neighbors, who knows what they will do; they may even leave! Meanwhile, much of what Jesus, Peter and Paul and others had to say was very offensive, especially to our sensitive modern ears which are more attuned to everyone's right to have their cake and eat it too.

Of note is the fact that the terms ‘disciple’ and ‘discipline’ share the same root. It is only through "discipline" that "disciples" are made. A disciple is one under the teaching, training, coaching, and authority of another. Discipline is the means by which God’s people are trained in godliness: “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age” (Tit. 2:11-12).

Bottom line, there is a great deal of unhappiness, distress, and trouble in the world because of our 'all-too-frequent' failure to control our tempers, appetites, passions and impulses. Sadly, this is often just as true inside the church as it is out in the world. Churches that neglect discipline do so to their peril. Doing so is to surrender to the spirit of this age. Discipline and commitment are never pleasant or easy, but things worth doing seldom are.

Blogging - or the lack thereof...

2009-08-17T23:24:00.003-04:00

Wow - it has been a long time since I last blogged. Believe me, I have my reasons, and none of them are pretty nor am I proud of them. With everything going on in our lives right now (my family, my church, and so on) honestly, my main goal has been to simply put one foot in front of the other, just trying to "keep on keeping on."

A good friend loaned me a book that has helped a lot in this regard - "Believe That You Can" by Jentezen Franklin. I have to admit that after watching Franklin on television (TBN - the "purple hair people) and after hearing him speak once (at a funeral) I never thought he would "have my ear." But his words have been encouraging me like words straight from the Lord; at least in the way that he has addressed my situation.

I will be back on the blogging bandwagon shortly. Thanks for your patience.

Loved This - You Will Too

2009-08-08T22:32:00.002-04:00

In this video megachurch pastor Craig Groeschel is the "victim."

Book Review: Family Driven Faith by Voddie Baucham

2009-08-02T09:33:00.004-04:00

I just finished reading Family Driven Faith by Voddie Baucham, a book whose self-proclaimed goal is to “equip Christian parents with the tools they need to raise children biblically in a post-Christian, anti-family society” (from the cover).

In this book Baucham argues forcefully from Deuteronomy 6 and Ephesians 6 that Christian parents have failed and continue to fail to bring their children up in the “training and instruction” of the Lord (Eph. 6:4).

I agree with Baucham in general – who can argue with statements like, “Turn off the TV, and hand your kids a book” (p. 103), and “Raising godly children is not a matter of luck; it is a matter of work” (p. 105). The author is absolutely right in insisting that if Bible training and spiritual formation was done in the home as God intended we would begin to see multi-generational faithfulness and less children and youth walking away from the faith when they grow up.

Unfortunately Baucham, like many others of his ilk, insist on insulting everyone within earshot as they try to pound their point home, including parents who choose to send their children to public school, parents who allow their kids to attend church youth groups, and well-meaning and godly pastors and youth leaders who are doing their best in a very difficult environment. Statements like, “How does a father raise his son to respect young women and protect their purity only to send him off to the youth building with exposed midriffs, low-cut tops, and skin-tight jeans?" (p. 182) are low blows to pastors, churches and youth groups that I simply cannot abide with. Baucham has this angry tone through most of the book and, honestly, a “holier-than-thou” attitude where he acts as though his interpretations of Scripture are the only ones that count.

For instance he critiques others for misapplying and misinterpreting Scripture, then proceeds to do the same thing himself. For example, in arguing against public education, Baucham quotes 2 Corinthian 6 about not being yoked with unbelievers. This passage from Paul is clearly about marriage and yet Baucham has conveniently misapplied the text to blast public education.

Baucham also shoots himself in the foot in his argument that home school groups should be embraced by the local church because they are a great field for evangelism. After arguing throughout the book that parents should home school their children because home schooling is more effective at training up our children in biblical ways, the author says, “More than half of the parents who homeschool their children in this country are not Christians” (p. 209). If more than half are not Christian as Baucham claims, why on earth is homeschooling such a vast improvement over public education?

Baucham also sees fit to blast churches who hire pastors who are “unfit” according to the author. Sure, there are pastors and churches that are making huge mistakes chasing culture and the latest fads instead of searching Scripture to see what God has said, but what about the dedicated men and women who are doing their best in what is an increasingly hostile and faithless arena? Would a sentence or two lauding these tireless servants have been too difficult?

In the final analysis, I totally agree with the author that we must always do our best to promote a biblical view of marriage and family, a biblical worldview in general, and a biblical definition of “success.” There is no question that many of the problems we face today would go away if fathers took their spiritual responsibility in the home seriously. In Baucham’s words, “No amount of money, toys, or fringe benefits can replace a godly father” (p. 155). And yes, I agree with the author that motherhood is a noble occupation (Prov. 31). Would in home worship and catechism study be helpful and effective in raising up godly children? Absolutely! Is the “pull of prosperity” (p. 149) deadly to our faith? Absolutely!

But, do I think the answer to the tailspin the evangelical church is in today is to simply do away with age-segregated learning environments including youth groups, Sunday-School classes and small groups? Would that solve our problems overnight? Not hardly. The problem is much deeper than that. Like many authors, Baucham falls prey to the error of "if you are a hammer, then everything looks like a nail." Baucham pounds his “family worship is the answer” hammer to every nail he sees, whenever and wherever he sees it, and he sees it everywhere. Voddie, the enemy is not public education or youth group or Sunday school. Let’s don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater in our rush to fix things!

The church’s role is to partner with parents to help children grow in the knowledge and admonition of the Lord. No church that I lead will ever forfeit that role. But we are also not willing to sacrifice even one child on the altar of “we told you so” when parents default on their part of the equation. We will take each child and help him or her; we will do our best to help parents develop a biblical view of parenting and their most important task as parents, to transmit their faith to the next generation.

Teamwork

2009-07-29T23:35:00.005-04:00

I love being on a team. It gives me a sense of belonging, more good things get done, and I feel a sense of connection to something bigger and better than myself. I am glad teams are a biblical concept; they don’t call them “teams” in the Bible, but the Bible clearly identifies the benefits of working together. My New Testament reading for today from Romans included this: “Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us” (Rom. 12:4-6).

This passage tells us a few things about teams. For instance it tells us that just because you have a group of people that does not necessarily mean you have a team. A group of people could be just a crowd of people. Paul indicates that teams involve collaboration and interdependence – the group forms “one body,” A team is a group that comes together to collaborate in order to reach a shared goal for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. A team is a group of people with a high degree of interdependence, all aimed at achieving a common goal.

The passage also teaches that teammates are people deeply committed to each other; Paul writes that “each member belongs to all the others.” A team cares for its members; they are working together at such a deep level that the group literally “belongs” to one another – there are no lone-rangers or free-lancers or superheroes on a team when it is working at its highest potential. That is not to say each person has the same level of gifting – Paul mentions that each one contributes “according to the grace” given him or her. Everyone brings something unique and important to the table. And when a team finds its proper rhythm – its groove, so to speak – where each member is contributing exactly what they should - then watch out!

And that leads to still another observation about teams found in Scripture. With teams, synergy is achieved; the sum of a team is greater than its individual parts; two plus two equals five or more. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 describes it in this way: “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”

The acronym stenciled in locker rooms and board rooms across the land is clichéd but true T.E.A.M. – Together Everyone Accomplishes More. Since biblical times people have realized this. The question is, why don’t we take advantage of teams? How about you? Are you a part of any teams? Or are you just part of a few groups? Imagine what a church staff, or even an entire church could accomplish if it began functioning as a team? If your department, or class, or business or church is not functioning as a team, what can you do to foster its evolution into a team? Why not begin working toward that today?

Tweeting Prayers

2009-07-25T11:05:00.004-04:00

I found this article on the BBC. For years thousands of believers have come to place their prayers on handwritten notes between the 2,000-year-old stones of the Western or "Wailing" wall in Jerusalem in hopes that their requests will find a short-cut to God. I went to Jerusalem myself in 1995 and visited the Western Wall. I prayed there and put a written prayer in one of the mortar joints of the wall.

In recent years, people from overseas have been able to email and fax their prayers which were then printed out and taken to the wall. Now an service has started using the social networking service Twitter so prayers, sent as "tweets" can be printed off and posted on the wall to sit alongside the thousands of other notes placed there by visitors.

Since the service began hundreds of people have taken advantage of it. Founder Alon Nil is now looking for sponsorship to pay someone to help maintain the site or a programming service that can do some of the work for him.

What will they think of next?

Push Hard - Pray Hard

2009-07-25T09:50:00.003-04:00

It is crunch time at NewSong. We begin a new ministry year next month, our tenth. In preparation for that we have been doing our best to get everyone on board with our mission of building community (relating to one another in small groups) and reaching out missionally in all that we do (worship as our front door, open chair small groups, and getting every man, woman, boy and girl serving so people see Jesus in their service). I just finished leading a series of eight meetings on eight consecutive nights in member homes and at the church in an attempt to convey this vision and mission. I met with considerable resistance to some of the changes we are proposing.

The gist of what we are doing is making a hard push for covenant membership. We want to make sure there is a clear understanding of what being a part of our church means. We are raising the bar – raising expectations. Why? Because we believe this is critical if we are going to be serious about transforming lives and transforming the world. It is also critical if we are going to build genuine community. People need to understand that being a part of our church involves more than simply showing up at 10:30 on Sunday morning.

There seems to be an assumption that people are afraid of commitment, but I believe that those who are genuinely converted actually want to grow and be serious about their faith – they find doing that attractive. They also find it natural to want to share that faith. Ironically, it is not the newer believers who are bucking this – it is the longer-term Christians who grew up in “churchanity” – my name for the blight of the institutional church with its consumer mentality (what can the church do for me?).

Adding to the difficulty is my blunt, “black-or-white,” “in-or-out” nature. I recognize that the gift of mercy is not high on my spiritual gifts list. In fact, it has even been said that I have the spiritual gift of irritation. I am working and praying about that flaw – I promise. Our Board of Elders called me on the carpet about it last weekend (which they should have). Leaders should not wield their authority like a big stick, which I do far too often. I was reading an article by Matt Chandler in the current Leadership Magazine and he said it best when he said, “Leaders shouldn’t wield authority, they should shepherd toward truth.” He goes on to say, “If you have to talk about your authority, you’ve probably already lost it.” Chandler says we should use authority to “shepherd” and not to “bruise.” I recognize that all too often I bruise when I lead. [Father, teach me…help me with this, I pray].

Further complicating matters is the fact that we have accelerated the pace of change at our church. I believe in every change we have made, and I believe the impetus for the changes clearly came from God. But I also recognize that NewSong does not look like the church many of our longer-term members joined. They did not sign up for this – it’s one thing to be objective and say, “This model is more biblical,” or “That definitely makes sense…” But it is another thing to have it happen to your church; few of us enjoy change.

At any rate – tomorrow the dust will begin to settle. We are asking all our members to turn in signed ministry covenants agreeing to our “Love, Grow, Share” process during worship tomorrow. We are starting with 135 adults on our membership roll. It will be interesting to see how many stick with us and how many of them look elsewhere. I take solace in knowing that those that will decide to move on are already believers and will undoubtedly find another church. Their salvation is not at stake. I also take comfort knowing that no one will leave because of the changes who is not a believer – that’s because we have few, if any, true non-believers at our church today. Hopefully that will change as we get “lean and mean” and hungry to save souls that need to know Jesus.

Death Spiral

2009-07-22T09:39:00.007-04:00

Okay - I admit it, my "creative cooker" is not working very well these days. On top of that I am supposed to be writing my sermon for Sunday right now...at any rate - I just have to share today's post from Seth Godin. It speaks truth into my life - and into our church's life - in an amazing way.... I am cutting and pasting it here for you to read; and for me to remember.

You've probably seen it. The fish monger sees a decline in business, so they have less money to spend on upkeep and inventory, so they keep the fish a bit longer and don't clean up as often, so of course, business declines and then they have even less money... Eventually, you have an empty, smelly fish store that's out of business.

The doctor has fewer patients so he doesn't invest as much in training or staff and so some other patients choose to leave which means that there are even fewer patients...

The newspaper has fewer advertisers, so they can't invest as much in running stories, so people stop reading it, which means advertisers have less reason to advertise which leaves less money for stories...

As Tom Peters says, "You can't shrink your way to greatness," and yet that's what so many dying businesses try to do. They hunker down and wait for things to get better, but they don't. This isn't a dip, it's a cul de sac. It's over.

Right this minute, you still have some cash, some customers, some momentum... Instead of squandering it in a long, slow, death spiral, do something else. Buy a new platform. Move. Find new products for the customers that still trust you.

Change is a bear, but it's better than death.

He is Everything Glorious

2009-07-21T10:52:00.003-04:00

Ran across this video of David Crowder singing one of my favorite songs. Enjoy and know that our God truly is "everything glorious."

What We Need

2009-07-20T23:11:00.003-04:00

Tonight while catching up on a few of the blogs I follow I ran across this post from Mark Batterson from July 5:

"I had a revelation yesterday: the answer to every prayer is more of the Holy Spirit. Need more boldness? What you really need is more of the HS. Need more wisdom? What you really need is more of the HS. Need more love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness or self-control? What you really need is more of the HS. The Holy Spirit is to the means to every spiritual end. And the good news is that God wants to give more than you want to receive. Just ask!"

Know what? He's right... Come, Holy Spirit!

If it Ain't Broke...

2009-07-17T16:13:00.005-04:00

I have enjoyed listening to the pundits and wags go on and on about the current global economic meltdown. As everyone who hasn’t been hiding under a rock for the past couple of years knows, we are in the middle of possibly the worst recession since the Great Depression. Regardless of whether you are a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian or something else, the main reasons for the recession are pretty clear: people refused to live within their means; banks got greedy and found themselves with boatloads of bad loans; the housing bubble burst; the stock market crashed; and unemployment rose. Throw in a dash of corporate corruption, a spike in oil prices, and an unpopular war and you have a sure-fire recipe for disaster.

The interesting thing I have noticed while reading about the economic mess is everyone saying, “Had the financial community, the politicians, and even ordinary consumers only realized something was wrong this would never have happened.” Had we known that something was amiss and that we were headed for a fall we would have saved more; we would have been more careful in our decision-making; we would not have bought houses we could not afford or vehicles to impress or taken extravagant vacations. We would have never invested in complex financial instruments we did not understand or “get-rich-quick” schemes. “If only we had known,” the critics claim, “then we could have avoided the pain of this economic downturn.”

I disagree. I am no financial genius, but it seems to me the handwriting was on the wall for years before the actual meltdown occurred. In fact, I vividly remember warnings that the housing bubble could burst at any time as far back as 1999 – that’s ten years ago! I have known since I was a child how important it is to save on a regular basis. Who knew that if you spend more than you make, pretty soon you are going to be in trouble? Did you? Honestly, was this really a surprise?

No, I think we are where we are today because there was a “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality when it came to the economy. Housing prices continued to rise, gas prices were fairly cheap, jobs were plentiful, corporate profits were bordering on the obscene, and the stock market was at an all-time high. Why worry? With things going that well, nobody wanted to hear someone say, “Hey...something is not right here.” But someone should have said that, right in the midst of the 'good times,' and we should have listened. Fact is, someone probably did say that, but they got drowned out because nobody wanted to hear them.

We sometimes face the same predicament in the local church. There are times when things appear to be going swimmingly in the church - they are going great; everybody is happy. But then someone does some in-depth analysis of what is really going on in the congregation, or God gives an insight, and suddenly the realization dawns, “Something is not right here.” But no one wants to hear that, so no one wants to believe it is true. The cry goes out, "Don’t rock the boat! We like it like this – we like the status quo!" "Why change anything?"

In the final analysis this ends up being simply a different verse of that same old song, “It ain’t broke, don't fix it - just leave it alone.” And so pain is sure to follow – or worse, God’s hand of blessing is removed because of that church's failure to obey His leading.

Trust me, someone out there is looking at the bigger picture and they know… they know something is broken. The question is; will we listen?

License or Legalism?

2009-07-15T23:33:00.004-04:00

We are holding membership meetings for our upcoming ministry year and I find myself in a familiar conundrum, one I have been in many times before in my role as a pastor; the battle between the opposing poles of license and legalism when it comes to membership in the local church.

On the one hand I am grateful for anyone who comes to Christ and wants to attend our church. I hate to add requirements or rules to being a member of our church such as attending a membership class in order to join, and regular worship attendance, participation in a small group, and service on a ministry team after you do join. Why does it bother me to require these things? Mainly because I remember familiar verses Jesus spoke like, “Come to me all you who are burdened and burdened and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28 emphasis mine). Jesus did not add a post script to that verse and say, “Oh, and do this, and that, and the other as well.” I am also haunted by Jesus’ sharp words to the Pharisees who he accused of being “Blind guides who strain out a gnat but swallow a camel” (Matt. 23:24). Jesus told them flat out that they were not only being unhelpful to those seeking to know God, but he said they were actually making it more difficult for people to connect with God because they were placing burdens which were not His burdens upon their shoulders.

I do not want to be legalistic – but it seems to me that in order to be faithful disciples of Christ and in order to accomplish anything as a church we need a clear standard or expectation for our members to live up to.

On the other side of the equation (license) I recall Jesus’ exhortation to “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matt. 7:13-14). Yes, Jesus is talking about salvation here and not church membership, but he is also clearly saying that not just anything goes. There is a path to follow to get to Him and it is not the six-lane expressway of “anything goes.” I also think of Jesus statement just below that where he says, “By their fruit you will know them” (Matt. 7:20). Believers are supposed to bear fruit; something is supposed to be happening in their lives that gives evidence of their faith. I am probably disturbed most of all by the account of the rich young ruler where Jesus clearly laid down what is expected or required, “Go and sell all you have and give it to the poor…and come follow me” (Luke 18:22) and the young man walked away. When he did Jesus did not chase after him and say, “Oh, I’m sorry, is that too difficult? Is that too much to ask? Then don’t worry about it.” No, Jesus let the man walk away. Jesus set the bar at a certain height and said that is the standard. Is that legalism? I don’t think so.

I confess that by nature I am more of a legalist than a license kind of guy. I am more afraid of the “anything goes” side of the pendulum than the "that's too hard for them." I heard Chuck Swindoll quote Francis Schaeffer on the radio tonight talking about what Schaeffer called the “great evangelical disaster” which is Christianity’s current propensity to accommodate the culture it exists in. Anything and everything goes because Jesus was “full of grace” so we should be too. Yes Jesus was full of mercy and grace, but he also had expectations – He had a standard. As a trophy of that grace myself I understand my life must be different than it was before he changed me and different than those around me.

And so the battle rages on in my heart and soul. Are we placing higher expectations on church members’ lives than even Jesus would? Shouldn’t we just be happy they are attending? Or should we set the bar where we believe Jesus would and then let them walk away if they won’t agree to that standard? It is a tough choice to make, but ultimately someone has to make that choice. What would you do?

Pelican in Peril

2009-07-10T20:11:00.004-04:00

We had an exciting afternoon at the beach. I was out in the water just floating around and I saw this guy chasing a pelican that was swimming fairly close to shore. I was thinking, “What’s with that guy? Leave the poor bird alone.” About that time I noticed several others were making their way through the water toward the bird. A lady said, “Did you see that pelican? He has a water bottle stuck in his throat!” I said, “No way,” but then noticed you could tell it did. You could even see the blue label of the water bottle through the skin on the bird’s enlarged neck.

Being a bird-lover I immediately joined the rescue effort with the guy in the lead. Unfortunately, just when it looked as though the bird was corralled it flew about 100 yards further out in the water, well beyond our reach in deeper water. Sadly we returned to the beach. The guy who was in the lead got his cell phone and began calling around to see if any wildlife people could come and save the bird. He did not have much success. About 20 minutes later I looked down the beach and noticed the bird had moved closer into shore. I walked down the beach and swam out to the bird, all the while trying to calm it by speaking to it. I got very close – I even touched its tail, before the bird flew again. Just then I looked up and here came the guy who had earlier tried to rescue the pelican to help me. Donna said that when he saw me get so close he began running down the beach to help me.

The guy and I made two more attempts to rescue the bird before it finally flew way beyond our reach in deeper water and we gave up and walked back to our chairs. I introduced myself on our walk back down the beach and found out he was from Minnesota. He was a real nice guy with a lovely family.

I went back to the house and got a snack before returning to the beach where Donna remained. I said, “Let’s walk down the beach and see if we see the pelican again.” Sure enough, we did, and it was closer than ever to shore. It also looked a lot weaker. We turned around and went back to get my Minnesota friend, but his family was packing up to go inside so he did not join me. Donna and I then walked down the beach and when we got near where the pelican was I asked a young man walking on the beach if he would help me. The young man agreed to help so we began wading out to the bird and this time the pelican let me get close enough to grab him. The young man then helped me by holding the bird’s wings while I squeezed its neck from below, forcing the bottle up toward his large mouth. All the while, of course, the pelican was trying to peck me. Finally I saw the top of the plastic water bottle so I reached in and grabbed it and pulled it out. The pelican then tried to take the bottle away from me again (I suppose he was protecting his “catch”).

We released the bird after I got the bottle out and it flew out a ways in the water, seemingly relieved. Several people in the water nearby who were, no doubt, wondering why two guys were attacking a pelican, began cheering and clapping when they saw the rescue and me holding the bottle.

We waited and watched a while and eventually saw the rescued pelican fly off looking none-the-worse for the trial it had undergone. All in all it was an exciting event as you might imagine. The photo above is of me holding the water bottle the bird had stuck in its throat.

Someday

2009-07-08T21:35:00.004-04:00

I saw a great T-Shirt today. Here is what it had written on it

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

See, there is no “someday”

I did not purchase the T-shirt, but I agree with the sentiment. Unfortunately many of us spend our lives just going through the motions waiting for “someday” to come. Someday I will get a new job. Someday I will finish my degree. Someday I will deal with my addiction. Someday I will apologize. Someday I will forgive. Someday I will get in shape. Someday I will be happy. Someday I will _____________________________ (you fill in the blank).

The rash of celebrity deaths in recent days reminds us that even for the rich and famous our days may be cut short and we may run out of time before our someday arrives.

Here’s a thought. Why not make today be your someday?

Why put it off any longer?

When I was a child and had a band-aid on that needed to be changed I would try to painlessly ease the adhesive away from my skin. But that never worked. Sometimes you just need to grit your teeth and rip it off and get it over with. It actually hurts less that way. For you see, "Much of the pain of pain lies in the anticipation of the pain rather than the pain itself" (with apologies to Mike Brady).

I don’t know who I am writing this to tonight – it is late and I need to go to sleep. Perhaps I am writing to myself, or maybe I am writing to you. It does not matter. Truth is truth. Someday never comes. Make today be your someday and you won’t regret it. Deal with whatever it is that needs to be dealt with. Pray about it, make a decision, and then step into the pain and move on with your plan. There is no someday... there is only today.

Each Day is Special, God Made It So

2009-07-06T22:02:00.004-04:00

God can be seen every day by the seashore. Look in any direction, and there He is.

I see Him in the clockwork precision of the tides, ebbing and flowing right on schedule every day, day after day, year after year. I see Him in the orderly rising and setting of the sun and the moon, and in the course of the stars as they make their way across the heavens each night. I see Him in the refreshing late-afternoon showers that wash away the heat of the day and clear the crowds off the beaches. I see Him in the beautiful patterned shells, strewn in a kaleidoscope of color on the pristine sugar-white sand in the golden light of early morning. I see Him in the waves as they relentlessly tumble up on land and then gently retreat back into the sea. I see Him in the wind and its daily shift from sea breeze in the daytime to land breeze at night.

I see Him in the pod of dolphins frolicking just off the pier, with a baby dolphin doing its best to stick close to its mother, mimicking her every move. I see Him in the bright flash of color as the mackerel and other fish strike my lure while I am fishing; and in even in their eyes as they peer up at me once I have caught them before I release them to fight another angler on another day.

I see Him in the flight of laughing gulls as they return to roost each night, winging their way across the island as the sun sets. I see His hand in the unique way each of the shorebirds knows exactly where, when, and how to catch its next meal; the sandpipers and sanderlings dancing with the waves as they pluck crustaceans from the wet sand, the terns as they hover motionless above the surf before dive-bombing unsuspecting fish below; the pelicans as they crash into the surf, mouth agape, filling their pouch with minnows; the black skimmer using its elongated beak to skim small fish from the water as it flies just above the surface of the water; and the stealthy great blue heron stalking its prey along the water’s edge knowing just when to strike in order to catch an unlucky shiner.

The seashore is a microcosm of the larger world and like the stars and planets and tides and wildlife, each one is imprinted with beauty and precision by the Maker’s hand. How sad it is that we often live our days unknowingly, our hours slipping by, our minds and spirits oblivious to God’s order, His provision, His purposes, and the gift of life that each day brings. When I return home, perhaps I will remember these times by the seashore and remember that each day is unique and each day is precious.

"Captain" Steve

2009-07-06T10:43:00.007-04:00

I know many of you have been holding your breath wondering if I ever got the boat started down here. Well, good news, I did! Actually I had to call someone Don and Myralyn knows down here (Bob Kelly) and he met me at the boat and he checked out a few things. Finally he sat down and tried to crank it and the boat was doing the same thing, just turning over but not firing. As I watched Bob I noticed a little red thingie (not a precise nautical term) below the throttle. I asked Bob what it was and he said, "Oh, that's the kill switch so the boat will cut off in case the driver gets knocked out of the boat." Then he flipped a toggle switch on the little thingie the other way and the boat cranked right up. It was that simple.

At any rate, I took the boat out into the bay for a spin then called Donna on the way back in and asked if she wanted to go out and, surprisingly, she agreed. So I picked her up at the dock and we went back out and drove around the canals and the bay for about 30 minutes.

The thing about boating down here is there are specific channels in the bays, canals, and in the intercoastal waterway that you have to stay in because the water is so shallow in spots. Once I figured out where the channels were (by watching other people) everything was fine.

So, this is "Captain" Steve signing out for a while. I hope to check back in later - I am going back out in the boat before lunchtime. Until then..... Yo ho ho, it's a seaman's life for me!

Independence Day Part Deux

2009-07-04T12:16:00.004-04:00

Okay, so I beat Donna like a drum in Ping Pong - I mean I nailed her and she usually beats me.

Then we went down the street to the annual AMI Privateers Independence Day parade. It was pretty neat. They throw more beads than candy, ala Mardi Gras. We got plenty of them as you can see from the ones around my neck in the photo.

I know you are enjoying these practically hourly reports. About to go to the beach. Life is good.

Happy Independence Day!

2009-07-04T09:57:00.003-04:00

Woke up this morning to beautiful skies on AMI - after morning coffee and time with the Lord I headed to the City Pier to cast a few times. Caught a nice mackerel. Then I took a bike ride, tried to get the boat started (again) and headed back to the house.

About to beat Donna in ping pong.

Happy 4th everyone!

PS - the photo above is City Pier at sunrise - beautiful boat anchored just off the pier.

Morning Reverie

2009-07-03T09:58:00.006-04:00

This morning I walked from our place all the way down the beach to the pier at the Manatee County public beach. That is quite a long walk for an old guy like me. This photo is my footprints looking back towards our place. At any rate, it was great watching people begin their day by setting up their umbrellas and all the paraphernalia you need to spend a few hours at the beach. I also saw the early morning fishermen and a few joggers and shell collectors.

One thing I have noticed is several instances of what I call beach reverie. Reverie is such a great word, isn’t it? It means to be “lost in thought” or “absent-minded daydreaming.” This happens all the time at the beach. You see people sitting or standing looking out to sea with a smile on their face and who knows what on their mind. There is something magical about doing that. Your mind kind of melds with God and nature and you are swept away to another place and time. There is something eternal about it; something infinite. Birds do it too – I especially wonder what is on a bird’s mind as it stands facing into the wind looking toward the horizon.

Speaking of birds, there are tons of seashore and wading birds on AMI. This morning I saw several species of them on my extended walk. I saw a couple of blue herons, tons of laughing gulls, a few egrets, three or four white ibis, a few common terns dive-bombing the shallows for fish, and of course, a brown pelican or two. You also see other species here including herring gulls and black skimmers. The photo above is a great blue heron that was standing by the pier. The bird did not seem scared of me whatsoever and I am grateful. It was awesome to stand so close to such a magnificent creature and look into its eyes.

Today I am going to go over and see if I can get Don’s boat started and tootle around the canals a bit. I am definitely not comfortable with this. For one, the boat is totally unfamiliar to me and for another, the water is so shallow in many places it is easy to run aground. In case you see no more posts for the next few days it means I did not make it back – please send the Coast Guard! More later (hopefully!) …. Steve

AMI

2009-07-02T11:44:00.003-04:00

I am back on Anna Maria Island this 2009 Fourth of July week. I am sorry for everyone else who still slaving away at work back home – but this trip will be our last hurrah before a very busy fall, so I am not feeling too bad about it. I am going to try to get back into the habit of blogging this week, although my blogs will probably not be work-related as much as they will be life-related (which brings up the idea of a great blog about why we tend to compartmentalize our lives and the age-old question of “why can’t we live like we’re on vacation every day?”). Right now it is raining outside, so I am inside writing this.

I digress – let me begin by giving a little info about where we are. First of all, we are here mainly because Donna’s parents own a house here and so coming down is a very inexpensive getaway (basically just our gas to get down here and what we spend on food). I know, I am cheap, but I like to think of it as being a “really good steward of our resources.” (Thanks Don and Myralyn!)

What about Anna Maria Island itself? Anna Maria, known locally as simply AMI, is a beautiful seven-mile long Island that sits at the entrance to Tampa Bay. It’s about a 9-hour drive from our home north of Atlanta to here, but it is practically all expressway (mostly I-75), and always worth the drive. The best way I know to describe the island is to say it has the beautiful turquoise water like the Destin/Panama City Beach area, coupled with the “island feel” you get in St. Simons (some of you will be familiar with these comparisons). The pace here is very low-key and laid-back. There are no fast food restaurants, no high-rises and it is not nearly as crowded as the afore-mentioned beaches. The feel of AMI is often compared to the Florida Keys, without all the weirdness. Around here you see plenty of palm trees, hibiscus, oleander, lizards, pelicans, sea gulls, bicyclists, sea-turtle nests, and gorgeous sunsets. There is always something to do on AMI – but there is also no need to feel guilty if you just want to sit under an umbrella on the beach and read a good book.

Okay, okay, I realize I sound like a travel guide now, so I will stop, but honestly, it is a great place to relax and unwind. I have been here less than 24 hours now and I am beginning to start to relax – it takes a while for me. Once the rain stops and I can get back outside and get some sand between my toes, I will begin the process of unwinding the coil that is usually wound so tight in me. I will be writing more soon…

Seasons

2009-06-23T07:59:00.004-04:00

Last Sunday, in addition to being Father’s Day, the celestial event known as the Summer Solstice occurred. Early Sunday morning (1:45am) the sun was as far north as it goes, its rays crossing the earth directly overhead along the Tropic of Cancer (the latitude line at 23.5° north, passing through Mexico, Saharan Africa, and India). That made Sunday the longest day of the year for us in the northern hemisphere (first day of summer), and the shortest day in the southern hemisphere (first day of winter for them).

Realizing that this has occurred for as long as the earth has existed makes it easy to see why so many of the world’s religions are based on cycles – the ebb and flow of time. The cycles of birth, life, death, and rebirth are key tenets of most world religions. The goal of many eastern religions is to somehow escape the wheel of these endless cycles. As Christians we certainly cannot deny that we have seasons in our lives. Summertime seems to especially remind us with so many important moments occurring this time of year. Graduations, weddings, births, annual vacations – there are so many momentous occasions that occur during summer that remind us we are on a kind of “wheel” of our own that cycles back around – and which seems to spin faster and faster the older we get.

Salvation in many of the world’s religions consists of escaping this cycle. The Buddhist tunes out the material world (which he believes is an illusion anyway) and finds his bliss – his nirvana in nothingness. The Hindu is finally reincarnated on a higher plane as one of the gods and escapes the cycles of birth and death, living and dying.

Christianity is different. In Christianity we believe God entered time in the person of Jesus Christ bringing salvation to earth. We don’t escape ourselves and our world and the supposed sordid, painful cycles of life. Instead Jesus came to give all that we experience here new meaning and value. We don’t “earn” salvation in Christianity by the way we live “this life.” Instead salvation is freely given in Christ – not to those who deserve it, but to all who will accept Him as their Savior and Lord.

Without the tilt of the earth's axis, we would have no seasons and every day would be the same. Without the pain of grief and loss, our joy would not be nearly as wonderful. Life is not about dulling yourself to the pain of living; it is about embracing the goodness of God in every season of your life. What season are you in today? Enjoy it to the fullest, embrace God and all he has for you, and for you to do, in it. That is how life is meant to be lived.

Is Everybody Happy?

2009-06-18T21:34:00.006-04:00

The Church Relevance Blog (see sidebar) has a conversation going called “Boring Typical Church” where they point out that according to the Barna Group, “Half of Americans say they know a growing number of people who are tired of the usual type of church experience.” That is an oddly-stated statistic “half of Americans say they know a growing number….” but it appears to mean that at least half of the American population believes a growing number of people are dissatisfied with what is going on in church. And that number is growing.

Of course as we all know, one person’s “trash” is someone else’s “treasure.” One person’s boring or unsatisfactory church experience could be someone else’s dream church experience. What’s worse – these two people with their disparate experiences can be (and often are) sitting in the same church service just a few feet apart.

The responses to the Church Relevance blog post run the usual gamut from rants against the contemporary church with their loud music and mind-numbing media, to assaults on the traditional church with their high-brow services, huge buildings and big budgets while single moms are struggling to pay for diapers.

So what is the answer? How do we proceed? Is there a middle ground? If you were starting a church today, what should you aim to be? I am certainly no expert, but I believe there are a few principles to consider that might prove helpful.

First – whatever you do must be authentic. It must be “you.” We are all guilty of jumping on the latest, greatest bandwagon, regardless of whether what we are mimicking is really “us,” or not. While every church shares the Great Commission to “go and make disciples” each church must discover the distinct ways God is calling that particular congregation to do so.

Second – it must be biblical. Read the Book of Acts. The early church was on fire and everything the church did stemmed from the love of God and issued from dead center of God's will. The Spirit was palpable; there was life, excitement, joy and ministry all done in a spirit of "want to" and not "have to" or "ought to."

Third - the church must concentrate on building relationships. Study after study has shown that people today are searching for community, not another obligation to fulfill or another place to be. The basic principle of church life - the glue that holds churches together whether they are big churches or small ones - is relationships. That's also where smaller churches (like NewSong) have an advantage - if that's what people are searching for, we can do relationships better than the "big guys." What's more, relationships are also essential to effective evangelism.

Finally - and this is the tough one given what I have just said in #3, the church must be outward focused. The buzz word for this today is missional. A missional church is a community (relationships) of disciples (the product) in mission to their community and the world. The bane of every church seems to be that it starts with a passion to change the world by serving others and soon succumbs to an attitude of “serve me” or "it's all about us." The people in the early church did not need to be cajoled or coddled or catered to. There was no “club mentality,” no “what’s-in-it-for-me” mentality back then. Instead the church was a catalyst for change to the world around it. This disease of being excessively inward focused, dubbed koinonitis by C. Peter Wagner, has reached epidemic proportions today. When in doubt about the importance of being missional or outward focused, remember these famous words from Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Letters and Papers from Prison) who wrote, “The church is the church only when it exists for others."

I am sure you can think of other important principles. I suppose what I am trying to say is that the answer to the growing dissatisfaction with the church today is not to ask the question, "Is everybody happy?" Instead we should be asking questions like, "Is what we are doing 'us'?" (authentic). "Is what we are doing biblical?" And, "Are we growing closer to one another as we draw closer to God?" (relationships). And finally, "Would our church be missed if it did not exist?" (outward focused).

What do you think?

Eco-Kayak Tour

2009-06-12T21:37:00.005-04:00

On Thursday morning Donna, Amy and I took a 2.5-hour kayak tour in the canals and waters around Anna Maria Island, Florida. We met our guide and 6 other adventurers at the store that organizes the tours, Beach Bums in Anna Maria. We drove over to our launch point where our “sit-on-top” style ocean kayaks were waiting for us. The first thing we did was to get acquainted with how to handle a kayak. Our guide, Captain Scott MacGregor gave us a quick lesson. During our lesson Captain Scott pointed out a relatively rare bird sitting in a nearby mangrove, a beautiful Roseate Spoonbill. It was an exciting start to our adventure! Captain Scott is a U.S Coast Guard certified sea captain and a retired high school marine biology teacher. He has a wonderful sense of humor and kept us laughing as well as taught us about some of the wildlife, flora and fauna we ran across in the island’s rich eco-system. We learned some interesting facts. For instance, did you know that a one-acre island of mangroves can produce three tons of fish food annually as the mangrove leaves fall into the water and decay?

For those who know the area, we kayaked around the Robinson Preserve in Bimini Bay. There we saw nesting birds, including herons, pelicans, and many types of gulls. We also saw mullet jumping out of the water and, of course, lots of beautiful houses and boats lining the bay. We went up one of the many canals around the bay. Oddly enough, the canal we went up is the one Don (my Father-in-law) has his boat on. We kayaked right past his dock and it was interesting seeing things from that angle. While in the canal Captain Scott pointed out a couple of trees that are not native to the area which are causing controversy, a large shady Australian Pine and a towering Norfolk Island Pine. Originally imported to fight erosion, these trees are now outlawed in many parts of Florida due to their invasive nature, rapid growth rate, and non-native status. After Captain Scott showered Amy with pine nuts from the Australian Pine we kayaked back out of the canal and down the length of the bay. We made a brief stop halfway down the bay to get out of our kayaks and stand up in a very shallow spot (the whole bay is actually pretty shallow). After our brief rest, stretch, and a sip of much-needed water we continued on down the bay and went under the Key Royale Bridge and out into Anna Maria Sound. Once we got out in the sound Captain Scott told us that it is supposedly good luck to be able to see three bridges at once. From our vantage point in Anna Maria Sound we could see the Manatee Avenue Bridge, the Key Royale Bridge and the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. Also while we were in the sound we saw three or four dolphins. We had hoped to see a manatee somewhere along our tour, but we did not see one.

On the long paddle back to where we started out we saw more birds including a flock of parakeets that flew over the bay right in front of us making quite a racket. Everyone made it back safely, albeit with tired arms from the paddling. Especially me because I used a tandem kayak and paddled it by myself the entire way. There were not enough single kayaks for everyone and Donna and I were not willing to share a tandem – we each had to have our own kayak (some of you will understand).

This was a great adventure that allowed us to see a side of this beautiful island we would not otherwise have seen. I highly recommend the tour to anyone but must warn you that it does require some upper arm strength and the ability to stand the sun and heat. Even though our tour was in the morning, you still get pretty hot and it is a long haul. One of the people on our tour had to rely on Captain Scott for a tow for part of the way (none of us Jacksons I am happy to report!). Beach Bums does offer tandem kayaks, so if you are worried about making it you may want to share a kayak with someone else (preferably a strong paddler). The cost of the tour was $55 per person. The website for Beach Bums is here, tell them you heard about them on my blog and I am sure Captain Scott and the Beach Bums gang will throw in a free paddle and life vest with your kayak!

Steve and Amy's Turtle Adventure

2009-06-10T21:39:00.008-04:00

We had another fun adventure early Wednesday morning at the beach. Amy and I were walking on the beach and we noticed a crowd of people standing around watching a woman dig a hole in the sand. We went over to see what was going on and found ourselves right in the middle of a loggerhead sea turtle nest relocation. During the night on Tuesday a mother loggerhead had crawled up on the beach and laid 104 eggs that look something like ping pong balls in a hole she dug in the sand about 28 inches deep.

Every morning around dawn from May to October volunteers from the Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch Association (http://www.islandturtles.com/) walk along the beach looking for signs of these nests. Unfortunately some of the mother turtles lay their eggs too close to the water's edge and the nests wash out. When a nest is too close it is relocated further back on the beach by these volunteers. That is what the crowd had gathered to watch today.

Amy and I learned tons of interesting facts. The incubation period for loggerhead turtle eggs is approximately 55 days. The eggs we saw being moved should hatch around August 4th. The sex of the juvenile turtles is determined by whether they are stacked on the top of the group of eggs buried in the nest or whether they are on the bottom. The difference in temperature (hotter nearer the surface) determines the sex. The photo above shows the nest on the left (it is shaped like an upside down light bulb) and the bucket with some of the eggs before they were taken approximately forty feet further up on the beach to be reburied.

The ladies doing the relocating from the Anna Maria Turtle Watch group were really into their work and were very helpful explaining things as they did the hot work of relocating the nest. There were several children and adults watching them and they made quite a few “converts” by taking the time to explain what they were doing. Amy and I were glad for the good fortune of happening upon this interesting event. Now that the nest is relocated hopefully in about two months there will be 104 little baby turtles that will hatch and make a mad dash into the sea.

We do our Eco-Kayak tour on Thursday morning – we can hardly wait!

Beach Life

2009-06-10T12:51:00.004-04:00

I am at the beach this week, enjoying the laid back lifestyle. It was quite a run for us right up to Leigh’s wedding. We pretty much went non-stop from Easter on, so it was nice to get in the car before dawn on Sunday morning and head to Holmes Beach, Florida. Holmes Beach is on Anna Maria Island, just off Bradenton, Florida in the Tampa bay area. Anna Maria is less touristy and has more of an “island feel” like St. Simons Island in Georgia, but Anna Maria has the beautiful turquoise water and white sand beaches like Destin or Panama City. It is really the best of both beach worlds.

So far we have enjoyed walking on the beach, reading, playing scrabble and cards, sunning, bicycle-riding, fishing, and, of course, eating some great seafood out. We have all gotten a little too much sun (that’s why I am inside blogging at the hottest part of the day today). This morning we went over to the city pier at Anna Maria and I caught four mackerel in about fifteen minutes. The photo above is one of the fish I caught. The last fish I had on the line got off when my line got tangled with a bird. I ended up having to cut the line to keep the bird from injuring itself. It was pretty crazy for a moment with me having a fish and a bird on my line at the same time. Donna, Amy and I also spent some time on the pier watching dolphins swim around and pelicans and other sea birds feasting on the schools of minnows around the pier.

This morning Amy and I watched a sea turtle nest being moved. I will write more about that later as it was very interesting.

Tomorrow morning (Thurs) we are taking a kayak eco-tour through some of the canals and creeks surrounding Anna Maria. We’re looking forward to that!

We have heard from Leigh and John in St. Lucia and it sounds like they are having fun too.

I will hate to leave this place when we have to come home. Perhaps someday we’ll come to a beautiful spot like this and just never go back home…there are times when that sounds very tempting.

I’ll blog some more later on. For now I think I’ll lather up with sun screen, slip on some flip-flops and head to the beach. Ahhhhh….

The Wedding

2009-06-02T14:22:00.007-04:00

For those of you who do not know, my youngest daughter is getting married this Saturday, June 6th. I am officiating at the service (her grandfathers are walking her down the aisle). This is a huge benchmark in the life of our family as it would be in any family. I typically officiate at 3-4 weddings a year but this one will definitely be different for me as you might imagine.

This week there has been a ton of nostalgia and bittersweet moments happening in the Jackson household as we fondly recall the last 22 plus years with Leigh. Thankfully all four of us have been together under one roof for this whole week – this “last” week (sniff). Those of you who are parents will understand; while you want the absolute best for your kids, you still hate to see them grow up and leave the nest for good.

Personally I have had a flood of feelings the past few weeks. Since I am about to think through and jot down my wedding homily for Leigh and John, I feel as though I need to process my own feelings first; otherwise my comments might lean more toward what I am feeling rather than having something to offer the happy couple from the Lord. So, here go some (somewhat) random comments.

First of all – let me say how happy I am for both Leigh and John to have found what appears to be the love of their lives. They have been dating seven years and it is abundantly clear that they make one another happy. They are both extremely industrious level-headed, intelligent people. They share a similar world-view and both have a deep abiding faith in the Lord. But at the same time they are different enough to make the next 75 years or so together interesting and not boring. Our family has embraced John as one of our own and will strive to help him feel like a true part of our family, just as I know John's family will (and already have) done with Leigh. By the way, I had the “circle of trust” conversation with John just the other night and I think we are on the same wavelength (watch ‘Meet the Parents’ and you’ll understand).

Second – as for the wedding itself, Leigh and John have been amazing in their planning and execution. It seems like only yesterday we toured a few potential sites for the wedding and now everything is ready to go with the location, food, cake(s), dresses, flowers, DJ, photographer, videographer, hair, attendants, make-up, etc…. . Leigh had her “Bride’s Notebook” in which she kept a running log of everything that needed to be done and she did a great job checking them off and keeping things moving. One thing Leigh and John both do well is make decisions. They both have definite opinions about practically everything and they are not afraid to share them or act on them, which I view as a very good thing.

Third - as many times as I have said to Leigh and John, “This is YOUR day” that is not really true. It is not just their day. In tying the knot they are altering the course of several peoples’ lives. They are officially joining together each other’s families on that day. Lord knows that is a scary thought – for the Smiths and for the Jacksons (I say this 'tongue-in-cheek' Smiths, but I think you understand what I mean). Truth is Leigh and John’s union also affects their extended families, friends, employers, and more. So, yes it is “their day,” and we will treat is as such, but there’s a whole lot more to it than that. Thankfully, I am confident Leigh and John understand that as well.

Fourth – I have had lots of compliments lately about “how well you raised your daughters” and every time I hear one I deflect the credit first of all to God (because it is all about Him) and second to the girls’ mother, because Donna is the greatest mother who has ever lived, and finally, to the girls themselves. No parent could be prouder of his children than I am. They are both amazing. I shudder to think what they could have turned out like with the absence of God in our home, or without such a fantastic mom.

Finally – I guess I never said what I think I will be feeling on Saturday. I am sure it will be a mixture of pride, happiness, grief, fear, joy, excitement, relief, and more. In fact, I think it is going to be very difficult to keep a lid on my emotions the whole weekend. If you think about it, say a little prayer for my little girl and her beau, and say a prayer for the rest of us, that we will joyfully let God and nature take its course and gratefully release these two to their new life together. God bless you Leigh and John!

Book review: The Count of Monte Cristo

2009-05-30T22:19:00.005-04:00

Feeling it was time to read a classic, I just read The Count of Monte Cristo by French novelist Alexandre Dumas (who also wrote the Three Musketeers). This book is one of the most popular novels ever written and makes every “classic” book list I have seen. Written in 1844, the book is set in Marseilles, Rome and Paris in the nineteenth century, and tells the story of Edmond Dantès. Dantès is a young sailor who seems to have it all before being falsely accused of treason and imprisoned in an island dungeon for fourteen years. A fellow prisoner tells him where to find treasure buried on a Mediterranean island called Monte Cristo. Upon his escape, the book’s hero acquires the treasure, gives himself the name Count of Monte Cristo, and goes about systematically taking revenge on his enemies.

Count of Monte Cristo is a great adventure novel; just a few of the chapter titles assure you of that: “The Two Prisoners,” “The Treasure,” “The Smugglers,” “The Secret Cave,” “Roman Bandits,” etc… The way Dumas unfolds Dantès intricate scheme of revenge seems part James Bond, part Sherlock Holmes, and part Alfred Hitchcock. The surprising twists and turns in the story are as current as anything Dan Brown (DaVinci Code, Angels and Demons) has conjured up recently, and yet the story is over 150 years old.

I enjoyed the book but must admit I got a bit bogged down in the middle. There were a few chapters there that, to me, could have used a good editor. That could be the problem to begin with though. The original version of the book was some 1100 pages long. Most copies today have around 500-600 pages (the Penguin Classic version I read had 500 pages). The effect of reducing the story by almost one-half makes the story confusing in some places. In the version I read the ending is very confusing and makes practically no sense. I had to go online to find an unabridged copy of the story to figure out what really happened in the closing chapter.

One of the things that intrigued me most about the book apart from the great characters and storyline were some of the locations in which the story is set. Marseilles, where the story begins, was a favorite stop on a 2005 cruise our family took. Our ship went right by the notorious prison of Chateau d’If which sits just off the coast of Marseille. We also viewed the famed harbor of Marseille from high atop the Basilique Notre Dame de la Garde. Our home PC desktop picture is still a photo we took from this scenic spot. Several locations in Rome (the Colosseum) and Paris (Champs Elysees and Pere Lachaise cemetery) brought back fond memories when I read about them in the book as well.

Dumas' characters ranged from the very, very good, to the diabolic. On some of the characters the jury is still out in my mind. For instance I was troubled and confused by the limits and extent of both the vengeance and kindness of the story's hero, Dantès. Dumas did a good job portraying the wide range of emotion this character must have felt. I still cannot decide if Dantès is a hero or not. At times he appears to want to put himself in God’s place both in a good way and in a bad way. In fairness to him, it does appear the "Count" repents of this in the end, especially as his revenge reaches its full strength and the extent of the suffering and carnage it causes becomes evident.

Generations of readers have responded to this riveting tale and doubtless future generations will return to it as well. That’s what good literature is all about. I’m glad I finally waded in and took the time to read this novel. It was definitely worth it.

Sunday's Sermon Online

2009-05-26T10:41:00.003-04:00

Here is Sunday's sermon in the new sermon player thingie we found!!

Perceptions

2009-05-24T20:05:00.006-04:00

We have all heard it before – "perception is everything." It does not really matter what the reality of any given situation is, people are going to form opinions about what it was really like and oftentimes those opinions are going to be more varied than you can possibly imagine.

How many times have you seen someone listen to a recording of their own voice and then insist the voice on the recording sounds nothing like them? Why is this? It is because we are the ONLY person in the world who experiences things from our point of view. The voice we are hearing does not sound like that to us when we speak, so how could it possibly sound like that when we hear it played back? It is because we all hear and see and experience things from our own unique perspective so we cannot possibly expect others to have the same experiences we do – even given completely identical stimuli.

Look at this picture. What do you see, an old woman with a big nose, or a beautiful young maiden? Look again – look long and hard; do you still see the same thing? What do you see? Beauty? Ugliness? Young? Old?

Perception is how you see the world around you. Every time you look at something, or someone, you are forming opinions. You are observing, processing, and deducing information to form an opinion. The opinions you arrive at may be accurate, or they may be far from the truth. Since we cannot be “inside” someone else’s mind and heart we can’t possibly know what the reality is in a given situation. Truth is, sometimes we do not even know or understand our own motives. And if our motives and perceptions are unknown even to us on the "inside" of life as we experience it, how can those "outside" us have a chance to understand what the reality is in a given situation? We are constantly unconsciously running everything we experience through a set of filters we were born with, or educated into, or we picked up from our generation or from a previous generation.

Why am I talking about this? I am writing about perceptions because of today’s worship service at my church. Depending upon who you ask at our church and certain factors I have yet to completely sort out, today’s service was either, “exactly what a ‘win’ looks like at NewSong,” or else it was “one of the worst services we have had in a long time.”

I know. No one ever said leadership was easy. This evening I perceive it to be very difficult. I am not even sure what step to take next. As usual it brings me back to the old leadership arts of listening, measuring, clarifying and communicating. Perhaps it is even time to retool a few things. But whose perceptions to we retool towards? What do people actually perceive? And what is the correlation between what they perceive and the underlying reality? Is what people were either deliriously happy about or totally disgusted with today even the issue on the table now?

How do we deal with perceptions and whose perceptions matter most (besides God’s, of course). What do you think?

Sermon Player -

2009-05-21T22:27:00.003-04:00

Here is a nifty sermon player I stumbled upon from another pastor today (Dennis Papp, Field Notes). We will eventually have this player on our church website. There is also a link to it on the side bar further down and to the right of this post.

The greatest best thing about it is that the audio starts immediately, no more waiting for the file to download or questions about if you want to save the file to your computer.

NewSong also has its own channel now with sermon.net where the player comes from. Check it out at: http://www.sermon.net/NewsongSermons

Enjoy!

Book Review: Tribes by Seth Godin

2009-05-20T22:38:00.004-04:00

I actually got this book as a “freebie” at last October’s Catalyst Conference and just got around to reading it tonight. Godin is a self-described “best-selling author, entrepreneur, and change agent.” I think of him as the Leonard Sweet of the Internet era. He specializes in marketing and communication, especially Internet marketing and connecting. He is a prolific blogger, writer, and speaker who loves to challenge the status quo, dares to question the accepted order and who specializes in debunking commonly held assumptions ("myths"). He calls doing this being a heretic.

Tribes is actually the first book of Godin’s I have read (he has written a dozen), but I read his blog faithfully. In the book he defines a tribe as "any group of people, large or small, who are connected to one another, a leader, and an idea." Tribes can be religious, ethnic, economic, political, or even musical (think of the Deadheads). Godin contends to be human is to long to be a part of a tribe.

With the Internet and all its social networking opportunities (Facebook, Twitter, etc…) it is easier than ever today to form or join a tribe. With the exponential expansion of modern forces of connection anyone who wants to make a difference now has the tools at his or her fingertips to form a tribe or to locate one to be a part of. The main question this opportunity presents, Godin contends, is who is going to lead all these tribes?

Tribes has some good leadership thinking in it. Much of it is very relevant to the church too. He talks a lot about the “tightening the tribe” using all the tools available to leaders in our new more connected world. He especially touts the efficiency of blogs for doing this. “A blogger has a free, nearly effortless tool to send regular (daily? hourly?) messages to the people who want to read them. And with comments and trackbacks, the members of the tribe can talk back and to each other. Discussions take place, ideas are shared, decisions are made – quickly” (pg. 53).

I loved Godin’s important distinction between "fans" and "numbers." He writes, “A true fan brings three friends with him to a John Mayer concert…a true fan connects with other true fans and amplifies the noise the artise makes…” “Too many organizations care about numbers, not fans. They care about hits or turnstile clicks or media mentions. What they’re missing is the depth of commitment and interconnection that true fans deliver…the real win is in turning a casual fan into a true one” (pg. 33)

There is a plenty of other good leadership insight in this short 147 page book. I definitely need to go back now and reread the book with a highlighter in hand. I plan to encourage our staff at NewSong to read the book and to use its principles as they form their tribes within NewSong as well.

In conclusion, I encourage anyone interested in thinking outside the box about their church or business to read this book and to apply its principles.

Book Review: Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener

2009-05-19T20:10:00.004-04:00

This book was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1948. It is a collection of short stories that take place in the South Pacific during World War II. The stories are narrated by an unnamed naval officer and several characters reappear in some of the stories. The climax of the book is a fictional military offensive code named “Alligator.” The “war” parts of the book are sandwiched between captivating tales of love and loss as the bored naval men mostly sit around and wait (and consume lots of alcohol!).

Michener is a good storyteller and crafter of characters. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical South Pacific was based on Michener’s colorful characters in this book including nurse Nellie Forbush who falls in love with French plantation owner, Emile de Becque (remember?) There is also Lt. Cable and Bloody Mary, the island souvenir dealer and her daughter Liat. I still remember seeing the play being performed at Central High School in Jackson, MS way back in the sixties when my dad was an ROTC instructor there. I also recall my parents had the old LP album of South Pacific (the movie). I can still hear Mitzi Gaynor singing, “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair” (here it is on YouTube).

I am sorry it took me so long to read this book. It really is good. I think Michener’s characters are well-developed. I liked the pace of the book and how he wove the stories together. I thought the climax of the book, the landing at the island of Kuralei, was especially moving. As Michener’s narrator surveys the littered beaches littered with the dead and the detritus of battle the full horror of war is revealed. It is really a shame that this book has been omitted from most “best read” lists in academic circles. One can only speculate why. Perhaps because the musical followed so closely upon the book’s release. It definitely deserved better. I am glad I finally found it.

Elder/Staff Retreat Part Two

2009-05-19T00:02:00.009-04:00

Our Elder/Staff retreat held this past weekend was about as good as it could possibly be. I could definitely sense the prayers people were praying for the weekend. When I got home Saturday night I told Donna (my wife) that I honestly could not imagine a single thing about the retreat that could have been better. Everyone came. Everyone participated. No one held anything back. We all shared our life stories, including our personal testimony. Everyone had read the Simple Church book and done their homework in advance. Our staff was prepared with exciting well-done reports on their ministries and plans for the future. There was plenty of laughter, tears, good food, great worship, and amazing fellowship (including a few odd bed-partners, but that's another post for another day).

Things we accomplished:

- We thoroughly went over Clarity - Movement - Alignment - and Focus from the Simple Church book. We know our work is cut out for us; mainly in properly communicating the "why" we need to do this to our congregation. As Vicki Eitel reminded us, Jesus never said anyone "had" to do anything. But "if" one wants certain things to happen then he or she "must" make certain changes or do certain things. We need to make our process crystal clear to everyone and in time, hopefully it will become a part of our church's DNA.

- Our staff leaders gave overviews of their respective areas including their mission, lens, target audience, and what constitutes a "win" for them.

- We raised the commitment level for leadership at NewSong by agreeing on what is expected of a "Level One Leader."

- We simplified our organizational structure so everything we do fits under the "Five Things We Do at NewSong" These five are: Weekend Worship, Small Groups, Missions, Youth, and Children. Existing ministries that do not "fit" will be phased out as an act of stewardship of our resources and faithfulness to God and His mission through us.

- We reduced our number of leaders from over 50 this year (2008-09) to less than half that number for the upcoming ministry year (2009/10). We also came up with a concensus list of leader candidates to fill those positions.

- We decided we will handle our ministry sign-ups differently this year (in August). We will still have sign-ups but we will try to have many people already recruited and signed up by ministry team leaders relationally.

- During the chapter reviews from Simple Church and the staff reports we kept a running list of significant changes we have recently made (or will make soon). These include:

1) Worship (Love) as our "Front Door" at NewSong. This is part of our new evangelistic focus, which is our number one strategic ministry priority in 2009. Our services are now being designed and targeted more towards non-believers so when our members invite their unbelieving friends, relatives and neighbors they will be able to more easily connect to God. We believe we can do this and still satisfy existing believers' needs for engaging worship and relevant, biblical teaching. What believers miss out on in "depth" in worship they will now get in their small groups.

2) Small Groups will become our main discipleship (Grow) vehicle, rather than traditional Sunday School. True life change happens best in small groups which will hopefully all eventually meet in the more intimate setting of a home rather than in sterile classrooms. Besides, we have many more homes available to us at NewSong than we do classrooms. We are planning a church-wide small group emphasis in the fall built around Saddleback's "40 Days of Love" campaign where we hope to launch 10-12 small groups.

3) In Missions (Share) our focus going forward will be "to serve Christ so others see him." We we will no longer artificially divide this area between "ministry" (inside the church) and "missions" (outside the church) but instead will focus on doing everything for Christ so that those we are serving will see Him in our service. We believe you can hand someone a worship guide, or prepare refreshments, or operate a sound board as though you are doing it for Christ Himself. Doing so would constitute a "win" for us in this area.

4) In our Children's Ministry our focus will be on developing a parent-church partnership to help our children come to know God instead of parents simply taking their children to church for the church to teach them "about" God. A win in this area would be when the families in our church are intentional about teaching biblical truths in their home on a daily basis.

5) One final noticeable difference will be an emphasis on being intentionally relational in our worship, grow groups and recruiting for our share ministries. This is a shift from our former "warm body" method where we were just looking at numbers, having multiple ministries, filling slots and always having impersonal sign-up sheets in the back. Strong churches are built on solid, godly, peer relationships. We plan to take full advantage of the strong relational ties that already exist at NewSong and to strengthen them further.

NewSong Elder/Staff Retreat

2009-05-14T15:13:00.004-04:00

Well, tomorrow we are off for our Elder/Staff retreat for NewSong Church. So far all our staff members and Elders are attending - that is eleven of us. I am very excited at this opportunity to synchronize our efforts by clarifying, aligning, and focusing in our mission as a church. One of our four strategic ministry priorities for 2009 is what we called “Empowering Leadership” and is about expanding our leadership base. This is critical in order for us to move from being essentially a single cell church with me at the center to being a multi-celled church with multiple points of entry and several leaders as hubs for people to latch onto.

Church leadership gurus call where we are the “Shepherd-Rancher” threshold. It's an indisputable fact that the leadership style that works well with a church of 35-50 people will most likely hinder the growth of a church with 150-200. The little church pastor knows everybody, does all the praying, all the baptizing, all the teaching, and becomes a bottleneck for growth at some point because everything has to be run by him or her. He or she is the only one who knows everyone else in the church, and this person ends up with his hand in everything that happens at the church. The problem is there is a limit to how many people one person can personally shepherd. As the church grows the pastor must change roles from “Shepherd” to “Rancher.” The Rancher helps oversee the farm, mainly through under-Shepherds.

We have been at the threshold where this needs to be addressed for some time now at NewSong. The time has come for me to be more “hands off;” I must learn to delegate more, trusting the people to make what needs to happen transpire. The “sheep” for the pastor become the leaders he/she is mentoring and equipping for ministry. While shepherding only a few, they continue to serve as rancher to the entire flock.

Can we make this transition at NewSong? My experience has been that not too many pastors are able to do this. Most of the fault for this lies with the leader who is unable or unwilling to give up the responsibility and authority they presently have. But the people in the church who are not willing to be unselfish enough to let their pastor’s leadership style change share in the blame for this as well.

Theologically and practically most of us recognize it is not good for people to look exclusively to one person, a pastor, for all their spiritual guidance, answers, and leadership. The same Spirit that rested on Christ came down on all believers at Pentecost. On the flip side, it is also unhealthy for pastors to lose touch with their people and begin treating the congregation like widgets or numbers. Pastors can never let themselves become so “hands off” that they don’t know what is going on in the church. A disengaged leader can be disastrous.

Ideally, a pastor would be able to adopt a different style to match the different phase of development of the congregation. He or she should be find a way to grow along with the church. This assumes the pastor wants to stay, of course, which I want to do at NewSong. Flexibility on the part of the pastor and a willingness to continue to expand on the part of the church are the keys. A leader who feels he or she cannot adopt a different style as the church grows should recognize this and find a new church where his or her leadership style is needed. Likewise, the congregation that is plateaued or declining must decide if they want to be unselfish enough to grow, or if they want to remain comfortable where they are. A word of caution: Biblically-speaking such a congregation (one that opted for "comfortable") would be standing on shaky ground.

Book Review: In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick

2009-05-12T15:40:00.004-04:00

This National Book Award winner recounts the tragic shipwreck of the whale ship Essex and her crew and is the true story that that inspired Herman Melville’s epic novel, Moby Dick. Just a few years after the Essex was wrecked, Melville was working aboard a whaling ship in the Pacific when he had a chance encounter with one of the Essex’s survivor's sons. After receiving a copy of the father's narration of the disastrous voyage, Melville was moved to write Moby Dick.

The Essex left Nantucket, Massachusetts in 1819 on a two-and-a-half-year voyage in the whaling grounds of the South Pacific. On the morning of November 20, 1820 the ship was attacked in a remote area of the Pacific by an 85 foot long sperm whale. The ship sank and her 20 crewmen escaped in three 25-foot poorly provisioned whale boats. The crew was adrift for three months in the Pacific and had to fight the elements, thirst and starvation.

If you like survival tales you will absolutely love this book. Philbrick did a great job researching the story (he lives in Nantucket) and, adventure-wise, it reads every bit as good as Melville’s thriller. Ironically Mellville’s story ends when the whale sinks the ship. In Philbrick’s account, the story is just beginning when the whale appears.

A word of warning, this book is not for the squeamish; the author thoroughly researched how people die of starvation and thirst and spares none of the details including the cannibalism that followed the shipwreck and such esoteric information as how much “meat” can be harvested from the average human body (65 pounds). But do not let that keep you from reading this excellent book. Philbrick brilliantly captures what it must have felt like drifting for months in one of the small lifeboats wondering if you are going to survive. The author also marries great history lessons about nineteenth century whaling with tales of man and the at sea, racism, Quakerism, navigation, seamanship, and leadership. I especially appreciated the author’s careful examination of the different leadership styles exemplified by the ship’s captain George Pollard and his first mate, Owen Chase. Writing in the Penguin Reading Guide to this book Philbrick comments on the Captain’s leadership:

“Pollard was certainly unlucky, but he also had difficulty asserting his will upon the crew. Pollard was a first-time captain and seemed hesitant to overrule his subordinates. In just about every situation, his instincts were correct, but he inevitably allowed himself to be talked out of his convictions by his two mates, Owen Chase and Matthew Joy. As leadership psychologists will tell you, a leader, particularly in a survival situation, must make decisions firmly and quickly. Pollard was too much of a Hamlet.”

If you enjoyed books like Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm or Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air you will enjoy this book as well. Of course you can also wait until the book is made into a movie. According to Variety a movie based on the book should head into production sometime this year. Just remember; a movie is never as good as the book it is based upon.

Leigh's Graduation

2009-05-10T20:10:00.004-04:00

This short video is of our daughter Leigh receiving her diploma for her Bachelor of Arts Degree at Berry College in Rome, GA on Saturday, May 9, 2009. We are very proud parents!

Big Weekend

2009-05-08T19:00:00.004-04:00

This is a huge weekend for the Jackson family. My daughter Leigh is graduating from Berry College in Rome, Ga. We are so proud of her. Leigh has done great in school. She already has a job too! Leigh enrolled and finished her senior year at Georgia State in Atlanta. She is getting also getting married on June 6th. We are so excited for her and for her fiancé John Harper. Way to go Leigh! We love you dear!

Wow, it is funny how time catches up to you. I remember graduating from college myself; it seems like just yesterday (University of Georgia, 1978). I had no idea what I really wanted to do when I graduated. Donna and I were already married. I worked at the Athens YMCA. I had three job offers upon graduating. My three choices were: Delta airlines as a “Junior Accountant,” Georgia Federal Savings and Loan as a bank teller, or Northside Realty in their commercial real estate division. I chose Northside Realty because I believed I could get to the top quickest with them. It did not work out that way, but God had His own plan. Donna took a job teaching at Headland High School in East Point, Georgia and we bought a 750 square foot house on Romain Way in East Point for $15,000 and we were on our way! Wow, that was a long time ago.

Back to the present day: My daughter Amy got back from Thailand and India last night. It is nice to have all our offspring on American soil again. Sounds like she had a fantastic time. She comes home to Georgia on May 31st. We can't wait to see her.

I broke down and bought a new digital camera today since we have so much coming up with the graduation and wedding. I gave our Nikon digital camera to Amy the last time she was in Georgia because her camera broke. Buying a new camera was a very difficult choice; I did a ton of research and finally settled on a Canon SD 790 IS – a “point-and-and shoot” digital camera. It is amazing how difficult the simplest thing can be today. There were a million choices.

It is also Mother’s Day weekend. I have a great mom. I also have a great wife who is the mom to my own children. I even have a pretty cool mother-in-law. I guess I am a lucky guy in that. Everyone is coming over to our house for Mother’s Day. We are privileged to honor all the moms and we’ll have at least seven moms at our house that day – what a joy!

May God bless you this weekend – He is so good!!!

P.S. I will be pretty busy this weekend, not too sure how often I will get to blog....

Defriended!

2009-05-07T08:44:00.005-04:00

It is a cruel world out there. A few days ago I got “defriended” on Facebook. I didn't know you could even do that. Turns out you are not actually notified when someone defriends you. You simply notice you are no longer seeing any updates from that person in your newsfeed (especially if they were a heavy Facebook user). That’s what happened with me. I realized I hadn’t seen anything from ___________ in a while so I tried to go to their Facebook page and it said, “Add as friend.” I had been defriended!

I did a little research on the topic and discovered the concept is so new the jury is still out on whether the word “defriend” should be hyphenated or not. Here is the entry for "defriend" in the Urban Dictionary.

Ending friendships face-to-face is difficult and awkward enough. So far no one is quite sure of the etiquette of how to do it properly. Most of the time out in the “real world” we simply ignore certain individuals we want to defriend and, over time, the friendship fades away. We rarely make public pronouncements (e.g. “I’m no longer your friend”), and so unlike online defriending there is seldom a single action that indicates it is over. Online, of course, we can do it swiftly and easily, by selecting the option, “Remove from Friends.” There’s no need for an explanation. It’s all over in a single click.

Of course sometimes defriendings are not about actually ending friendships. A defriending may not have anything to do with anger or lack of interest in the person being defriended, or passive-aggressive behavior. Instead it may be about lives that are changing where the person being defriended is no longer a part of your social circle. For instance, people move away, get divorced, change jobs, sue one another, change political views, and other tastes change. In short, people change and life situations change so our relationships change. There are plenty of reasons for defriending. I read where one woman had an uncomfortable defriending episode where she felt the need to defriend someone she barely knew that insisted on continually sharing far too much private information about their personal lives publicly.

Bottom line, for now there does not seem to be a way to defriend without the implied insult that goes with it. I am sure over time this will change. But for now – to the party that defriended me – no hard feelings!

Bible Translations

2009-05-05T20:33:00.004-04:00

Someone recently asked me what translation of the Bible I like the best. Of course I would like to have replied that I only read the Bible in the original languages, but that, of course, is not true. Actually, one of the greatest things about Christianity in the last 30 years or so is all the different translations now available for people to read. When I was a child you basically had two choices, the King James Bible or the Revised Standard Version. I realize other versions were available back then, but not widely. As time went on other versions came out and became available including the Good News Bible, the Living Bible, the New International Version, the New American Standard, the Amplified Bible, and more. Nowadays there are hundreds of versions available – something that occurred basically in one generation (from me to my kids) which is pretty incredible and absolutely wonderful.

But back to the question I was asked (above); wow that is a tough one. Rather than answer it outright let me just make a few unrelated statements about Bible versions.

The Bible I read most often is the New International Version (NIV). The NIV is considered an “open” style translation and is a good, easy to read version. It is the version of preference for some 65% of evangelical leaders according to the Zondervan website (Zondervan publishes the NIV). It is also the best-selling Bible today.

I read the Bible through at least once every year and have since the early nineties. I generally alternate versions each year as I read. Sometimes I read straight through, other years I follow a reading plan. My current reading plan includes an OT reading, a NT reading, a Psalm and a Proverb each day. I am reading the NIV this year, I read the English Standard Version (ESV) last year. The ESV, published by Crossway Bibles, is an “essentially literal” translation (word-for-word versus thought-for-thought”) that I really enjoyed and currently read probably third in line behind the NIV and the NRSV (below).

The Bible I use for Bible study and sermon preparation most often is the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). The NRSV is generally recognized in academic circles (seminaries) as the most accurate in terms of unbiased scholarly renderings. All my Bible professors in seminary used the NRSV and most of my higher-level commentaries and other Bible tools are based on this translation.

While studying and preparing to preach or teach I also refer frequently to terms in the passage I am covering in the original language. This is easy to do now that there are tools available online to do so. This allows you to see the various meanings of certain terms the translators chose from when selecting an English word to use in a certain instance. Often a key to when to do this is when the versions I am reading a text in all vary on one particular word.

The first Bible I read cover to cover was the Living Bible. The Living Bible is a paraphrased rendition of the King James Version done by Kenneth Taylor in 1971. It is not a genuine translation, but is a type of phrase-by-phrase commentary that was originally intended to help Taylor's own children understand the scriptures. It is easy and enjoyable to read, but for serious Bible study it should only be used in conjunction with a legitimate translation.

A popular equivalent of the old Living Bible today would be The Message by Eugene Peterson. I find The Message often expresses things in "street language" that people can relate to but when I use it I usually read the passage in a legitimate translation first, then use The Message to help people relate to the passage.

Study Bibles are fine, but I get concerned when I see people study and highlight the study notes more than the actual text of the Bible. People should only refer to study notes after studying the text themselves to see what God has to say to them in the passage.

I mark up my Bibles freely. I also put notes in the margins, dates when I preached or taught a text, and more. I do not have an official system for this, or certain colored markers or anything (as some people do). I just jot things down as the Spirit moves me.

I also find myself referring to “large print” Bibles a little more frequently than I used to, I wonder what that is all about?

There are many excellent online Bible sites where you can view, study, print out, and compare hundreds of versions. Some of the websites I use most frequently are:

The Bible Gateway: http://www.biblegateway.com/

The Online Greek Interlinear: http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/Greek_Index.htm

The Online Parallel Bible: http://bible.cc/

The Net Bible: http://net.bible.org/home.php

The Crosswalk Bible: http://bible.crosswalk.com/

Which Bible should you choose? I generally suggest that after reading parts of several versions, people would do well to zero in on a primary version to use to study and commit passages to memory from. The issue of translations should not become a distraction. Factors in your decision might include what your personal reading level is and what kind of reading you are intending to mostly do (devotional, pure Bible study, lesson preparation, inspiration, what?). You also might want to consider whether you are seeking a literal translation or one that provides a thought-for-thought presentation. Do you prefer the beautiful cadences of the King James Version, the widely accepted and respected New International Version, the very readable and contemporary New Living Translation, or the scholarly New Revised Standard Version? Each translation has the power to transform your life. Though the actual words may differ, the voice of God can speak to you through each one. The real question is: how will you respond to God's voice as He speaks to you from the pages of this life-changing book?

Book Review: The Pearl

2009-05-04T21:37:00.004-04:00

Tonight I read a classic, The Pearl, by John Steinbeck. As I got into the tale I realized I had read it before, probably in high school, but nevertheless it is a great book by an outstanding writer, especially in his attention to detail and symbolism.

In the story, a young couple named Kino and Juana live in a poor Mexican fishing village with their only child, a baby named Coyotito. The baby is stung by a scorpion and the family becomes desperate for the town doctor to help them. But the doctor refuses to help the poor villagers because they cannot pay. The couple goes out collecting pearls from the bottom of the sea as they do every day and as luck would have it (or as “something” would have it) they find a great pearl, the “pearl of the world.”

Word of the couple’s find spreads like wildfire in the small village, even reaching the doctor, who is now more than glad to help and who tricks them into thinking they still need his remedy even though the baby was recovering fine.

Suddenly this young couple has the world open up before them as never before possible. For a brief moment there seems to be a chance to break out of centuries of poverty and predictability in their family and village, but also just as suddenly, the world becomes a dark and ominous place for the couple as they deal with unscrupulous pearl buyers and multiple unknown parties trying to steal the pearl buried in the dirt floor of the couple’s grass hut.

The plot thickens and fills to overflowing with adventure, fear, murder, and revenge. Steinbeck packs a lot of story into a this short "novella sized" book. And there is so much symbolism: the European doctor and all that he stands for, the gulf, the “songs” Kino and Juana hear (of ‘family’ and ‘evil),’ and of course, there is the symbolism of the pearl itself. One thing I enjoyed most was watching how the images Kino and others see when they gaze into the pearl change over time. It goes from being the most beautiful pearl in the world where Kino sees a bright future for himself and his family, “things Kino’s mind had considered in the past and had given up as impossible” (pg. 24) to being “ugly…gray, like a malignant growth” (pg. 89).

In keeping with his other works, the ending of The Pearl is unpredictable. Without giving too much away, suffice it to say the story certainly would not be categorized as a “feel-good” tale. The book does leave you with lots to think about however; and that, after all, is the mark of a great book. Read it, you'll enjoy it.

Days of Small Beginnings

2009-05-04T10:25:00.006-04:00

Some days I wake up and everything about planting a church seems overwhelming. We have been at it for nine years now at NewSong and we’re still averaging less than 200 people in worship on any given weekend. Each week it seems like we have to reinvent the wheel about some facet of our service as though it has never been done or thought of before. Even the simplest things, which should have been worked out years ago, still cause us to stumble around as though we are caught unawares or unprepared.

I recognize church-planters don’t have a monopoly on discouragement. Anyone can get discouraged. The hill looks too high to climb. The ditch seems too broad to jump. The odds seem too overwhelming. The finish line seems too far off to even matter.

The book of Zechariah tells us that this is exactly how some of God’s people felt as they went about a task that seemed too big and too difficult for them to accomplish. Zechariah, a prophet of God, was with his fellow Israelites back in Jerusalem after the temple Solomon had built was destroyed.

The Israelites had already rebuilt the walls around the city, but the rebuilding of the temple was still incomplete even after many years of fits and starts. Zechariah struggled to encourage the people to get the temple rebuilt, but progress was slow. The work was inconsistent, and the people’s motivation seemed to come and go. Inner discouragement hindered their ability to consistently follow through with a slow-and-steady building plan. They wanted their efforts to produce more immediate, noticeable, "bigger" results. Boy does that sound familiar!

In the midst of these events, God asks, “Does anyone dare despise this day of small beginnings?” (Zech. 4:10). The question reveals the cause of the Israelites’ discouragement: impatience and short-sightedness. The truth of the matter is, as we have known since the days of Aesop, “slow and steady wins the race.” Building a church involves far more slow, “tortoise” days than fast, “hare” ones. The perception that all you need to do is to get a good praise band together and some cool media and you’ll be the next Northpoint in six months time is simply not true. In fact, the statistics that are regularly quoted indicate that 80 percent of church plants don’t even survive their first year. Church-planting is a day-in, day-out, “grind it out” undertaking. Church-planting is a “two steps forward and one step back” proposition. Church-planting is not for the faint of heart or the weary of step.

And so today I choose to refuse to despise these our days of small beginnings. Today I commit to stay at the wheel, believing our small beginnings will someday produce a great ending. I will choose to hold on to God’s Word even when it seems as though what we’re doing is not making

Book Review: Same Kind of Different as Me

2009-05-03T20:39:00.003-04:00

Same Kind of Different as Me, by Ron Hall and Denver Moore, was recommended to me by my friend Doug Davis. I mentioned the book to Donna and she said we were already on the waiting list to get it from the public library. I couldn’t wait to read it so I went out and bought it.

The book is the true story (the best kind!) of an angry, black homeless man, Denver Moore, and his unlikely friendship with a wealthy international art dealer, Ron Hall, who came together when Hall’s wife insisted she and her husband volunteer to serve food once a week at a homeless shelter in Forth Worth, Texas. What begins as a grudging trip to please his wife turns into a deep and fruitful relationship between two disparate characters. The story is told from the perspective of the two main characters, Moore and Hall, as they alternate chapters giving their perspective on a series of events.

I do not want to give away too much of the story here so I will not. My only criticism of the book is that Hall comes across a bit self-indulgent and “holier-than-thou” in a few places. But he seems to recognize that, and it actually turns out to be part of the storyline.

This is a story of deep pain, but also one of incredible redemption. The story is awe-inspiring and hopeful. I highly recommend the book though I must admit I cried a few times while reading it. In the end the book demonstrates – as the title implies – that while we are all different, we all have something in common as well; the “same kind of different as me.”

It Don't Come Easy

2009-04-30T19:50:00.003-04:00

Some weeks the Sunday sermon comes easily. Other weeks, well….it’s tough. This week has been one of those tough weeks for me. I have probably already invested over ten hours of time in a twenty-five minute sermon and I’m still not sure exactly what I’m going to say. That is ridiculous. Worse, I am not really quite sure why it happens. I suppose there are a variety of reasons. Some weeks it is because the text I believe I am supposed to preach is a difficult one. Other weeks there is stuff going on in my own life or in the life of my church which makes preaching like walking through a minefield; every step must be taken gingerly. Some weeks my well is just dry; my creative gauge is on zero, especially after I have been preaching for 6-8 weeks straight without a break.

More often than not the problem is what is called “paralysis by analysis.” I read, meditate, and pray over a text so long that it starts saying a whole bunch of stuff to me; far more than I could ever cover in one sermon. Then there are the times I find myself thinking more about how to actually present the sermon, worrying about my illustrations, PowerPoint slides, etc…more than the content of the message itself. Tons of stuff is going on between my two ears, but little of it will actually make it out of my mouth come Sunday.

Usually when I get in these modes I do one of two things. I do a brain dump and write down everything I am thinking (usually pages worth) and then I eventually get on a track that I can sustain and which is logical and comprehensible. The other thing I do when I get “stuck” is I just get up and walk away from the task for a while. These times I believe God is telling me I'm just not ready to write the sermon yet. When I come back to the task, usually after sleeping on it, it comes into focus more clearly.

The Bible is a great book and its depths will never be fully plumbed by preachers; not in a million years. Still, crafting 45-48 sermons worth listening to a year is a daunting task. I thank God for His inspiration and pray He will always find me a willing vessel.

I Love My Church

2009-04-28T22:29:00.003-04:00

I love my church - I mean the people. I know this sounds weird on the heels of last night's late-night post (this one is even later!). But tonight at the Christian Life and Witness class at FBC Cumming, NewSong had what had to be the largest group there (except for FBC) I'm certain of that. The people who were there really care about lost people. People at our church are hungry for Jesus - and hungry for God's Word. I sat next to Michael Smith and he spent the whole time underlining every verse the speaker mentioned. Michael also handed me his "counselor" application before the event was even over. He is ready to help someone come to Jesus! I'm excited about what God is going to do in Forsyth County and at NewSong through this event. I love NewSong. I love my job. I love the Lord Jesus.

Yes, pride is a sin - but I confess it. I was proud tonight; proud of my brothers and sisters in Christ. All of them, from all 25 churches that were there - God bless you!

Devote Yourself

2009-04-27T21:53:00.005-04:00

Okay, it's 10pm on Monday night and I'm tired from a long day (but a great one!) and it is time now to sit down and consider what to write for my newsletter article which is due tomorrow, but before I do that I want to blog. I'm enjoying blogging more than newsletter writing lately...I don't know why, I am confident not many people are reading this - but it doesn't matter.

At any rate, one of the ways I prime my creative pump is by reading other blogs, especially ones by other pastors. I made my usual round tonight (you can see the ones I read on the right side of my blog, further down). But... (boy this is taking a long time to get to my point)...But... I ran across something by Pastor Steven Furtick tonight that really struck me as important. I don't particularly like Steven Furtick to be totally honest. He didn't make a favorable impression on me when he spoke at a Catalyst event I attended last October (boy, here I go again digressing....) But to make a long story short (ha ha) - what Furtick said resonated with me. I've got it below with a few comments interspersed and with my own take on a few things he covered.

Furtick reminds us that in Acts 2, 3000 people were converted to faith in Christ in one day and became believers. Acts 2:42 begins the description of the strategy for discipling this bunch of new Christians:

"They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer."

Did you catch it? They devoted themselves. Who devoted themselves? The new believers did! Nobody devoted them to the teaching. They had to do it for themselves. The apostles did the teaching - they laid it out for the people - but burden of discipleship rested primarily on the new believers, not the leaders of the church.

The job of church leaders is to create and sustain processes and systems that responsibly enable people to grow in their faith after receiving Christ. At NewSong this is the LOVE, GROW, SHARE process. But if a new Christian (or even existing ones) are not willing to devote themselves to teaching, community, and service, this does not mean the pastor or leaders of the church have failed in discipling them. It could be any number of things. For instance it might mean the person is not a truly regenerated born again believer. The speaker talked about that at the Christian Life and Witness Class tonight. There are plenty of people who sit in a pew every Sunday that "know all the verses but don't know HIM." They don not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. A new nature should produce an insatiable appetite for the things of God. And that’s an appetite only God can create - not me, or Jordan, or Griffin, or McKenzi, or Justin, or our Elders.

I think if I hear one more person say they left "thus-and-so" church because they "weren't being fed" I'm going to throw up (my comment). Biblical discipleship is not about spoon feeding people. According to Acts 2:42, it’s an all you can eat self-service buffet where you get your own plate, refill your own drinks, and you clean up after yourself (Furtick).

Devote yourself!

Come Together

2009-04-26T21:33:00.003-04:00

I went to a Christian Life and Witness class tonight at First Baptist of Cumming. The event was led by a representative of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. It was great. It was even greater to see so many believers from so many churches come together in one place. There are 24 churches in our local community coming together for an evangelism event that will be held in September. It has been amazing to see us all come together under the banner of Jesus and tonight was the best yet; Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, non-denominational churches like ours, and others all together for the same reason – to win people to Christ.

At one point the speaker asked everyone to call out the name of their church on the count of three. The result was a cacophony of noise; some names were short, others long, but you could not make out any single one. Then he asked us to call out the name of the Savior on the count of three. The result was a clear and resounding JESUS!! – our voices became one. What a great illustration about what can happen when we put aside our differences and come around him instead of remaining isolated and divided in our little “tribes.”

Lord, help us to see this issue the way you see it… Amen.

Book Revew: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

2009-04-24T22:15:00.003-04:00

I just finished A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. What a struggle to read! I don’t know why I have this thing about finishing every book I start, but I do. It is as if there is some great ghost professor somewhere who has assigned me any book I pick up to read; somehow I feel like failing to complete a book I start means that I am a failure. I read a lot of classics so sometimes when I find a book difficult or boring, I research the story, either online or in a couple of books I own. Then I just charge on through it; at least after reading the summary I know what I am reading and why it is supposed to be so important. That is exactly what I did with this 246 page book. I knew about 20 pages in it was going to be a tough read, but I carried on. Why I'll never really know.

James Joyce is one of modern literature's most important authors, yet I’m not alone in finding his work difficult to grapple with. The main character of this book, Stephen Dedalus, in my mind is a highly flawed person with a very sad life. He has problems with bullies, with people who do not understand him or like him, sexual issues, “mommy and daddy” issues, teacher issues, spiritual issues, and more. Life for Stephen appears to be a random succession of cruelty, isolation, injustice and anger. He only finds escape through a few short-lived personal victories, most of which he later regrets deeply.

The way you learn all this is from inside the main character’s head. Using a stream of consciousness technique, Joyce presents the thoughts, impressions, emotions and reminiscences of his protagonist, often disregarding their logical sequence. This is intended to mirror the complexities of the subconscious mind. The book is also highly autobiographical. Joyce, like Dedalus, grew up a Catholic, and even studied briefly for the priesthood before renouncing his faith at age twenty spending the rest of his life living in Paris, Trieste, Rome, and Zurich as a poet and a writer.

Metaphorically speaking (and you can’t read a classic without speaking metaphorically!), the book is a proto-typical coming of age story. It is about how to forge your own identity and to make your own way. Like Icarus (son of Dedalus in the Greek myth) the reader watches as Stephen tries to fabricate wings of his own so he can fly above the tribulations of his life and establish his own life elsewhere. In doing so he rebels against the religious beliefs he inherited, his family and friends, and the deeper, and more complex struggles he faces in society as a whole. He concludes that if he is ever going to find his true soul (in his case, the soul of an artist), he must sever all bonds of faith, family, and country and then spread his wings and go follow his dream.

To be honest with you, I do not recommend this book unless you want to be confused and depressed – or, unless someone assigns it to you to read like my “ghost professor.”

Ramsey Right On

2009-04-23T22:05:00.004-04:00

I attended Dave Ramsey’s Town Hall for Hope simulcast tonight at NewSong – I’ll probably be the first guy around to blog about it because I had to leave before the event was completely over. At any rate, I heard what he had to say, in the inimitable way only Dave can say it, and he was totally right on.

What he said in a nutshell was that things are not nearly as bad as people (mainly the media) are making them out to be. A big part of the economic problem is fear, which he reminded us means False Evidence Appearing Real. With a ton of statistics he obviously had available on over-sized monitors Ramsey occasionally glanced down at he pointed out that the current economic situation is not even as bad as the Great Depression in the thirties. In fact, he said, it is not even the worst recent recession we have had; statistically speaking the ones in 73-74 and 82-84 were worse. Of course, “worse” is relative if it is you that are being impacted personally. Ramsey also really took on Washington. He bashed both the Bush cabinet which he said decided to “bail out stupid,” and the Obama cabinet who he pointed out has decided to “stimulate stupid.” Ramsey also gave an economic history/theory lesson as he contrasted Keynesian Economics (John Maynard Keynes) with those of Milton Friedman. No surprise that Ramsey came down on the Friedman side of that equation.

The “hope” we have, economically speaking, according to Ramsey is capitalism and the American consumer. He believes if government will stop “interfering” with the free market and if we as consumers will stop spending what we don’t have and begin taking personal responsibility for our actions, our economic ship will ultimately right itself. For our part (consumers), what we need to do most is to learn how to say (and listen to) the small word “NO.” He was referring to our strong appetite for immediate gratification and our short-sighted financial planning.

Investment-wise, Ramsey was promoting real estate (buyers’ market, and interest rates at 50 year lows) and the stock market (profitable in every 15 year segment since forever ago). As for inflation, he feels it will probably grow, especially if the government continues its suicidal spending plan. The best way to deal with inflation, he argued, is to invest in things that will rise with inflation such as real estate. He also took a shot at those who promote investing in gold stating it is practically at an all-time high due to panicked investors. As for banks, Ramsey said he prefers local community banks and credit unions where he can talk to a real person. As for stocks, he prefers growing, sound companies who have a culture of excellence like Wal-Mart, McDonalds, and Dell Computers (to mention a few stocks he referenced).

All in all it was a very informative and entertaining evening. I’m glad I went and I left feeling more hopeful, which I suppose was the purpose of the event. Kudos at NewSong go to Chuck Braddock, our “go-to” guy when it comes to Dave Ramsey, who spent hours getting everything set up just right (with an assist from Michael Smith). Also, I have got to brag on my homeboy Justin – thanks for working closely with Chuck to help us all enjoy a good event.

Birds

2009-04-20T19:45:00.004-04:00

Have I mentioned I’m a birder? No? Well, I am, sort of. By that I mean I’m not a “gung ho” kind of birdwatcher who travels great distances to see birds, or who spends hours behind binoculars watching for birds at home, or even one who spends a lot of money and time trying to attract birds to their yard. Basically what I mean is I enjoy watching them and trying to see how many different kinds of birds pass through our yard as the seasons go by.

I have three bird feeders out now along with four hummingbird feeders. Regular visitors to my yard include the Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Carolina Chicadee, Tufted Titmouse, Northern Cardinal, Northern Flicker, Pileated Woodpecker, several species of Fly-catcher (they all look alike to me), Blue Jay, Brown Thrasher, American Crow, White-breasted Nuthatch, some kind of Wren (not sure if it’s a house wren or a Carolina wren), House Finch, American Goldfinch, Eastern Meadowlark, Robin, Eastern Bluebird, and the Mourning Dove. Oh, and of course, lots and lots of squirrels in my feeders!

The photo above is of a Barred Owl that hangs out around our house. In fact, there is more than one. We hear them fairly frequently. If you’d like to hear what an owl like this sounds like click HERE. This particular owl was sitting right behind our house on Sunday afternoon. I had been looking over at a feeder I put out on a limb just below where the owl was sitting when all of a sudden I noticed the owl. They are masters at camouflage. This guy sat there for at least 30 minutes and he kept falling asleep. I had time to go inside and get my camera and come out and take several photos of him. He did not seem to mind. Eventuallly he flew to the ground as if he was going to catch a mouse or something, but when he landed there wasn't anything there. He just flew down from the tree to the ground, swiveled his head around a few times, and then he flew off. I’m sure we'll see him again though, because like I said, we see and hear them fairly frequently.

We have had a few hummingbirds so far – but not too many. It’s a little early yet. In time we’ll have them fighting over the feeders we have situated around the house. I love to watch them set up their little territory and then bomb any intruder that tries to feed at “their” feeder. They are amazing little birds.

All in all, I feel close to God watching birds – actually I feel close to Him any time I’m out in nature. God is so creative and his creation so precious and beautiful!

Getting the Word Out

2009-04-18T20:55:00.003-04:00

Although I am relatively new to the whole blogging, Facebook, Twitter phenomenon I have obviously recently embraced the concept as a way to get the Good News about Jesus (and NewSong) out. Upon browsing other blog sites I noticed that other bloggers list their Facebook and Twitter accounts and I’m suspecting one reason they do so is so these links will be picked up and indexed by Internet search engines, especially the more often the links appear.

What and I trying to say? Well, the first place most people are going to turn to find out anything on the Internet is a search engine, most likely, Google. Thus by pointing a link or two at my blog, my Facebook account and my Twitter account I should generate more public listings on search engines, so here I (shamelessly) go.

Here is a link to Steve Jackson pastor of NewSong Community Church in Cumming, Georgia on blogspot and Steve Jackson pastor of NewSong Community Church in Cumming, Georgia on Facebook and Steve Jackson pastor of NewSong Community Church on Twitter.

Oh, I feel so cheap now! But hopefully in a little while a web crawler will be by to pick up those links and before long, voila, more people will find me, view my blog and my Facebook account and my Twitter account and discover all the absolutely astounding information that can be found there! :-)

It will be interesting to see if this works…

Brand Loyalty

2009-04-18T08:21:00.004-04:00

This past week I changed all the stuff I use on the Internet to Google from Yahoo. This shift took more time than I anticipated, but having completed the transition I am very happy with it. Among other things my web portal is now iGoogle, I’m using Google Calendar (which syncs with my Outlook calendar automatically), I have also added Google docs for the church Elders and staff to share and collaborate documents on, and I was already using Gmail.

As I made this transition I realized how I am usually very loyal when it comes to brands. Even though I love change in most instances, when it comes to changing brands of something, I’m slow to make changes. For some unknown reason to me, I choose a brand and then stick with it, seemingly for life. I am a Nike-Coke-Windows-Levis-Charmin-Starbucks-GM-Wesleyan-Browning-Dial-Colgate-NIV-Lipton-Sony kind of guy.

The whole issue of brands is an interesting one. Why do some people prefer Coke and others Pepsi? Why do some people drive GM cars while others prefer Ford? Why do some use Apple computers while others use Windows-based machines? Why are we so brand-intensive and brand-loyal? Why are we so quick to defend "our brand," or to tell others about it?

What makes us purchase the same brand time and time again when we have so much choice these days? And why do we “choose” certain athletes, movie stars, politicians, sports teams, and even friends and then stick with them so loyally – even, at times, when such loyalty is not warranted? I did a cursory search on this topic and discovered the issue has been the object of intense study. There are some very deep essays and even dissertations on the topic available on the Internet. Mostly, of course, by scholars and marketers who either love or hate brand loyalty, depending upon their share of the market.

I didn’t dig deep enough to find out much, but I did discover a few things. For one, brand loyalty is not necessarily about price or which product is actually best. We don’t choose our brands logically, we choose with our hearts. Reasons are varied but can be anything from catchy advertisements, or packaging, or the it being brand our parents always used, and a whole cluster of other reasons.

Loyalty was important and noted even in biblical times. Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” (Matthew 6:24 NIV) Attempting to serve two masters leads to “double-mindedness” (James 4:8), undermining loyalty to a cause. James 5:2.

Of course brand loyalty is important in my field, the church world. Why do people choose one church over another? I’m sure there are a million reasons (proximity, like or dislike of the preacher, the people, facilities, programs, and probably way down the line, the church's theology). My guess would be people choose churches in the same illogical and unexplainable ways they choose the other brands they choose.

What do you think?

Book Review: Here's the Story

2009-04-15T23:35:00.004-04:00

I stopped by the library with Donna recently and looked in the “new books” section and found the 2008 biography of Maureen McCormick titled Here’s The Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice. I love to read biographies and usually pick more, shall I say, "historical” characters, but I could not resist reading a book about one of the Brady Bunch. Because I’have always been a big Brady Bunch fan – I’have also probably seen every episode at least two or three times. At our house the girls have a running joke about me because they think my deep sayings often sound like Mr. Brady; things like, “You have to be a friend to have a friend, kids.”

But I digress; the book only takes a few pages to cover the “Brady” years. I believe Barry Williams wrote what is considered the definitive “Brady Bunch" book. Instead McCormick’s book is more of a personal memoir covering the ups and (honestly, mostly) downs of her life.

McCormick was born the same year as me, 1956, and grew up in Southern California (where she still lives with her husband and daughter today). She began her career at the tender age of six after winning the Baby Miss San Fernando Valley beauty pageant. She then appeared in numerous commercials for great sixties brands like Mattel Toys, Kool-Aid, and Mr. Bubble (to name a few). She also appeared in early episodes of some great sixties shows like Bewitched and My Three Sons before landing her role as Marcia Brady on The Brady Bunch, which aired in prime time from 1969 to 1974.

McCormick clearly had her share of troubles, especially after the show ended, and she writes candidly and courageously about them. It seems most child-actors end up going down the road of drug abuse, rehab and multiple marriages. Honestly though, McCormick seems to have had an even more difficult time than most. In addition to the usual stock of downfalls McCormick also survived depression, an eating disorder, and more. Of course, all this makes her more human, and thus easy in some ways to relate to. I could see how women my age who idolized Marcia Brady could gain a sense freedom in the fact that prim and perky Marcia Brady struggled like we all do.

After kicking her drug habit, McCormick battled depression, reconnected with her mother, whom she nursed through the end of her life, and then found herself in a pitched battle for her family with her weird brother. McCormick also chronicles her faith experiences in the book. She admits that she was “not an easy or quick convert” (pg. 146). She also recounts her conversion experience where she was walking down Westwood Boulevard in LA when, suddenly and without warning, she was thrown to the ground by God. Then she saw two hands reaching down from the sky towards her; “it was Jesus,” she said (pg. 148). After that McCormick began attending a Vineyard church, but she still seems like more a a seeker to me.

The “story” has a relatively happy ending, although not everything is resolved. What's more, since “Marcia” is still alive, her story continues. This biography is definitely worth reading. I consider it a good, but not great, read. Reading the book held my attention but I did not feel as though I lwas reading a barn-burner.

Easter 2009

2009-04-13T20:45:00.008-04:00

Easter Weekend 2009 at NewSong began on Friday night as a small crowd braved a tornado warning to attend a Good Friday service. Luckily we had John’s Creek Police Chief Ed Densmore with us who remained in constant radio contact with Fulton County authorities about the weather as we worshipped. We delayed our service about 30 minutes as we enjoyed time together downstairs in the church in a room with no windows. Then we went upstairs for the service. We had a great acoustic worship set led by Jordan C. and then just as I was wrapping up my comments we heard the tornado sirens start back up. Allison asked if we could do one more song at the end of the service and Ed responded, “Now might not be such a good time,” and we all scurried back downstairs. After another 20 minutes or so in the windowless room below we all headed for home.

Sunday’s sunrise service was amazing (the two photos in this post are from that service). By the time Amy and I arrived at 6:15am volunteers had everything well in hand. The chairs were all set up in the parking lot, the tables were being prepped and the food cooked by a bevy of volunteers led by Karen & Jesse Rivera and Dave Allen (thanks everyone!). The sun rose right on cue through purple and pink skies as the gorgeous wisteria vines covering the trees glowed in appreciation of the rising sun. We had about 75-80 Jesus-lovers who braved the 45 degree temps to honor our Lord. Thank-you Jesus!

After a sumptuous pancake, egg, sausage, bacon, and hash brown breakfast we finally we held our Easter Worship Celebration at 10:30am. Many of our members brought guests as requested, all our volunteers were “spot on” as they “served as if they were serving Jesus.” The praise band was rocking. There was an air of excitement in the air as we celebrated Jesus. As one staff member said, what happened today is a good example of what a “win” looks like at NewSong. I tried my best to bring the gospel and to make it plain and not churchy. I spoke on the hope that Jesus’ resurrection brings that is so much better than the hope the world offers. I did get slightly off track at the end and forget a simple acronym (BASE) but I covered well, making things up as I went. I also went off on a rabbit trail about “dead dog parties.” I suppose you had to be there to appreciate that. What can I say, I was excited. It was Easter!

Bottom line, we prayed that people would bring their friends, relatives, co-workers and neighbors to church. They did. We prayed that God would show up. He did. Were lives changed for eternity? I believe so. We may not see them right away; we might never get to see them ourselves. But I believe the Holy Spirit did His work and will continue to work in hearts that were exposed to God’s truth and His unfading and unfailing hope yesterday at NewSong.

Thank you NewSong Church for being faithful to invite others to hear about Christ! Through your commitment to our vision to see people who don’t know Christ get the opportunity to know Him, we have reason to celebrate! Let’s keep it going now. God is amazing and He certainly blessed us with an awesome Easter this year. All glory and honor to Him!

Book Review: The Principle of the Path

2009-04-11T10:01:00.005-04:00

I just finished Andy Stanley’s latest book, The Principle of the Path. I love this book. Stanley never ceases to amaze me at his ability to lay out deep spiritual truths in easy-to-understand ways. He does this in a way that makes you think, “How could I have missed that?” or, “How did he see that? I have read that passage a hundred times.”

The essence of this book is the “principle” Stanley wants to get across. Again, it is so simple, you wonder how come you haven’t picked up on it before. The 'Principle of the Path' says that the direction you are currently traveling – relationally, financially, spiritually, and so on – will determine where you end up in each of those respective areas. This principle is true regardless of your goals, your dreams, your wishes, or your wants. In other words, “The principle of the path trumps all these things. Your current direction will determine your destination” (pg. 15).

This principle explains why so many seemingly smart people – people with good intentions – often end up far from where they intended to be. They start out with a clear vision of where they want to be in five or ten years, but then they miss that destination by a mile. Why? Because the path they chose was not headed in that direction despite their best intentions. Stated positively, if you want to arrive at a certain destination, you must choose the right path. The problem, of course, is that we have a propensity for choosing paths that do not lead in the direction we say we want to go. This disconnect happens because “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). Most of us actually do know what is right and true, and honorable; the problem is we are not on what Stanley calls a “truth quest.” Instead we are on what he calls a “happiness quest.” We want to feel happy - now - and our quest for happiness often overrides our appreciation for what we know is true; what we know we should do. In our pursuit for immediate happiness we refuse to delay gratification for the greater good that will come later. The answer to this problem, Stanley says, is to pursue truth; to stare it right in the eye and then pursue it, because as Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).

The good thing about the principle of the path is that even though it often works to our detriment, it can also be leveraged to our advantage. Like the law of gravity it works all the time. That means just as there are paths that will led us to places we never intended to be, there are paths that will lead us away from those places as well – and paths that will lead us exactly where we want to go – the key is acknowledging the truth, and then getting on the right path to begin with; and then sticking to that path.

Most of the biblical wisdom in the book comes from Solomon and the book of Proverbs. Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived (besides Jesus) and much of his wisdom is written down for us in Proverbs. Like I said above, the great thing about Andy Stanley is he takes things a step or two deeper than many teachers and he really points out places of application where we can apply these truths. One of my favorite features of the book is the questions he suggests we ask ourselves along the way to analyze why we have chosen a particular path. Questions like, “Why am I doing this, really?” And, “If someone in my circumstances came to me for advice, what course of action would I recommend?” And, “In light of my past experience, my future hopes, and my dreams, what is the wise thing to do?” This last question is probably the best one of all.

My prayer is that the next time I find myself standing at a fork in the path I will use my head more than my heart and choose wisely. After all, the direction does determine destination, every time.

Thanks Andy!

Easter Eggs

2009-04-10T14:15:00.003-04:00

We've had fun today dying Easter eggs. Reminded me of when the girls were little and we did this every year.

My eggs were "interesting" colored.

Donna did the best egg - a dark red one.

Fun having everyone at home!

More later...

Great Day!

2009-04-09T19:49:00.003-04:00

We had a great day today. Donna and I picked up Amy at the Atlanta airport at 7:45am and then we came home and I made a batch of biscuits. Then we changed clothes and drove up to Amicalola Falls and did about a 3 mile hike. It was great. We cam home after that and rested a bit then I cooked out pork chops and steamed some vegetables on the grill.

Like I said, it was great, especially having Amy home a day earlier than we expected. It was wonderful for all four of us (me, Donna, Amy and Leigh) to sit down together for a meal tonight. I'm exhausted and stuffed from eating too much supper, but it's all been worth it!

Until Tomorrow!

Sermons "In the Barrel"

2009-04-08T13:32:00.005-04:00

In the old days preachers talked about having a sermon "in the barrel." That usually meant that after many years of preaching, he or she had written so many sermons they could always pull one out they had preached before, dust it off, update a few illustrations, and use it again. This was especially the case in the days when preachers moved to a new church every three or four years. They could pull out a whole bunch of "old" sermons and preach them again at their new church.

Personally, I've never had much luck recycling my sermons. I've tried, but either what I had to say the first time was not very good, or else what I said really just doesn't seem as applicable now as it did back then; so preaching from the barrel just doesn't work for me. To me, preaching is a moment in time where the text and the preacher and the congregation and the Holy Spirit all come together and something great happens (hopefully!).

I have begun to experience some interesting side effects of preaching for seventeen years however. When I decide on a text and start studying it, trying to discern what I believe God is saying in that particular text to our particular congregation, I often search on the Internet for ideas and illustrations to augment my own study. These searches are usually specific once I get an idea to preach on, for instance I'm preaching this Easter from 1 Peter 1:3-9 where Peter describes the basis of our hope as believers is Jesus Christ and his resurrection from the dead. The main idea of my message is how we need hope more than ever today and the hope we need is available to us through Jesus' resurrection and that hope is applied to our life when we place our faith in Him and become part of God's family. My search terms this week were something like, "sermon, 1 Peter 1:3, hope, resurrection." When I searched using those words I came across a link that looked very promising - whoever wrote the blurb my google search uncovered was really thinking like me. It was only when I got to the website where the quote came from that I realized the "guy" was me from a previous sermon I'd written. Ha ha... that guy isn't so smart after all.

Like I say, this is happening to me more and more. I suppose it's only normal too. I have hundreds of sermons online now and since we all have lenses through which we interpret Scripture, if you stick to a text long enough, and really pray through it, it only makes sense that what you find there would be similar to what you have previously discovered when studying that text.

So why not just preach the old sermon that's in the barrel to begin with? Well, like I said, the impressions God gives are often similar, but they are also usually different enough that you are really expressing a totally different thought or making a totally different point of application when preaching on the passage this time. Scripture is like that; it is so full of meaning and application.

The good news this Wednesday afternoon is that I have all three of my messages for this Easter weekend done! I'm preaching about the cross on Good Friday, specifically about one of Jesus' sayings from the cross: "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit" (Luke 23:46). At our Easter Sunrise service I'm preaching about the women going to the tomb to anoint Jesus' body and the disciples' odd reaction to the news from the women that "He is risen!" (Luke 24:6). And finally, I'm preaching the text I mentioned above from 1 Peter for the "main event," our 10:30am Easter worship celebration. The theme of that message is the hope Jesus' resurrection brings; it changes everything!

It is going to be a great Easter. My daughter Amy will be home from L.A., my church and I are going to invite a horde of unbelievers to worship this week, the weather is going to cooperate - and, most importantly, I am convinced God is going to show up in a big way. I can hardly wait!

I trust that each of you reading this are also looking forward to a joyous celebration of our Savior's resurrection this Sunday. May God grant you a meaningful Easter where His hope comes alive in you in new and powerful ways.

Recovered Post: Ups and Downs

2009-04-07T16:37:00.002-04:00

Here is the post from yesterday that I deleted this morning trying to get rid of a weird comment. On re-reading it I find I'm not as down this afternoon as I was last night when I wrote this; looks like God is winning the battle!

Ups and Downs

Posted Yesterday at 10:25pm

It has been one of those up and down kind of days.First, the “up” part: I was able to get my “Monday” stuff done at church today and even got my message ready for Good Friday. The message is a meditation on one of Jesus’ sayings from the cross: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” Luke 23:46. It was good to have some quality study time meditating on the cross. I hope to have more of these special times with God this week.

The down part is that I struggled with disappointment today over the small crowd we had on Sunday. I knew it was coming; spring break means we’re going to have lots of people out. But even though I was prepared for that, the crowd size disappointed me. I confess I have a unhealthy preoccupation with numbers. I know the true measure of success for every church is how well they are fulfilling their God-given mission. But still, when 22 families are out in a church our size it hurts.

God was good to me though. After church when I walked out to my car I noticed one of our communication cards stuck under my windshield wiper. A child had written on it, “Pastor Steve, You are appreciated and loved. Thanks for all you do." Thanks my young friend. And thanks God for the encouragement.

The lesson in all this, of course, is that it is God’s church and not mine (Matt. 16:18). Furthermore, the battle itself is the Lord’s, not mine (1 Samuel 17:45-47). It does not matter whether the battle is “out there” or “in here" (in me),” because the battle is the Lord’s. David knew that when he faced Goliath, Joshua knew it as he circled the walls of Jericho, and Peter and Paul knew it as they faced their challenges too.

Perhaps in this special week where God overcame even something as debilitating and as final as death, God can teach me and change me too.

Lord, hear my prayer.

Nevermind

2009-04-07T08:54:00.002-04:00

Nevermind on the "how to delete a comment" - I just discovered how.

Glad about that one!

Comments

2009-04-07T08:46:00.002-04:00

I blogged yesterday but had to take the post down because I got a really weird comment on it from some guy in Brazil and I don't know how to delete comments so I took the whole thing down.

Comments now have to be preapproved by me before they make it to my blog. I hate to take that measure, but I don't know any other way to do it. If someone out there knows how to delete comments once they've been made, I'd appreciate you helping me on that one!

Today is going to be a good day. We woke up to snow here in Cumming - amazing.

I am going to work on this weekend's messages. If you get this, be praying for me!

Steve

Weekend Fun

2009-04-05T19:27:00.003-04:00

We've had a great weekend. We enjoyed the warm temps yesterday and got all our hummingbird feeders out (4 of them). We have already seen a few hummingbirds!

Today we got our regular bird feeders up. We’re ready now for any kind of bird that might come by. Today I had to rescue a female cardinal that got trapped in our garage. I finally had to just grab her. Unfortunately she decided to bite me when I grabbed her. She didn’t break the skink, but wow, it really hurt! She pinched a blood blister on my finger.

We also had a good day at church. Our crowd was down due to Spring Break; but we were not off that much. Donna and I were going to head to Highlands for a few days, but the cold temps that are forecast for the next few days have caused us to stick close to home. We’ll have a fine time here though; and we’ll be even more ready for Easter.

God is Good!

Book Review: Crazy Love

2009-04-04T08:56:00.003-04:00

I just finished reading Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God by Francis Chan. Amy gave me this book for my birthday (thank-you!) and I’m glad because I have heard so much about it. My overall impression of the book is that it is really good, but not necessarily life-changing.

I have decided my “less-than-over-the-top” reaction to the book stems more from unrealistic expectations of what it was going to be like rather than from any shortcoming on Francis Chan’s part. I had heard this was a life-transforming book, and it might be for some, but personally I have been wrestling with these same issues for quite a long time now (at least since I first received my call to ministry in the early 90's) so mostly what I found myself doing as I read was nodding my head thinking, “Yes, that’s right” instead of shaking it in amazement and saying, “Wow! I never thought of that,” or “Really?”

Chan describes why he wrote the book on page 168, “I wrote this book because much of our talk doesn’t match our lives. We say things like, ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,’ and ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart.’ Then we live and plan like we don’t even believe God exists. We try to set our lives up so everything will be fine even if God doesn’t come through. But true faith means holding nothing back. It means putting every hope in God’s fidelity to his promises.”

I could not agree more. As a pastor I see this all the time. In fact, as a pastor (and as a Christian) I do it myself. I often find myself planning “exit strategies” in case God doesn’t show up, which I realize demonstrates a definite lack of faith. I did it earlier this week when the Elders and I were wrestling with whether or not to proceed with buying a piece of land for the church to eventually build on. It is a huge financial commitment for us. As I prayed through the issue I kept thinking in terms of "What if it isn't God's will" instead of boldly claiming the land, "by faith." I wish I didn’t do that. Truth is, the father's cry in Mark 9 of, “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24) often could be used to sum up my spiritual journey. I do believe, but then by my actions I prove I don’t really have faith.

My main criticism of the book is I don’t think Chan really provides an answer to this problem. He sees the problem is we don’t love God enough so the answer is we should love God more, but love can’t be forced, can it? Isn’t that the nature of love? The reason we don’t love God enough, according to the author, is because our understanding of God is deficient (page 22) so he proceeds to write three chapters to show us who God really is and why he is worthy of our love. He expects us to be convinced and then expects we’ll be driven to our knees in worship, which ultimately equates to love in Chan’s vocabulary. I don’t blame him for not being able to explain "how," I struggle with the same issue myself and in my church.

In the next seven chapters Chan examines what he perceives to be the sorry state of the church (apparently mainly thinking about the church in America, and in particular in Southern California). His conclusion is that we are lukewarm Christians who attend lukewarm churches spending our time striving for a life with God characterized by control, safety and an absence of suffering.

Are we “missing it?” as Chan contends? Are we even “good soil” (saved) as he asks? Do we offer God our “leftovers” instead of our best? Perhaps… probably...maybe. To the extent that we ask ourselves these questions and wrestle with the answers, the book is helpful. When it comes to the answer to the big question, yes, God is definitely the answer, and yes, God is love, but I’m not sure I’m any wiser for having been retold this so many times; mostly I just feel guilty.

Tallulah Gorge Hike

2009-04-03T20:25:00.003-04:00

I went hiking today with my father-in-law, Don Hartsfield. We went to Tallulah Gorge State Park. We had a great time. We hiked down into the gorge and crossed the suspension bridge and then walked on around the gorge covering the north and south rim trails and all the scenic overlooks.

Tallulah gorge is considered one of the “Seven Natural Wonders of Georgia” and is approximately two miles long and nearly 1000 feet deep. A series of five or six waterfalls occur as the Tallulah River races through the steep rocky cliffs.

Some interesting side notes include the fact that in 1970 Karl Wallenda walked across the gorge on a steel cable (the steel cable platform is still there), stopping twice to stand on his head. Sadly, Wallenda died eight years later in a fall in San Juan, Puerto Rico as he tried to walk between two 10-story buildings. Also, several river scenes from the movie Deliverance starring Burt Reynolds were filmed in the Gorge (yikes! Do I hear banjos?).

Anyway, it was fun. I always enjoy hiking with Don. We also did a little sightseeing after our hike. We ate at Oinkers Barbeque near Clayton for lunch then drove through Lakemont, GA and by Lakes Rabun, Seed, and Burton. We stopped at the old Sautee store and drove on through the scenic Sautee-Nacoochee valley and then on down through Cleveland and back to Cumming. Everything was green and very spring-like. It was good to get away and relax.

Successful Evangelism

2009-04-02T20:20:00.005-04:00

In Craig Groeschel’s blog today he writes,

“Just because people attend your church, serve, and give, don’t assume they are saved.

My father-in-law was a deacon in his church for years before truly understanding the grace of God.

One of my greatest fears is that many of our churches are full of people with a false spiritual confidence.

I like to tell young preachers, you don’t fail when you invite people to repent and follow Christ and no one responds. You fail when you don’t invite people to repent and follow Christ.”

Groeshel's comments really struck home with me. At NewSong we’re about to start intentionally reaching out to nonbelievers in ways we’ve not done before. We’re going to make it a priority. We’ve been planning for it, preaching about it, and praying about this for several weeks now. Easter Sunday is almost like a “re-launch” for us as we make this, I believe, bold move.

Reading Craig’s blog makes me wonder if maybe we'll even see some of our own folks really “get it” when we do get intentional about preaching salvation. Wouldn’t that be awesome!

By the way, what a great quote he closes with. I couldn’t agree more: You don’t fail if people don’t respond. You fail if you don’t invite people to repent and follow Christ. We need to remember this if we don't see immediate results as we preach more boldly and invite a response.

Thanks Craig!

Book Review: The Unforgiving Minute

2009-04-01T23:06:00.004-04:00

I just finished a book called The Unforgiving Minute by Craig M. Mullaney. This enjoyable read is a memoir of the author’s life as a student, soldier, and veteran. The book begins with his first day at the US Military Academy at West Point. From there he survives the challenges of the US Army Ranger School, Oxford University (as a Rhodes Scholar), falling in love, and then combat in Afghanistan as a Platoon Leader. As the book ends the author is a combat veteran teaching at the US Naval Academy. As amazing and interesting as all that sounds, the story is actually deeper than that; it’s also the story of someone coming of age, finding love, dealing with disappointment in his family, wrestling with incredible disappointment in life, and finally coming to terms with life as his own man.

The title to the book comes from the last stanza of one of my favorite poems, Rudyard Kipling’s “If.”

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a man, my son!

The “unforgiving minute” the story builds toward is the riveting account of a firefight on a barren ridge in Afghanistan where Mullaney and his platoon are engaged with al-Qaeda fighters when a message crackles over the radio that one of his men is “KIA” (Killed in Action). In that one unforgiving minute everything changed. Doubt crept in. Was the loss of this soldier his fault? What could he have done different? As one reviewer said in the liner of the book, “Learning from his experience can help us face our own unforgiving minutes.” I hope it will help me with mine.

The lessons learned are many. Near the end of the book the author visits his brother who is now attending West Point himself. He sums up some of the lessons learned as he reflects on what he wants to say to his brother:

“There was so much I wanted to say to him that I wasn’t sure where to start. I wanted him to know that the greatest privilege I ever had was leading men in combat. He was going to be tested over and over again in ways he could never predict or simulate in training. There were going to be times when he would be afraid, but I wanted him to know that courage has more to do with facing that fear than forgetting it. His men would expect him to share their risks and stand with them in the storm. But they would also expect him to set a course, decide, act, and lead. He couldn’t afford to doubt himself. The only way to never make a decision he would regret would be to never make any decisions at all. Finally, I wanted to tell him that doing everything right might still entail heart-wrenching consequences. Gary would have his own unforgiving minutes, I feared, but what mattered was that he fill those minutes with ‘sixty seconds worth of distance run.’”

The book is full of leadership lessons, stories of military life (including an amazing account of what it's like to go through Ranger school) and what it’s like to be a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. I highly recommend the book. The memoir also contains some great quotes; everything from Winnie the Pooh to Napoleon and Winston Churchill. Here are a few of my favorites from the book:

In case of sudden and temporary immersion, the important thing is to keep the head above water.
- A. A. Milne, Winnie-the Pooh

Infantry platoons and squads rely on two truths:
1) In combat, infantrymen who are moving are attacking.
2) Infantrymen who are not attacking are preparing to attack.
- Infantry Field Manual (FM 3-21.8)

Do your duty – and never mind whether you are shivering or warm, sleeping on your feet or in your bed.
- Marcus Aurelius

Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward.
- Soren Kierkegaard

I have not been at the front; I have been in front of it.
- Wilfred Owen, 1917

Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
- Afghan Proverb

If you’re going through Hell, keep going.
- Winston Churchill

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
- Tennyson, Ulysses

The Unforgiving Minute
A Soldier's Education
by Craig M. Mullaney
© 2009 by The Penguin Press

Town Hall for Hope

2009-03-31T19:30:00.005-04:00

On his nationally syndicated radio program Dave Ramsey recently announced a national event called Town Hall for Hope. NewSong will be partnering with Dave by hosting a local, live airing of this event in Cumming. This will be an awesome opportunity to help bring a message of hope to our community in these uncertain economic times. Our point men on this at NewSong are Chuck Braddock (who teaches Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University for us) and our Share leader, Justin Woelk.

On April 23 at 8:00 p.m., thousands of churches will be joining us in hosting the live town hall via a simulcast web stream. Dave will be answering questions from people across the nation via video, phone, twitter, facebook and more as we learn more about what’s happening with the economy, how we got here, and where we’re going. The Town Hall for Hope is free to attend and, which makes it a great outreach event for the church. I’m hoping our members will invite their friends, relatives, co-workers and neighbors to come. You can learn more at http://www.townhallforhope.com/.

In times like these, the Church has an enormous opportunity to provide hope to a world that is searching for it. It’s an honor to partner with Dave Ramsey for this event, and we can’t wait to see how God uses it to transform lives!

Testimony

2009-03-30T12:18:00.002-04:00

Yesterday in my sermon I shared a piece of my personal testimony. I was surprised at the emotion that I had to choke back when I began telling it. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at that, but after so many years you'd think I could tell it without having to blink back tears.

At any rate, since I don't actually write it down very often, here's what I said...

My “met Christ” story actually has several chapters. I don’t know exactly when I first came to realize God was real – it just dawned on me as a little boy; at some point, even though I wasn’t leading what you’d call a wild life in the 2nd grade, I said a prayer and knew God heard me. Then, in the summer after the 8th grade I went to a youth retreat in Biloxi, MS, and had an amazing encounter with Christ. A girl sitting across from me in the darkened room at the retreat that night told me months later without knowing what had happened inside me that she looked up as we were praying and saw a bright light directly behind me. Still later, in my mid-thirties, I had climbed up the ladder of success and had begun to enjoy its spoils but then it dawned on me that there had to be more to life than making a lot of money, living in a nice house and having a great family. And so I turned to the Bible and sought deeper meaning in life and God met me again, radically reorienting not only my life, but the lives of those I love most.

God is good...

It's Him, Not Us

2009-03-30T09:15:00.002-04:00

I read my last lengthy post again this morning (at least someone is reading my blog!). When I did I realized someone might read it and think "I" or "we" were taking credit or boasting about how smart we are to figure things out about our mission. In truth, it really was, and is, all God. If anything we were way too slow on the uptake to follow - whether through disobedience, pride, ignorance, or some combination of the three.

God used great authors, our own people, prayer, our circumstances, and more to guide us. I'm grateful to him for that.

It's him, not us.

Soli Deo Gloria
(Glory to God alone)

God's Mission for NewSong II

2009-03-29T22:34:00.010-04:00

How did NewSong go from chasing after “lead chickens” (see the post “God’s Mission for NewSong I) to being a church that is gaining clarity for its unique calling and mission? That’s what I’ll tell in Part Two of our “mission story.”

In October 2003 NewSong moved across the street from Forsyth Central High School and we felt as though the sky was the limit. After 3 ½ years we finally had our own place to worship without setting up and taking down all our equipment each week. We had brand new leased worship center that seated over 225, classroom space, a kitchen, real nurseries and a space for our youth. We thought we had died and gone to heaven. We were averaging about 160 a week in attendance when we moved in. We fully expected to shoot past the 200 threshold very quickly in our new “digs.” We were surprised to discover just the opposite occurred however. We finished the next full year (2004) averaging 156 a week. By the end of 2005 we had dropped to 148. We ended 2006 at 146, and by the end of 2007 we had slipped to an average weekly attendance of 138. I remember being totally discouraged at the end of 2007. In the previous 18 months we had lost our youth pastor (Lee), our worship leader (Allen), and our children’s director (Tidwell). We had also lost other key leaders and seen ministries fold. God seemed to be winnowing us down. That December (2007) we lost still another youth pastor (Sanders). Things looked grim. But God was already moving.

During 2007 I began teaching an adult Sunday School class using books from Dallas Willard and John Ortberg to guide the class. Willard has written several books and is probably best known for a somewhat difficult read called The Divine Conspiracy. It was actually another of his books titled The Spirit of the Disciplines that helped me see something really important though. In the back of that book there is an appendix, which is also the first chapter of a subsequent book titled The Great Omission. The “great omission” Willard refers to is stems from what he views as an “historical drift” since Jesus commissioned the first disciples to “go and make disciples.” This great omission is actually two-fold. Instead of making converts to a particular faith and practice, Willard contends that somewhere along the way we began simply enrolling people on a church roll with no repentance, and no real change in their lives. They just added Jesus to their lives but nothing else changed. The second part of the omission is that instead of enrolling these “converts” as students or apprentices to Jesus who intend to progressively reorder their lives in order to follow him; there is no change in subsequent behavior either. According to Willard what that means is that our churches are filled with what he calls “undiscipled disciples.” He says much, much more, but he finally concludes that most problems in churches today can be explained by the fact that our churches are filled with people who have not yet decided to follow Jesus!” Ouch!

Willard wasn’t picking on individual Christians in his critique though. He says that it really isn’t their fault. The real culprit is the church. Most churches, he contends, allow this “easy-believism.” Furthermore, most churches don’t have a process in place to help people move from being new believers to mature disciples.

This is when my ears perked up. I was convicted by that thought. We certainly didn’t have a process to do this in place at NewSong. Our mission statement at the time (“borrowed from Northpoint) was “Leading people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.” But the question was, “How?” The answer certainly was not to ask them to come to church once a week, make them feel guilty, and then work them to death with busyness at church.

Once I saw this I began to really pray about our mission statement. It didn’t describe who we were or what we were doing (or not doing). In time God impressed three things on my heart as being important to Him and important to us at NewSong. He gave me three words/concepts: “Kingdom Relationships” (with God and others), “Spiritual Formation” (becoming students of Jesus Christ), and “Missional Focus” (looking outward to serve).

Fast forward a few more months and I stumbled across yet another book (actually my daughter Amy suggested I read it) called Simple Church. When I read that book I felt as though authors Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger had read my mind. As I read the stories of Pastor Rush and his ministry schizophrenia and as I compared notes with “First Church” and “Cross Church” I began to realize that they were describing something very important, and something very real to us at NewSong.

I asked our Board of Elders if we could read the book together and they agreed (we have a wonderful Board of Elders at my church!). From July to September 2007 we used the book as a guide to craft a new mission statement – one that was built around a three-step process for making disciples: “Love God, Grow to be like Jesus, Share with the world.” Eleven words which we often shorten to only three: "Love, grow, and share." Not surprisingly, our new mission statement reflected what God had given me a few months earlier, “Kingdom Relationship” (Love God), “Spiritual Formation” (Grow to be like Jesus), and “Missional Focus” (Share with the world). We now had the mission statement that I believe God intended us to have to fulfill our unique calling to the world. We now had a process in place to make disciples, our “product,” if you will. What’s more, it is our unique process for fulfilling the unique calling God has given us.

It was a great moment. We announced the new mission to the church with great fanfare. We changed our website and letterhead and business cards to reflect the new mission statement. We plastered it on the wall in our worship center. More importantly, people began to “own it.” Almost immediately we began to grow. We saw a bump in attendance of about a dozen people a week in the fourth quarter of 2007. As we began 2008 we gained a few more attenders. We also got a brand new youth pastor and saw an influx of younger families (“twenty-somethings”).

By Easter, 2008 the Elders felt we had gained enough momentum to start a second service. Almost overnight we added another 10 or so to our worship attendance, and the spiritual momentum was growing. In June we hired a new worship leader and in July we hired a children’s director. People were getting excited, we had a focus, and our mission was finally being grasped and understood.

By the time one year had rolled around with our new mission it began to be apparent that we hadn't gone far enough or deep enough in adopting the new mission. Instead of focusing, clarifying and aligning ourselves through the lens of our new mission and process we had simply gotten excited about it and then dropped down on top of what we were already doing. Why? Perhaps we were tired or lazy. Maybe the time wasn’t right, or maybe we just didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.

And so by the fall of 2008 we had begun to drift again. After an initial burst of momentum, we began to lose our momentum and coast. We lost our focus. But things were about to change again.

During this fourth quarter God impressed upon me that we were really dropping the ball when it came to evangelism. Two incidents stand out in particular. A church member who was attending a Christian college used our church as a case study for a paper and she us asked for some statistics from the church. When we pulled them out for her we realized our congregation was made up of practically 100% transfer growth (Christians either switching churches locally, or else moving into the area as Christians and choosing to affiliate with us). The second incident was more convicting. A pastor friend of mine subtly (and not so subtly!) challenged me about the issue of reaching nonbelievers for Christ. I remember getting exasperated with him in a restaurant one day and saying something along the lines of, “We’re just not the kind of church that reaches new people!" I practically choked on the words as I spoke them. God chastened me about my poor leadership at NewSong with regards to evangelism. Reaching people who don’t know the Lord isn’t an option; it must be a priority for us because it is a priority for Him.

As I did my planning for the coming year through the holiday season at the end of 2008 it became clear to me that we needed four strategic ministry priorities for 2009: 1) Evangelism. 2) Involvement (more connecting and growing), 3) Facilities, and 4) Empowering Leadership. I announced these priorities our my annual “State of the Church” sermon which I give every year on the first Sunday of the New Year. I used the image of an open door that God had opened that no one could close (Rev. 3:3-8). It took us eight years to figure it out, but God wants us to reach the lost. God wants us to get involved in the process of discipleship, God wants us to take seriously the challenge of building His church at NewSong, and God wants us to start empowering one another in our leadership. We can no longer function, leadership-wise, like we did when we started with me being a bottleneck to our growth because I was still leading the church as I always have from the beginning.

Thankfully, God already knew we needed to make these changes and was preparing for it all along, especially the leadership piece. During 2008 God brought us a new youth pastor (January), Worship Leader (June) and Children’s Director (July). In December God sent us the person who is now the staff volunteer leading our Grow ministry. For the first time ever we have someone leading discipleship at NewSong. I'm embarassed to admit that, but honestly, I think that for whatever reason, we've only now gotten the right person for the job.

What an answer to prayer. In one year God provided someone to take ownership and lead all five of the main areas we now have at NewSong: Love, Grow, Share, Students and Children.

We also expanded our facilities at the beginning of this year, taking in and remodeling the dance studio next door to us. This gave us much-needed growing room.

In January 2009 our Board of Elders also approved giving our youth pastor additional responsibilities as an “Assistant to the Pastor.” Momentum has begun to build in our staff and we have begun to gel as a unit. We meet as a staff on a weekly basis. With these other leaders now in place to lead the five areas, their vision and leadership has begun to complement my own and has allowed us to have more intentional focus in each area. This has allowed us to examine what we’re doing and to formulate ways to go about accomplishing our mission.

Today
And that brings us up to the present moment (March, 2009). Our staff and Elders are now reading the Simple Church book, some for the first time, and others are re-reading it. We’re reading it this time with emphasis on focusing, clarifying, and aligning our mission and ministries. We have also recently come up with a set of leader guidelines to help us underscore what is important to us in terms of leadership at NewSong (character, competency and calling). We want to get the right leaders on the bus at NewSong and get them in the right seats.

I’m also very excited about a retreat we have coming up in May where both our Elders and our Staff will be together for the first time ever in this kind of setting. The goal for this retreat (in my mind) is synchronization so that all our leaders have a shared understanding of our church’s values, priorities, goals and objectives. It’s very important for us to have the same assumptions about what constitutes a “win” for NewSong. In fact I believe it is essential if we are going to accomplish what God wants us to accomplish.

In the meantime, God continues to reveal things to us in our weekly staff meetings. In recent weeks I believe he has shown us the following in our Love, Grow, and Share areas.

Love
Through discussion, prayer, and our current series on evangelism we have come to see that our worship services have been geared too much for “us” and not enough for people who don’t know Christ. We believe worship should be viewed as the “front door” to our church since that is typically the first place a visitor encounters us. We are under deep conviction that our services should be planned and executed with the nonbeliever in mind. Since it is our desire (and God’s!) to lead new people to Christ and we are not looking for transfer growth, our facilities, bulletins, media, music, and teaching should intentionally be “nonbeliever friendly." We want our members to feel comfortable inviting others to our church and make sure that once they get them here we present the gospel clearly.

A "win" for us in worship has been clarified as people bringing friends, relatives, co-workers, and neighbors to church and having those people have a non-distracting, intelligible worship experience that would encourage them to commit to, and then go deeper in, a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Grow
We agree that we would really like to see our members get jump-started in the Love, grow, share process. Thus we have come up with our NextSteps classes. We've taught one Love class and will be teaching it again in April. In May we'll teach our first Grow class.

We have also established what GROW stands for:
• G: giving (of time and talents to others and God)
• R: relating to others (Connecting)
• O: oneness with God (Prayer)
• W: word of God (Bible Study)

A “win” for us in Grow would be for our members to get moving through the love, grow, share classes and to be be involved in a small group that meets regularly for prayer, Bible-study, accountability and prayer. We would like to our members growing in their own faith and reproducing other disciples.

Share
We have also had some clarification of what “Share” means at NewSong. We formerly divided Share into “ministry” (service within the church) and “mission” (service beyond our walls). Ministry was what we did for “us,” and mission was what we did for “others.” What we’ve come to see through our new evangelistic lens is that all serving should ultimately be evangelistic. Even if we’re doing something mundane or internal like ushering, greeting, sound, or bringing refreshments, we should understand ourselves to be serving Jesus and doing it in such a way that lost people encounter him. We have also come to understand Share as more of a lifestyle instead of just something you do on Sunday morning or when you go on a mission trip somewhere. Can you serve coffee or sweep a floor for Jesus so people will come to know him? Can you speak to your waitress at Waffle House or the person in line next to you at Wal-Mart so that they can see Jesus? We believe you can.

A “win” for us in Share would be to see everyone adopt this lifestyle and begin praying for nonbelievers, interacting with them, and then looking to start spiritual conversations with them with the goal being to share the most important thing anyone can ever know or understand; that God loves them.

God is definitely pouring out his vision for us at NewSong. My prayer is that He keeps it up, and that we keep on obeying Him and trusting Him.

It's late again...until next time...

Categories (a brief excursis)

2009-03-28T11:01:00.013-04:00

Experimentation has shown that the two different sides, or hemispheres, of the brain are responsible for different manners of thinking. The following table illustrates the differences between left-brain and right-brain thinking:

I’m not sure if this is “real” science or just pop psychology, but it makes sense to me because it helps me order my world. You see, I am a systematizer – an organizer to the “nth degree.” I’m extremely “left-brained” (see above). Starting this blog has jump-started my “systematizing” motor. The need to organize, analyze, and discover why things are the way they are consumes me. There is so much to learn, so much to say, so much to figure out, and so much to put into a framework or system that can be analyzed, used to make predictions of future behavior, and help make accurate assessments and good choices.

Of course I’m in good company with this. The Greek philosopher Aristotle, who was the tutor of the young Alexander the Great, was the greatest systematizer of all time. Aristotle's ambitious aim was to systematize all the existing knowledge of his day. To do so he made critical observations, collected specimens, and gathered together, summarized, and classified practically everything known to man in his day. His systematic approach became the method from which Western science later arose. One of my spiritual mentors, John Wesley was also a great systematizer.

This morning I awoke with the desire to organize what I intend to blog about. I’m listing everything I can think of below. I may have to go back and change this from time to time, but that is fine. It gives me a handle, and I need handles!

Africa
Bible
Books
Childhood (My)
Church
Church Planting
Doctrine
Evangelism
Family
Heroes (My)
Highlands
Leadership
Mississippi
Music
NewSong
Philosophy
Sermons
Spiritual Formation
Struggles (My)
Vision/Mission
Worship

There, now I feel better :-)

God's Mission For NewSong I

2009-03-27T22:13:00.005-04:00

We will celebrate the ninth birthday of our church next month. Our first service was held on Easter Sunday, April 23, 2000. You would think that after nine years we’d have a pretty good handle on what we’re supposed to be doing as a church and how to do it. Every church, of course, has the common calling of making disciples. The Great Commission, in various incantations, can be found in all four gospels and the book of Acts. No church has the right to opt out of disciple-making. But within that über-calling, each church has its own unique calling because every church is different due to its location, size, culture, personalities, gifting, resources, etc…. Because every church is different, each one must carefully listen and discern who God is calling them to reach, and how he wants that church to reach those people, and what to do with them once they’ve been reached.

We’ve been trying to figure that out at NewSong for quite a while. This post, and a few to follow it, will tell the story of how God’s vision for NewSong has unfolded. It’s kind of a long story, so I’m going to break it up into pieces. This is the beginning of that story.

NewSong started with a Christmas party at our home in December of 1999. I believed God had called me to plant a church so Donna and I invited a few families we had gone to church with before to our house and we asked if they’d pray about helping us plant a church. By the end of the evening we had agreed to start a Bible study and see if people would come and if God would open doors for us in terms of a location to meet and all the other resources we’d need to actually plant a church since we had no denominational or other outside help. And so in January, 2000 we began meeting on Wednesday nights for a time of worship and Bible study at what was then known as the Sawnee Community Center here in Cumming, GA.

As for the mission of the church, I had one in mind when we began the church but in retrospect I now think it was more of a generic mission, "make disciples," gleaned over a few years of reading, working in other church settings, and from planting another church. Because we didn’t understand god’s unique mission for our church at this point we ran off in several directions in the early years. Thankfully, God continued to open doors for us. We made some good decisions and a few bad ones too. Overall our numbers remained fairly steady. We’d gain a few people, and lose a few. We attracted some people who had left other churches and then found us and were happy for a while before the same unresolved issues in them caused them to get disgruntled with us too, and so they left. We had a few people who came to us “wounded” and we provided them a safe place to “heal.” Once they healed some of them moved on, others stayed. We also attracted some strong, spiritually-mature believers. Some of them stayed, and a few of them left too; probably because we were all over the page with what we were doing (or not doing) as a church.

During this timeframe we spent a lot of time and other resources doing what Stan Self (in the Summer 2008 edition of Unfinished, the Mission Society’s magazine) calls the “chicken-house approach” to ministry. Self recalls growing up around chicken houses and how he’d watch the chickens spend their days pecking around in the wood shavings on the floor of the chicken house. As they did, they’d cluster in groups of 10-15 chickens. Every so often, for no apparent reason at all, one of the chickens would look up, then break and run about 20 feet from where it had been. When that happened, all the other chickens in that bunch would dash off en masse in hot pursuit. By the time they caught up, the lead chicken was pecking away in the shavings again. For a moment the other chickens would look around as if they were trying to determine what that was all about. Then they’d join the first chicken in pecking the wood shavings. A few minutes later the same thing would happen in another part of the chicken house, as one group after another would break, run, stop, and peck.

Self’s point, of course is that chickens aren’t the only ones guilty of this. How many churches have set their sights on being the next Saddleback, Willow Creek, or Northpoint? I admit I was guilty of that at NewSong. Not as blatantly nor as badly as I was at a former church plant I was a part of (that’s another story for another day). The point I’m making here, and it’s nothing you probably didn’t already realize, is that these are great churches and there are definitely transferrable principles we can learn from them. But there is only one Saddleback, Willow, and Northpoint and there is only one Rick Warren, Bill Hybels and Andy Stanley. Those churches and their pastors didn’t get the way they are by chasing the lead chicken. They got that way by discerning and focusing on God’s unique calling for them and their churches.

Here is the good news – as far as NewSong is concerned. I believe we are finally beginning to get some clarity about our unique calling and mission. We are finally doing the hard work necessary to discover who God is calling us to reach and how he wants us to reach them. God has also led us to a process where we can take people from being non-believers all the way to the point where they are mature disciples of Christ capable of reproducing other disciples.

In tomorrow’s post I will begin telling the exciting story of how this unfolded. It will hopefully be helpful for me to sort out as I write it, and for our church and its leaders to hear, and, who knows, it might even help some other church leader some day.

Until Then…

Here We Go

2009-03-26T22:03:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I've been told several times lately I need to blog. First it was the staff at church. Then my good friend Walter Hughes started a blog. Then I stumbled across this article by John Piper titled, "Six Reasons Pastors Should Blog," so I finally decided I'd try it. I don't know, maybe it will be a good thing, maybe it will change my life, or someone else's. Or maybe it won't last a week. We'll see.

Oh, about the blog name. That was a big decision. I puzzled over that so long the battery on my laptop died and I had to go and get my charger.

Donna wanted me to call it "Love, Grow, Share" after the NewSong mission statement.

Leigh had some other suggestions.

I almost named it "De Profundis" which is the first two words (in Latin) from Psalm 130, "Out of the depths have I cried to thee, O Lord."

In the end I chose the name "Life's Mirror," which comes from a poem by Madeline Bridges. I thought it was catchy because I plan to use this platform to post my reflections on things like church life, leadership, faith, books I read, people I love, things I'm interested in, and a host of other topics. The poem itself basically says you get out of life what you put into it. Or to quote those profound poets of the rock-n-roll era, "In the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make." Madeline says something similar. Her poem goes like this:

There are loyal hearts, there are spirits brave,
There are souls that are pure and true,
Then give the world the best you have,
And the best will come back to you.

Give love, and love to your life will flow,
A strength in your utmost need,
Have faith, and a score of hearts will show
Their faith in your word and deed.

Give truth, and your gift will be paid in kind;
And honor will honor meet;
And a smile that is sweet will surely find
A smile that is just as sweet.

Give pity and sorrow to those who mourn,
You will gather in flowers again
The scattered seeds from your thoughts outborne,
Though the sowing seemed but vain.

For life is the mirror of king and slave,
'Tis just what we are and do;
Then give to the world the best you have,
And the best will come back to you.

Okay, I've rambled enough now for one post (I suppose, I've never 'posted' before!)

If any of you more experienced bloggers out would like to give me pointers, I'm all ears.

Until next time...