Archive for December, 2009
Resolutions of Sorts
I don’t do resolutions because I have enough failure in my life.
That may be putting it too harshly but then again, maybe not.
I read Mark Batterson’s blog all the time and this is what he threw down today…
“Moving forward, I feel like I need more margin. It comes back to this simple truth: if you don’t control your calendar, your calendar will control you.”
He then hammered out 7 keys for him to achieve this…
1) Put Your Family First
2) Guard Your Day Off
3) Don’t Check Email During Peak Productivity Hours
4) Get Out of the Office Whenever Possible
5) Start Your Day With Devotions
6) Put Together a Stop Doing List
7) Use All Your Vacation Days
This completely hammered me and my heart today…so I decided to have 2 resolutions this new year…
1. Read through the Bible using YouVersion.com on my iPhone.
2. Create more margin in my life with Batterson as my mentor.
And with that…this will be my last post for the next week as I take a week off my blog. Enjoy the new year…and Roll Tide till we meet again.
Writing In A Hospital Waiting Room
It’s 1,000 degrees in this room and I’m antsy, anxious, irritable. I hate waiting. I hate it in hospitals. There is no clearer testament as to how powerless we are than a hospital waiting room. The staff try to make it as comfortable as possible – constant updates from the nurses, free beverages. It’s a nice touch but it doesn’t take away the complete utter insanity of waiting.
There’s a television showing a program that nobody would ever choose to watch – “The View.” A room full of opinionated women? I mean, really? Who would CHOOSE to watch that? Are there people who actually think this is good television?
Conversations are pinging from sports, weather, and kids – as in grandkids.
There is no cell reception but I get texts and free wi-fi. Just as well. I’m not feeling like much of a conversationalist right now.
Monotony is broken up with an Auburn fan walking by. He says to my Alabama sweatshirt “War Eagle.” I look up, smile. “Roll Tide. Good luck in Tampa.”
“Beat the #$%! out of Texas, okay?”
I think about the theological impossibility of that. Many quick retorts come to mind but only “They’ll do their best” comes out.
My mom would appreciate this conversation as she is an Alabama fan and has never turned down an opportunity to get the family history of anyone from Alabama. If mom was here, this man would be forced to tell me where he was born, his grandparents name and maiden names, his high school and perhaps his first car. There’s a 60% chance she’d be related to him, 90% chance of her knowing somebody in the man’s life.
But none of that happens. It’s not that I don’t care but…I don’t, who am I kidding? I’m pretty sure he doesn’t either. I mean, we’re both waiting in a hospital lobby just trying to find something to keep us sane for the next few minutes, hours, or however long we are destined to wait.
In Lawrence, my buddy and his bride are probably getting ready to welcome their first child. I’ll get by there later. It will be a completely different feel. Dramatic what a floor makes in a hospital.
Then tonight…I’ll roll into our driveway and I’ll remember that today is my anniversary. 18 years ago, she said yes.
I think I’ll pickup some flowers on the way home.
You Don’t Have To Sell The Whole Structure…
I think it’s awesome that God sometimes ‘themes’ our weeks. Like this week – I’ve had 4 different encounters with other leaders and as Divine Coincidence would have it, all of them centered around the same topic – discipleship, spiritual formation. How does your church do this? How do you define it? How do you ‘sell’ it to the congregation? Is it working? Here are the nuggets from these conversations…
The Difference Between Discipleship and Spiritual Formation
Hardest conversation to get my mind around because I think too much definition distracts from the actual doing it. Technically – spiritual formation is Christ being formed in you and this is a ‘job’ that only the Spirit of God can do. He will use disciplines, life experiences when we yield/partner with Him. To ‘make disciples’ is pre-Christ for the individual. Once believer, then it’s Spiritual Formation.
My take — I understand and can appreciate the difference I just don’t think it matters to most people. I think the only people that need to have this defined are those who grew up in church and understand discipleship as a program that you go to. How many people at WH have this understanding of discipleship — it’s a building or program you go to? I’m not sure. We don’t talk that way or function that way.
What’s Your Path?
Where are you or at least WANT to take a person when they come to your church? The process of seeker, believer, member, leader? How do you push that vision to your church?
My take — It’s important to have a path, a vision. But that’s not what I’m pushing. I’m pushing ‘Live Connected.’ It’s the lynchpin. Therefore, I don’t have to sell the whole structure. This key for me — Don’t Sell The Whole Structure!!! We push Life Groups because that is the key place to Love, Live, and Serve. It’s the key place to connect with Jesus. It’s the key place to receive spiritual care, encouragement, to serve. I think leaders who push Life Groups then a leader training then this project then this add-on make things more difficult than necessary.
I want people to connect with Jesus. The best place is Life Groups. But what about leader development and training? I don’t push that on the whole church, push that on our leaders. It’s why we want an apprentice with every Life Group leader. That’s the messy part of leader development – it’s not a classroom but the life on life, in the trenches ‘training’ that is invaluable. The entry point to that process? The Life Group.
Membership? They don’t have to believe to belong. They don’t have to ‘join’ to connect. Get in a Life Group. If after that experience, you have a desire to join the church — great. If not — that’s cool too. How to recruit people to do mission projects? Recruit Life Groups to serve together. So instead of ‘selling’ each and every aspect of the plan, sell the Life Group – the entry point, the most important piece of the puzzle — getting connected to Jesus and other believers.
Origins: The Next Sermon Series
Here’s the next series we are doing…
A Christmas Conspiracy of Grace
We had over 35 volunteers drive up to the Potowatomi on Saturday to pull off a Christmas party for the Boys and Girls Club there. We brought 300 gifts plus chili and candy. Before this weekend, the most people that showed up for something like this was 5 or 6. Then over 200 children showed up plus another 100 adults. Last year, only 60 people showed up. The last cup of chili went to the last person in line. The last handful of candy went to the last kid in line.
We had some extra gifts at the end of the day when another agency showed up and asked if we had anything extra for some families that weren’t going to get any Christmas gifts this year. How many gifts did they need? 23. How many gifts did we have left? 23. At some point I guess I’ll quit being surprised.
We’ve sold ornaments made by the XX (closed country we are partnering with)
There is a life group that is providing food, shelter, and so much more for a homeless person.
We’ve bought an appliance for a family in need. We’ve provided two months of groceries for another. We’ve got another crew that serves the Rescue Mission.
There are more stories to tell but what is awesome is that at the center of each of these stories is a person (or group of persons) that made a decision to just do it. Different people coming to the same conclusion of – it is now time to stop talking about being blessing and just start doing it.
Becoming an externally focused church, a church that chooses to bless the city she find herself in – there is only so much programming that can be done. There are only so many ‘big event’ events that a church can pull off before it becomes another dog/pony show as opposed to ministry. At some point if a church is really going to be the hands and feet of Jesus around her, then the ‘church’, aka the people, have to be ‘infected’ by the vision of SERVE ALL and just start doing it. Unplanned. Uncontrolled. Unpackaged. Unscripted. Undirected by human means. Unleashed.
It has to get messy at some point. Life groups serving together, determining – hey, God’s called us to do adopt this person, serve this area and it’s time to do it. A leader seeing a need and meeting it instead of analyzing it. A group of people dreaming of a way to serve others and instead of focusing on all the ways it could go wrong choosing instead to obey the nudging of the Spirit.
It’s a good kind of conspiracy to grow in a church. And it’s awesome to watch it unfold here.
That Just Happened
She ran into the church, poked her head in my office and said — “Would you let a Catholic use your restroom?”
I laughed. “Absolutely. And we won’t even charge you for it!” Nothing like a little Protestant/Catholic humor to end the day.
On her way out, she poked her head back in my office and said — “Thank you. What would it take to convert you?”
I laughed again — “Probably not going to happen. It’s worse than you think. I’m the pastor here.”
Cue Twilight Zone music.
“Can I ask you a question?”
I was about to say yes but never got the chance. She just went right on talking.
“What makes you think you have authority to teach what God thinks on any given subject?”
I did a double take and cleared my throat — “Well, that’s an interest-”
She continued – “I’m part of the only true church – the Catholic church – and we have years of oral tradition informing us what God thinks on every subject – homosexuality, contraception, marriage, sanctity of life – and you teach none of that. I mean, you guys even believe in Purgatory. Do you know that the Jews believe in Purgatory? You don’t have the truth so how can you teach the truth? How do you know that what you teach is okay with God?”
This went on for 10 minutes. 10 minutes. I think she breathed. I couldn’t get a word in if I wanted. I did make a mental note to get one of those apps for my iPhone that makes a fake call. It could have gotten me out of this situation. Maybe.
She kept talking … “I mean we have the Pope and you have what? Who is your authority?”
I tried to answer — “Between the Scriptures and the Spirit-”
“See, I knew it. The Holy Ghost, right? That’s just fancy speak for your conscience. Your convictions are really temptations. Your insights are really lies.”
Her son walked in the room, turned around and walked right back out. Her sister/friend walked in saw her talking. She walked out.
Thanks for the help.
Friend/sister walks back in with cell phone. It’s a ruse to get her out of the office. I can tell. The friend looks at me with desperation. Like she’s trying to tell me “I’m trying…you think of something as well.”
Her cell phone rings. Thank you, Jesus…or her son in the other room…not sure at this point.
I stood up and walked out of my office to the lobby in hopes she would follow while she was on the phone. Hope unfounded. She stays put.
Her son was in the lobby looking humiliated. “I’m so sorry” he whispered. I asked – “Is this common?”
He was about to answer when she walked up. He walked away.
“He’s my son, 5 of 15 kids.”
I resisted the urge to comment. Bill Simmons, a writer for ESPN, has a 12% Theory. For every kid that is birthed, a mother loses 12% of her sanity until those kids are able to function independently. He says the birthing, weight gain, nursing, not sleeping, anxiety cycle of a new mom is something a man will never understand and that is why only the mom goes through the 12% rule. I’ll let you do the math here.
She kept going — “I mean you guys don’t even have the right Bible and you still haven’t answered me what makes you think you can teach what God thinks?”
I didn’t say anything. She was finally quiet. She entered my office at 4:24. It was now 4:38.
I smiled. “Well…have a nice day.”
She pushed “So are you going to answer the question or not because no pastor anywhere has ever answered my questions.”
“Did you ever give them an opportunity to answer?”
She stepped back.
I continued. “Ma’am, you’re questions aren’t that hard. It’s just that you’ve been here for 12 minutes and you haven’t given me one chance to answer any question you’ve asked. You don’t know what we teach here, you don’t know what I believe. You’ve attacked me from the very outset without giving pause for rebuttal or discussion. I don’t think you WANT to hear the answers…which is fine, just say that.”
She started the sermon again — “You don’t believe the right things, you don’t teach the right things. You don’t have the right Bible.”
I finally interrupted her – “Ma’am. Please, you’ve covered all of this. I heard you. You’ve yet to listen to me. I don’t think you are in any position to tell me what I believe. It’s not fair of you to say that. IF you want to converse, let’s converse. If you want to argue, I respect your tradition to much to do that with you.”
She finally paused and said “I’ll listen to your answer.”
“Our Bible is composed of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. Since Judaism is the root of our faith, we accepted the same canon as the Jewish Church. They deemed these 39 books as canonical. Our current scriptures – all 66 books – are the exact Bible the Catholic Church used BEFORE the reformation. The Apocryphal books were added to the Catholic Bible in 1545. That’s when the Catholic Church officially added the Apocrypha at the Council of Trent.
Interesting facts about these apocryphal books – none of the books added were written in Hebrew, none of those books were accepted as canonical by Judaism. Jesus never referred to them as authoritative as He did the Torah, the Nevi’im, and the Ketuvim – The Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.”
She gasped. “We have hundreds of years of oral tradition that prove they are canonical. Paul himself said they were and he said that oral tradition was important.”
“Really? I’ve spent most of my adult life studying Paul. Where did he say that? That’s news to me.”
“I don’t know where…but it’s true and you still haven’t answered the most important question of why you think you have authority to teach the Scriptures.”
“I wonder if you would accept that same reason from me – ‘I don’t know but it is true.’”
She shook her head.
“I didn’t think so but I’m compelled to accept it from you, right? Listen, I’m glad our bathrooms met your needs today. Hope your day goes well.”
“You’re not going to answer me, are you?”
“What is the point? I know I have authority to teach God’s word because I can read Greek and Hebrew, I can read the Bible in the language it was written. I read it in community with other believers and their writings. I’m called and gifted by the Spirit of God to do these things as He teaches in 1 Corinthians 12. It’s not rocket science. It’s a love letter from God to His kids. He wants us to understand it. It’s not in code.”
She was about to start up again when her son came in the room and pleaded her to leave. She looked over at him and as she was leaving said “You still didn’t answer the question.”
I just stood there. That just happened. Right there. Shake and Bake, baby.
The son came back in. “I’m so sorry.”
“No worries, bro…..You doing okay?”
He paused. “I think so.”
“If you ever need to talk…you obviously know where I’ll be.”
We both laughed.
What The Tiger Drama Show Us About Ourselves
By now you probably know more than what you wanted to know about a 2.30 am car crash concerning the world’s greatest golfer and his ensuing apologies — for both the crash and his ‘transgressions.’
I’ve actually turned off the sports radio this week because I’m just sick of hearing about it. I’m sick of hearing Jesper say Tiger is a bum and he’s lost all respect for him. I’m sick of hearing middle aged guys call in and demand to know the details of Tiger’s transgression. I’m sick of the coverage mainly because I think it shows how ridiculously out of touch our culture is.
First, why does this surprise us? Tiger is a fantastic golfer…that doesn’t equate fantastic human. But we continue to make this mistake over and over again.
Second, does Tiger ‘owe’ us the lurid details because he’s a public figure? I’ve heard other people call Tiger out on this but what do you think is the harder audience for Tiger right now – a room full of reporters or the dinner table across from his wife and family? The easy conversation is with the public. We’ll hear the stories and move on to the next celebrity failure next week. The family on the other hand is a completely different story.
The only chance he has to redeem and heal his family is doing exactly what he’s doing right now. Apologize in general, shut up and start doing the hard work of rebuilding a new marriage with his wife. (And I hope that is what he’s doing.) No amount of public apology can fix that. And honestly, there really shouldn’t be a public apology until the private stuff is taken care of.
So yes, I’m disappointed in Tiger. Yes, I’ll still play his video game. Yes, I’ll still cheer for him when or if he decides to play golf again. But my real hope is that this disaster has left him a changed man, a better man. And that hopefully he’ll perform as a champion in this crisis as well.
You Know You’re From Colorado…
A good friend of mine sent this to me with this intro:
Grant,
What’s up? I thought of our I-70 drive to ski when I saw this. I think I’ve finally forgiven you.
Gene
The Gene in question was a life group member/elder/friend/mentor in all things handy when we lived in Parker. The day he was speaking of I never really blogged about or at least I can’t find it on this blog.
We were coming down the other side of the Tunnel when we hit ice, slid into the shoulder, missed the railing and the road post, came right back up on the road, waved to the people that we spun around, and kept driving to go skiing. No screaming, no stress, just another commute to the mountains.
Here’s what he sent to me:
A winter statistic in Colorado:
98% OF AMERICANS SCREAM BEFORE GOING IN THE DITCH ON A SLIPPERY ROAD. THE
OTHER 2% ARE FROM COLORADO AND THEY SAY, ‘HOLD MY Chai Tea AND WATCH THIS.
(For the record, Gene drinks Chai Tea, I drink Mochas. There’s a difference.)
You’re from Colorado if:
You’ll eat ice cream in the winter. (I do.)
It snows 5 inches and you don’t expect school to be canceled. (Check.)
You’ll wear flip flops every day of the year, regardless of temperature. (A bit extreme…shorts definitely.)
You have no accent at all, but can hear other people’s. And then you make fun of them.
‘Humid’ is over 25%. (Absolutely.)
Your sense of direction is: Toward the mountains and Away from the mountains.
You say ‘the interstate’ and everybody knows which one.
You think that May is a totally normal month for a blizzard.
You buy your flowers to set out on Mother’s day, but try and hold off planting them until just before Father’s day.
You grew up planning your Halloween costumes around your coat.
You know what the Continental Divide is.
You went to Casa-Bonita as a kid, and as an adult.
You’ve gone off-roading in a vehicle that was never intended for such activities.
You always know the elevation of where you are.
You wake up to a beautiful, 80 degree day and you wonder if it’s going to snow tomorrow.
You don’t care that some company renamed it, the Broncos still play at Mile High.
Every movie theater has military and student discounts.
You know what a ‘trust fund hippy’ is, and you know its natural habitat is Boulder .
You know you’re talking to a fellow Coloradoan when they call it Elitches, not Six Flags.
A bear on your front porch doesn’t bother you.
Your two favorite teams are the Broncos and whoever is beating the Raiders.
When people out East tell you they have mountains in their state too, you just laugh.
You go anywhere else on the planet and the air feels ‘sticky’ and you notice the sky is no longer blue.
My Sister Started It
I’m hardly ever on Facebook now — thank you, Twitter. So while I miss all the Farm/Mafia/Bejeweled stuff…occasionally I miss something very, very, very funny. My sister made the following video over at JibJab.
I’ve now got to figure out a way to repay the favor. 
Silent Monks Sing Handel’s Messiah
Major h/t to Robert Terrell on this one. I dare you not to smile. Simply awesome and it answers the age old question of how silent monks worshiped.