I mispell things!
i’ve posted before about the gobo sign that tapestry uses for outside identification when daylight savings time is not in practice. now that daylight savings time is happening we don’t need the gobo outside (because it obviously won’t work in the daylight) so it has been given a new home that i like. it is now working inside the gym. the above photo is what it looked like sunday. i know it’s basically meaningless but it makes me happy.
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this afternoon while meeting with a couple who have been coming to tapestry for a month i was reminded of the need for CHRISTians to try GOD-sized things. brent and rachel moved to stevens point from around chicago. there they were a part of the chapel and worked within the chapel’s domestic missions. we were talking about it and rachel said that the goal for her mission was to end all hunger in their county. that’s a large goal. some would say that was probably an impossible aim. that’s what makes it GOD-sized, because GOD likes to do the impossible.
as the bride of CHRIST we need to aim for GOD-sized goals. i’m not sure if we are doing that enough. GOD has to be present and working for us to accomplish GOD-sized goals. when we aim small we don’t need GOD. we can reach tiny goals on our own. yeah we can brag about succeeding with them and pretend like we saw GOD do something but we know the truth … we usually do them in our own strength. that’s not true with GOD-sized goals. with them we are going to fail if GOD doesn’t show up. with GOD-sized goals HE gets all the credit because HE is the only ONE WHO could accomplish them.
i know our present economic time calls for prudence and i agree with that. i’m not talking about any church over-reaching itself with its finances. instead, i think we need to push the limits on our love and sacrifice. if we love and sacrifice in GOD-sized manners i think really cool things will happen and i want to be a part of that.
i became facebook friends with a guy who visited tapestry this past week. he seems to be a pretty nice guy. anyhow looking on his wall on monday he made a statement concerning visiting a “radical church” which i am going to assume is tapestry (i have no way of knowing how many churches he may have visited on this past sunday so this could easily be another church). here’s a screen shot of his status line and the comments made under it (the names have been blurred out to protect the innocent).
so based on my assumption that he is talking about tapestry i want to make two comments.
1st, OH YES we definitely do need to be a church of people wearing “sweet 80’s pants and jean jackets.” i lived through those days and would probably still be wearing all that stuff if it wasn’t for pam. i’m sure i still have some parachute pants and a member’s only jacket or two at my parents’ house. hmmmmm, good times. of course, we would also have to force people to wear some of those great bill cosby sweaters – lots of bold colors equals lots of fun.
2nd, i truly hope we can become a church worthy being considered “radical.” i think JESUS pushed the limits and the powers responded by hating HIM (and still do). GOD’s freedom, grace, and absurd love seem to cause that type of reaction. i hope tapestry can truly follow CHRIST in that manner. i once heard someone say the following (i can’t remember who to give credit to)
that all the apostles were imprisoned, beaten, chased off, lied about, and killed by the powerful and the religious for how they followed JESUS. when we go through the same things it may indicate we’re actually doing a decent job of following HIM.
i hope we one day merit being considered “radical” (80’s slang or not) in our faith.
Perry Describes TTU from Robert Terrell on Vimeo.
disclaimer – i’m on the board of touched twice united so my opinion is slightly biased – of course, it is actually one of the most amazing opportunities you and your church will ever have.
ok, i’ve done my disclaimer now i can speak freely. TOUCHED TWICE UNITED IS AMAZING! it really is a cool way of doing GOD-things.
basically ttu is a way of getting churches, community organizations, and community leaders to work together to help the weakest citizens in their counties. imagine combining a medical, dental, hearing, and vision clinic with any other service you can imagine (beauty salon, oil change service, etc.) and doing it with a $0 budget. that’s part of what touched twice is. churches work together to find people who are already wanting to help their community. the churches also look for ways that are already in their communities of meeting the needs that will be discovered. for example, hold as a part of a vision clinic touched twice gets the lions club involved – those lions love working with the vision impaired – i know this because my dad used to sale the lions club brooms and lights door to door when he was a lion). another example in wisconsin is the fact that there are free dental supplies that the state will offer to any dentist doing charitable work. there are tons of ways of meeting needs that are already in our communities which are simply not very well known. you get all this together and then provide every person in need who shows up for a clinic an “advocate” who will help them to discover needs, determine what can be done, walk them through the process, and will pray with them.
it’s an amazing thing and did i mention that a touched twice clinic is usually done on a ZERO budget? this is why the national institute of health is interested in it (which should make jonathan wilmore happy). if you’re church is interested in learning more or doing one give me a ring, visit the website (the new one is ttunited.org which will be fully functional by may 1st), or even better yet contact perry polnaszek and let him tell you about ttu. as a group we have a goal of having a clinic in every county in the u.s of a by 2011. it’s a big goal but the clinics are really taking off – which is what usually happens with good ideas.
tapestry is going to be a part of doing one later this year and i’m pretty pumped about.
i’m pretty pumped about two conferences that i will be going to this year. the two conferences are:
btw, if anyone is going to be in austin (q 2009) or chicago (theological conversation) for those two conferences i would be very interested in grabbing a room with you.
SIDE NOTE – i was driving to emy j’s coffee today and saw this car on fire from a three car collision that had happened moments before. i stopped to make sure everyone was okay and left when the police officers arrived an started shooing people away (they had this brilliant idea that it would probably be wise to move people away from the gasoline containing vehicles that were on fire and might explode – not sure why we were all comfortable standing 40’ away from this). anyhow, there were injuries but the officer believed that everyone was going to be okay.
i’ve seen vehicles catch on fire before but never actually as a result of an accident until today.
besides seeing my family in alabama the best part of heading down south is the food. i prefer so much of wisconsin over the south. i would rather have a supper cold & dry winter than i terribly hot and humid summer. i would rather go fishing on rivers that require canoes than boats. i would choose wisconsin cheese over whatever southern cheese there is (probably velveeta). etc., etc. on 90% of the comparisons it is really easy to choose wisconsin over the south.
yet that changes dramatically when we start talking about food. i think i probably gained 10 lbs from all the food i ate. i know for a fact that i ate lunch at two different places on one day just because i was afraid i wouldn’t get to eat at either of them again during the week. it’s not even just the nice restaurants that i love. some of the fast food restaurants and “mom and pop” joints are my favorite places to eat. raising cane’s, dempsey’s las trace amigos, chick-fil-a, deanies, wintzel’s, etc. oh how i love these places.
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a list of statements that stood out today in the church planting leadership d.min seminar i am presently in. these are not necessarily states that i agreed or disagreed with. they are just statements that stood out as if audiologically highlighted when they were said:
pam invented the greatest phrase today. the phrase is “she’s a red squirrel.”
it happened this way.
we love the squirrels in wisconsin. we have HUGE gray squirrels, which almost ever place has, but in addition to the grays we also have blacks squirrels and red squirrels. the black ones are a color variation of the typical gray squirrel. pam and i think they look like russian relatives of the gray squirrel. the red squirrels are about 1/3 the size of your typical gray squirrel. they are just a little bigger than a chipmunk. the red squirrels also are about the fastest things you have ever seen. they bounce all over the place. we all love watching them in the back yard. they run from one spot to the next and then back to their original spot. adam once described them as squirrels with attention deficit disorder junked up on speed. it’s a pretty accurate description.
anyhow pam was describing someone today that is a friend of hers. i’ve never met this lady so pam was giving me a brief run down of her personality. somewhere during her attempt she finally said “she’s a red squirrel.”
i instantly knew what pam’s friend was like. i can’t wait to get back to wisconsin and use this phrase.