Month: March 2010

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in search of the perfect running jacket

those who know me know that i don’t care a great deal about clothes. if at a particular moment i am dressed with any style at all it is because pam bought me those clothes. when i decide that something is comfortable and that i like it then i have a tendency to wear it a lot. take the sweater vest for an example. i never knew it until moving up to wisconsin but i was born to wear sweater vests. i wear them so often that devon (tapestry’s  all around tech guy) has declared the sweater vest/jean/chuck taylor combo to be the tapestry uniform and wears it on sunday nights to mock me (yeah i feel the love). pam and my parents can tell you stories from high school concerning a t-shirt i stole from chris lee that i wore every other day (it’s graphic said “cajun power” and it was awesome).

so that’s why it is with almost shame that i now admit that i have discovered i have a passion to find the world’s most perfect running jacket/windbreaker. i presently own 4 windbreakers and i find myself looking for new running jackets all the time. i almost bought a new yesterday because i saw one on sale. did i need it – nope – but it was on sale and had a hood (one of the things on my list of what makes a perfect running jacket). i didn’t buy it but i came real close to doing so.

so here’s my list of what makes the perfect running jacket.

  • weather resistant – it should block the rain and the wind. you would think this was a given but one of my four windbreakers is a rain magnet. if i run with it during a mist i gain 5 pounds of weight from the rain it soaks up.
  • supple – my current favorite running jacket is a sugoi versa convertible jacket which is so smooth it is like running covered in butter (which was meant to describe a good thing but now that i think about it probably isn’t). a good running jacket should be incredibly smooth and move well with you while still being weather resistant. this also helops the windbreaker to fit well next to your body.
  • lightweight – the less it weights the better. if you need warmth then put layers on underneath the jacket BUT the jacket itself should weight next to nothing.
  • good zippered storage – there needs to be plenty of storage for gel packs my cell phone and ipod. these pockets need to be zippered and positioned in such a manner that i can position my stuff in such a way that the jacket is balanced on my shoulders. my sugoi is perfect for this with unzippered pockets on the inside of the jacket, two front zippered pockets and a pocket in the small of the back of the jacket.
  • a collapsible hood – this is the only thing that my present sugoi jacket doesn’t have. if it did it would be perfect. i so wish my sugoi had a hood. it would be an absolutely amazing jacket then.

one advantage that my sugoi versa jacket does have that is not on my list is that it is convertible from a running jacket to a running vest. as i said at the beginning of this post i like vests. when i bought the jacket i didn’t think being convertible to a vest was that great of a thing but soon realized how amazing it was on a day of dramatic temperature change when i was able to cool off by removing and storing the sleeves during a long run.

anyway for a guy who doesn’t care about clothes and i am somewhat bothered by the fact that i now find myself drawn to and tempted by windbreakers every time i’m around them.

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the week in tweets – 2010-03-14

  • i always like it when i get to use anything from søren kierkegaard in a sermon 🙂 #
  • @drewcausey – not here – i'm a little jealous because we're still several inches of snow and mud away from discing it. in reply to drewcausey #
  • @dannygilliam – oh i love him too. anything from "celebration of discipline" is a win. in reply to dannygilliam #
  • @stevekmccoy – yep but they also included "young frankenstein" and another "beetlejuice." someone screwed up consistently. in reply to stevekmccoy #
  • RT @pwilson: Just read, "70 percent of pastors in the United States claim they have no friends." That breaks my heart. ***I'm a 30%er. #
  • funny – our two church "small groups" is now larger than the group that started the church. #
  • time to go to bed so i can wake up tomorrow morning and go to a death notification seminar. fun, fun. #
  • @HeyMrsNorman – yeah it is but there is much more exciting stories coming up in reply to HeyMrsNorman #
  • @HeyMrsNorman – btw, i LOVE your profile pic in reply to HeyMrsNorman #
  • @labdollegs – that's the belts i was talking about (though it is in stevens point not green bay) in reply to labdollegs #
  • seminar leader just said "black people don't handle death the way WE white people do." shantel behind me is the darkest anglo i've seen 🙂 #
  • @drewcausey – what a glorious season. #
  • a victim's family member just described the day she was notified of her bro's death as "the 1st day of my NEW normal life." whew. #
  • any "threads" have interesting stories of times in their lif when prayer was powerful and interested in sharing them? #
  • @bradwphoto – HE's lost? in reply to bradwphoto #
  • i have a love/hate relationship with lenoard sweet's writing. about the time i am tired of his cute illustrations 1 strikes home with me. #
  • i know i shouldn't but i always feel rather uncomfortable when i meet a guy who loves cats – sorry fellows who do (dad, jim, brad, joe, etc) #
  • @MicahHaley – i knew there was a reason i liked you. in reply to MicahHaley #
  • could someone tell me why the great commission resurgence is so important? watched the vid and just seemed like a long sermon. #gcr #
  • mhmmmm! homemade gumbo for lunch on a foggy day = happy robert #
  • "if it wasn't for JESUS i would be an atheist" @lensweet "so beautiful" #
  • CRAP! i just missed a bag of crap on woot because my caps lock was on when i typed in my password. argh! #
  • @thegsides – what exactly is a CHRISTian challenge? forgive? love? 😉 in reply to thegsides #
  • why don't celebrities realize that plastic surgery just makes them look weird and not young. example … madonna on the marriage ref #
  • @jesslawrence1 – i would agree with you on that. i miss that guy. actually i miss many of you guys. in reply to jesslawrence1 #
  • i don't watch glenn beck so i'm just now learning that according to him social justice shouldn't be practiced in our churches. really? #
  • RT @sojourners Tell Glenn Beck: I'm a Social Justice Christian http://su.pr/51SO4m #
  • @dannygilliam – apparently not. in reply to dannygilliam #
  • @alkinnu – if you are at the drink machines there's a water fountain behind you. 🙂 in reply to alkinnu #
  • any of you wine connoisseurs know what the term is that refers to a wine's localness? the attributes of the locale that are in it & make it? #
  • @natebyrd3 – WOOHOO! for you that is. in reply to natebyrd3 #
  • in love japanese game shows. #
  • i much prefer hardback books to paperback but i'm not a fan of dust jackets. they're like pseudo paperbacks. #
  • daylight savings time is another one of the benefits of being a part of a church that only has evening worship gatherings. 🙂 #

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the image we want? really? post 2 of 2

ronnie floyd gcr

this is a barely connected continuation from my post on being a bad modern baptist.

DISCLAIMER #1 – i know next to nothing about the report i am about to mention.

like i said in yesterday’s post i’m not a good modern baptist. i don’ know who the current SBC or MWBC presidents are and i don’t really care to look them up. i don’t care about the politics of the SBC, though i’m sure they are discussing things that are very important. my focus is on loving my friends who make up tapestry and trying to share that love with those around the world.

which brings me to the screen capture image i posted above. it is from a video report on the great commission resurgence. don’t ask me what the gcr is because i can’t really tell you (remember i’ve already told you i’m a very poor modern baptist). though i’m not sure i get the impression that political elements on one side of the SBC love it and political elements on the other side can’t stand it. i thought i would watch the report video concerning the gcr but i still don’t know what it is really all about. i need someone who can cut through political language and tell me what the debate is really all about. to me it seems like both sides are saying the same things. remember i’m not a good modern baptist. i’m not in the know on any of this.

DISCLAIMER #2 – i don’t know ronnie floyd. he is probably a swell guys so please don’t take any of what i am about to say as a personal attack on him. i am merely talking about his look in regards to old-time versus modern baptist.

so i watched the video and i was immediately struck by the look of the speaker. his name is ronnie floyd and he is the pastor of the first baptist church of springdale. i’ve never met him and i know nothing of him – remember, i’m not a good modern baptist. all i know is that when i watched the video all i could think was “how does this guy’s look convey that we want to do things in a new way”? when i looked at him i thought power, influence, plastic, and baptist stereotype.  AGAIN PLEASE REMEMBER THAT I DON’T KNOW RONNIE FLOYD! i’m sure he is a great guy and that his family, friends, church, and dogs love him. all i know about him is his look and i was wondering if i should believe what was being said about a resurgence based on that look. you can say that’s shallow and you would probably be right. in my defense i will say that there was obviously a lot of time spent in arranging the background of the video and determining the lighting and other attributes of the video so as to convey the message best. therefore the look of the speaker chosen is an important part of the message of the video. “the medium is  the message.”

i thought i would get someone else’s opinion to compare to my own. one of the threads whose opinion i respect greatly is jan. jan likes to call herself tapestry’s house mom. she hasn’t been involved in a church for decades and is not familiar with the evangelical church culture at all. jan came to a worship gathering one night because she was interested in exploring faith and while she doesn’t believe me when i say it she has become one of GOD’s greatest gifts for helping everyone else in tapestry explore their faith in CHRIST. so i sent the above image to jan without any explanation and asked what she thought.

here was her response:

he is dressed meticulously but chose the pink tie to soften the look.  is he wearing lots of makeup?  is his hair real?  is he real?  he looks like one of those TV ministers who are always asking for money!

she said basically what i thinking (except for the pink tie bit – i didn’t even notice it – good catch jan).

from what i saw on the video (without actually knowing if there what the politics are behind it) i would say that i agree with much of what the resurgence report says BUT i still find myself asking does the image of this video actually convey that anything different is being done? i fear it conveys the same old plastic, unreal image that we have been conveying for awhile. is this really the image we want to convey to the world? i think we look our best when we are conveying the loser look of old-time baptists. they were people who agreed on four things and had diversity on so much else. that’s what i want to look like.

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so beautiful by leonard sweet

So_Beautiful_large1

i finished so beautiful: divine design for life and the church by leonard sweet yesterday. i have mixed feelings concerning sweet’s writing. he makes some incredible points but he does it by making tons of one line statements that vary from cheesy to brilliant. for example he states that when we de-story something we in essence destroy it. i would usually dismiss an author who writes in such a manner BUT sweet makes some incredible points.

sweet structures the book around the mri concept that he has discussed at other points. sweet says that the dna of the church is m.r.i. (missional, relational, incarnational). this again is one of those things that drives me crazy and attracts me at the same time. i can stand lots of cute little acronym’s and dr. sweet uses them all the time. for example the opposite of the mri church is the apc church (attractional, propositional, colonial). the book is full of these little things.

yet sweet’s writing has a great deal of depth to it. the acronyms that would typically drive me nuts hit the mark instead. i love what he says on the church being missional, relational and incarnational at its core. he hammers this home chapter upon chapter. this is why i enjoyed reading “so beautiful,” it is why i have enjoyed reading several of sweet’s previous works, and it is why i will read his future works also. in some ways i think saying “i don’t like his writing style” is part of the highest compliments i can give dr. sweet. this is because i read his works in spite of his style. i read his writing because his point are so good that it doesn’t matter that i don’t enjoy the way he makes them.

it’s a good read and i would recommend it.

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i’m not a good modern baptist – post 1 of 2

DISCLAIMER #1 – this is a prep-post for another post that i’ll make tomorrow. i figure no one will read this but writing this for me.

btw, these posts are going to include several disclaimers.

DISCLAIMER #2 – i am an excellent old-time baptist but not a very good modern baptist.

here’s what i mean.

when baptist thought was originally formed in the early 1600s it was center around 4 beliefs. these are:

  • a theology of believer’s baptism – only those who are capable of believing in JESUS (age-wise) should be baptized.
  • a theology of salvation through faith alone – we don’t earn forgiveness through our own actions or anything else (i.e. sacramentalism)
  • scripture alone as the rule for faith and practice – pretty much self-explanatory
  • the autonomy of the local church –  each church has power over itself rather than a denominational body being in control

many early baptist churches added to these four core beliefs a belief in separation of church and state. while i definitely hold to this believe it wasn’t universal so i won’t claim it as distinctly baptist.

old time baptist were a ragtag group of people who agreed on those 4 beliefs and not much else. they were a combination of english separatist (presbyterians) and anabaptists (mennonites), two groups that had VERY different beliefs on how to live out CHRISTian faith. baptists have deep roots in the radical reformation with slight roots in the magisterial reformation. you probably don’t care about the distinct reformations within the protestant reformation so i will just share this saying to convey the point i want to make in saying that baptist have radical reformation roots. a church history professor taught me “in the reformation catholics hated protestants, and protestants hated catholics, BUT EVERYONE HATED THE RADICALS.” old-time baptists were the losers that got beat up on by everyone in power. we weren’t influential in the circles of power. the underdogs flocked to baptist churches. i like that kind of faith. i.e. i’m a good old-time baptist.

but i stink as a modern baptist. why? because over the past 50 years southern baptists have become powerful and influential within a large part of u.s. culture. we aren’t the underdogs anymore – even if we often claim to be. we have huge, gorgeous churches that the movers and shakers of society come to and pay homage to in order to get elected or move up in our society. we have lots of politics within our churches and denomination because we are more concerned with power than we are with the downcast of the land. we used to care desperately about society’s losers because WE WERE SOCIETY’S LOSERS. now with our respect, education, and influence we barely notice the downtrodden. i’m not a good modern baptist because this stuff kills me.

i can live with this.

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i’ve been spoiled

freethinker

I LOVE THE COMMUNITY OF FAITH THAT I AM A PART OF! tapestry is simply the greatest and i love getting to be a part of it. there are so many things that i could say about this but today i’ll just mention two reasons i love tapestry and both of them are personal because they relate to my experiences as pastor. so here are two reason i love tap.

  • tap is a verbally safe family. we are not a quite group. it’s safe to talk and express doubts and triumphs. people participate in what is said during the message. in fact, one recent sunday that i felt like was a quite night pam pointed out that there had been more interaction during it than at any other church we had ever been. i’ve just grown to expect even more. i love the fact that while i am the primary one preaching i am by no means the only person in the room that people expect to hear GOD’s voice through. yes, we still have sermons and i do 85-90% of the talking but the 10-15% that comes from everyone else is huge. i love it. i love the questions. i love the doubts. i love the corrections. i love the additions. i love the personal examples. the tapestry sermon really comes from the community AND IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET BETTER AS WE CONTINUE TO MATURE (hint – my ultimate goal is to have an open weekly meeting for discussion and contribution to each week’s message). the above photo would never describe the thoughts of the threads.
  • tap is a loving group. plain and simple the threads love each other and it shows. i could explain more but i figure this one is pretty easy for you to imagine. the people of tapestry love each other, want to be around each other, and love on others in such a way that they are made a part of the group. it’s a loving community.

there are plenty of other reasons that i could talk about but those are the two that i was most thankful for two.

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they like JESUS but not the church

they like JESUS tuesday i finished dan kimball’s book “they like JESUS but not the church: insights from emerging generations." this is not a new book. it’s not old either but it’s not brand new (written in 2007). i bought it a couple of years ago and it has sat on a book case waiting for me to read it. i wish i had picked it up earlier because it was an excellent read.

no, it’s not a book of statistical research. it is based on his conversations with people who like JESUS but not the church that he met in public and became friends with. these conversations form the “data” that he analyses through out the book.

yes, you could dismiss “they like JESUS but not the church” because of the fact that it is not based on statistical information. you could say to yourself that since it isn’t statistically based it doesn’t fit your situation. i think you would be wrong to do so.

for me kimball’s book is more meaningful because the points of the book came out of kimball’s discussion with friends he had made. i think that was really the point of the book … CHRISTians, especially ministers, desperately need to get out of our buildings and subculture and make friends with non-JESUS followers. kimball lived this out in the manner that he wrote the book and in the manner that he ministers. he lived it out by having people who like JESUS but not the church over to his home for supper, going over to their home for supper, spending time with people where they are rather than expecting them to come to some religious building, and most importantly LISTENING to people who like JESUS but not the church.

it’s a good read.

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he passed

adam before his spring formal

years ago the terrell household started a birthday tradition of quizzing the birthday kid. pam and i figured that there are some important things that a kid should learn during any given year of life. therefore, on each child’s birthday that child is quizzed to determined whether he know these things or not. if the child doesn’t pass the quiz then he is relegated to live the previous year over again in hopes that he will learn the right things.

today is adam’s birthday and therefore during supper pam and i started the birthday quiz. the questions revolve around things that we believe are important to being a terrell and a human. the questions vary but here are a few that occur every year.

  • what are the 4 things that a real man does?
  • loves GOD
  • loves his family
  • protects women
  • protects those who are weaker than him
  • what is the only band that matters?
  • what are the 4 things that a real man has on him at all legal times to solve problems?
    • a pen
    • a bandaide
    • a knife
    • a phone/calling card
  • if you were stranded on a deserted island with a portable dvd player, a solar charger, and 1 dvd, which dvd would you want to have?
  • whose mr. darcy portrayal is the best (this is pam’s question – definitely not mine)?

    • they’re simple questions but they are things that we believe are important to being a terrell guy of a certain age.

    i’m proud to announce that adam has passed his 16th test and is now officially a 16 year old. he’ll be taking another test for the state of wisconsin concerning whether they trust him to drive or not next week. i’m sure he will pass that too.