Month: April 2018

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Pork Chops & The Mission

I know some of y’all are going to be watching the Avengers: Infinity War release tonight and I hope you have a great time. First, because you are my friends and I typically hope that my friends have great times when they do something, and second, because I will be watching the movie later on (this weekend or next) and hope it is a good one. Tonight instead of going to a crowded theater, I will be watching The Mission with Conor & Wesley, two friends with whom I have been reading the book “Hollywood Worldviews: Watching Films with Wisdom & Discernment” by Brian Godawa. This week we talked briefly about films concerning followers of Christ that are made by people who aren’t coming with a specifically Christian agenda – not anti-Christian just not coming with an agenda to promote Christianity.

I usually prefer movies about Jesus and Christians that have not been made by film makers that don’t have a Christian agenda. I think the reason for this is because non-specifically Christian movie makers are concerned with telling the story, while Christian movie makers often are more concerned with the message conveyed than the story itself. The thing is that the story is the message within Christianity and we have a great story (after all it has been called The Greatest Story Ever Told). That’s why Jesus taught in parables. It is why the first four books of our New Testament are gospels (i.e. stories about the good news of the Kingdom of God that was inaugurated by Christ). It is why so much of the Old Testament is told in stories. Christianity isn’t about learning syllogisms and propositions. It is about the restoration of relationship with God through God’s own sacrifice in Jesus. You get to know a person (and in this case the Messiah) through stories. In my opinion Christian films often don’t focus enough on the story because they don’t realize that the story is the message. Film makers without a specifically Christian agenda often just focus on the story and the message gets through in spite of them because, once again, the story is the message.

Anyhow, I mentioned while talking with Conor & Wesley that I loved the movie “The Mission”, a movie that does an amazing job of detailing the change that happens through Christ and the threat such Christian change posses to the powers that be. Well I discovered that neither of them have ever seen the film. Seriously! How could this be. I wasn’t going to let this stand.

So tonight while you may be watching an Avengers movie we will be watching The Mission and eating grilled pork chops and mashed potatoes. Personally I am a pretty big fan of the plan for the evening.

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The Week of Adam

My kids are really cool.  This is probably because their mom is really cool.  I can list reasons why I am proud of all three of them (2 kiddos and 1 wifeakins) but this week has been the “week of Adam”.

Thus far this week he has:

  • Been offered and accepted his first professional job in his field of study.
  • Successful defended his thesis fur his Masters degree.
  • Received a graduate research scholarship in recognition for his research.

Like I wrote earlier,  he’s a pretty cool kid. I am incredibly proud of him.

Pam and I have been discussing how this week feel like we have kind of reach the parenting “finish line” for him. We know that isn’t true, there will be other parenting things that continue to happen. Still it does still kind of feel like a finish line has been approached.

Adam with his defense committee Or as I like to cal them the gauntlet)
Adam in his spiffy defense jacket.
Adam with Dr. Tom Sather, his faculty mentor.
Adam with a couple of his grad buddies
Adam getting his scholarship award.
That’s my boy’s name in the bulletin.
Snacking at the reception.
The fam.

SIDE NOTE – We’ve been calling this “the week of Adam” in reference to Seinfeld’s “Summer of George”. Therefore, when ever you say “the week of Adam” you must shout it in a George Cosantza voice. It is more fun that way. Go ahead and try it. You will find that it is fun. IT’S THE WEEK OF ADAM!

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Changing an Alternator & Living Out the Kingdom

Monday I replaced the alternator in Fred the Minivan. I’m not really good enough to be a shade tree mechanic. I am more of a small to medium size shrub mechanic. This means that I don’t have any great knowledge or skill in working on my vehicles but I desire to be able to fix them. That’s why changing the alternator in Fred the Minivan this past week was a scary thing to me that I avoided for a week.

I’ve changed alternator in cars several times before and they aren’t really that difficult. They are usually pretty “plug and play” in their design. Typically it involves: removing the belt from the alternator, unplugging the alternator from the wiring assembly, removing three supporting bolts, and then reversing the process to install the new alternator. The problem is that everything in the engine of a minivan is tight. I was pretty worried that due to the tight shape of Fred’s engine compartment I was going to really mess something up.  SO how did I handle this fear of not being able to complete the process of changing the alternator? Well, as I wrote earlier, I avoided doing it for a week. Thankfully I had some very good resources and a very trustworthy backup, so I finally jumped into replacing the alternator.

I usually buy a Haynes and/or Chilton manual for the vehicles we own (I usually just use the library online version for our newer vehicles). These manuals do a great job of walking a person through how to do most repairs on the vehicle. Youtube now does an even better job. When I searched for changing the alternator in a 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan I found many videos of people walking through the changing of an alternator step by step. I might not always be able to read a description of a task and understand it, but I can definitely watch a video of someone doing the task and then figure out how to follow their directions. Even better I have a friend who is a mechanic and I am comfortable that if I really lose it all Conor will walk me through things. The fact that I have these two wonderful resources and a friend who is an excellent backup enables me to take chances.

Conor is my backup for Buddy.

The best part is that with this type of backup I’m not as scared to actually taking chances when working on my cars. I’m still scared, just not so scared that I don’t try anything that is beyond my meager abilities. Thanks to Conor, last year Buddy the Mustang went from having an automatic transmission to a sporty manual transmission. If things work out this year Buddy will have her engine upgraded from a 2.3l “all show and no go” to a spunky 2.3l turbo. There is no way I would try this if it weren’t for the backup of Conor and the beauty of YouTube, Chilton, and Haynes. That backup gives me the courage to take chances.

As a minister (pastor and chaplain) I frequently have conversations with fellow followers of Christ in which they worry that they will mess something up in another person’s faith exploration because they do something wrong. They worry that they will say or do the wrong thing when they are trying to portray Jesus in the best light possible. “What if I say something wrong?” “What if I give the wrong answer?” “What if I do the wrong thing?”

The truth, however, is that God wants to use you and me. When we don’t know what to say or do we have backup. First, from the Holy Spirit. “… do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” (Matthew 10:19-20) Second, from our fellow believers, church, and ministers. When you don’t know what to do or say there are other believers (myself among them) that want to help you. We don’t have to know all the answers. We don’t have to know the exact right thing. This isn’t an excuse not to prepare and study, but it does mean that we aren’t dependent upon our own abilities. We have serious backup.

Now go out there and take some risks.

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So You Don’t Have a Cross Country Ski Course in Your Backyard?

That must be tough. 🙂

  

One of my favorite things about our home (or Chickadee Wood as Pam has named it) is that while we are located in the middle of a typical suburb, our backyard is connected to around 60 acres of wood thanks to a tree ranch and an undeveloped school forest (some schools in the Wisconsin have forests for doing things because this is Wisconsin and we care about the outdoors a lot in Wisconsin).

Our friendly, neighborhood barred owl.

A medium size forest in your backyard means a lot of positive things. It means that we have deer and wild turkeys that live and run through our backyard. It means that every now and then you look up and suddenly there is a wonderful barred owl landing in front of you.   It also means that when there is snow we get to walk out our back door and go cross country skiing.

Of course, I am not very good at cross country skiing – specifically I am quite slow. Still I can and do to go and I love that. This late snow (30″ in April is absurd) may be a pain in the butt, yet it also means that I get to go cross country skiing later in the day and with less layers. I am a big fan of that.

I bring this up because I believe people, and especially ministers, should love the place in which they live. One of the things that I believe helps a person to love where they live is to approach ones community as if you were a tourist. A tourist goes into a community looking for the interesting things within that community. One of my favorite podcasts, 99% Invisible, has the motto “always read the plaque“. Jeff T, my friend and manager in chaplaincy, likes to tell those he manages to “walk slowly through the people”. Both sayings fit in nicely with loving the place where one is. Every place has something cool about it. A minister should do enough research to discover what those cool things are.

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No Goat for You

Yesterday Pam referenced that she would kind of like to have a goat. I thought that sounded like fun and decided to do a little research to discover if we can keep a goat on our property in the great village of Plover. Unfortunately, from my reading of the ordinance we aren’t allowed to have a goat in residence on our property (here’s the ordinance). That stinks.

While reading about goats I was struck by the specific list of exotic animals that are forbidden from being housed in the village of Plover. Here’s the list:

  • All poisonous animals, including rear-fang snakes.
  • All nonhuman primates, including but not limited to apes, chimpanzees, gibbons, gorillas, orangutans and siamangs.
  • Baboons.
  • Bears.
  • Bison.
  • Cheetahs.
  • Constrictor snakes.
  • Coyotes.
  • Crocodilians.
  • Deer.
  • Elephants.
  • Game cocks and other fighting birds.
  • Hippopotami.
  • Hyenas.
  • Jaguars.
  • Leopards.
  • Lions.
  • Lynxes.
  • Monkeys, either old world or new world.
  • Ostriches.
  • Pumas.
  • Rhinoceroses.
  • Sharks.
  • Snakes not naturally indigenous to Portage County.
  • Snow leopards.
  • Swine.
  • Tigers.
  • Wolves and wolf hybrids.

I’ve emphasized the ones that I personally think are funny. Obviously, the village board has these in the ordinance because they are concerned there is a very real possibility of someone in the village thinking “You know what would class up this place? A hippopotamus in the front year. I’m going to get me one of them.”

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The Good News is That Clive Stays in

So the good news from all this snow has been that I have been able to let Clive out without a leash while Adam and I have cleaned the driveway several times. The snow berms have been high enough to act as a natural fence. This is nice because it has kept Clive’s nose from dragging him away from us. I like working with Clive hanging out with me.

The bad news is that he hasn’t seemed to like being out as much as he normally does. Clive typically loves the snow, but he hasn’t seem to as much today. Pam thinks it may be because he can’t see anything beyond the snow berm. I believe she very well may be correct. Large snowfalls and short dogs don’t go together very well.

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Terrell Family Discussion Comparing Snowpocalypse & Other Weather Emergencies

Me: You know everywhere we have ever lived has had weather emergencies but I believe I lam most comfortable the snow emergencies in Wisconsin.

Adam: Why?

Me: Well, you probably don’t remember hiding in the basement and singing songs during Tornado Warnings in Missouri?

Adam: Nope

Me: Those were very scary. You probably remember hurricanes and preparing for them.

Adam: Yep

Pamela: I wasn’t usually scared of them except for the night before Katrina.

Me: Yeah I began to think “what if we should have left” then? Realistically the weather emergencies at other places contained the possibility of large scale death totals and destruction. A huge snow storm is still dangerous but basically we just stay inside, and shovel the driveway every so often.

Pamela: The biggest danger of this storm to me is that I will gain 10 lbs.

SIDE NOTES – we have been eating A LOT of carbs. 🙂

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I Love Tapestry’s Leadership Team

I am a subject in a friend’s Doctor of Ministry project concerning discussions of church facilities. He told me a story of one church that he was dealing with where the leadership hadn’t told the pastor their true feelings concerning their building because they were being “Minnesota Nice“. So my friend asked if Tapestry’s leadership was OK telling me their true feelings even if it meant disagreeing with me.

I just started laughing. Yeah, they have no problem telling me when they disagree with me. 🙂

One of the things I love about Tapestry’s Leadership Team is that while I always feel like they have my back, they also have absolutely no problem telling me when they disagree with me or think that one of my ideas is stupid – which they often are. Today is one great example of this.

Tapestry continuing a worship gathering during a tornado warning.

Today we canceled our worship gathering for tomorrow. This is a big deal for me. In all my years of ministry I have NEVER, until today, canceled a worship service. I once held a worship service for our church’s youth, open to everyone, once during a hurricane even though the main church service had been canceled. Once in Tapestry we continued our worship gathering  after we had been forced to move into the school’s very small basement because of a tornado warning.

So today while discussing whether or not we should have our worship gathering tomorrow I was seriously leaning toward continuing the worship gathering because my mindset is that people should just choose not to come if they view it as dangerous. As we chatted via text messages I told them all about how I had never canceled a service/gathering. There are 5 of us and the vote at the time was 1 to 1 with 3 others considering their vote. When I told the LT that I had never canceled church Marc came back with a message saying he felt secure traveling because he had all-wheel drive and lived in town but that wasn’t true for everyone else, and we shouldn’t have church out of pride. Marc & the Holy Spirit don’t play fair. 🙂

BAM! Suddenly the vote was 5 to 0 for canceling our worship gathering tomorrow.

I hate it when I am wrong, but I am VERY thankful for our Leadership Team.

BTW – Tapestry WILL NOT have its normal Sunday worship gathering tomorrow.