once or twice in previous churches.
i remember feeling this way
once or twice in previous churches.
simulacra and simulation
i like candles in worship. nothing blatantly spiritual about them, they just help me to get into the right mindset. washington elementary school now has a no open flame policy and therefore regular candles are a “no no.” the issue i now face is whether flameless candles are just completely cheesy or not. i feel pretty lame putting out flameless candles just as a mood setter but at the same time i really do like candles in worship gatherings. of course, flameless candles are merely a simulation of the real thing and therefore it could be argued that they aren’t really going to serve the same purpose anyhow. i no for most of you this is probably not a big deal, but it’s twisting my brain in knots. any thoughts?
SIDE NOTE – here’s the itunes address for our podcast once it begins. obviously it won’t begin until our gatherings do (september 14).
september tapestry prayer email
here’s the monthly prayer email i send out to those who are praying on behalf of tapestry. if you do not receive this email and would like to please message me and i will add you to the list.
setup preview
FIRST let me say that i am praying for and thinking about all my friends and family that live in the path of hurricane gustav. if you haven’t evacuated yet and would like to you are welcome to come to our home. wisconsin is wonderful right now and well worth the visit (even if it is just for the purpose of running away from a hurricane). i remember what katrina was like, so i’ll be praying for you based on my memory of my feelings and thoughts were.
second i’ll talk about tapestry. tonight was our set up preview. we spent the evening trying to figure out how to hook stuff up and where to put it. it involved a lot of trial and error. my real worry was that we wouldn’t be able to put everything up or take it down in the time we had hoped for. our goal is to be set up by 5:15 p.m. each sunday so we can concentrate on people and people only once the gathering start to happen. everything went wonderfully. we set everything up, had it looking decent (we’re still not completely there yet), meet and talked about the example of the levites, and then tore everything down. we had more than enough time. i was incredibly nervous before we started tonight and i was pumped after we finished. it’s going to happen and people are going to be drawn to GOD.
i spent a little bit of time talking with our launch team about the biblical example of levites. this hebrew tribe acted as the “human camels” (jacob’s term) for all the items and equipment involved in GOD’s tabernacle. the levites did all the heavy lifting and hard work so that others could worship. i love what deuteronomy 10:8-9 says concerning them:
at that time the LORD set apart the tribe of levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the LORD, to stand before the LORD to minister and to pronounce blessings in his name, as they still do today. That is why the levites have no share or inheritance among their brothers; the LORD is their inheritance, as the LORD your GOD told them.)
“the LORD is their inheritance!” wow! we spent a little bit of time talking about the fact that as a nomadic church and we have much in common with the tabernacle. for better or worse the launch team members are the levites of tapestry. we will carry and setup everything, while others just arrive and worship. in the midst of all the work GOD is out inheritance. it’s all fun and games right now but 6 months from now i’m going to have to remember that GOD is my inheritance when i no longer want to set stuff up just to take it down in three hours. remember folks, i’m old.
anyway i gave everyone a t-shirt tonight with the hebrew letters for “levite” on them. i just want us all to remember what we are doing and why we are doing it.
the final ad
f.a.q.’s
i’m continually updating tapestry’s website. at the moment i am working on making the f.a.q.’s better. i made myself laugh today by the answer to the question “what do i need to wear to tapestry?” here’s the answer
Clothes! You must wear clothes to everything that Tapestry does. We’re pretty strict about that.
What type of clothes you wear are completely up to you. We are all pretty casual in our clothing selections. Yet truthfully, as long as you are wearing clothes, casual or formal, you’ll get along fine.
adam and i have been sitting in the “man cave” thinking of adding some photo examples to get the point further across. the photos would be a punk rocker with the statement “ok” beside him/her. then we would add a person in formal attire and say “ok”. finally we would add a photo of adam or eve with fig leaves and say “pushing the limits”. the mental images made us laugh.
radio ad transcript
for those of you who are interested i’m putting up the initial script for our radio ad that will run on wifc & the valley. here’s the rough draft
[MX: ROCK!!!!]
[SFX: BIG ENGINE REV]
MONSTER TRUCK ANCR: SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY! You’re gonna be BORED! BORED! BORED! You’re gonna hear PREACHING and LECTURING! You’re gonna sing the same tired hymns you’ve singing since you were 5 YEARS OLD! You’re going to STRUGGLE to stay AWAKE the entire time! OH YEAH! Church is gonna be AWESOME!
[SFX: BIG explosion]
[END MX AND SFX]
ROBERT: Or, maybe you could try a church that’s a little less, you know, church-y.
[MX: CURRENT POP]
ROBERT: A church like Tapestry Church in Stevens Point. At Tapestry, we believe that faith is about Jesus, not a building or old traditions. You’ll find someone talking with you, instead of at you. Who knows? You may even find that you like coming to church again. Hi, I’m Robert Terrell the pastor of Tapestry. If you’re feeling disconnected from your faith, see if Tapestry Church can re-connect you. Join us for Tapestry’s first service at 6 the evening of Sunday, September 14th at Washington Elementary School in Stevens Point. To learn more about Tapestry Church, visit us online at S-P-tapestry-dot-org.
the idea of the monster truck commercial makes me laugh.
it’s a first for me
i’m 40 yeaqrs old and i have been hooked by fishing lures quite a few times BUT i have never been hooked to the point that i had to push the barb all the way through my skin and cut it off to remove the hook until today. the above photo is what my left thumb looked like after i had removed the hook (for some reason i didn’t think to take a photo of the hook still stuck in my finger). it was my own stupid fault too.
adam and i had been fishing a total of 20 minutes and had already caught six good fish. then we each hooked one at the same time. adam’s was hooked pretty deep so he asked me to see if i could unhook it for him. in order to do this i brought my fish in and laid it in the bottom of the boat. BIG MISTAKE. you never do that because then you have a two pound fish with a hook in its mouth that now has something to push against for a jump that can hook you. i knew this but i did it anyway. STUPID!
anyhow, if it ever happens to you here’s a link on how to remove the hook. basically push the hook’s bend until it punctures through your skin, cut the barb off, and remove the hook. it hurts a little but it’s really not that bad.
the worst part of the whole thing was that it took me 20 minutes to remove the hook and bandage my thumb. this ate up the little fishing time we had for the afternoon. by the time i was bandaged we only had 15 minutes left to paddle back to our spot and fish some more. adam and i both thought it was too much effort for too little reward and thus headed home. having started off with 8 decent smallmouth in 20 minutes (including the time it took to paddle to our spot) meant it was probably going to be a great day.
just thinking about the wasted fishing irks me.
“woven together in CHRIST” wallpaper
i “needed” a new deskptop wallpaper for my computer so i created this today while talking with the copywrite guy for the radio stations (94.7fm, 95.5fm, & 99.9fm) we are going to run tapestry launch ads on (by the way the copywriter was quite cool to talk with). since it costs me nothing to do this i’m placing the wallpaper up on the blog for anyone who wants it. if you need a reminder to pray for tapestry please grab the wallpaper. if you like the color green please grab it. if you’ve always wanted an image that interlocked “woven” and “in”, then grab it. you probably get the picture by now (no pun intended)
SIDE NOTE – talking with the marketing agent and the copywriter for the radio stations i realized something. i have been trying desperately trying to avoid some of the older catch phrases we use within the church culture, but the problem is that i’ve ended up jut using some of the newer catch phrases. by doing this i’ve actually made the message a little harder to understand. “holistic” and “missional” are great words but they were pretty much meaningless in my conversations today. in trying to convey to the marketing manager that our group believes that everyone is at a different part of their journey of faith and that churches should encourage that, i apparently conveyed to her that every religion was a way to GOD and all you had to do was choose your own path. woah! not what i meant to get across at all.
the experience was great. i have to unlearn some of the newer “church” words and simmer everything down to some easy to understand summaries. i wish i could get someone to critic my language and vocabulary once a quarter just to make sure that i am communicating clearly. that is excluding from my accent of course. that’s not leaving anytime soon.
this is a problem
i saw this sign when i was at the lifeway bookstore at new orleans seminary. i know the sign is just for some cheesy religious merchandise but it still made me sad.
seems to me that one of the biggest problems those of us who are believers in JESUS face is believing that we can “love like JESUS” without great sacrifice. the new testament portrays the love of JESUS as costly for HIM. the problem is that we try to get by with love that doesn’t require a great deal of sacrifice. no wonder people think the church is stupid. they see the obvious sacrifice of JESUS and clearly recognize that those of us who claim HIS name aren’t doing the same thing. no wonder we’re viewed as hypocrites.