Robert | Robert's Blog

September 17, 2012

sunday night setup

I say this pretty consistently during Sunday nights at Tapestry but I think setup is my favorite part of Sunday nights. This isn’t taking anything away from the actual worship gatherings because they are wonderful. It is just that I love getting to have conversations with a small group of essentially the same people each week as we work together. I generally think that most of us guys talk better when we are doing something together.

The ultimate goal with Tapestry is to split and form another church who will reach new and different people. Most church people I know don’t like the word “split” but I get super excited every time I think about us splitting. I can’t wait to see people come to know Jesus in their lives by methods and expressions that I have never even thought of.

Perhaps one such method could be setup. When we reach the size to divide we could start a church that just setups up and then tears down. Imagine how great the conversations would be. We might try this out one night in Tapestry. “Come to church tonight and we will setup and tear down together.” I like the sound of that. 🙂

September 17, 2012

Joe the Man

For those of you who weren’t at Tapestry last night you missed out on the church business meeting. Our business meetings are short and wonderful. The only business the church needed to deal with was voting on a new member of the Tapestry Leadership Team. We usually do this in November but Wesley Morris moved to Florida to learn about church planting (a pretty awesome thing) so we had a vacant spot. While all the threads miss the Morris family we are honored that Joe Hasenorhl is now the latest member of the Leadership Team. Joe will do a great job.

Actually it was a pretty great night overall. 1st there is Joe. Joe really is a cool story (actually Kaylin, his wife, is too). Joe went from a new believer to someone mature enough in his faith that all the threads trust him enough to want him to be a part of the leadership of the church. 2nd there were all the stories of Saturday concerning the block party we did for the children of migrant workers in Junction City. 3rd we had chicken fajitas from El Mezcal which is awesome. The fajitas were left over from the party the day before and we had more than enough for everyone. Finally, just because we still have it until Thursday we setup one of the bouncy castles that we used yesterday and I walked outside to find random kids playing in it. Awesome.

September 11, 2012

The Caps Will Begin

i started this blog nine years ago and for some reason when i started it i decided not to use caps other than for the LORD’s name. i didn’t really have a reason for it. i just thought it would be fun. it has driven some people i know and love crazy (e.g. my parents) but i continued. i did the same thing on facebook and twitter. these two social networks have been causing me problems over the past year because while i have enjoyed going “cap-less” i don’t like the way my statuses look when i place links in them or tag people (which often include caps which i can’t do anything about). i’ve been frustrated by this for about a year now.

well last night while i was talking to some thread college students at IV’s monday night large group a couple of them told me out of the blue that they found my blog interesting but didn’t read it consistently because they found it difficult to read due to the lack of caps. that is a good enough reason for me to change.

The blog will now use capital letters in normal sentence structure. The world may never be the same.

September 7, 2012

college is paying off

https://twitter.com/AdamTerrell/status/244244336974389248

i have no idea why adam milked a goat but i am already thankful for the new things he will learn and experience in college. talking with him the other day i decided that i am going to try to read one of the books from one of his classes each semester. he is going to recommend one next week after he has a better feel of which class he is connecting with best. i figure this way i’ll know a little of what is floating his boat in school.

September 6, 2012December 29, 2017

exclusion and embrace

thanks to perry polnaszek i am presently reading miroslav volf’s “exclusion and embrace.” in the book volf basically works through the question of how we can follow JESUS’s command to love our enemies. really how do you love someone who might have done amazing evil to and against you? to use the old CHRISTian cliché, how do we love the sinner and hate the sin? it has been very challenging for me in several areas.

loving the sinner while hating the sin involve me “embracing” that person. that “embrace” makes it difficult to “exclude” the person while still not approving of the sin. for example, i love my kids and there is nothing they could do that would change that fact. there are, however, actions they could do that i would find HIGHLY disagreeable. since i love them i wouldn’t view them by their sin. instead i view them as people who i love who have done something terrible. on the other hand, that “embrace” hasn’t happened with people i don’t know and so it is more difficult not merely view them from the view of “exclusion.” there are actions that are so evil that we morally must respond to with “exclusion” but that doesn’t mean we ignore the “embrace” of the individual who committed them.

i’ll share a none sin relate example. it is political season and so in our social media world this means i daily run into a large number of people expressing their political beliefs and some whose main goal seems to be just belittling other people’s political beliefs. there are people i love who disagree with me but i would never ignore them because i know them as loved ones rather than just people i disagree with politically. on the ohter hand, two nights ago i mistakenly got into a political debate with an anonymous person on twitter (it’s a long story that i won’t get into). the conversation was very frustrating because the guy was combative. i didn’t even really mean to get into a conversation with him. i responded to a former youth’s tweet and this guy jumped in and started criticizing me and tapestry even though he doesn’t know ether of us. he would say something and i would try to respond. i quickly reached a point where i was starting to really not like someone that i didn’t even know. that is when i thought of “exclusion and embrace” and i decided i should get to know him. i figured finding out his name would be a good start. it didn’t work out so well because he wasn’t interested in anything more than telling me how wrong i was. at that point the conversation ended because i realized i couldn’t debate a person whose name i didn’t even know. nothing good would come of the twitter conversation until we both new a little about each other.

still it was a good lesson for me.

in the midst of disagreement or worse i am going to try to respond to people with “embrace” even if i am rightly reacting to their actions or beliefs with “exclusion.”

September 5, 2012

don't feed the trolls

every now and then i just need to remind myself of this fact of life and reality of the internet. “don’t feed the trolls robert. they aren’t interested in a discussion, just a fight.” i am going to try repeating this to myself every so often. hopefully it will work.

September 2, 2012

bam! the bride of CHRIST

so a quick story.

tonight during my message at tapestry a “thread” brought up that she had some new neighbors that didn’t have enough beds for all of their kids (10 members in the family) and she is looking to find beds for them. well the story actually goes a little deeper than just that. i found most of this out from pam after church because the “thread” had told her a little more while we were tearing down the sunday night setup at washington elementary.

she had new neighbors move in to around her who are hmong. trying to be a good neighbor she went to meet them. unfortunately her neighbors don’t speak a lot of english and she doesn’t speak much hmong. most people would figure that was enough and decide they had done what CHRIST wanted. not her. she tracked down a translator to help her communicate as a good neighbor would. that’s how she found out about the need for the beds.

so she mentioned the need during our worship gathering tonight. she said the family needed bedding for 4 more. by the time we had torn down our equipment beds for 3 of the 4 had been arranged. we left figuring we would work on the remaining bed this week. some of the college kids loaded into pam’s minivan and they started back to school. that is when one of them texted a “thread” who wasn’t there tonight and suddenly another free bed found. that’s when one of the college students shouted “bam! the bride of CHRIST!”

seemed appropriate. need announced and 25 minutes later we knew how the need was going to be met. like the college student said “bam! the bride of CHRIST!”

August 28, 2012

gone to school

so we dropped adam off at northland college today which was kind of bitter-sweet. really more sweet than bitter. this is what we have been raising him for … for him to go out into the world and with the help of GOD, family, and friends really become the wonderful man that his mother and i see in him already. he is going to do great, learn a ton, challenge many assumptions (both his own and those of others), and continue to become an amazing person.

so here it what i hope college does for him.

helps him to grow as a man of GOD. as adam recently taught me this involves two things: 1) being a man, and 2) being of GOD. adam is going to face more challenges than he ever has before. people, places, events, difficulties, etc. he is going to be doing more on his own than he has ever had to do. welcome to the world of being an adult. i have no doubt he’ll make it. these challenges will include his faith too. there will be people around to help him (it isn’t like we are disowning him) but the majority of it will be on his shoulders. that’s how growth happens in all areas of life, from academics to faith. should be fun to watch him respond (even though i will be restraining myself from jumping in for him).
helps him to learn what his passion is and enables him to go after it. i don’t care what he gets his degree in as long as it points him towards something he loves and enables him to do it more effectively. while i would like his degree to be “marketable” i am more concerned about him getting his degree in a manner that doesn’t keep him from being able to follow his passion. right now adam is majoring in outdoor education a degree that i know of several uses for. if that ends up being his passion that is great but it will be difficult following that passion if he racks up $50,000 in debt achieving his degree. instead of following his passion he will have to get a higher paying job to pay off the debt he acquired getting his degree. pam and i are doing everything we can to make sure that doesn’t happen but adam has to do his part too. pam and i have acquired 5 degrees between us thus far, with a 6th one coming soon. we have done this without an ounce of debt because of scholarships, help from parents in our bachelor’s degrees, working jobs while in school, and creative timing. i want adam to learn amazing things and do it in such a way that he doesn’t have debt that keeps him from exploring those things further.
helps him to fail in manageable ways and succeed far beyond what he thinks he can do. i know he is going to try new things and sometimes fail. those success and failures are a part of life. what i hope is that when he fails his failure is not so great that he isn’t able to get back up and try again. i hope his failures help him to achieve more than he has ever thought possible.
allows him to learn and experience so much more than i will ever know and have a most excellent time doing it. this means developing lifelong friends, practices, habits, hobbies, and more.

adam, i am continually proud of you. you are one amazing guy.

August 25, 2012

run, bike unite 2012

busy day so i can’t post much. just want to say how proud i am of pam and the boys. the whole terrell family did the 2012 united way run, bike, unite duathlon. adam and i did the whole thing and pam and noah where a relay team with pam running and noah biking. it was a blast. pam and i then rushed to get something to eat and clean up for brad and katie’s wedding. my wife looks wonderful covered in sweat and grim and cleaned up.

i’ve posted this in the break between the wedding and the reception. it is now time for the reception so i’ll now be leaving with my cute wife and going to attempt to dance. i say attempt because i am not very good at it.

August 23, 2012

loving the lifehacker

i read lifehacker daily and i love it. it is amazing the things that i learn from the myriad of tips they put out. a read a few days ago they posted concerning an “auto journal.” i go through phases of journaling. in fact, i’m in one right now. i write down thoughts, what i have been reading, and things that i am being challenged by.

one thing that i have not done in the passed with journaling is keep a basic list of things i have done during the day. i’ve read a few diaries in the past that had such simple details as “i traveled to such and such today,” “bought this at this price,” and “ate this today.” these details are incredibly simple and yet i find them wonderful. so i have started adding those details to my journaling experience.

lifehacker’s post pointed out a way to do an auto journal of my basic online daily activity. using if this then that to save small details of my online activity to a journal file on evernote. obviously this is not the same as my written journal and will by no means replace it but i think it will be fun to try the auto journal. right now i have setup “recipes” for it to copy my foursquare checkins, facebook statuses, tweets, google calendar appointment, blog posts, and amazon purchases into an auto journal file. i think it might be fun to look back years from now and see this stuff.

another lifehacker project that i am considering is doing something with the raspberry pi computer. these little $25 & $35 computers look very interesting. lifehacker described making a media center computer out of one. they described making a media center computer for less than $500. i am kind of thinking of less than $60.

SIDE NOTE – i spoke with alan lusk today. he is an old friend and former co-worker. i am excited to hear that he and his family will be planting a church in prairieville, louisiana. since i’ve done ministry along side alan before i know a decent amount concerning how he ministers. he’ll do a great job and i therefore imagine that the church he plants will be pretty dang cool. there are a couple of churches in the baton rouge area that i think the world of. obviously, i kind of like parkview since it was my home for 7 years and i love the ring and its leadership because i believe they do an amazing job of following CHRIST. it is nice to know that there will be another one soon. GOD has allowed me to work with some really cool people and it is so much fun hearing what HE continues to do through them.

SIDE SIDE NOTE – the story of the senior adult who decided to “restore” one of the frescos in her church, the church of santuario de misericordia in borja, spain, is pretty funny. she was just trying to help. the whole situation reminds me from the scene from bean when he messes up and “corrects” whistler’s mother.