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Place of Peace Meal
The jambalaya pot feed around 80 people today.
Tapestry has been providing the meal once a quarter and eating with those who attend Place of Peace for a while now. It is always an enjoyable experience (even this past July when we served in a room without A/C during the hottest day of the year). Today was our turn to serve the meal again. As usual I made jambalaya for the meal which they keep saying they want us to continue bringing. The fun part was that today was also the annual “the Terrells Feed the Graduate Communicative Disorders Graduate Students” night. Each year Pam invites all the new grad students over for a jambalaya meal. So I cooked A LOT of jambalaya and then took half of it to the place of Peace and after eating with the folks there came back to eat with the grad students at our home.
It was a pretty good day.
The above video is a little from Place of Peace.
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.
post world changers thoughts
this past week i was able to do something that i have wanted to do for years … be the worship speaker at a world changers project.
for those of you who aren’t familiar with world changers let me briefly explain what one is. imagine taking a typical youth bible camp (worship gatherings, eating together, free time, meeting new people, etc.) and marrying it to a habitat for humanity project. kids go to a world changers project to join with other groups and work on houses that the local city says need work. sometimes it is painting other times it is roofing, and other times it involves special projects (i.e. ramps, etc.). as a youth minister i took kids to about 12ish projects. i’ve been the group leader at projects from houston, texas to murphy, north carolina and i have pretty much loved them all.
i don’t normally ask people to invite me to speak but i made an exception to that tendency when i heard that the minnesota/wisconsin baptist convention would have its first world changers project this year. i immediately asked if they would consider me as the speaker for the project. i am thankful that the world changers leadership decided that i would fit the bill.
i spent the week in dultuh getting to know some wonderful teens and adults, as well as the great summer staff and gordon davidson, the project coordinator, who worked out all the logistics of the project.
so here are a few thoughts from the project:
- duluth is not meant to be as hot as it was last week. all the southerners that were there, except for me, thought it was great. i’ve become acclimated to the cooler summers. i was looking forward to what should have been cooler weather. in the photo above you will see sweat stains on my shirt. that is because the church we were using for evening worship gatherings has no A/C.
- every now and then i really miss having a more active role in youth ministry. this past week was one such time.
- every now and then i realize that i don’t miss the schedule that is required of youth ministers. this past week was one such time. 😉
- this was the first project in duluth as well as in the MWBC. i think it went really well for the first time. obviously there are things that can be done better but i think it was a really good first attempt. i hope the project coordinator from this year comes back for next year because i think he will make it even better. things will only be better next year.
- for some reason odd things happen around me in duluth. i had 3 odd interactions with police while i was there. 1st i went to a world changers work project only to see 5 police cars arrive because two people had OD’d in the house across the street. then i went for an early lunch at a wonderful local coney island place in downtown duluth right when the feds and local police decided to raid a “head shop” which made for an interesting spectacle while i ate two wonderful coney’s. finally i went running on the lake trail only to have to run down an ambulance for a man that had been found passed out on the trail. you probably shouldn’t stand too close to me in duluth.
- the only real criticism i have of the project is something that everyone in leadership agreed with and that is that having the guys stay in a building 6 miles away wasn’t the best. of course, it wasn’t planned that way. it just worked out that way when the original plan went off the tracks.
SIDE NOTE – while i don’t ask people to invite me to be there speakers (there is more of this in the world of youth ministry than you would expect) i am definitely not opposed to speaking at youth ministry thingies. in fact i love it. so if you ever do want to invite me please know that i would gladly come and hang out with you and your teens.
makes me hope
after quite a few conversations andy l and i have decided to really move forward on something we have been talking/dreaming about – doing a ted talk/q-ish day conference in point concerning faith and culture. i can’t really discuss too many details right now because we are really just at the initial stage of doing this thing. you will hopefully hear more soon. i can say that the drawing below is the gist of today’s conversation.
i post the above video because it is part of what i love about ted talks and q that i hope to bring to whatever we do – big ideas that make us think differently and move us to action. i’ve shared this video of bobby mcferrin three different times in the past two days because i think it is a good example of what i hope will happen with whatever we end up trying. brilliant.
premarital counseling books
i have posted before concerning what i cover with couples during premarital counseling. since i am doing a great deal of premarital counseling at the moment (5 couples right now) i thought i would post the three books that i ask couples read during the weeks that we talk. these books are in constant update (the first one is a new one for me to use and i wish there was a new book i could use in place of the last one which needs a serious update).
- things i wish i’d known before we got married
by gary chapman
- a celebration of sex: a guide to enjoying GOD’s gift of sexual intimacy
by douglas rosenau
- complete financial guide for young couples
by larry burkett
do any fellow ministers, or anyone who does premarital counseling, have any other recommendations? i am always open for change.
dreadful to be alone with the new testament
here’s the full quote from søren kierkegaard from which the partial quote on tonight’s tapestry bulletin came from.
“the matter is quite simple. the bible is very easy to understand. but we CHRISTians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. we pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. take any words in the new testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. my GOD, you will say, if i do that my whole life will be ruined. how would i ever get on in the world? herein lies the real place of CHRISTian scholarship. CHRISTian scholarship is the church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good CHRISTians without the bible coming too close. oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living GOD. yes it is even dreadful to be alone with the new testament.”
― søren kierkegaard, provocations: spiritual writings of kierkegaard
obviously as a philsopher and theologian kierkegaard didn’t completely dismiss scholarship and the pursuit of knowledge. still he recognized how it could be used, and often is used, to avoid the claims of CHRIST. i think we often do the same thing with our bible studies in the modern, wstern CHRISTian world. we says to ourselves “surely CHRIST couldn’t mean that … it would ruin me” and then we spiritualize, intellectualize, and generally bounce around the statements of JESUS till we can figure out a way to look like we are following HIS word while not really doing anything other than what we want to do.
“surely when JESUS said for me to love my enemy HE didn’t mean them. if i treat them with love they will merely hurt others.”
“surely JESUS never said that i should give that much”
“JESUS never meant for CHRISTians to help the poor that much. that would keep them from helping themselves”
etc., etc. etc.
it should be “dreadful … to fall into the hands of the living GOD. yes it is even dreadful to be alone with the new testament.” it is scary to me when i find that it isn’t difficult to me, because i usually find that at those times i am no longer really listening to the words of JESUS.
3 & 30
THREE
i posted a while back about the increasing wedding officiating i’ve been doing each year of tapestry and my thoughts concerning weddings possibly being a sign of health or not in a church. as of today, if all goes as planned, i will be officiating at least three weddings in 2012 (the schobert wedding has already been done and two more are scheduled). today jessiah and amanda asked me to officiate their wedding and, of course, i was honored to say yes to doing it. they might have to talk with pam concerning the date of their ceremony since they picked our wedding anniversary to get married on.
THIRTY
as a youth minister i regularly led students through world vision’s 30 hour famine. today, due to a couple of the ways i have been prepping for easter through lent, i have been constantly thinking about “the famines” i used to be a part and how i always thought they were something that everyone in the churches i was a part of would have benefited from rather than just something for students. of course, you would have to do it different if “the famine” involved all the members of a church rather than only youth. in youth ministry you treat “the famine” as a lock-in (here’s a great youth lock in video) where all the students are gathered together and stay up way later than normal people should. couldn’t do that with the whole church, especially when tapestry would have to rent a building to do it. instead i think as a church we could achieve the goals and focus of “the famine” without going down the road of it being merely a youth event with adults.
here’s what i’m thinking of doing.
- still do the 30 hours without eating as a reminder of JESUS’s command that we feed the hungry.
- instead of doing a lock-in we spend a great deal of time together throughout friday evening and saturday by having lots of planned opportunities to …
- worship together (a worship time friday night, saturday morning, and saturday afternoon)
- serve together (planned service opportunities friday and saturday)
- goof off together (planned opportunities friday and saturday)
the national dates for the 30 hour famine are february 24-25 and april 27-28. GOD speed and bless all the students and chaperones who are doing “the famine” tonight all around the world. i really think the threads would get into this so after i bounce it around some more you might be hearing more about this. it might be fun to still set up a lock-in for the teens that fit in with the whole church doing the famine.
what is a disciple?
last weekend i spent a few hours with devon s flying to rome, new york to officiate his wedding. we talked about quite a few things but ended up focusing on asking what is discipleship. you see i believe that to a large extent the modern western church has misunderstood discipleship. i believe we have primarily understood discipleship as an intellectual exercise. we have treated discipleship as a series of bible studies.
please don’t get me wrong. i think studying the bible is VERY important. i love bible study and i know it is very important but i do not think being a disciple of JESUS CHRIST is merely studying a lot. i would actually describe that as a mild version of gnosticism. a very generalized description of gnosticism would be that salvation comes down to the right intellectual knowledge (i.e. gnosis). i fear that much of the modern church has become gnostic in its practice of making disciples. using aritotle’s “ends and means” studying seems to have become an ends rather than a means.
studying should be a means for reaching the aimed for end which is following CHRIST. the problem is that far too often studying is treated as the aimed for end. instead i believe the biblical example of disciple making comes back to JESUS call to HIS disciples which was “come, follow me.” following is the goal or end. knowledge helps in following. studying is important for following but it is never the ultimate goal. following is.
at tapestry we try to focus on following and doing things to help people follow HIM.
so here are the basic instructions for what we do.
- In what ways have you been a testimony this week to the greatness of JESUS CHRIST with both your words and actions?
- How have you experienced GOD in your life this week?
- How are you responding to HIS promptings?
- Do you have a need to confess any sin?
- How did you do with your reading last week?
it is basically derived from neil cole’s life transformation groups. i think it does a wonderful job of helping us to focus our studying on being better followers. it helps us keep our ends and means in line.
SIDE NOTE – i think that the modern western church would do a better job of making disciples of JESUS CHRIST if we asked “what is a disciple” more often than we ask “how do we make disciples.”
powerpoint for preachers
i have mentioned this before but i am amazed at how bad some powerpoint presentations are. it is even sadder to me when these presentations are done by preachers. the reason for this is two fold: 1) i believe preachers are proclaiming the most important message in the world which makes a bad presentation all the worse because it is about something important and 2) preachers are one of the few groups of people who usually have actual training/education in how to effectively communicate. actually i need to change that last statement a little. i believe that seminary students are trained well in how to develop a sermon but not so much in how to deliver a sermon. if you are presently going to seminary i would love to hear how you are being taught to present your message.
i think most of the threads would describe me as an adequate preacher. i’m not the world greatest (though pam would say differently since she has to) but i am also not the world’s worst. regardless of my preaching skills i know that most of the threads remember the presentation slides i use. i know this because it is one of the things that my friends who make up tapestry comment on the most.
there are tons of excellent resources on the web concerning how to make an effective presentation. these sources have influenced me greatly. i thought today i would post how how i handle powerpoint.
put very little on your slides – presentation slides are supposed to be visual aids and yet so many preachers use their slides as the text of their sermon. if you have all your information on your powerpoint slide why do i need to listen to you? i can read faster than you can speak. just give me the slide show and don’t waste my time. well at least that is my thoughts on the matter. instead i place on my slides only the info that i believe will help someone to remember the point i was talking about. usually this is an image or a single word. the image to the right is an actual slide from one of the lectures for one of my d.min seminars at nobts. this is way too much information for one slide. extra slides don’t cost you anything so i tend to use lots of them with little information rather than few with lots of info on them. - develop your own template – i generally hate stock templates. they very rarely look good. they are made for the lowest common denominator and it shows. that doesn’t mean that i don’t use a template. instead i developed my own and i stick to it. i use the same colors, fonts, slide format, etc. a tapestry slide looks like a tapestry slide. it has its own feel and the tone. it is simple. it almost always have the same font on it – centaur is the tapestry font. it is recognizable.
- don’t use bulletin points – i understand the irony of saying this in a bullet point and i am enjoying that irony. busy pages are impossible to read. instead of using bullet points use a simple slide with one word. this is more visual and since your presentation slides are supposed to be “visual aids” they should be very visual. actually i use bullet points on a few occasions but their use is rare, always limited to a small number, and never look like bullet points.
don’t use clip art - the cheesy clip art makes your slide look awful and doesn’t help people to remember your sermon. visual aids really do help people to connect with, remember, and apply sermons but your visual aids need to be something that they will remember. the slide to the right is an example i found on the web of a guy trying to show preachers how to use powerpoint. this is supposed to be a good example according to him. i would not describe it as a good example but the opposite. if a picture speaks a thousand words then most of the words comgin from your clipart are communicating to your congregation that you don’t actually have anything of value to say. - use tons of images – i know i just said don’t use clipart but that doesn’t mean don’t use imagery. presentation software is on its hoe territory when it is used as a way to convey imagery. please use some of the wonderful sources for photos on the web and get compelling images that convey your points and cover the entire screen. using a good image to illustrate the point you are making is a great way to help people remember what you are saying.
there are tons of resources on the web that teach how to use powerpoint slides effectively but these are the rules that direct me. just to be fair here is an example of one of the powerpoint presentations i use while preaching. you can judge for yourself from this slide show whether you should value my thoughts or not.
SIDE NOTE – i just re-read my previous post on bad powerpoint presentation and realized that all i did in this post was expand on what i had already said there. this probably says a great deal about how much this bothers me. i think i may start collecting images of bad sermon powerpoint slides. if you have any please send them to me.