Category: ministry

Posted on

this was what mobile was like

IMG_1672

we have been having some pretty bad storms around the point area recently. it actually has been kind of reminiscent of when pam and i lived in mobile, alabama where major storms happen every summer afternoon. i have never seen roads flood as often around here. over the past four years in central wisconsin our experience with rain has been that it tends to drizzle for two to four days and then become sunny again. so these storms have been abnormal for our wisconsin weather experience. the above picture is from thursday night when some threads from tapestry fed at the place of peace.

IMG_1665just in case you are wondering the place of peace is a thursday night meal that was originally a part of the local catholic workers movement/chapter (i will probably discuss my thoughts on “movements” versus “organizations” and the “organizations” that call themselves “movements” later but not right now). about a year ago the point area catholic workers chapter went defunct and asked evergreeen church to take over the place of peace weekly feed. evergreen is a great church and their pastor al kinnunen is someone that i really enjoy being in ministry with. anyhow the place of peace invites locals groups to do a weekly thursday night meal for anyone who needs one. it’s an interesting and fun group that comes for the meal. a while back tapestry started doing a meal every three months. talking to genesis, the evergreen member who coordinates the thursday night meal, everyone there see a lot of spaghetti and lasagna brought in by groups. therefore, tapestry has become the “jambalaya church.” while i make the jambalaya all the other threads make other homemade things to bring – such as fresh bread from adam h (a few slices of which made it back to my house and i have been thankful for each one i have eaten). it is always a good night.

back to the storms.

after the meal at place of peace i jumped on church street to head back home to plover. this is a 6.5 mile drive that normally takes no more than 20 minutes (and that is stretching it). unfortunately i ran in the underpass pictured above. so i turned around to use division street to get to the interstate. the problem was that division was flooding bad enough around the ymca that only trucks were making it through the road. so i turned around again to try water street. i should have realized that with a name like water street there was no way it wasn’t going to be flooded. it was flooded.

in a rather anti-climatic way i finally made it imagehome by weaving around streets with less water on them. instead of the twenty minutes maximum time that it usually takes me to get home i ended up traveling for around an hour trying to make it 6.5 miles.

i need to end this post now because we are being hit by another storm. seriously. 60 mph winds, rain, and hail. i’m not used to experiencing this up here.

Posted on

disciple making

this is discipling from the foursquare church on vimeo.

adam h showed this video to me. i love it. i think it describes so many things that are right about what it means to lead people to be disciples of JESUS CHRIST. it is so easy to forget that being a disciple is about following CHRIST and not about doing religious activities. even in a relatively young church like tapestry it become very easy to forget this. the church needs to be more concerned with helping people to become follower of CHRIST who do the things of JESUS than we are concerned with producing people who come to what we do, speak the right religious language, or send out the right religious signals for all to see.

i believe tapestry is involved in making real disciples. i pray that we continue to do so.

Posted on

speed matters

as a part of my d.min project/dissertation i have been attempting to make contact with some rather large names within the CHRISTian ministerial world. i figure if i need to have other people involved in my work i might as well “shoot for the moon” with those i try to involve. right now i have plenty of time so there is no need for me to settle for adequate. i’ve been attempting to make contact with with several rather impressive experts within the field of homiletics and thus far i’ve run into two very different responses.

  • i wrote one pretty well know professor asking if he would consider being my faculty mentor. this is a rather large request. i knew i was asking a good bit of this guy. it would probably be too much and i was quite sure the answer would be “no.” still without asking i would never know for sure. so i emailed every email address i could find. these included his nobts email address, the church email address where he now pastors, several organizational email addresses for the organization he has started for spreading discipleship material, and even his old personal email address (at one time he did a few youth ministry things for me and thus i had what at least once was his personal email address). i emailed him a lot. in fact, i worried that i might be becoming a bit of a stalker – like my mom. 🙂 after 6 weeks i finally got my answer, which was the “no” that i thought i would probably receive. i just thought it would be faster than 6 weeks.

 

  • the opposite respond happened with dr. john stott’s organization. dr. stott’s writing, especially “between two worlds,” have had a strong influence on me and the way in which i preach. dr. stott is 90 years old and in pretty bad health so i was fairly sure that he wouldn’t be able to be a part of my project/dissertation but once again if you don’t ask you don’t know. so i email every organizational email address that i could find on his ministry’s website describing my project and specifically what i am asking dr. stott to consider. it took 25 minutes for the church relations director of john stott ministries to respond to my first email. unfortunately the answer was that due to his health dr. stott would not be able to participate in my d.min project. i wrote her back saying that i had assumed as much but i was still very grateful for their fast response. 24 minutes later the president of john stott ministries emailed me saying that my project topic sounds like something that fits the mission of the langham preaching program that john stott ministries encourages. he therefore recommended a colleague of dr. stott’s that might be of help. i was amazed. so i started to write this blog post to brag on them. while i was writing it i received another email from the president of john stott ministries with a connection to another individual that he thought might be of help. amazing.  true servants.

two very different responses. i hope i usually respond like those that dr. stott has around him. they are incredible.

Posted on

foam swords and the bible

bellagrath

a month or so ago i was asked to speak at this year’s first uwsp intervarsity large group meeting. they wanted the message to talk about “what is the gospel” (their theme for the semester). since i believe that the new testament teaches that the “good news” (aka “gospel”) is that GOD’s kingdom is at hand and the old kingdom has been and is being defeated (in other words another world is possible) i thought it might be fun and memorable to stage an imperial coup in the midst of the intervarsity large group meeting. one of the threads, jackie, is involved in the uwsp belegrath society (sorry guys i can’t find a link for you). this group was gracious enough to come and help with the sermon by arranging an attack while i was speaking. it was amazing! it was the first time in my life that i have ever needed to give a danger warning before a sermon. i basically told people not to stand up for 10 minutes unless they were ok with being beaten back into their seats. i even found music for the two parts of the fight – the “the imperial march ” from star wars for the bad guys and “o fortuna (from carmina burana)” for jackie, who represented the “good news.” again it was amazing.

i really need to figure out other ways that i can involve sword play into sermons.

SIDE NOTE – this past weekend pam and i got to spend time with some amazing friends. bart and carol pierce have come up to wisconsin for the week and we are getting to spend time with them. this past weekend matt and alan joined them and we got to hang out with them. it was a pretty wonderful weekend.

IMG_0474

Posted on

$1,800

kilumbo

i just got through talking with a good friend of mine who love nicaragua – in fact jim wallace is the one who introduced me to the baltodanos and first fostered my love for diriamba. it is now possible for us to help build houses for some of the people that we have been building relationships within the kilumbo area of diriamaba. i’m pretty pumped because tapestry can provide a good, safe house for an family in kilumbo for around $1,800. we’re a small church without a lot of resources but i think we could swing several of those with constant giving. the best part is that like habitat for humanity we will work along side the family that would be living in the house. anyone interested?

SIDE NOTE – please bring a tea cup to tapestry this sunday night (june 20, 2010). if you don’t have a tea cup that’s cool … bring a coffee cup that you can use as a tea cup. if you don’t have a coffee cup then you probably need to seriously consider the priorities in your life 🙂 don’t worry you can use one of the tapestry coffee cups.

Posted on

proud to be a 30%er

i don’t entirely remember how but someone introduced me to the twitter feed of my friend joe causey’s pastor, pete wilson. from twitter i went to his blog which turned out to be a fun read because it has a great variety of depth, randomness, humor, and bragging about his family. this is a combination that i enjoy.

a couple of days ago wilson posted the following on his twitter feed:

i’m not sure where he read this but i have unfortunately heard similar stats. on top of this pamela has also recently been a part of a discussion with a group of pastors’ wives concerning whether or not pastors and their spouses can be friends with church members. unfortunately the majority of the wives in that group believe that pastors and their spouses shouldn’t be friends with church members because they think that ministers and their spouses are supposed to maintain “professional distance” from their church members (just in case you are wondering both pam and i hold the opposite view). i know that wilson’s tweet and pam’s discussion are not about the exact same thing but i think the core issue is the same – many ministers don’t know how to have real relationships and therefore some live very lonely lives.

this kills me for two reasons:

  1. as a proud 30%er who can name lots of friends that i trust very deeply i hurt for the many ministers who for some reason equate being on mission with GOD with requiring loneliness. while, i do believe that GOD’s call sometimes will lead a believer into difficult situations, i can find very few instances in the bible where the GOD of love has called HIS followers into overwhelming loneliness. it’s just not HIS typical M.O.
  2. since i believe that the core of CHRISTianity is relational (relationship with GOD and others = 1a & 1b greatest commandments) i believe that we fail to disciple our people when we don’t live out and have good strong relationships. therefore, by not having any real friendships i think many ministers are actually failing as shepherds. it’s a sad irony but i believe that many ministers in the name of “professional distance” are actually failing to truly minister because they don’t have any friends.

i love my friends and i am so thankful for them. i am a better person, spouse, father, and minister because of many of my friends. they have taught me many amazing things and GOD continually uses them to encourage me to do the things HE wants. i hope and prayer that more of the 70%ers find such friends, both for themselves and for the churches they shepherd. please GOD send true friends to some of my fellow pastors and give those pastors the wisdom to hold tight to them.

Posted on

youth ministry & church

i could make this a long post but i’m not going to. i just thought i would quickly say that good church and good youth ministry often resemble each other. i think you can take a good youth ministry model (not the stupid ra-ra stuff) and use it to make a JESUS loving, life & community changing church. i would lump college ministry in on this also. i don’t really think you can do that with any of type of ministry. no buddy ever says “why can’t church be more like choir” or at least i’ve never been around anyone who said that. i would say you could do it with senior adult ministry but they are usually too busy going on trips to branson to start a church. 🙂

i think the reason for this are because good youth ministry usually embodies the things that a church should embody – loving one another, loving others, loving GOD, etc.

SIDE NOTE – has anyone ever used a camcorder as a document camera/presenter? i’m think of using an old camcorder as a document projector to see if i would like using one during tapestry. i figure i’ll test it out before looking into buying an elmo or something similar.

Posted on

the most intersting board meeting

roofing & board meeting
saturday i was a part of the most interesting board meeting i’ve ever been in. part of this is because i love the organisation. it is touched twice united. obviously i believe in ttu’s mission since i am on the board and since tapestry is going to be leading a ttu clinic in august. i love being a part of the ttu meetings because they invariablly end up being events where GOD is bragged on. every time i am at one of the ttu meetings i always hear great stories concerning amazing things that GOD is doing through HIS people. they are great.

the second reason i liked this meeting was because i took part in it while i was helping some friends roof their house. the holte’s are re-decking and roofing their house and i helped them saturday morning while participating in the ttu board meeting over my cell phone.

it was one of the few meetings in my life that i actually enjoyed. i think sometime i may purposefully schedule a meeting for while we roof a house.

Posted on

i would have used this as a youth minister

this post from stuff CHRISTians like is great. it is concerning the tendency of college students to put their faith in a “lock box” during their university years. the advice prodigal john gives to students is:

  1. GOD is not trying to ruin your college experience.
  2. your parents’ faith won’t sustain you.
  3. college is not forever.
  4. don’t have sex. (he explains this one much better than just this simple statement – basically why settle for college sex when marital sex is better)

it’s good stuff.

i think my favorite two point are #1 & #4. i think GOD is portrayed as a “kill joy” far too often. HE is the GOD WHO said that HE had come that HIS followers would have life and have it more abundantly. for too often we turn HIM into the GOD of “don’t” rather than the GOD of “life.” john’s description of #4 is the same thing. his advice is for people to wait and thereby get the very best rather than settling for something less that is immediate. it’s good advice and something that i believe to be true.

Posted on

the tenebrae program

here’s the tenebrae program from tonight. it was a cool evening. it’s a very simple service that involved a good number of people to do it. i think the most meaningful part of the gathering for me was actually the room in which we held it. as a church we continually talk about the church not having walls but it’s still real easy to associate worship with a place – even when you just rent that place for a half a day each week. i loved the fact that we were doing this incredibly somber worship gathering in the university center of uwsp while students, faculty, and others were walking around outside the door and stopping to find out what was going on. i saw a couple of people that i have talked with before concerning faith and they were intrigued with what we were doing in the university center. for me it was a great reminder of BEING the church in the community.

SIDE NOTE – every so often while speaking i reference the people who are a part of tapestry by calling us “tapestrites” or “tapestronians.”  tonight i made reference to “tapestrities” and natalie g shouted out that we should be called “threads.” THIS IS BRILLIANT. as far as i am concerned the people of tapestry will from now on be referred to as “threads.”

SIDE SIDE NOTE – the “not my job” section of this week’s episode of “wait, wait … don’t tell me” is one of the funniest things i’ve ever heard. paula poundstone explaining the ingredients of ringdings is classic.