https://youtu.be/tIdIqbv7SPo
But there is Steak. 🙂 Pam is gone to an OPID meeting, therefore Adam and I grilled out.
Apparently This is How Pam Thinks I Fish
Today was an interesting day. I left the house this morning at 4:45 to do one of my chaplain visits only to have my van’s alternator go out (I replaced the battery, which desperately needed to be replaced, this weekend but apparently it wasn’t just the battery that was dying). Anyhow when I saw the Charging System warning light come on about 15 miles form home, I turned around immediately and thankfully made it back home without the van completely running out of battery power. Then I waited for Pam to go to work and stole her car for the day. It was a long day today, and I finished chaplaining around 8:30 tonight.
Anyhow because I knew it was going to be a long day today I had planned on going fishing tomorrow morning with Andy L, the local InterVarsity area director, before doing some more work later in the day. Fred the Van losing her alternator meant that I was going to need to ditch fishing because Pam would need her car for a university teaching and learning meeting she is presenting at and attending the end of this week. Thankfully I have a spouse who likes for me to go fishing and knows that it is good for me, so she decided she was going to make things happen for me to be able to steal her car while she is gone. This would enable me to still get my work done while not having to replace Fred’s alternator until this Saturday. I love this woman.
Thankfully everything worked out and Pam’s way of telling me that she had arranged a university car the trip was by sending an image of how she apparently things I fish.
So this, my friends, is how Pam thinks I fish.
The thing is that sometimes this isn’t very far off. I will do anything if it helps me catch fish. 🙂
Circus Church
I turned my back for one second Sunday morning during setup for Tapestry’s Sunday morning worship gathering and this was happening when I turned back around. I don’t think having a 2 year old sit on your shoulders while you play the cajon is a typical percussion method, but this seemed to work for Conor and El seems to be OK with the situation.
I know some churches have gone to some extremes in order to attract people to them. Lasers, lights, fog, and concerts. That’s not really the way that we do things but it is good to know that if things ever got really desperate we could always turn to this. Cirque de Soleil church. We’ll have to train Eric to play guitar standing on his head.
SIDE NOTE – If you are looking for a 2018 NCAA Men’s Basketball you are very welcome to join Tapestry’s. Here’s the link (sptapestry.mayhem.cbssports.com)
SIDE SIDE NOTE – I decided to setup my GoPro at Tapestry this past week to see how it would do for videoing the gathering. Conor saw it during setup and decided to turn it on. This is what I found on my GoPro last night when I looked at the recordings on it.
Audio That Is Presently Floating My Boat
Here a few things (a song, a podcast, and an album) that I have been listening to that have been really floating my boat recently.
The first is Weird Al Yankovic’s 5 minute compilation of songs from the musical Hamilton. It just makes me smile.
The next thing I have been listening to that I have really liked is this episode from the Hidden Brain podcast (an excellent podcast that I encourage you to listen to). The episode is “When Did Marriage Become So Hard?” The episode discusses changing cultural and historic understandings of the purpose of marriage. It is really good.
Finally, I have been reading “Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives” by Tim Harford which discusses Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies and as a result I have been stuck on Eno’s “Another Green World“. Mhmm so good.
If I am driving, walking Clive in the afternoon, or running there is a good chance I am listening to one of the above.
Jalen Hurts Pays Up on His Bet with Charles Barkley
I am glad he paid up on his bet with Charles Barkley and I am VERY glad he paid up on the bet in the manner that he did. Awesome Jalen. Roll Tide!
My Prepared Self’s Day Was Made
I have written before about my possibles bag (here) and the four things that I typically have on me for problem solving (here). My friend Eric G tends to laugh at me because of my possible and my band-aide in the wallet, but you see, I like to be prepared. Today I was the one laughing because of my preparations.
Sometime during setup for Tapestry‘s Sunday morning worship gathering Eric & Natalie’s youngest child hurt her finger. Nothing bad, just a small scrap that left a small skin tag. I learned of this because Natalie walked up to me and said she needed my wallet band-aide. That’s right, she knew me well enough to know that I would have a band-aide in my wallet. Day already made right there. So I grabbed my wallet and gave her a band-aide. That’s when I saw how small the cut was, so I asked if she would like a smaller band-aide because I thought I had one in the small first aide kit I keep in my possible. She said yes so I grabbed it.
That’s when Eric, a trained RN, walked over and examined his daughter’s wound. He said, “If only I had a pair of tweezers I would remove the skin tag before dressing the wound. You don’t have a pair of tweezers do you?” He asked this last part with a smile. Why yes I do Eric. Bam! I pull out my keys and the Leatherman Style 5-n-1 key chain tool (which they unfortunately don’t make anymore). There are your tweezers. He started to cut off the skin tag when I thought to ask if he would like an alcohol swab to wiped down everything first. Why yes he would. Bam! I had a smile across my entire very well prepared face.
Who’s laughing about my possible and band-aide now Eric? 🙂
Why Tapestry Setups the Way We Setup – Part #2 The Chairs
Yesterday I started a short series of posts concerning how Tapestry sets up for our Sunday morning worship gatherings. The post yesterday was about the coffee & snack table, something that probably seems an afterthought, but I believe is integral to who we are trying to be. Today I will write concerning the way we set up our chairs.
Let’s use the model of Rublev’s Icon of the Trinity again. Just in case you have forgotten from yesterday what the icon looks like I’ve posted it to the right. Rublev painted the Trinity as the Three being One in a conversation around a table. The Trinity is nigh impossible to describe because it is the mystery of our faith. God is a relationship in and of Himself. He is One in union of Three. I can’t give you a perfect example because this paradox of faith is outside of creation as the Creator is outside of creation. In yesterday’s post I described the desire to setup our worship gatherings similar to this icon (i.e. a divine conversation of love). The way we set up our chairs should reflect that divine conversation.
The hope is for our gathering to be a conversation in our singing, our prayer, and our message. This conversation is why we don’t use the gym stage. I’m not personally opposed to stages if they help the conversation, which they can do sometimes. If somehow a stage helps the leaders to be more a part of the group, more easily seen or heard in leading, that’s a great thing. It is just that usually stages do the exact opposite, they separate the ones leading from the ones being led. In such cases the stage says “these are the important people.” So Tapestry skips the stage and when I am speaking at other places I try to skip the stage in those places too. Thus we are on the floor in the midst of a slightly widened “C”.
The chairs need to kind of start to engulf whoever is leading us at the moment. My personal hope is that this partial engulfing will help to counteract the fact that we need a few voices to be amplified during the gathering. The microphones are necessary evil. They help whoever is leading our music (Eric, Heidi, Sarah, Elizabeth, or others) to better lead us. They help me or whoever else is speaking to be better heard in our gym (I have a tendency to kick into a conspiratorial whisper every now and then). Unfortunately they also have the effect of making it seem as though a few voices are the only ones that matter. Like stages microphones can send then message that “this is the person whose voice matters”. When that is the case it isn’t a conversation but a monologue. So we try to make sure the mic’d people are in the midst of everyone else. They are leading us, not separate from us.
If I had my druthers, we would set up each week’s gathering in the round. What this means is that our chairs would literally setup in a circle where we are facing each other. We would sing with everyone facing each other. I would speak with all of us facing each other. We would pray with all of us facing each other. The times we have done setup in the round it is basically like we are sitting at a round table. The reason that we don’t do this is because, while I love it, being in the round pretty much freaked out most everyone else. I was such a fan of it till a few threads pointed out that if it freaked them out, people who already loved Tapestry, just imagine what it did to someone who was walking in for the very first time. It was also pointed out that the only seats that we typically open when we setup in the round were the front seats and that was not cool for a guest. We try to have the back row free for guests (I just realized that I need to stress this again because it has been awhile since the last time I emphasized this). Hopefully one day I will convince everyone that in the round is the best for the conversation and thus it is super cool.
Tomorrow I will end this short series of posts.
Most Influential Ministers in My Life
This week while listening to a podcast I heard the following statement: “You are the sum of the five people closest to you.” I thought it was interesting thought and it got me to thinking of the ministers who have influenced how I minister. So here’s a list of the ministers who I believe have most influenced how I minister.
- Mike Nuss – Mike was Pam’s and my campus minister when we were working on our undergraduate degrees at the University of South Alabama (Go Jags!). Mike is the type of minister that you would name your child after because of the influence he had on your life. Pam and I didn’t but he seriously is that type of minister. Mike taught me a lot of things but probably the most important lesson that I learned from him was that ministry involves equipping and enabling others to serve. Mike was a background guy. He was the one getting others to do things that they didn’t think they could do. I don’t really remember him doing anything “upfront”, though I am sure he did. He was always getting other involved in ministry. Obviously this is still true because Mike is now the head of Baptist campus ministries for the state of Alabama. College was almost 30 years ago for me and I still quote Mike in many of my conversations concerning ministry. Mike & Judy’s relationship have also influenced much of how ministry works within Pam’s and my relationship. Judy supported Mike’s ministry, and was involved in the student ministry, but she didn’t have to be at everything he did because had a different calling. She wasn’t ministry lagniappe that arrived just for hiring Mike. She was, and is, her own person with her on gifting and call. So maybe the name on this point should have read “Mike & Judy Nuss”.
- Rochelle Davis – Rochelle was the first pastor that I worked with as a youth minister, even if it was only for Summer. The Summer after my Freshmen year of college I went to Detroit and served for the Summer at the Temple of Faith Baptist Church. Rochelle taught me a lot about want it meant to be a pastor who cares for issues of justice and also to fall in love with whatever is true in the culture in which you live while confronting what is false. So much of what I do on a daily basis comes back to being a Summer youth minister at a black Baptist church in inner-city Detroit. This is also a shout out once again to Mike Nuss because I went to Detroit because of Mike.
- Frank Morrow – Frank was the third pastor I worked with as a youth minister at the First Baptist Church of Covington, Texas. This was in the smallest town that Pam and I have ever lived in, around 150 people. Nobody cared if Frank was a good preacher or not because he was probably the best servant I have ever been around. “Hey the city of Covington needs some work, let’s organize a community day of service.” If there was a need to be met Frank was making sure it was being met. Old mister big stick himself Theodore Roosevelt said “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” I’ve often heard this used in reference to preaching. Frank lived it out. Frank could have stumbled through ever message he ever preached and nobody would have cared because he undoubtedly had been super busy during the week caring for the people of our community.
- Kevin McCallon – Kevin was the second pastor that I ever worked with as a youth minister at Grove Hill Baptist Church. I only worked with him around a year so his influence isn’t day to day ministry. He was a very good pastor but his influence on me really comes down to one thing he said to me. One day he told me that ministry could either be the easiest job I ever had or the most difficult and I was the one who determined which it would be. I could go and play golf with the deacon once or twice a week and visit the “important” people every now and then and basically float through the rest of the week. Many ministers do this and they have nice cushy jobs with plenty of prestige. The other option was that I could allow Jesus to show me all that needs to be done and all that needs to be challenged. This option would lead to more trouble but a better ministry. There would never be enough hours or hands for the work, and there would always be something else to do or someone to visit. I had to choose which the job would be. I had to learn to add a focus on Sabbath to this but Kevin’s statement still influences me.
- Paul Swadley – Paul was a long term interim pastor at First Baptist Carthage when I was there. Paul was probably one of the happiest people I have ever met. Seriously the guy smiled all the time. Of course, that smile had a strong amount of determination and grit that went with it. Paul used his time at First Baptist Carthage to take a healthy church and make it even better. He didn’t coast. He pushed forward. His year and a half at FBC Carthage was the best of my 6 years there. His preaching showed a great deal of love for the people he was preaching too. That love involved him calling out sin when he saw it because he believe that the sin was destructive to the people he loved. He did this, as he did everything, with a smile on his face and a great deal of love and grace for the people he was with.
There are other people I could throw into this mix like Pat Lee (who taught me a lot about delegating to others, she ran the best college Sunday School department I’ve ever seen), Andy & Elisabeth Leininger (who taught me a ton about missions and following your calling – the auctioning of all their worldly goods, including their dog, before they went on mission is a lesson that has stuck with me, in addition to teaching me to think creatively about culture and the gospel),My “suitemates” at Parkview Baptist Church in Baton Rouge (Jess, Meg, Alan, Clint, and Josh – I judge how effect ministry teams are based on y’al), Bill Pruitt (who may well be the second-best pastor as a servant I’ve ever seen – Sorry but Frank wins first), and others. There have also been a few bad examples, who I won’t name, whom I wouldn’t trust Pam’s cats with, as well as a few bad mistakes (some doozies) that I learned from from some of the very same people I have mentioned as good examples. I am the ministerial sum of so many of these men and women, and for them I am thankful.
SIDE NOTE – the image associated with this post is of Billy Sunday who is not one of the ministers who has shaped how I minister.
Swiss Bratzeli Cookies
One of Pam’s former students brought these Swiss bratzeli cookies by for her.
The student told her that when her great, great, grandfather immigrated to the United States he was only allowed to bring a few things with him. One of the possessions that he was able to bring with him to the States was a bratzeli iron. This iron is used for making the cookie and gives the cookie it distinctive design. He brought it to the US so that his family could continue to make bratzeli cookies together.
The student’s family’s tradition has been to gather together before Christmas and bake bratzeli cookies together. Originally they did this on the great, great grandfather’s iron. Eventually they special ordered a new iron (I assume to keep the great, great grandfather’s iron in shape) but they kept the tradition going. Such a wonderful tradition.
Serves as a reminder for me that so many of the traditions and norms that we think of as “American” were started by bringing them over from an “old country”. We were and still are a country of immigrants and wonderful new traditions like Pam’s student’s family’s tradition (my that is a lot of possessives in a row) are being developed all around us.
The Prettiest Vehicle is One that is Paid-For
Fred the minivan hit 300,000 on her odometer tonight!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh yeah! That is one sexy minivan.
I made it home from working with only two and a half miles to go before hitting the big 300. So Noah jumped in the van with me and we went for a short ride. It was a good father/son moment.
I posted in December when Fred received her last oil change before reaching this milestone. Here’s hoping that I get the chance to post in the future of her last oil change before 350,000 miles and maybe even 400,000 miles. Mhmmm 400,000 miles.