Category: personal

Every year Washington Elementary refinished the gym floor and Tapestry needs to move for a week. This year they are actually changing the lines, which is apparently much more difficult than refinishing the floor. Instead of just being gone for one week we will elsewhere for three weeks. Usually during our absence we do a picnic/worship gathering at Iverson Park. Three weeks was a little long for Iverson and a little chancy with the weather. So I asked First Baptist Church in Stevens Point if we could meet there for a couple of weeks. They were gracious enough to say yes.

So here are my thoughts from the first time that Tapestry has ever met in a building specifically designed for church use.

• First, I am amazingly thankful for 1st Baptist. They were very generous to let us meet there. I asked about paying rent and they said “no need” (don’t worry I have made sure they have been renumerated in another manner). Thanks 1st Baptist.
• Second, I am very thankful for the understanding nature of Tapestry. We usually have really talented individuals leading our music. Jodi, Eric, Joel, and Drew are amazing. I love our music and I know other people do too. Last night was the “perfect storm” of not being able to find someone to lead our music. This means that it fell to me. I am the last chancemusic leader. This is because, while I can lead, I am not very comfortable doing so and I am not very good. So how does Tapestry respond? Oh they sing louder than normal so that Idon’t feel like I am leading alone. It went from “man, I hate doing this” to “man, I love singing with these people.” Thanks threads. You guys are awesome. Even so I’m still readyfor Jodi, Joel, and Eric to be back.
• Third, pews? Really? I know at one time pews were a great step forward. At one time everything in a church building was a step forward that solved a problem that needed to be addressed. Therefore, at one time pews were progressive. Now though I really hate pews. I didn’t realize it till starting Tapestry. Before I had always thought that chairs were a nice alternative every now and then, but now I just really hate pews. Actually I had considered meeting in the gym at 1st Baptist simply because there would be no pews. I thought it would be funny to move from a school gym to a church gym. The Leadership Team said “lets go with the the sanctuary and we did. Good call because the sanctuary has AC and it was needed in that old uninsulated building. Still, those pews!?!?!?
• Fourth, Tapestry is pretty techie and non-techie at the same time. We use technology on a regular basis but it is never the certain of focus. What does this mean for 1st Baptist? Well it isn’t a very technologically friendly site. No grounded outlets for a start and very few outlets in general for another thing. Also the sound system? Well it just couldn’t handle what we usually do. It couldn”t even handle Drew’s bass. So we went pretty low key. I don’t think anyone noticed. Because while we typically have the scripture for the message on its own interactive website and use videos, document projectors, people using tablets and smart phones during the message, etc., etc., those things are never the focus of what we do. They are just tools. We use them when they are helpful and skip them when they aren’t. Last night’s “powerful” illustration for the sermon was a bottle of Diet Coke. You don’t get much more low-tech than that.
• Finally, if we ever get a building (and folks that is a really big IF because I for one am happy renting Washington for a very long time) I hope we still have some setup and tear down that is necessary for each week. I love the fact that each week after church people are working together and most importantly talking together while we clean up. People don’t just rush away from Tapestry unless there is something very important that they have to go to. I hope that is always a part of who we are and I, for one, am willing to setup and tear down chairs for the rest of my life if that is necessary for those conversations and laughter to take place.

That’s it for my thoughts on the first week of meeting at 1st Baptist Church. Remember folks we meet there again this week.

SIDE NOTE – also remember we are providing the meal at Place of Peace this Thursday.

I was just reading a letter that J.R.R Tolkien wrote to C. S. Lewis concerning Lewis’ book Mere Christianity and this section stuck out for me

And wrong behavior (if it is really wrong on universal principles) is progressive, always: it never stops at being “not very good,” “second best”—it either reforms, or goes on to third-rate, bad, abominable.

I thought it was good point that seems to be true.

Nothing specific to blog about. Just thought I would post about a few random things basically just to post something.

• I’m on call as a casual chaplain for the hospital this week, which means I am once again wearing a beeper. Just want to say that wearing a beeper makes me feel like I’m a drug dealer waiting to make a deal. Which I’m not.
• Thanks to my dad I judge businesses based on their toilet paper. #problems-of-the-child-of-a-toilet-paper-salesman
• Until today I have thought the Android NFC (Near Field Communication) was kind of gimmicky but I have recently seen some examples online of people using the stickers to do some interesting things. I might try this out when I get my new phone.
• Speaking of phones is anyone out there using Ting? I think we are swapping over to them for our cell phone service in August and I would gladly use any friend”s referral code to make sure you get some benefit out of me swapping.

That is all for now folks.

A while back I wanted a bluetooth keyboard for use with the various bluetooth enabled tablet like devices I use. Of course, while I wanted the keyboard I didn’t want to pay the actual retail price for said keyboard. I wanted to find a deal. Eventually I discovered an excellent deal on a Motorola keyboard. Regular price was $65 but I found it on sale for $9. Why was it on sale? Well because it is a British keyboard.

This means there are slight differences between this keyboard and a normal US keyboard. This isn’t usually a problem. I can pretty much do everything I need to do with it without any difficulty. Unfortunately every now and then the Brits mess things up for me by making the British key placement slightly different from the US key placement. Come on Brits. Get with the program! Argh!

Even though he and his bride moved up to the Pacific Northwest this past Summer I still blame Henry for this. Darn you Henry and darn all your tea-swilling countrymen too. 🙂

I think this quote fits in with what I talked about tonight at Tapestry.

The reduction of faith to practice has not enriched faith; it has impoverished it. It has let practice itself become a matter of law and compulsion.

Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God, page 8.

It is very important to know the “why’ of what you do. Your “why” should determine what you do and how you do it.

SIDE NOTE – here is the entire video from which I only used a segment tonight during the message.

Earlier this week I posted about hoping OGIO would fix/replace the backpack I received from Pam and the boys for Father’s Day four years ago. They have responded and they are replacing my pack. Woohoo. I had to cut out a logo and send it to them.

Anyhow, I’m glad OGIO pulled through. Once they receive the logo thye are sending me a Ombre Tan Rebel 15 Pack. Truthfully I prefer my original backpack. The only real advantage I see to the new backpack is that it has straps to hold my skateboard. Of course, I don’t skateboard so that doesn’t really do me any good.

SIDE NOTE – the designer of the ’92 Sentra XE really wanted to make it difficult for you to change the starter. Sheesh. I am changing the starter in Fred and it is a royal pain in the butt.

So I was just riding my bike to a seamstress to have my favorite backpack repaired when I had a sudden revelation that the bag probably has a warranty. I looked it up and OGIO does have a life of the product warranty on their backpacks. I really like this backpack. Pam and the boys gave it to me over 4 years ago and I kind of want to keep it. It worked fine until the zipper decided to eat it. I called around to find a seamstress that would repair it and found out it would be $15-20ish to fix it. That was worth it to me BUT warranty fixes are even better.

So I’m filling out the warranty form and it asks for a few photos. First, they want a photo of the front of the bag. That makes sense. They need to know what type of backpack it is. This is the photo above on the left. Second, they want a photo of the problem (i.e. the broken zipper). Again this made sense. The top right photo shows the problem. Finally, they offered a space for an optional photo. I choose to send them a photo of me and the backpack fondly remembering all the great adventures we have had. This photo is below. I titled it “the bag and I remember.”

I also considered sending them a cat photo sense everyone on the internet seems to love cats but since I like this backpack I prefer to think of the folks at OGIO as dog people. Perhaps I should have sent them a photo of our bassets, Montana and Roux, with the bag. Crud I wish I had thought of that before typing this post.

 

Well we’ll see how the folks at OGIO do with the warranty claim. I hope to report good customer service and a new/repaired bag.

Just in case you don’t know this pastors tell stories to convey truth. I don’t mean stories as in lies (though that happens sometimes too). Nope I mean stories from what happens in our lives. I regularly tell stories during the messages I preach at Tapestry. These are usually stories of things I have seen around town, things that I have done, and quite often these are stories of my failures. They help me to convey the point of the scripture I am discussing with everyone.

Right now the weekly small group that Pam and I are a part of is reading “Love Walked Among Us” by Paul Miller. We are only 6 chapters into it and thus far I am really connecting with it.  I think one of the reason that it is working for me is that Miller usually tells stories where he is the “bad guy” in the story. He is usually pointing out someone else’s success instead of his own. Personally it drives me nuts when speakers/preachers tend to tell stories that make them look good and everyone else look bad.

Case in point when I was the Youth Minister at First Baptist Church in Carthage, Missouri the whole church staff listened to a series of lectures from John Maxwell concerning a winning attitude. During one of those tapes Maxwell was using some illustration about flying with eagles versus walking with turkeys. I remember him telling a story about asking his receptionist for a phone number he had given her earlier in the week. After searching for twenty minutes she walked into his office and apologized for not being able to find the peace of paper with the phone number. Maxwell used this moment to describe the winning attitude versus the turkey attitude. He told his receptionist that she should never have come into his office without the number. He then took her back to her desk and in front of the whole church staff made her watch as he searched her desk until he found the phone number and showed it to her. Maxwell used this as an example of what to do. According to him he had the right attitude, she had the wrong one.

All I could think at the time was “what a jerk.” Actually to be honest I called him things in my mind that were a little worse than jerk and wouldn’t be polite for me to share on this blog.

Anyhow, I know some people really connect with Maxwell and his lectures have helped them a great deal. Personally I haven’t listened to or read another thing from Maxwell since then so I don’t know if he has changed his ways or not. That series of tapes was enough for me.

Every now and then I run into other preachers who do this too. Their illustrations show them as the hero of the story and others as the villain. It just doesn’t seem right to me. Seems to me that you are just pointing out other’s faults in an attempt to make your own self look good. I think it goes against Jesus’s whole thing about the speck in your neighbor’s eye versus the planks in your own eye. Personally I hope to do a much better job of recognizing my own weakness and failure than I do other people’s AND I hope to do a much better job of recognizing their victories than I do my own.

Of course, right now I am kind of doing what I find so reprehensible in other speakers. Whoops. Obviously I still have a lot of work to do on myself.