Category: personal

i was in rochester, minnesota this weekend for the mwbc annual meeting. while i was there i thought i would go after the friday evening meeting and watch religulous. since the movie is an attempt to convince people that religious belief is stupid and should be rejected by everyone, i thought it was pretty important for me to see it. truthfully bill maher makes fun of some things in faith that deserve to be made fun of. let’s face it, if we’re honest with ourselves there are some things we do “in the name of CHRIST” that have absolutely nothing to do with CHRIST and should be ridiculed. i don’t have a problem with someone doing that. in fact, i often think it helps correct us.

one of the main problems i have with the movie is that he only presents the stupid stuff. it would be easy to reject faith if that was all there was. if the holy land experience in orlando is the sum total of what faith is all about then we probably should reject it. i think the problem in maher’s argument comes in the fact that he never considers the good that comes out of faith. visit a few homeless shelters and indigent works with me that are only operated because of the faith of the organizations’ leadership and then talk about faith being ridiculous. consider martin luther king and the fact that his actions came out his faith and then say faith is ridiculous. come with me to diriamba, nicaragua and join the baltodonas as they help the weakest in their society because they see JESUS in those individuals and then look me in the face and say faith is ridiculous. there are so many other examples: desmond tutu, mother teressa, miss lilly (mission arlington), etc. you can say faith doesn’t make sense to you but look at some of this actions that are the result of faith and say it is ridiculous. i dare you.

maybe these amazing actions more clearly represent the effects of faith than the stupid things do. after all, the world is full of stupidity and brutality. those actions do not belong just the realm of faith (just look at mao & stalin for examples of irreligious perpetrators of mass evil).

there are other issues that i could mention but judging by the response at the theater i probably won’t be discussing any of the issues raised on religulous with anyone. as you can probably tell from the photo above i was the only one in the theater. i asked the ticket guy how many tickets had been sold and he said there were probably 5 people who watched the movie on friday.

it is hard for this alabama native to believe but we had our first snow in point today. that’s right on october 27th we had snow flurries in the stevens point area.

i love it.

i love snow. it is amazing. i’m not sure why but anytime it starts snowing, no matter if it is flurries or a blizzard, it feels like a magical moment. it’s always great.

SIDE NOTE – during lunch i watched “diary of a city priest.” i haven’t read the book but the movie was very interesting.

yes the above picture is of a trebuchet. yes this trebuchet was designed to throw the pumpkins in that wheelbarrow beside it all the way across the field you see in the picture. no i unfortunately did not get to see it operated.

as i told you yesterday we were going to see the pumpkin trebuchet operated today. it’s located 15 miles away from us in wisconsin rapids. the pumpkin farm advertizes that it will operate the trebuchet at 1 p.m. therefore, pam, noah, and i drove over to wisconsin rapids and made it there 5-10 minutes before 1 p.m. we were full of excitement at the possibility of seeing pumkins take flight. what we didn’t realize was that these medieval catapults were apparently no designed to operate in small drizzles and strong breezes. at least that’s what we were told by the trebuchet operator.

it changes my whole view of medieval warfare. apparently war only took place in the middle ages on calm, sunny days. i assume that it made the horrific aspect of war a little easier to deal with just knowing that if a storm cloud crossed the sky there was always the possibility of a war rain delay.

anyhow, here are two more pictures from the afternoon. the first is pam trying to make noah turn his head for a photo (adam was away at a birthday party) and the second is a pumpkin interpretation of obama and mccain.

SIDE NOTE – below is the video we showed tonight at tapestry that matthew made.

holistic living from Matthew Case

if you are not presently listening to “this american life” each week you should start. it is consistently great. this past sunday’s show did a great job of explaining how big a deal the current economic crisis really is all while also being quite entertaining.

do you self a favor and download last week’s show here and then subscribe to the podcast here

the above photo is from my facebook profile (if i’m not your friend just look me up and add me – i’ll gladly confirm you). anyhow mike (a member of the leadership team, a great disc golfer, and apparently a lousy fisherman) posted the above statements on my wall. it was so cool to see that he is already thinking “may it never stand still” in regards to tapestry. in the last six weeks we have taken some huge steps, but the goal isn’t to be satisfied with where we’ve reached. the goal is to follow CHRIST more and more. i hope we have a “not that we have already arrived” type of mindset. i hope that we become a group of people who are pushing and striving for more faith in CHRIST and taking more “leaps to faith” every day. it would be awesome if three years from now tapestry is taking more risks than we have in our first six weeks. that’s the type of church that i want to be a part of (and the type that i think i already am a part of). my hope is that tapestry will be a group that believes its only satisfaction is in CHRIST but is never completely satisfied with what we are presently experiencing in and through HIM. i hope that we are a group that always wants more of HIM and wants to follow HIM a little more closely. if this becomes who we are then we will continue to more forward in following HIM.

may we will never stand still!

a couple of weeks ago my car’s radio antenna suffered a catastrophic collision with my canoe. the result has been that i am now constantly listening to podcasts on my ipod. today i was listening to talk of the nation as it described the national geographic show “factory floor.” the show details the process of mass producing items. during the interview concerning the show the producer kept describing how the engineers behind the mass production are neurotic about perfection. he described several situations of factories doing whatever was necessary to turn out the exact same product with no defects thousands at a time. he described a pasta plant that takes a photo of every grain of wheat that is used in producing their pasta. they want to remove any dark or defective grains from their process so that all the pasta is “perfect.” in an effort to achieve this they automate everything they can and remove as many human interactions as possible.

of course, while such mass produced pasta may be “perfect” it is also bland and boring. when people think of great pasta it is usually homemade. of course, homemade pasta isn’t perfect. it has irregularities, inconsistencies, and imperfections within it. not being the same lends to the the reality and quality of homemade pasta versus mass produced pasta which may always tastes the exact same but could never stand up against good quality hand made pasta.

i wonder if the same isn’t true with ministry and more particularly with worship. i’ve been around places that produce “perfect” worship and ministry. it is always consistent. the mistakes have all been worked out or hidden. the transitions cause everything to flow from one element to the next without a second’s pause. the intonations, gestures, and looks of the leaders are planned down to the last detail. it’s been worked out and designed so that it will be perfect each and every week. of course, i think worship like this is also usually pretty bland because of all of that. there’s no art, no hands involved within it. i like ministry and worship when it is a little “gritty.” i don’t mean by this that it is sloppy and not well done. just that it’s not overly ‘processed.” just like homemade pasta you can do things in worship and ministry in a high quality manner that are still not overly processed. i hope that’s what we do at tapestry.

 
i love woot. i think i have mentioned that fact before but i thought i would mention it again. it’s just a fun way of doing commerce. anyhow they had the above shirt for sale yesterday and the nerd that is hidden away in me (not very well hidden but still hidden) had to have the shirt. for those of you who are a little slower i’ll point you to the title of this post. hopefully that will help you pick up on the humor.

if you are involved in the church culture at all (sometimes versus CHRISTianity) you know that there are certain words and phrases that come into favor at various times. i assume it’s the same in every other “industry” and/or organizational culture in the world. the phrases are inside words that all those who are a part of the group understand (or at least pretend that they do). it’s probably just because i am a pastor and therefore inherently a part of the church culture that these things bother me so much, but they really do drive me nuts. therefore, i’m going to start listing various church culture words and phrases that drive me nuts. i’ll begin with “vision casting.”

i hear this used all the time. i think some pastors have mental competitions to see who can mention casting a vision more. what i understand this to me is motivating people to follow the vision that has already been established (at least in the pastor’s mind). it’s not really so much throwing a vision out there (or casting hopefully implies some catching) as it is placing emotional “carrots” in front of people to get them to work toward the already established vision (or mission). why can’t we just call it motivation? i have a couple of pastors’ conferences i’m going to over the next few months and i promise this will be one of the big phrases at each one.

anyhow, some wonderful pastors i love and respect use this word so this post isn’t really a gripe about the phrase being wrong as much as it is about being over used (or overthrown as the case may be). i think for the fun of it i will start using the phrase “vision jitterbuging” when other people say “vision casting” because a jitterbug is my favorite lure to cast and quite effective at catching too.

SIDE NOTE – feel free to add your own words that drive you nuts.