Category: personal

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.

i’m pretty tired right now so i won’t post anything too long but i did want to let everyone know that the birthday tapestry has been accomplished. now we get to started the growth and maturing processes.

after 3 years of dream, 2 years of planning, 13 months of being in point, and a ton of conversations 55 other people joined our family tonight for the first public worship gathering of tapestry. it was a great start.

thank you to everyone who prayed and supported us. there is still so much to do but we have at least reached the end of the beginning.

98% excited or 98% scared from Robert Terrell on Vimeo.
tapestry had it’s second and last “preview” worship gathering last night. the only thing left now is the real deal. last night was great and hard at the same time. mike penza’s brother ended up passing away this week. we all hurt for mike and he’s family. we were also missing casey but for much more pleasant reasons (he had to go see his woman). while worship was great i wish the whole tapestry family could have been there and most importantly not in pain.

the next step is a matter of mapping everything out for the actual launch this coming sunday. i’m extremely excited and scared at the same time. over on facebook one of my friends suggested the scene from armageddon where owen wilson’s character is strapped into the shuttle. he’s “98% excited and 2% scared or is it 98% scared and 2% excited?” it pretty much sums up how i feel right now.

SIDE NOTE – we have a new member of the terrell family. after a lot of searching pam found a cat that she feel in love with. she found him through the purbred cat rescue. he’s a 5 year old himalayan and his name is mr. darcy. though i am not the biggest fan of cats in general, i will admit that i like this guy.

FIRST let me say that i am praying for and thinking about all my friends and family that live in the path of hurricane gustav. if you haven’t evacuated yet and would like to you are welcome to come to our home. wisconsin is wonderful right now and well worth the visit (even if it is just for the purpose of running away from a hurricane). i remember what katrina was like, so i’ll be praying for you based on my memory of my feelings and thoughts were.

second i’ll talk about tapestry. tonight was our set up preview. we spent the evening trying to figure out how to hook stuff up and where to put it. it involved a lot of trial and error. my real worry was that we wouldn’t be able to put everything up or take it down in the time we had hoped for. our goal is to be set up by 5:15 p.m. each sunday so we can concentrate on people and people only once the gathering start to happen. everything went wonderfully. we set everything up, had it looking decent (we’re still not completely there yet), meet and talked about the example of the levites, and then tore everything down. we had more than enough time. i was incredibly nervous before we started tonight and i was pumped after we finished. it’s going to happen and people are going to be drawn to GOD.

i spent a little bit of time talking with our launch team about the biblical example of levites. this hebrew tribe acted as the “human camels” (jacob’s term) for all the items and equipment involved in GOD’s tabernacle. the levites did all the heavy lifting and hard work so that others could worship. i love what deuteronomy 10:8-9 says concerning them:

at that time the LORD set apart the tribe of levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the LORD, to stand before the LORD to minister and to pronounce blessings in his name, as they still do today.  That is why the levites have no share or inheritance among their brothers; the LORD is their inheritance, as the LORD your GOD told them.)

“the LORD is their inheritance!” wow! we spent a little bit of time talking about the fact that as a nomadic church and we have much in common with the tabernacle. for better or worse the launch team members are the levites of tapestry. we will carry and setup everything, while others just arrive and worship. in the midst of all the work GOD is out inheritance. it’s all fun and games right now but 6 months from now i’m going to have to remember that GOD is my inheritance when i no longer want to set stuff up just to take it down in three hours. remember folks, i’m old.

anyway i gave everyone a t-shirt tonight with the hebrew letters for “levite” on them. i just want us all to remember what we are doing and why we are doing it. 

i’m sick and therefore the normal terrell family tradition of august being “no t.v. month” is temporarily suspended. if one of us is sick to the point of having to stay inside during the month of august then television is allowed. even though it’s always hard to start it i still always love “no t.v. month” because i get so many things done. of course, we haven’t reached the point of getting rid of the tv all together.

anyhow, pam and i are watching “lars and the real girl” and i thought i would just post that it is a strange but very enjoyable movie. quite strange but also quite entertaining.

one of the things that google reader does is identify who actually posts material on the blogs you are reading. for example, the above image came from a post that susie austin did on the austins’ blog concerning alicia’s birthday (which was the 19th – if you forgot it is still not too late to wish her a happy belated birthday). how do i know susie posted the article? while google reader tells me who was logged in when the post was placed on the blog. of course, someone could have pretended to be susie, but i choose to think most people are honest when it comes to logging into an account.

anyhow, as of today i’ve decided to quite reading a few ministers’ blogs because i’ve realized something about them … they’re secretaries are the ones posting everything. actually that’s not the only reason i’m quitting these blogs because i’ve suddenly realized that all these blogs really are is advertisement. i read blogs to learn the thoughts, concerns, and experiences of those i care about and/or be challenged by other peoples’ thoughts. these blogs do neither. i’m not challenged by them because all they every do is talk about what is coming up at that church or how cool something was when that church did it. i also don’t learn anything about the thoughts, concerns or experiences of these pastors because … well … they didn’t write it. they’re secretary or tech person played ghost writer.

anyway, it’s just a personal pet peeve and i’m taking care of it by ditching those blogs. bye, bye.

SIDE NOTE – the austins ARE NOT one of those blogs. they are cool people who post their own stuff. this is why i used a screen shot of my reader with their blog. they are trustworthy.

but i do miss cane’s. i got to eat at cane’s tonight. mmmmmmmm

this will be short but just wanted to let you all know that i am stupid. my first class for my d.min begins thursday. i’ve been reading the wrong syllabus for the past month and therefore thinking that my papers would be due weeks after the class is over. baaaaaaah! wrong answer. i looked at the correct syllabus today (after i realized i was reading the one for the next semester) and discovered that two papers were due in the professors’ offices last friday. great way to start off my new degree.

i’ve been writing feverishly to get things done and also emailing and calling new orleans seminary to try and see if it is possible to make arrangements to correct my stupidity. it’s made for an interesting day. the killer is that even when i didn’t take school that seriously (high school and college) i NEVER turned in a paper late. i went through high school, college, and graduate school (which i took very seriously) without ever turning in an assignment late. it just wasn’t an option for me. here i go starting my doctoral work by being a complete (though accidental) slacker. it’s killing me.

SIDE NOTE – the asus eee pc 901 came in today. i would love to tell you how cool it is but i’ve been too busy reading and writing to play with it. i’ll get to play with it wednesday.