Category: random thoughts

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growtivation

wow – this is spot on satire of many contemporary/modern worship services. i’ve been to quite a few such services and they are surprising close to this video.

the irony is that several people in the ministerial association to which i belong think this is what tapestry is all about. they see tapestry connecting with younger unchurched people and since they seem convinced that you can only connect this group by edgier music, video, and lights they assume that’s what we do. instead we are pretty boring.

we do have stage lights but that is to hide the utter ugliness of the gym in which we meet. the closest thing we have to a laser show is the laser pointer on my honeywell powerpresenter RF (in my opinion the best wireless presentation tool) and it doesn’t seem to work half the time. every now and then i do try to hit eric, our music leader, in the eye with my lasrer pointer but i don’t think that really counts as a laser show. our music is around 90% classic hymns with drums and an acoustic guitar. it’s good stuff because eric, joel, brad, and drew are awesome but it’s rarely very edgy.

also, our “hipness factor” is incredibly low because … well … i’m involved. eric doesn’t help much with the “hipness factor” either. you can tell this by the way natalie, his wife, introduces herself to people. she says she is married to the guy who looks like a hobo. we all know that hobos are known for their unhipness -(btw if you have not seen john hodgman’s piece called “hobo matters” you should watch it right now).

anyhow if y9ou have ever been to a “relevant” worship gathering you should watch the above video. you’ll find it very diverting.

ht ed stetzer on the video.

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that’s a CHRISTian argument & we’re not CHRISTians

gardeners

monday a group of point citizens and students started gardening on some land owned by the city. today after a couple of meetings between the group and the mayor that gardening was forcibly ended. you can read the stevens point journal article concerning the matter here. my post here is not to argue for the gardeners or the city (i have mixed feelings – i don’t think anyone has the right to trespass on someone else’s property unless it is an emergency but i don’t really understand why the city won’t allow an interested group to beautify a city owned lot that has been vacant for as long as i have lived in point – thus i am squarely in the middle). instead i want to talk about something eric g told me about.

eric knows that i am fascinated by groups like these rogue gardeners. i like people who are passionate about something. actually i prefer being around someone who is passionate about something that i disagree with than being around someone who is blasé on pretty much everything. passionate people do things and i like that.

so eric called me about the group just to make sure that i knew about them and then to ask if i wanted to go over with him and listen to the group for awhile. unfortunately for me i wasn’t able to. eric went there anyway. when he got there he saw i guy that he knew from a local church talking/debating with the gardeners. he drew close to the group and heard one of rogue gardeners say to the guy he knew,

what you are saying is a CHRISTian argument and the problem with it is that WE AREN’T CHRISTIANS!

i would love to know how the guy responded but unfortunately i don’t.

i have been around when people tried to prove something from the bible to a person who didn’t believe that the bible has any special authority. it’s like trying to prove a point while speaking spanish to a group that only speaks english. so that you know where i come from i believe that the bible is GOD’s word and i believe that it is “useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” still i recognize that others do not and since i believe that JESUS is “the way, the truth, and the life” and that all truth, no matter the subject, comes from HIM i am therefore convinced that we should be able to communicate with people who do not believe that scripture comes from GOD. paul found truth that pointed to GOD at mars hill and used it to proclaim CHRIST (acts 17:16-34) and since then many have followed his example and found elements of truth in the culture around them that helped point people to the good news of JESUS’ kingdom. this is part of what the study of CHRISTian apologetics is about. this DOES NOT mean that we who are believers in JESUS should look to other sources for the bedrock authority of our lives but it does mean that we need to be prepared “to give an answer for the reason of [our] hope” to those who do not hold scripture as authoritative and our answer needs to be in a language that they understand.

SIDE NOTE – you get one chance to guess which person in the above photo is the mayor. if you get it wrong please do us all a favor and slap yourself repeatedly in the head.

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pam’s blog

i would love to post something fun or insightful but i’ve never done that before so i see no reason to begin now. instead i will simply recommend that you jump over to pam’s blog and read some of her stuff. she has started a series of posts concerning her thoughts on being a “pastor’s wife.” yes i am based but i think she writes some great stuff.

i will leave you with this photo. it’s one that i used last night during my message and it makes me laugh.

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really? this is the name you pick?

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eric g. called me one day to say “you’ve got to take a photo of the name of this company.” why would someone name their company “triple k”? surely they realized that their is a certain organization that has a really bad reputation that has 3 k’s in its name. at least that was what came to mind for both eric and i when we saw the name of this landscape company. poor choice for a name in my opinion.

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random thoughts at 11:11 on a tuesday night

  • integrity insurance/granger insurance, the insurance company of the man who hit my car last week, has decided to total my car and after their calculations they think it is generous to offer me a grand total of $1,042 for my car or $700 if i keep it. this seems like a complete cheat to me (and the others i have discussed this with). now i have to determine how i respond to them and what i do next. i think i’ll begin by saying that i will most definitely never be a client of integrity/granger. i’m quite unimpressed with them and wouldn’t want them as my insurance company. i hope none of you use them or are ever hit by one of their clients.
  • i sent my xbox 360 in for repairs today. it developed 3 red lights and then started freezing. it’s past the machine’s warranty but it appears that 3 red lights usually equals a free repair. we’ll see. anyhow on a lark i’m buying a used original xbox from a friend who sells vintage game consoles and i am considering running xbmc on it. i’ve never run xbmc so if anyone has any experience with installing it on an xbox i’m all ears.
  • pam and i just watched 3/23’s episode of “lost” – interesting. i’ve been a little disappointed with this season until this episode. like i said … interesting.
  • i also just caught up on this season’s “24” – c.t.u. must purposefully go out and recruit traitors. it seems like every season there is another person inside the agency working for the bad guys. how many times can this happen? thus far it has happened around 9 times. i would have ditched the show a long time ago except for jack bauer killing everything in sight. every now and then  i feel like i get a little closer to being a pacifist but somehow  i still enjoy watching jack do his thing – but i sure do hope we don’t have any agents like him.
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i’m not a good modern baptist – post 1 of 2

DISCLAIMER #1 – this is a prep-post for another post that i’ll make tomorrow. i figure no one will read this but writing this for me.

btw, these posts are going to include several disclaimers.

DISCLAIMER #2 – i am an excellent old-time baptist but not a very good modern baptist.

here’s what i mean.

when baptist thought was originally formed in the early 1600s it was center around 4 beliefs. these are:

  • a theology of believer’s baptism – only those who are capable of believing in JESUS (age-wise) should be baptized.
  • a theology of salvation through faith alone – we don’t earn forgiveness through our own actions or anything else (i.e. sacramentalism)
  • scripture alone as the rule for faith and practice – pretty much self-explanatory
  • the autonomy of the local church –  each church has power over itself rather than a denominational body being in control

many early baptist churches added to these four core beliefs a belief in separation of church and state. while i definitely hold to this believe it wasn’t universal so i won’t claim it as distinctly baptist.

old time baptist were a ragtag group of people who agreed on those 4 beliefs and not much else. they were a combination of english separatist (presbyterians) and anabaptists (mennonites), two groups that had VERY different beliefs on how to live out CHRISTian faith. baptists have deep roots in the radical reformation with slight roots in the magisterial reformation. you probably don’t care about the distinct reformations within the protestant reformation so i will just share this saying to convey the point i want to make in saying that baptist have radical reformation roots. a church history professor taught me “in the reformation catholics hated protestants, and protestants hated catholics, BUT EVERYONE HATED THE RADICALS.” old-time baptists were the losers that got beat up on by everyone in power. we weren’t influential in the circles of power. the underdogs flocked to baptist churches. i like that kind of faith. i.e. i’m a good old-time baptist.

but i stink as a modern baptist. why? because over the past 50 years southern baptists have become powerful and influential within a large part of u.s. culture. we aren’t the underdogs anymore – even if we often claim to be. we have huge, gorgeous churches that the movers and shakers of society come to and pay homage to in order to get elected or move up in our society. we have lots of politics within our churches and denomination because we are more concerned with power than we are with the downcast of the land. we used to care desperately about society’s losers because WE WERE SOCIETY’S LOSERS. now with our respect, education, and influence we barely notice the downtrodden. i’m not a good modern baptist because this stuff kills me.

i can live with this.

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i can’t let her be that woman

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i saw a lady in our neighborhood pushing one of these down our street today. that’s right she had placed her cat in a caged off stroller for the purpose of taking the cat on a walk around the block (as a dog owner ethics i will not link to the awful device). while i usually would applaud anything that encourages a person to exercise i simply cannot encourage this. THIS IS WRONG!

the potential of pamela using one of these is scary to me. pam has told me before that one of her goals is to eventually become to “crazy, old, cat lady.” if i pass away too soon she might actually use one of these to walk our two cats around the neighborhood. this cannot be allowed to happen.

yet another reason that i run … to prevent pam from becoming that lady.

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and the article is …

yesterday i posted about a discussion that pamela was having with some pastors’ spouses and a tweet that pete wilson had made. today google reader showed that pete wilson had blogged about the article he tweeted concerning. so here’s a link to wilson’s post and the article can be found here.

SIDE NOTE – at the moment i am on break from a 4 hour seminar on notifying someone when a loved one has died. this is part of chaplain training for the stevens point police department. after an hour of stories this is going to be a hard day.

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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.

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running as elivs or maybe chris

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i ran the 2010 point bock run today. it was a fun day in which i was able to see quite a few “threads.” i have three things i want to post.

first, on a whim i decided to do something i have never done … i ran in costume. one of the things that pamela and i love about about the marathons and half-marathons that i have run is the costumed people that run the races. some people come to the races ready to party and they make it fun for everyone else. for example, when i ran the chicago marathon in 09 i ran against a guy dressed as the pope – funny hat, staff, and all. there were also three guys that had rigged a chinese dragon to harnesses so that it floated above the crowd of runners. it was very cool.  i love the creativity and fun that the costumed people bring to the race. therefore, i decided to be one of those people for the bock run. actually i was one of 4 costumed people out of 2,000 people who ran the race. the other costumed people were a a guy who wore a green afro, a guy who made a spiked mohawk with his hair, and a guy who had pinned a dust ruffle around his neck as a cape. we were the costumed aspect of the bock run.

this was the first i have ever done this but it won’t be the last. it was a lot of fun running through the race hearing people shout “RUN ELVIS!” i was asked a couple of times during the run if i had run the las vegas marathon yet because they the running elvi begin the race there. kids shouted, adults smiled, and everyone seemed to enjoy the costume. a couple of friends of mine were behind me and when they saw me after the race they told me about all the people talking about elvis passing them during the run. while i’m not sure that i would want to do this on any of the other races i run during the year, i do plan on regularly doing this in the point bock run. it would be even more fun if i could get a few people to costume up with me. who knows we might could turn the bock into a primarily costumed run. that would definitely be fun.

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second, i was apparently destined to run today as someone other than my normal self. the race administration made a mistake in entering my registration information because i was labeled as “chris terrell” instead of my real name of “robert adam terrell.” this was pretty easy to correct because our family is the only terrell family in the point area – remember we are surrounded by german and polish people, there aren’t many english names around here. whether i was dressed as elvis or not wasn’t going to matter. i wasn’t going to be running as “robert” today.

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third, i love the general vibe of support that is a part of a road race. people genuinely want others to do well in the race. people shout for each other and stay to cheer for the people who are finishing after them. i can’t tell you how many times i have heard someone encourage another racer that they were being passed by or who they were passing. it doesn’t matter if you are fast or slow everyone just wants you to do your best. if you are a slow runner nobody expects you to run with the fastest. you are just expected to try your hardest, improve, and enjoy the experience. it’s a pretty good example of what community is supposed to be like. the fast as well as the slow are expected to run their best and everyone is supposed to “enjoy the ride.” if you do that then the people at the race will celebrate with you. i think that is what the church should do – encourage both the slow and the fast to run their best and party big time.