Category: tapestry

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bragging on some friends

i thought i would take a second and brag on some friends at the ring community church. i was talking with jessica today and she told me what they had done for mother’s day. if you have ever been in an evangelical church during mother’s day then you have probably watched as a big deal is made of mom’s (which is a good thing) and a crappy gift is given to them (these are usually cheap, stupid little things that nobody ever uses – like a quote book, or a flimsy bookmark, or a wilted carnation). jess recommended that instead of wasting allot of money on allot of people to acquire nothing more than clutter she recommended to the leadership of the ring (basically josh and meg for this decision) that they take the money they would have wasted on the meaningless gifts and instead give it to world vision in honor of their mom’s. so that’s what they did – they gave all the money to world vision to help the helpless and printed out a little booklet to give to the mom’s in their church explaining what the money would be used for.

it was a simple yet brilliant idea. from what i hear many of the mothers in the room were moved to tears. i wish i had thought of it. i will definitely be using it when jar starts.

speaking of “jar” i figured i would give y’all an update on what is happening now that our assessment is complete. here’s what is happening:

  • sometime this week my future “boss” in wisconsin will call and we will work out the details for what is basically a grant application for income from the north american mission board.
  • research, research, research – pam and i have to learn as much as we possibly can about the wonderful people of stevens point and we also need to learn more and more concerning the details of planting a church.
  • develop prayer partners and needs – we’ve got to figure out what to ask people to pray for (for some reason just saying “everything” doesn’t help much) and while we figure out what to ask people to pray for we also need to find people to pray for us.
  • we need to find a way to move up to wisconsin – the price of moving has jumped up considerably since seven years ago when we moved to baton rouge.
  • depend upon GOD even more for what HE wants us to do up there.
  • i think for tax reasons we are going to have to determine a name before we really start and have a group to help dream up a name – this is not something i am really excited about (i’d rather the group do it) but it’s not something that is life or death for me.

SIDE NOTE – “24” has gone down hill – it is a sad day in tv-land.

SIDE SIDE NOTE – we’re entering our homemade salsa in a salsa competition wednesday. i didn’t even know that there were such things as salsa competitions.

[tags]ring community church, world vision, mother’s day, salsa[[/tags]

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facebook & teAMerica

i cannot stand myspace. i think it’s okay for organizations and media but bugs me for individuals. besides there always seem to be reports of creepy people lurking around on myspace. i’m not as familiar with facebook but some of the college students swear by it and i have seen many reports recently concerning the wonders of communicating through facebook. so i figure i’ll give it a try and see if it is something that will be useful in stevens point.

speaking of stevens point pam and i are back from our teAMerica church planting assessment week. the point of the assessment is to see if i should be able to hack it when it comes to the nature of planting a church. apparently about 85% of new churches fail within 5 years. that’s not a good percentage. yet with the right assessment and training that figure flips over on itself. the teAMerica week takes a person and sees whether he/she would be a good fit for planting a church. the way they do this is through a series of personality inventories, written interviews of your friends, surprise group projects, planned presentations, a series of interviews, and basic teaching time. truthfully the whole thing was kind of similar to a church planting version of “the apprentice” without the “you’re fired” part. everything you do is watched and analyzed to see how you work with people, how you lead, how you follow, how you think, etc. it was very tiring but cool.

at the end of the week there are 4 options of what they will say to the candidate.

  • recommend
  • recommend – with conditions (usually this is to attend a couple of conferences and do some more homework – this usually slows things down by a few months or so)
  • recommend – with strong conditions (intern with someone and do allot more homework – this usually slows things down by 12 to 18 months)
  • not recommend – (which means that in the assessors’ opinions it would be best for you to do something else)

we left the week with a “full recommend” and therefore we have crossed another hurdle on the path. now we continue working with namb to see if there is any possibility of getting some funding through them. if we get some funding from them that will mean that i can focus all my efforts on planting the church rather than being somewhat distracted by the need to hold down a part time job for financial reasons.

[tags]church planting, teAMerica, facebook, myspace[/tags]

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desperately seeking susan

okay this post has nothing to do with the movie from 1985 and i’m not really looking for anyone named susan – it just seemed like a fun answer. earlier this week i decided i would start emailing some friends of mine that don’t really like the whole “church thing.” some of them are followers of CHRIST and some of them are not (if i haven’t emailed you yet it probably means that i couldn’t find your email address). i’m seeking their thoughts on what church is like and what they would like to see it like. i know and belief that CHRIST sets up the church and is the head of it but i also know that most of what goes on at church has nothing to do with JESUS. i don’t think JESUS cares at all if we have organs or guitars at church and i think HE really dislikes some of the stuff that we do in the name of being HIS body. so i’ve emailed them and asked them the following questions:

  • what things with churches have offended you? i don’t mean core biblical values here – i’m okay with someone being offended by a core belief of my faith (i.e. believing that JESUS is the only way to GOD, that we were created to be with GOD, etc) – i’m not changing that. instead what i mean are the other things that people latch onto that have nothing to do with their core faith – i.e. being a republican, buying cheesy paintings, not standing up against hate, that churches shouldn’t meet in bars, etc.
  • what things have you seen within a CHRISTian community that you do like? i guess what i’m asking here is what type of church would you possibly go to even though you don’t believe their faith?
  • what types of things could a body of believers do within the community that would make you glad they were within your community?

now i was wondering what you guys & girls thought. if would greatly appreciate any thoughts or opinions any of your had. you can either leave them in the comments or email them to me at robert.terrell (at) gmail.com.

thanks a bunch guys.

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random acts of JESUS

what would happen if a church decided that the majority of it’s budget had to be spent on things outside it’s walls? i mean spending it on things that weren’t programs to make church members happy, or convince other members from different churches to swap to theirs, or anything that would make the church more attractive to “church people” but rather spending it on taking care of the needs of single moms or celebrating the community service of police officers or deciding to minister to the needs of one city block? now i know there are financial needs within the church, after all my salary is one of those needs. the church i am presently a part of has a building and that means it has to pay for maintenance, utilities, and much more. i know those are real needs … but i don’t really think they are ministry. what if a church decided that it would spend equal or great money on a need outside it’s building’s walls before each time we spent money on a need inside our buildings walls? what if instead of encouraging people to tithe because we need to pay for all the “member services” we have built up within our buildings we encouraged CHRISTians to tithe so that they wouldn’t be dependent upon mammon and to provide resources for transforming our community?

it’s just a question i’m dealing with now that i am hoping to be a part of starting a new community of believers.

i’ve been thinking about the random acts of kindness that people used to push. they were really great. of course, as a follower of JESUS i’m supposed to be called to something much more costly than kindness … i’m called to love. JESUS showed his love through sacrifice and it wasn’t just on the cross. read the story of JESUS in the gospel and you’ll see sacrifice through out it.

JESUS loved people (and still does) and HE showed this love through sacrifice. HE then called those that follow HIM to do the same thing. but i’m not really sure how often i truly sacrifice for someone. i do acts of kindness but acts of true sacrifice? i’m just not so sure about that.

so i think i’m going to try to start. here’s my plan: i’m going to shot for at least one act of true sacrifice each week. it has to be something that costs me in some manner (after all that’s what sacrifice is). the root goal of these “random acts of JESUS” has to be to show love … nothing else. it’s not about increasing church attendance or getting good p.r. for my local congregation. no, it’s about loving like JESUS. i’m convinced if i do that then GOD will be glorified. i’m not real sure what this will all look like but that’s the fun of it. i’ll report back later on how things are going.

this article (ht pamela) and reggie mcneil’s book “the present future” got me thinking about this stuff.

[tags]random acts of JESUS, sacrifice, church budget[/tags]

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starting the process

i know about next to nothing about planting a church. i am not an expert nor am i the son of an expert. the idea of planting a church scares me, even though pam and i am sure that is the next step on our journey with GOD. i figure pam and i aren’t the first people to have no idea of how to do this and therefore for the sake of helping out all the future ignoramuses like us, i’m going to record as much as possible along the way.

for organizational purposes i thought it would be great to setup a blog category for putting all posts relating to the subject in. the problem is that the obvious category of “church planting” doesn’t really work for me. as of right now i don’t really know what i’m doing and therefore it seems a little egotistical to mark these as posts on “church planting.” i also think it would be nice to have all these posts within the history of the church once we actually do have a church. of course i have no idea what the name of the church will be – naming the church seems to me to be something that the church does, rather than one person – so i don’t have a church name to use as a category for these posts. i know it’s not a big deal, but to me it’s a big deal.

when pam was pregnant with our boys we gave them “fetal names.” since we refused to learn what sex our kids were before they were born these names gave us a way of talking about our baby with out reducing the child to an “it” (calling a baby an “it” drives me nuts – just because you don’t know if the fetus is a “boy” or a “girl” doesn’t mean the child is an “it”). we picked gender-neutral names that could be either sex – like “pat” and “joe.” the fetal name was useful for reminding us that our child was a human and not an “it” but the amorphous name left the mystery alive that came from not knowing.

since we are in the early initial stage of the birth of a future church i am reducing myself down to using a fetal name for the church. that way i can talked about that church that i am getting excited about with out trying to define or limit anything by naming it. once we have a community of believers together we’ll come up with the real name. for now i’m going to use a name that i often answer the phone with. if you call my cell phone and i’m in the right mood i’ll answer the phone with various made up businesses. the most consistent one is “joe’s auto repair.” i’m not sure why but i like the sound of it (i also like “harry’s house of jalapeños”). so starting with this post all blog posts dealing with our future church family will be under the category “jar.”

i know this is a long post for such a stupid thing but it has helped me work out all my mental issues.

SIDE NOTE – i don’t like my “about me” photo (i think it looks pretentious) but several people said my previous one was kind of scary. so i have to take another one (one that’s fun but not scary). i haven’t had the chance or an idea for accomplishing this so it will probably be a few more days before it happens. if you have a brilliant idea please pass it on. i can most assuredly use it.