I have been doing a lot of thinking, and subsequently a lot of speaking and teaching, on the subject of "distractions." Specifically, what keeps us from doing what we know to do. Sometimes the distraction is that we don't know, and other times we are afraid of doing what we know to do. How diligently do we follow our dreams, and do these dreams coincide with our true purpose. Is the distraction that the don't coincide?? Is the goal untouchable so we give up?
These are the things on my mind.
I am convinced that more could be, and should be done by the community of Christ. I get frustrated with others because of their lack of accomplishment and then I look in the mirror and realize that I am truly no better. Too many times the work we actually do is simply for the congregations of Christ themselves(i.e. building buildings, raising budgets, singing songs) rather than the world we live in. Too many times our work for the world is for others that we will never see (which is a good thing in and of itself) and is at the detriment of the world on our front porch.
Here's what I know:
- I would rather send than go.
- I would rather speak than do.
- I would rather fuss than fix.
- I would rather dream than implement.
- I would rather debate than demonstrate.
I don't like these things about me (or our world), but I want them to change.
I'm working on them to change.
I'm sorry they are hard to change.
They will change.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Friday, August 17, 2007
Are you known?
This is for the church world, so listen up.
Are you known?
What I mean by this is... does anyone in your community know you exist?
I am marveled by the fact that there are church congregations in this community that have as it's attendees people that I do not know. I mean, I cannot tell you one person who attend certain churches, AND I cannot tell you who the pastor is. These are not the fringe "churches" who meet in their living room with two people and a cat, but owners of some of the major buildings in this town.
I know what you are thinking: "Well, maybe YOU'RE the one out of touch!" At the rest of sounding presumptuous, I don't believe that is correct. I consider myself a person who is out in the community. I sit on a couple of boards, am involved in school and little league sports, and I even find my name in the local newspaper every so often.
Maybe it's just a rant, but I am wondering how you can affect change and impact a community if no one knows you exist.
Are you known?
What I mean by this is... does anyone in your community know you exist?
I am marveled by the fact that there are church congregations in this community that have as it's attendees people that I do not know. I mean, I cannot tell you one person who attend certain churches, AND I cannot tell you who the pastor is. These are not the fringe "churches" who meet in their living room with two people and a cat, but owners of some of the major buildings in this town.
I know what you are thinking: "Well, maybe YOU'RE the one out of touch!" At the rest of sounding presumptuous, I don't believe that is correct. I consider myself a person who is out in the community. I sit on a couple of boards, am involved in school and little league sports, and I even find my name in the local newspaper every so often.
Maybe it's just a rant, but I am wondering how you can affect change and impact a community if no one knows you exist.
Friday, August 10, 2007
I'm a Chevrolet Corvette!
You're a classic - powerful, athletic, and competitive. You're all about winning the race and getting the job done. While you have a practical everyday side, you get wild when anyone pushes your pedal. You hate to lose, but you hardly ever do.
Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Now... cats.
A sidebar, if you will...
We now... have... cats.
Note the plural nature of the word. Technically, we have a cat and three, yes three, kittens. Now I know what you are thinking. Don't you have to have "a" cat FIRST, and then obtain kittens from said cat? Apparently not.
It was honestly one of the craziest things I have ever seen. I was/am working on putting tile down in the kitchen, so I am completely out of the mix on this one. (Actually, when it comes to animals and our household I am ignored, so I have learned to stay out of such matters altogether.) Anyway, as I am working on the tile inside, Holly and the boys are outside. A young cat comes to the house and the boys recognize it as the pregnant stray that they had seen a couple of weeks previous. One of the boys notices that she doesn't look pregnant anymore. Sure enough, she has had her kittens somewhere. I should have smelled trouble, but I was high on floor tile glue.
Holly decides to feed the cat milk because: [her words] it looks hungry; [my words] she is evil and knows if she feeds it then it will stay and we will then have another animal that "they will take care of" but really I will clean the poop and have to feed it. Now, they actually let the animal in the house, and I'm a softy and it is a young cat and I pet the thing. It scopes out the places and hangs out a while. They go back outside because it is getting dark and the cat needs to get out of the house, and the cat leaves. They (Hol and the boys) stay outside for a few moments and notice that the cat is coming back. They watch at it drops something a time or two, and then it comes up to Jonah and gives him what she was carrying. You guessed it, a kitten! Now, my family (I'm in the kitchen, remember) is suckered in, and they get a toy box for the cat and kitten. She brings it in, cleans it, and then takes the kitten under Jonah's bed (that she had scoped out earlier). Again, the craziest thing!
That's not all! A few minutes later she goes to the door. We let her out (by this time I am in the living room) and she leaves. Minutes later, she comes back with another kitten. Same deal. A few minutes longer than the first time, she goes to the door again. She leaves and is back in record time with yet another kitten. They sleep under Jonah's bed for two nights and now are moved into the bathroom.
Now: five humans, two dogs, and 4 felines.
We now... have... cats.
Note the plural nature of the word. Technically, we have a cat and three, yes three, kittens. Now I know what you are thinking. Don't you have to have "a" cat FIRST, and then obtain kittens from said cat? Apparently not.
It was honestly one of the craziest things I have ever seen. I was/am working on putting tile down in the kitchen, so I am completely out of the mix on this one. (Actually, when it comes to animals and our household I am ignored, so I have learned to stay out of such matters altogether.) Anyway, as I am working on the tile inside, Holly and the boys are outside. A young cat comes to the house and the boys recognize it as the pregnant stray that they had seen a couple of weeks previous. One of the boys notices that she doesn't look pregnant anymore. Sure enough, she has had her kittens somewhere. I should have smelled trouble, but I was high on floor tile glue.
Holly decides to feed the cat milk because: [her words] it looks hungry; [my words] she is evil and knows if she feeds it then it will stay and we will then have another animal that "they will take care of" but really I will clean the poop and have to feed it. Now, they actually let the animal in the house, and I'm a softy and it is a young cat and I pet the thing. It scopes out the places and hangs out a while. They go back outside because it is getting dark and the cat needs to get out of the house, and the cat leaves. They (Hol and the boys) stay outside for a few moments and notice that the cat is coming back. They watch at it drops something a time or two, and then it comes up to Jonah and gives him what she was carrying. You guessed it, a kitten! Now, my family (I'm in the kitchen, remember) is suckered in, and they get a toy box for the cat and kitten. She brings it in, cleans it, and then takes the kitten under Jonah's bed (that she had scoped out earlier). Again, the craziest thing!
That's not all! A few minutes later she goes to the door. We let her out (by this time I am in the living room) and she leaves. Minutes later, she comes back with another kitten. Same deal. A few minutes longer than the first time, she goes to the door again. She leaves and is back in record time with yet another kitten. They sleep under Jonah's bed for two nights and now are moved into the bathroom.
Now: five humans, two dogs, and 4 felines.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Ethos (cont'd part 3) - MTV
I preface this by saying that MTV is not what it used to be. We, as a society, have gone from screaming at the top of our lungs, "I want my MTV!" to one who really couldn't tell you when they saw an actual music video on the channel. [By the way, if you are not at least in your 30's you will not remember that you were supposed to "want my MTV!"] With this disclaimer being given, I must continue a thought started around a month ago.
I was listening to the radio when during one of the breaks the announcer mentioned a story that was aired on "MTV News." This of course made me chuckle because I didn't know that MTV had a news team. I began to picture in my mind what this team and show would look like, and then I had somewhat of a revelation. MTV is (was?) not about reporting the news, but it was about making the news itself.
The question I now ponder is one akin to the "chicken and the egg" scenario. As a creationist, I believe that I know the answer to that question, but I digress. The question is: Do things happen on MTV because the world is a certain way, OR do things happen in the world (styles, likes/dislikes, attitudes, etc.) because MTV is a certain way. In other words, who is actually defining the culture? Knowing that the world has grown larger than MTV, I began to thing about the entertainment industry as a whole. As a general rule, the media actually creates what it wants the culture to be, and the world follows suit. Some may not want to admit to this because we want to believe that we are not lemmings, but it is true.
Examples: A style of hair is seen on a television show and one month later every woman is seen with that hair. We witness anything from a car to a style of sunglasses on the screen and we have to have one like it. Our speech is not derived from free thinking, but from a collection of movie and television quotes. There was an old black and white movie with an actor (I think Cary Grant but I don't know for sure) that set the culture as well. At that time, every man wore an undershirt. In the movie, the actor took off his shirt and did not have an undershirt on. After that, men stopped wearing undershirts for a long time.
In other words, MTV (etc.) puts a style / a song / a personality within our view; calls it cool or rad or scrumdillyuptious and we follow with our tongues hanging out. Then, we conform to what the industry says we should conform to. We become like the Borg of Star Trek fame. We are collective, we are one... at least until that guy gets a new style of pants.
The "church" as an institution is no different. Even those who have considered themselves "on the edge" slip into a category of their own. All we do is follow the trend. With this said, I like to be at least a little trendy. I have no problem with either throwing away or flaunting your bell bottoms, whichever the wind is blowing today. However, sometimes we (in the church world) are content to follow the cultural leaders rather than to be as God intended us to be, and that is to be culture changing / culture defining.
With all of this being said, I believe that there needs to be an integration of (1) looking for the best methods to communicate to the society and in the time that we find ourselves, and (2) be creative within our worlds to set or define a new culture that the world would look to. We can speak about changing a heart, but when is the last time we changed the city. I am not speaking about picketing or anything, but when is the last time that the biggest thing (in the sense of the BEST thing) in any city had God's name on it? Our goal should not just be to get one more person into our church, but to really effect the ethos of our communities. This is a grand plan, but we serve a grand God. To paraphrase a pastor: "Don't be afraid of the deep water." To quote the Bible: "Why do you look for the living among the dead?"
We (the Church [big "C"]) need to stop being content to react to or even put a Christian twist on the darkness, but we need to simply shine the light. This is a new light, one that has not been seen but is from the Creator Himself. From a post previous... it is a song that has never been sung!
I was listening to the radio when during one of the breaks the announcer mentioned a story that was aired on "MTV News." This of course made me chuckle because I didn't know that MTV had a news team. I began to picture in my mind what this team and show would look like, and then I had somewhat of a revelation. MTV is (was?) not about reporting the news, but it was about making the news itself.
The question I now ponder is one akin to the "chicken and the egg" scenario. As a creationist, I believe that I know the answer to that question, but I digress. The question is: Do things happen on MTV because the world is a certain way, OR do things happen in the world (styles, likes/dislikes, attitudes, etc.) because MTV is a certain way. In other words, who is actually defining the culture? Knowing that the world has grown larger than MTV, I began to thing about the entertainment industry as a whole. As a general rule, the media actually creates what it wants the culture to be, and the world follows suit. Some may not want to admit to this because we want to believe that we are not lemmings, but it is true.
Examples: A style of hair is seen on a television show and one month later every woman is seen with that hair. We witness anything from a car to a style of sunglasses on the screen and we have to have one like it. Our speech is not derived from free thinking, but from a collection of movie and television quotes. There was an old black and white movie with an actor (I think Cary Grant but I don't know for sure) that set the culture as well. At that time, every man wore an undershirt. In the movie, the actor took off his shirt and did not have an undershirt on. After that, men stopped wearing undershirts for a long time.
In other words, MTV (etc.) puts a style / a song / a personality within our view; calls it cool or rad or scrumdillyuptious and we follow with our tongues hanging out. Then, we conform to what the industry says we should conform to. We become like the Borg of Star Trek fame. We are collective, we are one... at least until that guy gets a new style of pants.
The "church" as an institution is no different. Even those who have considered themselves "on the edge" slip into a category of their own. All we do is follow the trend. With this said, I like to be at least a little trendy. I have no problem with either throwing away or flaunting your bell bottoms, whichever the wind is blowing today. However, sometimes we (in the church world) are content to follow the cultural leaders rather than to be as God intended us to be, and that is to be culture changing / culture defining.
With all of this being said, I believe that there needs to be an integration of (1) looking for the best methods to communicate to the society and in the time that we find ourselves, and (2) be creative within our worlds to set or define a new culture that the world would look to. We can speak about changing a heart, but when is the last time we changed the city. I am not speaking about picketing or anything, but when is the last time that the biggest thing (in the sense of the BEST thing) in any city had God's name on it? Our goal should not just be to get one more person into our church, but to really effect the ethos of our communities. This is a grand plan, but we serve a grand God. To paraphrase a pastor: "Don't be afraid of the deep water." To quote the Bible: "Why do you look for the living among the dead?"
We (the Church [big "C"]) need to stop being content to react to or even put a Christian twist on the darkness, but we need to simply shine the light. This is a new light, one that has not been seen but is from the Creator Himself. From a post previous... it is a song that has never been sung!
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