Do Something New

There are always external pressures that cause us to change. The simple fact that each day we grow a day older is proof enough that change is inevitable, but that's not all. We do new things all the time, whether it's driving a new car (or starting to drive in the first place, which changes the equation dramatically) or bringing up children (where every day is something new).

There are plenty of changes we embrace (like getting a new toy), and some we slowly accept and then love (like the internet or Facebook for some).

There are other changes that are thrust upon us, like the changing of worship style in a church, which is often extremely controversial and painful, or even changing the color of the carpet in a worship center (which can be surprisingly controversial as well). Part of the difficulty of change, I believe, is not just that we have grown comfortable with the status quo, but that our "change muscles" have gotten tight for lack of use.

Physically, I have very tight muscles, and they have sometimes caused problems for me through my life (starting when I was a teenager). The doctors prescribed... stretching. So when I work out, I try to stretch my muscles well so that I am more flexible; a by product is that I am better at running (or whatever exercise I'm involved in) because I've stretched. Even (especially) when the stretching comes after the run.

I was wondering; what are we doing - of our own choosing - to stretch ourselves?

Many of us have "bucket lists": lists of things we want to do before we "kick the bucket" (and I'm not just talking about the lame "check off the ones you've done" list that's making its rounds on Facebook). For many of us, there are all sorts of things we'd love to do, but some of them don't seem in the realm of rational possibility.

But none of them will be possible at all if we don't stretch. Maybe it means we'll have to stretch and save money to do travel to a new and exciting place. Maybe it means concentrated effort to accomplish a new goal.

For me, I had a goal of running a marathon, and through a whole lot of effort, I accomplished it. Twice. I was wondering what might be next, and I started thinking about a triathlon (my brother said "Ironman" but I'm not thinking that big).

I've stretched myself in this way: I have signed up for a triathlon this weekend at the YMCA. It's not a huge one, it's indoors, and it's timed (10 minutes in the pool, 15 minutes on the bike, and 15 minutes on the treadmill).

It's going to be a stretch, but I'm excited!

My Return

One of the wonderful things about being the lead pastor and having a staff to work with made itself known yesterday.

Because Rudy and I were gone to San Diego for the National Pastors Convention all week, Chad took over preaching responsibilities for the weekend. This enabled me to focus on what we were learning and to soak it all in.

So we returned and got to sit and soak it in for one more day. And Chad was awesome! He blew us all away with a fantastic message about Jesus calming the storm. It was absolutely culturally relevant, comforting, and challenging. It was funny in all the right places (though that's to be expected when you get "the youth guy" to preach).

And in the 7 1/2 months I've been here, I don't remember once when the preacher has had to stop and wait for the applause to subside before he could continue his message. And that happened with Chad yesterday.

I felt like I had never left the NPC; Chad preached as well as the heavy hitters who were there. The Holy Spirit really spoke through him. What an awesome church to be a part of!

Blogging From the NPC: Day 4

Any guesses how I started my final day at the NPC? If you guessed "running" you'd be almost right. Actually what I did first was sneak into the Zondervan store and update my blog. But then I ran with the runners club. I only ran 3 miles, which means I was shamed by Rudy, who ran for 45 minutes (and did stairs... and walked like a 90 year old the rest of the day).

We decided that showers would be a better idea than seminars, so we got cleaned up (and started the extreme job of packing - when you come home with a truckload of books, it makes packing into an art form). Then we went to the final main session.

Efrem Smith was our speaker again, this time for a Communion service. He also led us in some hymn singing - as an aside, this was a great moment for the tech team. Efrem started a well-known song and then we went to the second verse and stopped and asked, "Do you know the second verse?" Then he turned around and noted, "Oh, they've got it on the screen!"

Communion was wonderful.

After communion, Rudy and I went out for lunch, but shortly after lunch, my old friend Jeff Rosenberry came down from LA to hang out. It was fantastic to see Jeff; it's been way too long since our days together playing soccer and at Chapel Hill. He is definitely one of the good guys.

He and Rudy and I drove around and saw the sights, walked on the beach, saw a famous hotel (that's been in lots of movies) and ate ice cream there (it was really good, and despite the fact that it was not all that warm out, it melted and got all over the place; I felt like I was one of my boys eating it). Thankfully I had napkins, so when the ice cream got on my nose, I could wipe it off (and I did know that it was there before Jeff started whispering and giggling about it - I knew Rudy wouldn't tell me it was there; not after the time I had suffered a bloody nose and spent the afternoon in the office with crusted blood under my nose and he never said anything about it. Nope, not bitter or anything). So anyway, before I went on that tirade, I was talking about that hotel. Its picture is below.

After that, we drove around some more, talking and having a good time. We decided to check out Point Loma Nazarene University. Rudy had a friend who went there for a while, and we were there, so we drove over to visit. The campus overlooks the ocean... yeah, pretty spectacular. We drove in and there was a "guard shack" where we told the young woman, "We'd just like to visit campus."

Later Jeff (or was it Rudy?) said, "that girl is going to be really upset when we start shooting the place up." Hilarious!

We ended up parking and walking around campus.

Yes, that picture is for real. But we ran out of plutonium for the flux capacitor, and we couldn't get it up to 88 mph in this crowded parking lot.

Our tour of PLNU was uneventful; it seemed like the students knew we were coming and disappeared (or maybe they all went home for the 3 day weekend). We seem to have missed seeing Abraham Lincoln in concert (by a day), but we did see a mouse in their chapel.

I had been told that I had to try In-n-Out while I was in California, and it was certainly interesting! First of all, I guess they hadn't heard that there's an economic downturn; the place was consistently FULL (or maybe these were the people who usually would eat out at more expensive places... or they're just addicted and can't stop eating there!). By the time we left, there were people standing around waiting for tables. Lots of people.

I was thinking that In-n-Out mirrors many churches. 1. There weren't many choices. 2. There were more choices than there seemed to be, but you had to have insider information to order them. 3. They used specific insider language and terminology. 4. People regularly come back (and order the same thing) religiously. 5. You had to be a great driver to maneuver the parking lot.

By then it was time to go back to the hotel and let Jeff head back north. It was so good to catch up with him, to share fun stories, to hear how God is using him, and to just hang out with a great friend.

Blogging From the NPC: Day 3

This morning started (can you guess how?) with a run. Rudy got up and came running, so I tortured him by taking him up the hill. Then I went and met up with the Runners Club for a good 3 miler. It was a lot of fun. The morning group runs are a highlight of the convention for me.

The morning session started out with an interview with Paul Young, author of the Shack. He reinforced God's love for His Bride, the Church (refreshing after last night's downer). One very insightful comment he made was that the shack stands as a metaphor for our human soul that we don't want to live in because of the pain that it has withstood. Therefore we don't live life to the fullest and instead put up facades and live behind them. This was very helpful when thinking about some other things I've read and experienced (Chap Clark's "world beneath" from his book "Hurt" is all about young people not living in the shack).

Tommy Walker led worship again, and was fantastic once again. During worship, he asked us to high-five ten people and praise God for who He is. It sounded kind of cheesy, but we did it (if nothing else, we pastors are obedient to the worship leader!), and it was cool. In fact, the energy in the room went through the roof.

Bill Hybels was our main speaker. He was impressive because he was so humble and vulnerable. He talked about listening to God's voice - God's whisper - and obeying, and how everything he has accomplished (which is tremendous) was simply because he listened and obeyed when God whispered to him. Awesome!

We went to hear J. P. Moreland in the seminar series, and he is brilliant. He was talking about signs and wonders and the one big thing I got from his talk was that we, as humans, are supposed to do the signs and wonders that Jesus did while he was here walking around on earth... fully human. But one reason we don't is because we don't practice, and the spiritual disciplines are there for that reason. Disciplines like self-denial (fasting, serving others, praying for others) and the discipline of living a life of gratitude are important for this.

In the afternoon, we took off to see San Diego. We took the bus to Balboa Park, which was beautiful. We hit the Air and Space Museum, specifically to see the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit, which showed a lot of his inventions and artwork. It was amazing to think that he was doing this inventing around 1500!

Balboa Park was fantastically beautiful, and we enjoyed walking around and looking at stuff.

When we finally made it home (after having a little bit of a time figuring out which bus to take), we had dinner and went to the evening session. The worship (Tommy Walker again) was wonderful. Taylor Mason did some comedy, which was extremely funny (whoever thought a puppeteer could be so funny?). The main speaker was Christopher Wright, and his speaking style was very dry, and since Rudy and I both found ourselves falling asleep, we went back to the room to snooze.

When we got back to the room, I was looking at our NPC book and found that not only had my picture been used for the website (the one where I'm running), but there, on the front of the book, is a picture of me, sitting and reading a book. I'm so famous.

Blogging From the NPC: Day 2, Post 2

The afternoon included a trip to the ocean for a run with the Runner's Club. It was fantastic. The view was beautiful, and the company was great. We ran out into the wind at an 8:30/mile pace, but when we turned around, we jacked it up to 7:30s. It was awesome. I don't usually get to to a harder workout with anyone else. Come to think of it, I don't usually get to run with anyone else at all!

I got back in time for the second half of USA-Mexico's soccer game... in Columbus, Ohio. Yes, I had to watch the game on TV. But I was extremely happy (and completely unsurprised) at the 2-0 result. I had predicted it, but that's nothing because we always seem to beat them 2-0 when we play on US soil.

In the evening, Tommy Walker led worship, and he was on fire. I seriously almost shot my voice singing "Hallelujah" to God at the top of my lungs. Something I really enjoy about being here is something I enjoy about worship at Millersport UMC; I can sing at the top of my voice, raise my hands, clap, and worship in whatever posture seems right. But Tommy Walker is a fantastic worship leader. He's got a ton of charisma, but it never seemed like it was about him at all.

Then we were treated to Rob Bell interviewing Shane Hipps, a genius who has a lot to say about the media we use to share the Gospel. His view, from an extremely high-powered advertiser's standpoint, is that the medium is the message. He got me intrigued enough to buy his book. I am interested in what he has to say about it. The one reason I don't know if I can go all out with him on this is because the message isn't merely words, our message is a Living Word...

The keynote speaker for this evening was Will Willimon. I was excited to see him and hear him speak, because I have seen him before, and he delivered a challenging, biblical message. Not to mention that he's a UMC bishop who usually has something insightful to say (and is thus a reminder to others that the UMC isn't so bad). To say that this evening's presentation was disappointing would be an extreme understatement. Not only did he disappoint, but he made me angry. Not the "This guy has different views than I do" kind of angry, but the "don't talk about my mama" kind of angry.

You see, his entire presentation was pretty much stand-up comedy blasting "the laity." And the way he said "laity" made it sound like laity was something you might find stuck to the bottom of your shoe following a nice stroll through a dog park. He just blasted away at them, going so far as to say, "Church isn't where the faithful disciples gather; it's where Jesus is crucified between thieves." He related story after story about horrible lay people. He ended up with a picture of Jesus and the thief on the cross... being the first "lay person" in heaven, and guess what: when we get to heaven, we'll have to put up with those same horrible lay people.

And then he walked off the stage.

I was so mad, because the lay people he was blasting are people who pray for me (and my family) daily. They are people who are passionate about Jesus. They are people who have welcomed me and my family to a new town and have embraced us as their friends. They are people who Jesus died for. They are the Church, the Bride of Jesus Christ, and he loves the laity. Sure, they are sinners, and certainly there are bad churches and bad situations and some of the "sheep" certainly have teeth, but in the morning session, we just got finished forgiving these very people!

At the end of the session, Ken Medema brought his unique brand of improv music. The guy is a freaking genius. He synthesizes the entire content of the session (including comedians, artists, special music, interviews, worship, and the main message) into one song, and his use of dynamics, different sounds, different styles of music is moving and soul touching.

Blogging From the NPC: Day 2

Day 2 began with a fantastic run with my friends from the NPC Runners Club. Two runs, if you want to be specific (only 2 miles each, for a total of 4). I got to catch up with my friends Tom (from Zondervan), Kevin (from Lexington), and Randy, who I hung out most with last year.

Then it was time for the first main session of the day. It was fantastic. The musical group Sons of Korah played their unique arrangements of several Psalms. They were unlike anyone I've ever heard, and their music was wonderful.

Nazareth, a very funny man, brought us comedy as well. This morning the crowd was a little warmer than we were for Bob Stromberg's routine yesterday (he was extremely funny, but the crowd was pretty stiff for the first day - perhaps I wasn't the only one with a little jetlag!)

The highlight for the morning session was Rob Bell, who didn't at all go where I thought he would. I thought he would go along the "Everything is Spiritual" route, but he didn't. He talked about the hurts that church people lay upon their pastors (I'll blog more about these when I have my notes with me), and that was really funny (especially when he referred to the complaints that come veiled thinly within complements: he called them "chocolate covered turds"). He originally came onto the stage pushing a shopping cart, and when he came to the end of his message, we found out why. His talk turned to forgivenes, and he asked us to write the names of people we needed to forgive and to drop those names into the shopping cart. Some people were slam-dunking their names, but the atmosphere was so entirely healing!

After lunch, it was time for some relaxation, which included finding Argentina v. France on TV. Then it was out to the beach for a run with some friends from the Runners Club; it was windy and beautiful. We ran another 4 miles (at an average pace of 8 minute miles).

Speaking of running, if I'm going to run with the gang, I need to conclude this blog entry and get over there.

Blogging from the NPC: Day 1

We made it in plenty of time to get some food and go to the first main session. Efram Smith spoke from Ezekiel 37 (the Valley of the Dry Bones). It was hard to stay focused because I was pretty tired, but his point was that Jesus is alive(!) and that means He breathes His breath into us and makes us alive, too. One of the best comments he made was about our current political situation:

An economic bailout is simply the government putting tendons, flesh, and skin on the dry bones, but only the LORD God can breathe breath into us.

Following the session, I went to Don Everts' session on Understanding the Postmodern Skeptic's Path to Faith. It was fantastic. I really appreciated Don's relational teaching style, which was full of stories. He focused on five thresholds through which a skeptic must pass in order to come to life-saving faith in Jesus Christ.

They first have to trust a Christian, then become curious about Jesus, then be willing to change, then move from meandering to truly seeking, then finally make the decision to be a Christ-follower.

It was very freeing from a pattern that (perhaps unconsciously) stressed "sealing the deal" and led to a lot of misunderstandings about evangelism (especially how to do it in a post-Christian culture). It was a good reminder that evangelism takes a long time, if you want to do it, you've got to be in it for the long haul, and our best technique is to live out a true, vibrant, living faith in front of our skeptical friends. It was a very well done seminar.

After the seminar, we were pretty well beat, so we skipped out on Shane Claiborne's session and had a leisurely dinner. Our server was very cool and was kind of surprised that we just wanted to sit and enjoy our dinner. He doesn't see that very much. We made sure he knew we were pastors here for the NPC, and then we stiffed him on his tip and gave him a tract instead.

KIDDING!

No, we tipped like we should, and we also told his manager what a good job he'd done. Then it was back to the hotel for some debriefing and finally beautiful sleep!

Blogging from the NPC: Day 1: Getting Here

Tuesday morning started early, as Barb W graciously volunteered to pick Rudy and me up at 5:00 to bring us to the airport. Of course, both of us had used our time so wisely that our 4:30 alarm clocks brought us bouncing out of our beds, bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready for everything (or maybe we were each up late into the night doing laundry and packing).

The flight to San Diego was uneventful; there were a lot of open seats, so we got to spread out, which was nice. We met a character named Andy who was going to Las Vegas (for his 10th time in <3 years); he was very amusing. Most amusing was his little baggie of airport-sized bottles of Jack Daniels, for which he was scolded by Nurse Diesel, the flight attendant who mostly dealt with first class. She dealt with him as if she was a teacher and he was a misbehaving high schooler. This might even go on his permanant record!

One note about US Airways; those commercials you see where the airline keeps jacking up the prices? That's definitely them (if not others). If you check a bag (one bag), that's $15. If you want snacks, that's $5. A drink? $2-7. etc. etc.

Once we got to San Diego, we got a cab to the resort. Our room is in the opposite corner from the room I had last year, which means it is closer to the convention hall AND to the food sources. Nice. When they found that we were from Ohio, everyone kept asking us if it was warmer there than here. I wouldn't know. All I know is that it feels fantastic to be in San Diego. Rudy and I are thinking that it might be prudent to move Millersport here.

Going to Church or Being the Church

There is a distinct difference between "going to church" and "being the church." In fact, I believe that this difference has contributed to many of the problems and decline of current mainline churches. Instead of being the powerful Bride of Jesus Christ, we have become an impotent substitution: church-goers.

In fact, I believe that "going to church" has even inoculated many against "being the church." Don't get me wrong; I am a pastor and I believe strongly that our weekly meetings are not only Biblically-based, but are profitable for spiritual growth, encouragement, evangelism, and for learning. At our best, church services provide insightful, challenging messages, Spirit-filled prayer time, opportunities to truly Commune with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, encouraging and heart-felt worship music, and at least some fellowship.

But when we base our Christianity fully upon a once-a-week gathering, we are selling ourselves short.

What do I mean by that?

Well, often "worship" is something we do when we "go to church," and instead of living a lifestyle of worship, we reduce it to something we do for an hour on Sunday. Or worse, something that is done for us by the professionals.

Often we let the "pros" do the teaching, and no matter how inspiring the message is, by the time we've determined where we're going for lunch, we've already forgotten that inspiration, let alone transformation.

We let the pastor or the leader lead prayers and we pray the Lord's Prayer, but our own prayer lives are miserably inadequate. And what's more, we don't know that they are.

The big difference between "going to church" and "being the church" is in our interaction with others. We can go to church and put on our best clothes and look like we've got our act together - like our families are perfect and our marriages are perfect and we're sinless and struggle-free and nobody knows the "real me." Meaning that nobody holds the "real me" accountable to live a Christian life. Meaning that many people don't spend their time encouraging one another outside the church walls - in fact, they don't know each other well enough to even think of interacting outside their experience in "going to church."

There's more: when we simply "go to church" we can become really inward focused. Our spiritual lives focus on that one hour of that one day and upon what happens there, and that is disastrous to "being the church." Because we're supposed to "be the church" to the "least and the lost." Which means being Jesus Christ's hands and feet.

And we miss out on the blessings God has in store for us throughout the week when we simply "go to church."