Tag Archives: current events

Vision casting

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My Pastor, Steve Bezner, has written a post at For the Church titled The Slippery Slope of Vision Salesmanship (casting vision without feeling icky). He begins with some hard-learned lessons; a list of things not to do. Among the ones that most resonated with me as a layman with a heart for a people group and visions and dreams of my own:

Stop Making Church Growth the Goal: In our church we talk intentionally about expanding the Kingdom of God rather than increasing church attendance. Do I want our church to increase in size? Of course. But Kingdom work may often mean valuable ministry in the city that will help other churches or even lead people away from your church to help other churches. The gospel has always had people leaving churches to follow the Lord’s call. Release them.

Stop Making Church Growth Your Identity: Jesus said, “I will grow my church.” Your name is not in that verse. Your job is to be faithful. Yes, be intelligent. Yes, employ skill. But when things do not go the the way you anticipated—and, yes, that will happen—you are to hold fast to the finished work of Jesus, not attendance numbers. I was once addicted to church attendance. Don’t be. It is not good. Trust me.

He then goes on to explain the things that make up a good vision strategy. Read the whole thing, it’s good!

A better way

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I was talking recently with my friend (who’s also my oldest son’s father in law) Russell Minick about America. We were discussing some of the ugly things in our country’s past and present, how we should respond, things like that. He said the following:

“We have to come to understand that we are not King David in Israel. We are Daniel in Babylon.”

That has stuck with me, in particular as I face the increasingly likely scenario of a choice between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton next November. Seriously, can I vote myself off this island?

Daniel was exiled in Babylon. It was not his true home, but he was commanded, along with all the other exiles, to make it a home, to do good to it.

“Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. (Jeremiah 29:4-7 ESV)

There is a middle, balanced, better way between anger/frustration and apathy, between “protest” votes and staying home, between avoiding cultural engagement and the contention, bickering and partisan blindness of the political junky.

“Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf”

America has never been Israel, and we Christians are not the rulers here. We’re Daniel, the blessed exile, and we should be seeking to spread that blessing to the people around us, both our fellow exiles and our Babylonian neighbors.

“And they devoted themselves . . .”

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This is based on a short talk I gave at our college lifegroup night of worship last night.

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

– Acts 2:42-47

I’ve read this passage hundreds of times. Today as I read it again I noticed the first four words as if for the first time: “And they devoted themselves”.

One truism about people in general (and perhaps young people in particular) is that many of us are looking for something to devote ourselves to. Something worthwhile. Something meaningful. Something we can live for and die for. You may be feeling that today.

Acts 2:42-47 is an invitation to devote yourselves. To set aside this summer to taking new steps, large steps in your relationship to Jesus. If you are in Christ, it’s an invitation to own your faith more, to devote yourself to Jesus more fully and more deeply than ever before. If you aren’t yet a believer in Christ, what better time than tonight to take that first step? Let’s speak the good news of Jesus to ourselves and to each other. I deserve God’s wrath for what I’ve done in life, to be separated forever from Him in hell. Yet he devoted himself to the salvation of me and you and to the salvation of the whole world. He died the death I deserved to die and rose again in new, eternal life and offers me that as well! This is such good news, something that we can feast on together!

Lifegroup is not a house on one night; it’s a group of people who are alive. Our hope for College lifegroup is that it will be an experience in Jesus that you can devote yourself to this summer. Not just for yourself, but for others; to devote yourself to teaching and friendship together, to eating together, praying together, worshiping together, being in awe together, seeing God together, helping each other, sacrificing for each other, making your relationship to Jesus an every day thing, an all the time thing. Devoting yourself to being glad rather than angsty, generous rather than selfish, to praising God rather than idols, to being truly alive, and to watching the Lord add daily to you and to us and to himself those who are being saved.

That’s the invitation! We’re ready to devote ourselves to it, and I hope and pray you are too.

Well, I’m back

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Merry Christmas!

For the longest time (since 2005) this blog was based on software I had written called “Bloo” (hence the name). I realized sometime early last year that it was probably time to move on. Bloo did a good job. I was even kind of proud of it. There are still a few blogs out there that run on it. But, it is essentially “abandonware” now; I haven’t released anything new on it since December, 2011.

So, I have written a utility that converts a Bloo blog to WordPress. I converted this space once before to WordPress, then backed it out, but now I’m doing it for real. And this, the very first Bloo blog, is the very first blog to be converted to WordPress. I will shake things out here for awhile and then release the code so that anyone else who would like to convert can.

I’ll have to play with the theme or find a new theme as well, most likely.

In other news, I am (at least hoping to be) “back” in the blogosphere. I’m hoping to find my voice here in this little corner. And I can’t believe I just used the phrase “find my voice”.

Merry Christmas. God loves you!

A good day

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The soccer tournament this weekend got canceled because of the weather, and so Jill and I took advantage of the time to continue the Never Ending Bathroom Renovation™. Our current stage is the framing of the mirrors. Today we bought the trim and quarter round, measured and mitered, and painted the trim. I also installed the toilet paper dispenser. Now the toilet area seems . . . almost civilized.

Right now I’m watching Courageous with Jill and Blake. I don’t care what anyone says, this is a great movie. It deals with one of the biggest problems facing our society these days: the problem of fatherlessness. I think making a movie about that is very, well, courageous.

On another topic: I’ve begun unhooking myself from food through Weight Watchers. It’s only week one but it’s been a very good week. Instead of just eating for eating’s sake, I’m now just eating when I’m hungry (since I’m rationing points daily). I’ve found this makes me very thankful for what I get to eat. That’s a good place to be. That, along with the running I’ve been doing, I feel better than I have in quite awhile.

We’re almost to the scene where the young police officer meets his daughter for the first time. That may be my favorite scene in the entire movie. I love redemption and reconciliation.

Good day. Blessed.

Election Years . . . *sigh*

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Today I was reminded of this quote by the great Winston Churchill (or at least attributed to him – I don’t have it sourced yet):

“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”

This is going to be a rough year. Hang tight, people, use your God-given discernment, and pray for our country.

P.S. The sad part is that these days every year is an election year.

Twenty three years

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Twenty three years ago, I married the love of my life.

Four kids and lots and lots and lots of joys, trials, hard work, fun, and just good, solid friendship and teamwork later, I love her even more than I did on that day back in 1988.

And, babe, have I told you recently how fabulous you’re looking these days?

I’m a very blessed man. So thankful to the Lord for bringing you into my life.

Happy anniversary, sweetie.

Bethany

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Theater banquet tonight: all the awards, accolades, tears and drama (it was a theater event, after all) have me reminiscing.

I’ll have much more to say over the next few weeks as we approach graduation, my beautiful Bethany, but right now I just want to say how proud I am of you. You have played every part, from trees and sea horses to lead roles, with passion and with excellence. You poured out your grief on the dark hills of Lockerbie, you’ve played villains and nuns, you’ve played the lonely and the funny. You’ve kept us enthralled.

Tthrough it all, you’ve been true to Jesus and have been a light to your friends. You have no idea how much I respect your walk.

I’m looking forward to the next part of your journey.

I love you, my lovely one.

Private life

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I had an irony moment this morning. As you may know, Elizabeth Edwards died of cancer yesterday. This morning a popular morning show aired a segment called “Elizabeth’s Private Life”, featuring a panel of her dearest friends.

A few thoughts:

1. It’s not a “private” life if it’s broadcast to millions of people. that segment this morning was an oxymoron.

2. No one has any privacy anymore. The phone I had as of a few days ago wanted to broadcast my exact GPS position to the world at all times. The journals and diaries that teenagers used to keep under lock and key (horrified at the thought that anyone would read them) are now broadcast to the entire world, 24×7. A large number of people today willingly broadcast their location, thoughts, activities, and images to the world, all day long.

3. Even if you’re trying to have a private life, you are going to find your own image tagged and broadcast to the world on various social media sites, because cameras are everywhere and everyone’s always capturing digital images of everything, Much of the time you won’t even realize that you were having your picture taken.

“Private life” doesn’t happen anymore, unless one is extremely intentional about it.