the church geek

I’ve been doing a sermon series on Loving God, Loving Others in which I’ve been talking about living the spiritual life. Yesterday’s sermon was about the practice of confession and repentance. Rather than just preach about it I thought that maybe we ought to actually practice it….so I provided an opportunity for folks to write down confessions and bring them forward to shred in a paper shredder. I also offered an opportunity, for those who so desired, to be anointed with oil and to be given words reminding them of their baptisms and God’s love for them.

People responded pretty well to this opportunity (It’s always a bit nerve-wracking as a Pastor when you try something “new”) and all was going well…that is until the paper shredder “jammed.” I was busy anointing folks so couldn’t run over to offer assistance in the emergency, but some folks tried to come to the rescue while a few of the more creative ones simply began to tear up their own confessions. As we wrapped up our time together, I thought that I probably ought to make it clear that “just because the shredder didn’t shred your confession, doesn’t mean that God hasn’t forgiven you!”

BTW this idea came from the following website: www.experientialworship.com

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Hmmm, for some reason I’ve gone through a bit of a weblog drought. Not sure why, but maybe its been because so much of my energy seems to have been poured into my church for the last month or so that I haven’t had the time or energy to think about putting anything on the website. I’m still trying to figure out how some folks are able to keep up with daily entries….I guess that maybe their lives are just more interesting than mine!!

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Thought this comic went along with my previous post on blogging…

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By all accounts the last month or so has been pretty darn good at my church. Last weekend our leadership team had a very successful planning retreat in which we set out some good priorities and goals for the next year where amongst other things we committed ourselves to focusing on our spiritual health as a leadership body. Worship is going well and there seems to be a lot of energy and enthusiasm amongst the congregation. Sure there is much work to do, but things seem to be going in the right direction.

In spite of all this some things personally have been a bit out of whack, so now it’s time to start correcting some of that. It’s been a pretty long haul for both Lori and I over the past two months, without much quality time together, so we decided to take a few days off early next week. Hopefully we’ll just laze around the house and enjoy some quiet and restorative time together. My reading lately has been totally church or faith related (hence my self-imposed nickname “the church geek”), so I’ve run to the library and have checked out a few detective novels (PD James is my favorite.) In the past week or so, I’ve made it to the gym twice which I’m real proud of as I hadn’t darkened the door of the gym since sometime in November! (I really wish it was warm enough to bike or that I’d find some clothes to make it possible in this weather!)

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Evidently Hal Lindsey, of the Late, Great Planet Earth fame had his program “International Intelligence Briefing” recently pulled from TBN (you know the Christian TV network that has that woman with the BIG hair!) because of remarks that were said to have been insensitive to Arabs and Muslims. This article from The Revealer states that Lindsey defended himself on Fox News saying that he “believes most moderate Muslims aren’t violent because they don’t actually read their Qurans; and it’s not until Muslims begin to study their holy book and its 109 “war verses” that they are transformed into violent radicals who need to convert people by force. ”

I’m not an expert on either the Quran or the Islamic faith, so I won’t comment on the merit or lack of merit to Lindsey’s comments, but I do wonder if the same argument can be made for many Christians in American who seem to lack much if any care and compassion for the poor and the marginalized? If perhaps they too read and studied their own Bibles, taking notice the sheer volume of verses that address God’s perspective on the poor and the marginalized, maybe we’d see a tide of compassion rise up in the church and amongst its believers?

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For ten years longer than I have been a fan of the Vanderbilt Commodores (my alma mater), Rupp Arena has been the bane of the ‘Dore’s existence. Every so often Vandy proves quite capable of pulling out a big win against the ‘Cats when they play in Nashville’s Memorial Gym, but in the last thirty years the Commodores have never won a game against Kentucky in Rupp Arena since UK started playing there in 1976.

It’s been a long wait with many heartbreaks over the years, but last night Vandy finally pulled out a huge win against the Cats at Rupp. Here’s hoping that it won’t be another thirty years before it happens again!!!

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