the church geek

Over the years, I’ve fluctuated in the amount of time I’ve spent listening to Contemporary Christian Music.

At times there have been some artists I’ve loved a lot: In college I went through a Michael Card faze. In more recent years my favorite CCM artist was Rich Mullins, and I was deeply saddened by his tragic death a few years back.

Mostly I detest the format of Christian Radio, and I’ve been turned off by the “Positive Music for a Negative World” rhetoric which communicates to me “Christians shouldn’t really care too much about what happens in the world.”

I’ve not listened to much CCM over the past three or four years, partly because I had tired of music that didn’t take the pain in the world reality of life seriously enough. But today, I happened to turn on one of our local CCM radio stations and heard a wonderful song by Natalie Grant titled “Held.” The lyrics are gut wrenchingly honest about the struggle of life, and the chorus of the song says:

I wish I had heard this song before I did my sermon series on the Psalms. Her song is a perfect modern day example of a psalm of lament. Other songs I’ve heard in recent days from Third Day (Cry Out to Jesus) and Casting Crowns (Praise You in This Storm) indicate what I think is a positive turn to songs with deeper honesty before God about the hard stuff of life.

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Starting tomorrow, I’m on vacation for the rest of the week. So if you don’t hear from me over the next several days it’s because we’re out somewhere having fun!

I’ve been ordained for just over a year now, and I still can’t get over the fact that I receive four weeks of vacation a year along with two additional weeks for continuing education. I feel a little guilty knowing that other people in their first year of employment at new jobs often only get two weeks.

Now that my wife and I are both in the ministry we are finding it both harder and yet more necessary to schedule out and take the time off together. I was telling Lori of my slight feelings of guilt over taking another week of vacation, after having taken two weeks in early August.

She responded with three arguments:

1. No other vocation is so demanding of our time at such odd hours.
2. We don’t get weekends like other folks typically do.
3. We’re not paid like other professionals who also have demanding responsibilities.

What are your thoughts? Is four weeks of vacation (and yes I’ve used every last day) too much for a first time pastor?

I’ll take my time off and I will enjoy it, but will still probably feel just a little bit of guilt over it. We’re heading over to the Windy City on Thursday to see Wicked and to take in the King Tut Exhibit, which I remember seeing in the 70s as a kid. Best of all, a trip to Trader Joe’s is in order!! (When, oh when, will TJ come to Iowa?)

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Last night I came up with an idea for a new blog and want to float it by you…

Every once in a while I have a ministry related question about how to go about doing something specifically in my church, but I’m not alway sure where to turn for resource and implementation ideas.

When I turn to the internet much of what is out there seems to be geared more for your independent, evangelical type churches. Sometimes I find good ideas. Sometimes I’m frustrated.

In contrast, I would see this new blog as kind of a one stop shop for implementing ministry ideas within the context of mainline churches. It would be a forum to discuss those types of concerns, questions as well as a resource page pointing to other places to turn.

For instance we are currently talking about implementing a “children’s church” program to address a number of issues. I’d like to know:

• What resources have you found helpful, specifically in terms of teaching kids what happens in worship so they can more fully participate in the service as they grow older?
• Is children’s church even a good idea (it’s got to be a better idea than just providing some form of child care doesn’t it?)
• Do you keep the children in church up to the point of the sermon and then release them to go to children’s church or do they spend the whole time in their own children’s church?

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“To tithe or not to tithe, that is the question” was the original title of this sermon. That was before I realized that it wasn’t such an easy question to answer. It’s not answered with a simple, ”yes” or “no.”

To be certain, it would be quite possible for me to stand up here and say the truth is that God wants you, no matter what, to give ten percent of your income to the church. I could further clarify that by saying the 10% you give should be based on your gross income before taxes.

Many well-intentioned pastors have no problem saying that. I’ve heard it before from the pulpit and in discussion with other Christians. That’s the way it is, they say, and it’s up to you to choose whether or not to live up to God’s demand. But, I guess I’m just not one of those preachers.

One reason is because I’m not entirely sure that the Bible’s message is totally clear about the subject of tithing.

The tithe is mentioned a number of times in the Old Testament. As it is in today’s passage from Malachi, the tithe was expected of all faithful Jews. It was an integral part of their religious life. The monies went to support the temple and its priests.

But if you turn to the New Testament, the tithe is hardly ever mentioned. It is never commanded by Jesus nor is it expected by any of the apostles or writers in the early church. It’s only assumed to be a part of the live of those who follow Jesus.

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Would you consider getting on board and adding your voice to this encouraging initiative among evangelicals? Evangelicals for Darfur.

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The mother of one of my long-time friends writes for her local newspaper. She has a thought provoking post on the silent deaths that often go unnoticed and why one should get to know their neighbors.

Reminded me of an incident last summer when we came home to our condo following a weekend away. A few newspapers had accumulated on my neighbor’s doorstep and I thought to myself “Maybe she went away for the weekend, too. Better check on that if she hasn’t picked them up tomorrow.”

Monday afternoon the doorbell rang and it was the woman’s sister asking if I had anyway to get into the condo (Living there for two years, I’d only seen the woman a handful of times; she pretty much kept to herself and had a job on 2nd shift.) After an hour of phone calls the sister finally got hold of a locksmith and screamed as she went in an discovered my neighbor’s body on her bed, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot.

You just never know what’s going on in people’s lives, especially in the lives of those who pretty much keep to themselves. But don’t be afraid to step out and get to know your neighbors at least a little bit so, as Joan says, they will notice your absence (and you too may notice theirs.)

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This past year, our session has been reading a book entitled “Becoming A Blessed Church” by N. Graham Standish (An Alban Institute Resource; BTW if you don’t have a membership to Alban you really need one!) It’s led to a number of fruitful discussion as well as helped us to better understand what it means to be a spiritual leader.

In Chapter 7, which we are going over tonight, Standish talks about his personal vision for his ministry and congregation; a vision he can clearly articulate. His ministry vision, forged in much prayer and discernment, is summarized by the question “What is God calling us to do?” Very short, succinct and meaningful. He talks about constantly communicating this vision in every facet of church life.

This got me thinking that after a year in full-time ordained ministry, I’ve not yet honed a clear and precise vision of what my ministry is all about. Though as I reflected on that this afternoon my first stab at such a statement would be “Love God, Love others, and lead others to do the same.”

This statement capitalizes for me the essence of ministry in the context of a mainline church. More fully I’d expand the statement to say something like “My purpose in ministry is to spiritually grow disciples who first and foremost love God, and who then fully and joyfully participate with God in the missio dei (mission of God) by expressing that very same love in outreach, witness, and ministry to others.”

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This is great news. Programs of This American Life are finally going to be free via podcast for a period of one week following their original broadcast.

We’ve never been able to catch the show on our local NPR affiliate because it airs on Friday at 6pm (when we’re usually out experiencing this American life for real) and on Sunday at 9am (when we’re usually reflecting somehow on this American life at church.) To be honest we’re just too plain cheap to purchase archived files, and we don’t enjoy sitting at our computers for an hour to hear a streamed broadcast.

Hooray for TAL and Ira Glass!

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Here is one of the coolest things about Firefox:

I love all the extensions (now called add-ons) that make it such a fun and adaptable tool. One add-on is called grease monkey. This tool allows you to install (and to even create your own should you be brave enough to try) user scripts that change and modify the look of certain webpages in your browser.

If you want to “monkey” around with grease monkey and see what it can do, check out this link to a user script for Google Darkly. All the easy directions are right there. Now whenever I visit the Google homepage this is what I see in my browser:

HT: The Download Squad

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One of our most beloved Thanksgiving hymns, “Now Thank We All Our God,” was penned sometime during the 30 years war, which saw some of the greatest devastation ever in Europe?

The hymn was written by a German Lutheran Pastor, Martin Rikart, who served a church in the German town of Eilenberg. During the war, several waves of pestilence and famine swept through the town leaving thousands upon thousands dead in their wake.

At one point, Pastor Rickart was the only remaining minister in the city, meaning he had to conduct up to fifty funeral services a day to bury the city’s dead. Somehow he still found time to write 66 different hymns during the span of his life.

One of those hymns - forged in the midst of such tragedy - is a powerful testimony of a man truly thankful to God for the very gift of life. The first verse says:

Now thank we all our God, With heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things hath done, In whom this world rejoices;
Who, from our mother’s arms, Hath blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, And is still ours today. ((This story comes from 101 Hymn Stories by K.Osbeck))

The great 13^th century mystic, Meister Eickardt, wrote “If you only say one prayer in your life, “Thank you” will suffice.”

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One of my favorite blogs is kept by Vineyard pastor Jason Clark who oversees Vineyard Church plants in the UK. Today he posts a letter to christians in the US.

I always find it insightful to listen to voices outside of our own country to provide us with a different perspective, which often times can serve as a corrective.

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In an effort to support and encourage the reading of blogs written by women who are in the ministry, I have added a new category to my blogroll in the side panel titled “Women in Ministry.” I intend to spend some time beefing up the list over the next couple of weeks.

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A new blog I encountered last week by Sam Davidson features Darfur Mondays. It is Sam’s effort to do what he can to highlight the continuing genocide in the Sundan and to hopefully raise a tide of awareness and action.

Yesterday, instead of collecting our denomination’s regular Peacemaking Offering, my wife’s church collected an offering to support the Presbyterian Disaster Agency’s work in the region.

I’m afraid to admit that I hadn’t given much thought to Darfur lately and suspect that most of you haven’t either. Let’s keep this on the forefront of our minds and prayers and get as much information out there as we can.

Kudos to Sam for playing an important role in this effort.

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This is a little longer than my normal “sermon snippets” mostly because there wasn’t much I felt I should cut out. Also, as is sometimes the case, my sermon title doesn’t quite match with where the sermon actually went, but I did sort of work it in at the very end…

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is one of my great heroes of the faith. In 1933, Bonhoeffer delivered a radio address chastising his fellow Germans for following after a “leader” who wanted to make himself an idol and would in the end only become a ” misleader.”

Before he finished, the broadcast was cut off. Not too long after this, Hitler was in total control of Germany. Bonhoeffer moved to London to serve two German congregations until he was called back to Germany to head up an ‘illegal’ underground seminary.

The students there didn’t just learn theology; they practiced the faith together. They prayed, meditated, sang, broke bread, confessed their sins and worked along side one another. And as they engaged in those practices, they encountered God’s abiding and sustaining presence. (Bonhoeffer writes of this experience in his book “Life Together.”)

The most recent Christian Century has an article about a church located in Kansas City called Jacob’s Well. The church is part of what is known as the ‘emerging church movement,’ a loose grouping of likeminded pastors and churches exploring new ways to be the church.

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