At church on Sunday we'll be doing a drama that Amy wrote titled "The Spiritual Welfare Office" that was inspired by our last Creative Planning Team meeting. She's been working on the script for the last few weeks and trying to figure out who to cast in it. One of the parts was easy since she wrote it for the person, but the other part was proving difficult. She asked several people who were all unavailable for one reason or another.
Last night, she called Mike F. at about 10:10 to follow up on an earlier email asking if he was interested. He said his schedule was crazy this weekend and he didn't think he could do it. After talking some more with Amy about the options, she was ready to throw in the towel and just cancel it. I really felt like this drama was something we were supposed to do. I really didn't feel like I was the person that was supposed to do it, but agreed to do it if the only other option was to cancel it.
This morning, as I was blogging my earlier post, Mike F. called back (roughly 7:20) and said that he felt God impressing on him the need to do the drama if we needed him. Amy was thrilled and I was off the hook. I'm not sure exactly whether Mike F. was the person that was supposed to do it or not, but apparently I wasn't.
This situation reminded me of a time at camp about three years ago when we were praying for the staff members. The staff with the camp that we've been doing for five years is a great group of really deep people. I have always been somewhat intimidated by them, not because of anything that they have ever done, but because of my own insecurity. I remember we were laying hands on each staff member and praying for them as God led us. We got to one particular staff member and I really felt like I was supposed to pray, but I felt so inadequate to do it that I held back. After a few minutes of silence, Mike D. (a different Mike than the one above), the director of the camp said, "I really believe someone else is supposed to pray for this person, but if they don't, I will." Of course this intimidated me even more and I didn't want to admit that I was the holdout, so I kept silent and Mike D. went on to pray.
I think what I realized in connecting these two stories is that there are times when you have to step up and do something that you don't believe you are called to do because the person who is really supposed to refuses to do it. If the task is something that God really wants to have happen, He will not allow the refusal of one person derail the plan. If I had done the drama, would God have blessed it as much as if Mike F. (or any other person He called) did it? I don't know. Did God work as mightily through the prayer that Mike D. (the director) offered as He would have if I had been faithful to pray like I was supposed to? I don't know. Am I learning about faithfulness, obedience and the work of God through these two stories? Yeah. It may take me awhile to process all that I'm learning about this, but I feel like God has allowed me to see a little more about the reality of the kingdom.
Friday, May 13, 2005
Prayer
Lord, may I not think of myself more highly than I should. My talents and abilities conspire to lead me to pride. Those gifts You have given for Your own glory, taken prisoner and made to serve another. Your plans and my pride at war with one another as I make more of myself in my own mind and am, therefore, made into something other than what You created me to be.
God and Father, may you pour out the gifts of Your Holy Spirit on me and may all that is received be offered back to You in worship. May I recognize any wisdom, talent or ability that You bestow as coming from You and may it be added to Your account, not mine.
In recognizing the gifts, may I also recognize where I am weak. May my deficiencies be to Your glory as well as You complete the work that You've started in me and as You help me see how desperately I need those around me.
Soli Deo Gloria
God and Father, may you pour out the gifts of Your Holy Spirit on me and may all that is received be offered back to You in worship. May I recognize any wisdom, talent or ability that You bestow as coming from You and may it be added to Your account, not mine.
In recognizing the gifts, may I also recognize where I am weak. May my deficiencies be to Your glory as well as You complete the work that You've started in me and as You help me see how desperately I need those around me.
Soli Deo Gloria
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Tour de Kota
Well, got my official confirmation to participate in a new bike tour in South Dakota next month called the Tour de Kota. I'd read about it awhile ago and decided that if everything fell into place with our impending move I'd love to ride it. I had done RAGBRAI (the Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa) a few times growing up, but it's been 16 years since my last tour. The possibility of getting in on the ground floor of this new ride made me really want to be a part of it. Amy will be driving support and the kids will be visiting grandparents, so it should be a nice chance for us to get away and decompress a bit.
The ride will start right outside Amy's mom's house in Yankton and will follow the Missouri River along where Lewis & Clark traveled (back in the day), all the way to Pierre (pronounced "peer" not like it should be, for all of my non-South Dakotan readers). It should be a fair amount of hills as we climb in and out of the river valley and covers around 440 miles in six days. Info about the ride is at http://www.argusleaderbiketour.com/.
I've ridden 460 miles so far this year, but hope to log another 400 or 500 before the Tour starts on June 12. After May 31, I'll have more time on my hands than I'll know what to do with, so my preparation should be pretty solid. I've noticed a significant improvement in performance this last week with my first 50+ mile ride of the year and first average speeds over 18 mph (18.7 this morning over 26ish miles) which is giving me a lot of confidence for next month.
I'm hoping that this ride will help me feel a little more like the first phase of moving is a vacation so that I don't get as stressed about moving our whole family without a job or a home. I know everything will fall into place as it's supposed to, but we're beginning to feel a little more pressure now. Having something else to occupy my mind for the first few weeks after we finish at Hanfield will be very beneficial.
The ride will start right outside Amy's mom's house in Yankton and will follow the Missouri River along where Lewis & Clark traveled (back in the day), all the way to Pierre (pronounced "peer" not like it should be, for all of my non-South Dakotan readers). It should be a fair amount of hills as we climb in and out of the river valley and covers around 440 miles in six days. Info about the ride is at http://www.argusleaderbiketour.com/.
I've ridden 460 miles so far this year, but hope to log another 400 or 500 before the Tour starts on June 12. After May 31, I'll have more time on my hands than I'll know what to do with, so my preparation should be pretty solid. I've noticed a significant improvement in performance this last week with my first 50+ mile ride of the year and first average speeds over 18 mph (18.7 this morning over 26ish miles) which is giving me a lot of confidence for next month.
I'm hoping that this ride will help me feel a little more like the first phase of moving is a vacation so that I don't get as stressed about moving our whole family without a job or a home. I know everything will fall into place as it's supposed to, but we're beginning to feel a little more pressure now. Having something else to occupy my mind for the first few weeks after we finish at Hanfield will be very beneficial.
Monday, May 09, 2005
Prayerbook Project
I just got my copy of "Prayerbook, No. 1" by our friend Brian Moss and can't help but recommend it. Yeah, yeah, he's a friend so my objectivity could be questioned, but I don't recommend crap, ever. Brian is a great singer, songwriter, piano/keys player that we were fortunate to go to school with for a few years and is currently Director of Worship, Music and the Arts for John Knox Presbyterian Church in Seattle. Brian's style is hard to pin down (often a sign of originality in an artist) but leans toward keyboard based alt pop/rock. Lyrically, this project is based on the first 15 Psalms and Brian never disappoints in finding original expression with his texts.
If you're interested in finding out more about "Prayerbook, No.1" check out Brian's blog at www.prayerbookproject.com.
If you're interested in finding out more about "Prayerbook, No.1" check out Brian's blog at www.prayerbookproject.com.
Saturday, May 07, 2005
Bible as Narrative
I've been reading a lot of different theologians chime in on the current state of American "Churchianity" and had some time to process on the bike this morning. One of the prime topics that's being kicked around by a lot of the authors that I'm reading (McLaren, Dan Kimball, Donald Miller, Erwin McManus) is the way that the church in America has turned the Bible into a self help book where people are told that if they just look in the right places, they'll find the answers they need to whatever situations they may be facing. Not that there isn't some validity to that thought since we see so much of what is common to the human condition in its pages, but as I was riding this morning and thinking about how Scripture really is more a narrative of God interacting with His creation and with His people over time, it struck me how backward the self help approach to Scripture is.
It seems like we would be better served to read Scripture to come to understand more about who God is instead of trying to come to a better understanding of what the "thou shalls" and "thou shalt nots" are for us or how we can get through the latest life issue we find ourselves in. When we come to a better understanding of God and His character, we will still see ourselves in contrast to who He is. If the goal of the Christian life is to be more like Christ, we would be better off learning more about who the Trinity is (I used "is" instead of "are" on purpose) so we know better how to relate to God than to learn proper behavior and ettiquette.
I know earnest people desiring to serve God, who get so wrapped up in the trappings of trying to live according to disciplines that are supposed to bring them closer to God that they have instead begun to serve the disciplines they created and adopted and have left real relationship with God as a secondary goal. Not only have I known these people, I have been counted among them at times.
God is so other, so holy, that the pursuit of knowing Him as He truly is takes more time than we have to give, but is really His desire for us. There is always more to know. I think the most astute theologians who have the closest relationships with God will only begin to understand the whole picture of Who God is.
It is as though we've been given a puzzle to put together without the box to look at. I don't know about you, but when I do a puzzle, I tend to start by trying to do the border. Just from the border, you can get an idea of what the subject matter of the puzzle is. If it is a landscape, you can tell a little bit about the terrain, the time of day, the color of the sky and any number of other small clues that hint at what the bigger picture is.
Some would say that the Bible is the box with the picture, but I would disagree. I would say the Bible is the edging that helps us define what the border is. That's an initial response, and therefore subject to change, but no amount of text contained anywhere can fully explain God. There is mystery wrapped up in God's character that we can only begin to imagine and are even farther from being able to explain, so while the Bible is the the inspired Word of God and contains enough to keep us in worship and growing in relationship with God for the full length of our days, I don't believe it is the whole story. If it were, there would be books in it that specifically tell the stories of St. Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, Martin Luther King, and a story that was specifically about the life and events of Matt Morrison and his relationship with his Creator. Each story adding more to the God story, each adding a piece to the puzzle, each completing a part of the picture helping us see more clearly Who God is.
I feel like we only get to put the border together in this life, just begin to see this God of ours while we wait for the day when we shall know fully even as we are fully known. We will probably be surprised at what the subject of the puzzle actually looks like after years of guessing based on what we saw in the border.
It seems like we would be better served to read Scripture to come to understand more about who God is instead of trying to come to a better understanding of what the "thou shalls" and "thou shalt nots" are for us or how we can get through the latest life issue we find ourselves in. When we come to a better understanding of God and His character, we will still see ourselves in contrast to who He is. If the goal of the Christian life is to be more like Christ, we would be better off learning more about who the Trinity is (I used "is" instead of "are" on purpose) so we know better how to relate to God than to learn proper behavior and ettiquette.
I know earnest people desiring to serve God, who get so wrapped up in the trappings of trying to live according to disciplines that are supposed to bring them closer to God that they have instead begun to serve the disciplines they created and adopted and have left real relationship with God as a secondary goal. Not only have I known these people, I have been counted among them at times.
God is so other, so holy, that the pursuit of knowing Him as He truly is takes more time than we have to give, but is really His desire for us. There is always more to know. I think the most astute theologians who have the closest relationships with God will only begin to understand the whole picture of Who God is.
It is as though we've been given a puzzle to put together without the box to look at. I don't know about you, but when I do a puzzle, I tend to start by trying to do the border. Just from the border, you can get an idea of what the subject matter of the puzzle is. If it is a landscape, you can tell a little bit about the terrain, the time of day, the color of the sky and any number of other small clues that hint at what the bigger picture is.
Some would say that the Bible is the box with the picture, but I would disagree. I would say the Bible is the edging that helps us define what the border is. That's an initial response, and therefore subject to change, but no amount of text contained anywhere can fully explain God. There is mystery wrapped up in God's character that we can only begin to imagine and are even farther from being able to explain, so while the Bible is the the inspired Word of God and contains enough to keep us in worship and growing in relationship with God for the full length of our days, I don't believe it is the whole story. If it were, there would be books in it that specifically tell the stories of St. Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, Martin Luther King, and a story that was specifically about the life and events of Matt Morrison and his relationship with his Creator. Each story adding more to the God story, each adding a piece to the puzzle, each completing a part of the picture helping us see more clearly Who God is.
I feel like we only get to put the border together in this life, just begin to see this God of ours while we wait for the day when we shall know fully even as we are fully known. We will probably be surprised at what the subject of the puzzle actually looks like after years of guessing based on what we saw in the border.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
Get set... update
Well, we're just under four weeks away from being unemployed and it seems like we are a million miles away from finishing the job. There are a ton of things to do to get our volunteers ready for the transition. Right now, we're trying to find volunteers to serve as point people for ministry areas and giving our volunteers a look at what tasks are involved in carrying out the ministry. Our hope is that a number of volunteers will take small pieces of the ministry to make the task of the point people easier. We're hoping to have our new Creative Planning Team (consisting of point people and other creative thinkers) in place by May 21 which is coming up WAY too fast.
We're also trying to get things ready for ministry the next few weeks. We'll be doing a worship concert the night of May 22nd including 15+ songs from the full eight years that we've been here. Rehearsals are coming along nicely, but there's a lot of detail stuff to do as yet.
Camp is coming up as well which means we've got devotional material to write and a band to rehearse. I'm hoping to use a few students from some other churches, but I still want to keep things small. Music selection, lead sheet prep and rehearsals will be a big focus next week as we need to have most things pretty well in place by the end of May since we'll be out of the state for at least most of June. The camp's at the end of July and I'm hoping that we can get everybody up to speed before we arrive at Epworth Forest instead of just putting things together on the fly. We shall see.
The house is for sale and all other plans are on hold until June 1, so we'll see where all this is headed.
We're also trying to get things ready for ministry the next few weeks. We'll be doing a worship concert the night of May 22nd including 15+ songs from the full eight years that we've been here. Rehearsals are coming along nicely, but there's a lot of detail stuff to do as yet.
Camp is coming up as well which means we've got devotional material to write and a band to rehearse. I'm hoping to use a few students from some other churches, but I still want to keep things small. Music selection, lead sheet prep and rehearsals will be a big focus next week as we need to have most things pretty well in place by the end of May since we'll be out of the state for at least most of June. The camp's at the end of July and I'm hoping that we can get everybody up to speed before we arrive at Epworth Forest instead of just putting things together on the fly. We shall see.
The house is for sale and all other plans are on hold until June 1, so we'll see where all this is headed.
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