Agreeing to Disagree

How often do we agree to disagree and get to the real work at hand?

Something that has been on my mind, is our lack of unity in the American Church. Non-church people don't care if we are pre-millenial or post-millenial, Armenian or Calvin, denominational or non-denominational, they want to know do we imitate Christ in real life or not. That's the bottom line for many.

Let's put aside the rhetoric and get busy doing the kingdom work.

What is the kingdom work?

To share Jesus with the world and bring them into the kingdom. To do this I have a great list of contacts, almost everyone who gets our newsletter might be on the list. I know people who work in a great variety of jobs, with various knowledge bases, and they know people. I have a friend who put together a great outreach with the Kawaski motorcross guys, because that's where he works. Another person I knows, fixes computers just by speaking in Chinese to them (I'm kidding!). There are much smaller churches out there, with pastors who don't have a full rolodex or maybe deep pockets. What are they to do?

I think a database of people and what they have to further the kingdom work would be a great help. It could be something simple:
Joe can fix any car, 555-5555
Sue can type flawlessly at 150 wpm, 555-4444
Tom is a retired electrician, 555-3333.
One assumption that we should make is that requesting person cover expenses if applicable, unless a professional service is rendered under contract (it gets messy fast).

Actually this needs to start with a web designer, because I don't know the best way to build this list. I could do it in Excell or a chart on a web page, but there are better methods. I'm not a programmer. Somebody interested in helping? Somebody looking for a resource?

A New School Year, A New Beginning

To me, the fall is the time to start new things. The ministry calendar follows the school calendar. Implementing changes is a progressive thing, a good thing most of the time and when the kids start a new school year, a great time to change things in ministry to kids (teens & children).

As we head into the fall, we are looking forward to Joshua Revolution's Niagara 2007. A multi-ethnic, -cultural, -denominational, -national conference where teens meet the God. My wife and I took 7 teens in 2005 to the conference and they came back changed. God grew those seven into more and they have been reaching the neighborhood around the church. This year, I'm hoping to take even more teens and some other chaperones as well.

The big thing on the radar screen is Joshua Revolution. Their theme is Exodus: "Let my people go!" God is in the business of setting us free: free from the world, from bondage, from sin.

Its time for a new beginning. Even our church is going through a new beginning: a new senior pastor. Where we go as a church has still to be seen, but we have taken the first steps as God directs.

Marriage Lessons from Kayaking

Or How to Work Together Canoeing

Last month we took our family vacation. We own two canoes and my parents own two kayaks and a canoe.

Kayaking is reaching an all time high in popularity. It may only be a symptom of our culture rather than a resurgence of bygone culture.

First of all, if you own a kayak, I'm not saying you need to sell it, because you're out of God's will. You may want to get that canoe though. That's me in the kayak. It's much less work to canoe, than kayak, so I've only made one more kayak trip after this picture was taken.

Kayaking and canoeing are great activities, and you can see some incredible things while you're on the water, like the enormous otter that my brother and I saw one morning. Canoes and kayaks have some fundamental differences, that show us how a marriage should or shouldn't work.

Kayaking is typically a solo endeavor. I know that they now have 2 and 3 person kayaks, but primarily they are a solo adventure. The reverse is also true, I have a solo canoe and they make many of them as well, but primarily canoeing is a two person effort.

Now that all the assumptions are out of the way. Let's take a look at marriage:
Marriage is two people committing to each other for life. They become one in God's eyes. They strive together, work together, play together. They need to rely on each other and help each other. In the Biblical model, the wife submits to the husband, and he is the head of the couple.

In canoeing, the team must work together. The husband (who is usually heavier than his wife) sits at the back of the canoe and steers, the wife (who is usually lighter) sits at the front to provide forward motion and also to help with navigation. Guys, we just have to fess up that we can be blind to lots of things. The husband has the control of where the couple (canoe) is to go, but the wife has to help get the canoe there. If they both work together, they can reach their destination.
Instead of a canoe, our couple has kayaks: He decides where they are going, but she can go in the opposite direction, because they have their own boats. They didn't become one. They might paddle side by side for a while, but this is difficult. One kayaker will soon end up in front, they will drift apart, or bump into each other, because they are paddling on their own instead of together.
One important part of marriage is helping each other: while kayaking, if you get tired out, the other cannot help easily, but if you are canoeing, then one can take a short break as a rest and progress is still made towards reaching your destination. Canoes can go farther than kayaks, because two people paddle together, instead of independently.
After marriage comes the kids. Where do we put kids in the kayak? In a canoe, the kids are safe and secure, right between their parents. They are part of the family unit. They are in the care of their parents, and they are not in charge of their world (if they had a kayak, none of that would be true). With the children in the middle of the canoe, they are secure inside the boundaries. If they go to far to one side, they can learn the consequences, getting wet isn't a big deal; it's just an easy lesson to learn without permanent consequences (if you are wearing a life jacket).

So next time you're on the lake, think about the lessons from the back seat (or the front seat) of the canoe, wear your life jacket and have a great time with your family.

Sights & Sounds Theater

Finally, now I have seen it. Last night we went to the Sights and Sounds Theater in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. My wife who saw Phantom of the Opera and our friend who has seen many Broadway shows, says this one blows the rest away.

It was incredible! The stage wraps around and up the sides of the auditorium, the sets are enormous at forty feet tall with lights and animatronics. Even up into the ceiling and across the ceiling to the back of the auditorium, there are things to see. The actors come in from the sky, across the ceiling, from the back of the auditorium, from the side along the stages there, anywhere!

I was impressed driving in, the size of the place and the number of people there. We drove right in, parked in the first handicap spot from the building! Our friend we took with us is handicap. We got right in the door and in the queue for our section and within ten minutes right to our seats.

I asked an usher where I should park the wheelchair and she asked me for a ticket!? She wanted to know where to bring the wheelchair back to at the end of the show. There are no bad seats, but I would suggest seats towards the middle (front to back) to be able to take in all of the stage in your peripheral vision.

If you go, keeping looking all around, not just at the stage! If you have teens, they will want to re-enact the angels, swooping down the aisles and up onto the stage with roller sneakers!

Warning plot spoilers ahead! Of course if you've already read the book, then don't sweat it. Seriously, if you're actually planning to see, just go and see it, don't read about it.

We saw the "In the Beginning". It starts at Genesis 1:1 with the angels assembled watching God create as the narrative in the Bible tells us. Six days of creation and then a day of rest.
Technical Note: Although Adam and Eve were created naked and were naked, they did a fantastic job of working around that with them clothed in God's glory. Skin colored body suits can do amazing things when combined with special lighting and gauze-like white robes.

The story continues on through God's love for man, God creating a helper for Adam, a wedding (the first wedding), Satan's rebellion, Adam and Eve's fall, their banishment from the garden, their children (43 in the play!) and their family's rebellion, Cain and Nod and the siblings that went with Nod. The story picks up again at the end of Adam's life when he sees a vision of him as the father of all people, and then goes to paradise to be with his Creator. Eve is heartbroken, that she who sinned first, did not die first. Gabriel comforts her with reminding her of God's plan that he himself doesn't really understand completely.

"In the Beginning" ends with the next beginning, the old world passes away and the new heaven and new earth comes, Eden is restored and wedding feast of the Lamb is proclaimed, the new Jerusalem comes for us to dwell in.

The story of God's love and sacrifice so that we could love Him willingly is beyond compare in human history. The expanse of the infinite captured in the opening is stunning. The breadth of time the play encompasses all the breadth of human history in three hours, from the beginning of time to the end of time, when we shall all live eternal and reign with God.

Life Size Tabernacle!

It's been far to long to post another blog. We've not had the time over the last two months.

Yesterday we went down to Lancaster, Pennsylvania to visit the Life Size model of the Tabernacle (from Exodus). It was much smaller than I had imagined as a Sunday School student. The Mennonites have done a nice job putting it together. It is all full scale, from the silhouettes to the furniture. The tabernacle is inside a building, but the courtyard is outside. The arrangement might make it hard for some people to visualize how small it really was. It would fit inside a full size gymnasium, easily. The docent was well spoken and well articulated in explaining the construction of the (real) tabernacle and all its furniture. If you've never heard the Good News of Jesus, you'll hear it!

The part I was really interested in was the presentation the Mennonites have put together on who the Amish are and what they believe.

The Amish and the Mennonite come from the same movement and religiously they are close cousins from the Anabaptist movement that we should be baptized when we can account for our own actions, not when we are born physically, so as to be counted as a church member. This is also to distinguish the Anabaptist from the Banabaptist whose ideology allows them to slip away from the truth and not find their way to heaven.

I thoroughly enjoyed the presentation on the Amish and let me tell you they do have a great sense of humor in dealing with us- the Outsiders, at least those of us who may be rude and intrusive in wanting to know and understand their way of life.

I saw a number of great concepts that correlate into modern life and the problems that we face in society, the breakdown of family, the bankruptcy of Social Security, and the (probable) over diagnosis of ADHD, autism and depression in children and adults. In another blog, I'll pick up these issues for a longer discussion.

Lessons from River Dance

Last month we all went to see Riverdance. It was a great show, I felt good about taking my 8 year old. It is the story of the Irish people from when they first came to Ireland to the present. Every part of the show was par excellance. Here's the website to get the story: Riverdance.
The music was absolutely beautiful, the dancing was surperb.

Why can't Christians put together a show as technically beautiful, musically and creatively, and using many different arts together. I'm told that the Sights and Sounds Theater does this, and we are going to see that later this year.

The church should be the sanctuary of the arts, and the not the dungeon of the arts. We should infiltrate the arts with Christianity instead of complaining about them. A recent study came out and clearly indicated that Judeo-Christian themed movies that were clean: typically grossed more than those that didn't. This is secular industry evidence that Hollywood has missed the mark. The arts can be redeemed, they need to be redeemed. We can have a voice in the world through art.

Lessons from "Hello, Dolly!"

Our local high school has undertaken some great musicals and some not so great musicals. Last year we walked out of Anything Goes which was pretty disgusting after only 15 minutes.

This year we rented the Barbara Striesand movie, "Hello, Dolly!" The movie was good, I would recommend it. The kids did a fantastic job with the play. Good as Broadway according to our friend who has seen a lot of shows on Broadway.

Towards the end of the movie/musical there is a great scene, where 14th Street is a buzz with Dolly is supposed to be coming to the Harmonia Gardens Restaurant at 8 pm. The staff of the restaurant is all excited. Dolly enters and comes down the stairs all decked out and they sing "Hello, Dolly. It's good to have you back where you belong."

Dolly lost her husband, and she has been avoiding life including all the places she went with her husband when he was alive. She had lived life and then given it up. She was a wounded individual.

Here's the lesson: Does the church wait in anticipation for that long lost soul to come back and then party because they have? Generally, we don't, we ostracize and criticize and hold them at arm's length ready to condemn if they slip. We should be like the father from the prodigal son story who ran to meet his wayward son, better yet, he was watching!

The whole restaurant was full of excitement Here was someone they knew and loved had come "home." Who have you welcomed home, lately?